ConHome finds in their latest survey Tory members reject any proposal to merge with ReformUK. However many do want to try and get an electoral pact with Reform.
you Tories will be fighting each other for the next 10 years instead of Labour. Or in your case surrendering to the LDs.
Reform have 5 seats and are second in 98 seats. Of that reform are second to Labour in 91 seats, seats the Tories havent a hope in hell of winning. Cut a pact to let them have a free ride in 100 seats and they stand down in the others.
Avoid a pointless conflict and take the war to Starmer. Farage will be trying to secure Labour votes while you worry about the Blue wall and the LDs.
You won't fit three of those egos in the same room. They'll spontaneously combust years before the next election.
So you say but the Cons wont win the next election if theyre still there and fked up the last one because they couldnt cut a deal. You have loads of seats where they can reach the parts you cant reach but would rather sit moaning in opposition. If the Tories cant be bothered to get back in to power whats the point of them ?
The Tories need to go to war - against the LibDems. The LibDems are largely going to be representing those seats where the impact of this Labour Government is going to hurt voters most. Their offer at the next election is what - "not the Tories"? That won't work next time, as the voters punish them for not protecting them.
And Reform aren't going to have a list of results achieved. Piss and wind will be the sum of their presence in Westminster.
ConHome finds in their latest survey Tory members reject any proposal to merge with ReformUK. However many do want to try and get an electoral pact with Reform.
you Tories will be fighting each other for the next 10 years instead of Labour. Or in your case surrendering to the LDs.
Reform have 5 seats and are second in 98 seats. Of that reform are second to Labour in 91 seats, seats the Tories havent a hope in hell of winning. Cut a pact to let them have a free ride in 100 seats and they stand down in the others.
Avoid a pointless conflict and take the war to Starmer. Farage will be trying to secure Labour votes while you worry about the Blue wall and the LDs.
You won't fit three of those egos in the same room. They'll spontaneously combust years before the next election.
Everyone bewails the possibility of the Tories going 'into their comfort zone' and becoming an unelectable party because they swerve right before seeing sense and embracing 'centrism' again, but what if their actual wilderness years aren't that - what if their unelectability is going to come from resentful centrist turds who insist that Farage and all his works be condemned to the last MP, and make the party into a corporatist ivory tower, Labour without the voters - the Lib Dems without the enthused base. Farage won't believe his luck.
Essentially the Tories need to get back to being Conservatives. If voters want the LDs they will vote LD, if voters want Reform they will vote Reform.
The Tories need to retain a distinctive Tory and conservative identity as their best chance to retain and increase support, especially if the Labour government loses popularity
I agree, though I am not sure that we would entirely agree on what the components of that identity should be.
ConHome finds in their latest survey Tory members reject any proposal to merge with ReformUK. However many do want to try and get an electoral pact with Reform.
you Tories will be fighting each other for the next 10 years instead of Labour. Or in your case surrendering to the LDs.
Reform have 5 seats and are second in 98 seats. Of that reform are second to Labour in 91 seats, seats the Tories havent a hope in hell of winning. Cut a pact to let them have a free ride in 100 seats and they stand down in the others.
Avoid a pointless conflict and take the war to Starmer. Farage will be trying to secure Labour votes while you worry about the Blue wall and the LDs.
You won't fit three of those egos in the same room. They'll spontaneously combust years before the next election.
Everyone bewails the possibility of the Tories going 'into their comfort zone' and becoming an unelectable party because they swerve right before seeing sense and embracing 'centrism' again, but what if their actual wilderness years aren't that - what if their unelectability is going to come from resentful centrist turds who insist that Farage and all his works be condemned to the last MP, and make the party into a corporatist ivory tower, Labour without the voters - the Lib Dems without the enthused base. Farage won't believe his luck.
Essentially the Tories need to get back to being Conservatives. If voters want the LDs they will vote LD, if voters want Reform they will vote Reform.
The Tories need to retain a distinctive Tory and conservative identity as their best chance to retain and increase support, especially if the Labour government loses popularity
Fking nonsense.
Just Tory navel gazing. Keep this up and youll be out of power for ages or just plain dead.
ConHome finds in their latest survey Tory members reject any proposal to merge with ReformUK. However many do want to try and get an electoral pact with Reform.
you Tories will be fighting each other for the next 10 years instead of Labour. Or in your case surrendering to the LDs.
Reform have 5 seats and are second in 98 seats. Of that reform are second to Labour in 91 seats, seats the Tories havent a hope in hell of winning. Cut a pact to let them have a free ride in 100 seats and they stand down in the others.
Avoid a pointless conflict and take the war to Starmer. Farage will be trying to secure Labour votes while you worry about the Blue wall and the LDs.
You won't fit three of those egos in the same room. They'll spontaneously combust years before the next election.
Everyone bewails the possibility of the Tories going 'into their comfort zone' and becoming an unelectable party because they swerve right before seeing sense and embracing 'centrism' again, but what if their actual wilderness years aren't that - what if their unelectability is going to come from resentful centrist turds who insist that Farage and all his works be condemned to the last MP, and make the party into a corporatist ivory tower, Labour without the voters - the Lib Dems without the enthused base. Farage won't believe his luck.
Essentially the Tories need to get back to being Conservatives. If voters want the LDs they will vote LD, if voters want Reform they will vote Reform.
The Tories need to retain a distinctive Tory and conservative identity as their best chance to retain and increase support, especially if the Labour government loses popularity
Cameron did immense long term damage to the party by overruling the membership and imposing candidates on them from his A list of small "l" liberal democrats.
ConHome finds in their latest survey Tory members reject any proposal to merge with ReformUK. However many do want to try and get an electoral pact with Reform.
you Tories will be fighting each other for the next 10 years instead of Labour. Or in your case surrendering to the LDs.
Reform have 5 seats and are second in 98 seats. Of that reform are second to Labour in 91 seats, seats the Tories havent a hope in hell of winning. Cut a pact to let them have a free ride in 100 seats and they stand down in the others.
Avoid a pointless conflict and take the war to Starmer. Farage will be trying to secure Labour votes while you worry about the Blue wall and the LDs.
You won't fit three of those egos in the same room. They'll spontaneously combust years before the next election.
Everyone bewails the possibility of the Tories going 'into their comfort zone' and becoming an unelectable party because they swerve right before seeing sense and embracing 'centrism' again, but what if their actual wilderness years aren't that - what if their unelectability is going to come from resentful centrist turds who insist that Farage and all his works be condemned to the last MP, and make the party into a corporatist ivory tower, Labour without the voters - the Lib Dems without the enthused base. Farage won't believe his luck.
I think you are right.
Strategically, there is little to gain for the Tories in this Parliament trying to occupy the ground held by Labour and the LDs. That’s not necessarily my preference but I see how a Tory Party that just offers a less competent version of Labour could really suffer electorally.
Jeez, Biden is still clinging on for dear life I see
New Marist College poll has Biden back ahead of Trump. Maybe some Americans like a gaffe prone president, makes them more endearing? Hence they also voted for George W Bush twice and Reagan twice (the latter also ageing and forgetful).
Given that Biden is likely to deteriorate further by November (and afterwards), that polling suggests to me that they'd be well advised to go for Harris. The numbers are pretty much a wash.
ConHome finds in their latest survey Tory members reject any proposal to merge with ReformUK. However many do want to try and get an electoral pact with Reform.
you Tories will be fighting each other for the next 10 years instead of Labour. Or in your case surrendering to the LDs.
Reform have 5 seats and are second in 98 seats. Of that reform are second to Labour in 91 seats, seats the Tories havent a hope in hell of winning. Cut a pact to let them have a free ride in 100 seats and they stand down in the others.
Avoid a pointless conflict and take the war to Starmer. Farage will be trying to secure Labour votes while you worry about the Blue wall and the LDs.
You won't fit three of those egos in the same room. They'll spontaneously combust years before the next election.
Everyone bewails the possibility of the Tories going 'into their comfort zone' and becoming an unelectable party because they swerve right before seeing sense and embracing 'centrism' again, but what if their actual wilderness years aren't that - what if their unelectability is going to come from resentful centrist turds who insist that Farage and all his works be condemned to the last MP, and make the party into a corporatist ivory tower, Labour without the voters - the Lib Dems without the enthused base. Farage won't believe his luck.
I think you are right.
Strategically, there is little to gain for the Tories in this Parliament trying to occupy the ground held by Labour and the LDs. That’s not necessarily my preference but I see how a Tory Party that just offers a less competent version of Labour could really suffer electorally.
It is rare that anyone here can think beyond their politics, so I salute you.
Jeez, Biden is still clinging on for dear life I see
New Marist College poll has Biden back ahead of Trump. Maybe some Americans like a gaffe prone president, makes them more endearing? Hence they also voted for George W Bush twice and Reagan twice (the latter also ageing and forgetful).
Given that Biden is likely to deteriorate further by November (and afterwards), that polling suggest to me that they'd be well advised to go for Harris. The numbers are pretty much a wash.
They suggest to me that if attention after that first debate had been focussed on Trump's lies rather than Biden's confusion, Trump would have been more than just 1 or 2 points behind.
The focus is still almost entirely on Biden's weaknesses, and if he is nominated I'm sure that will continue.
Nice header, by which I mean two things: interesting topic, and well written. @ydoethur has one of the site's most engaging prose styles.
I'm a long standing fan of STV. The only possible objection to it that I can see, and surely this is fixable, is the amount of time it takes to count the votes.
Computerised voting (with a paper trail) is the obvious solution to that
I would prefer paper voting, but counting by scanning and computer calculation with an appropriate paper trail.
As they did very successfully in the 2022 Scottish local elections. 1,226 seats contested, with most results coming in 3-4 hours.
Nice header, by which I mean two things: interesting topic, and well written. @ydoethur has one of the site's most engaging prose styles.
I'm a long standing fan of STV. The only possible objection to it that I can see, and surely this is fixable, is the amount of time it takes to count the votes.
Also:
Nobody understands the whole "surplus votes" malarkey.
The number of seats a party wins can be influenced by how many candidates the put up. More candidates can result in fewer seats. Nothing proportional about that.
Ummm: isn't that only true if voters don't rank candidates properly.
If there are four Con candidates, and one LibDem, then the Con votes should consolidate towards the most popular of those candidates.
Perhaps this is why, in Australian Senate elections, it was formerly mandatory to use every preference, numbering every candidate on the ballot. This became problematic because the total number of candidates was too large and voters didn't always have a preferred between all of them anyway. So, now you only have to number a certain minimum number, and you can opt to vote for a party (so that all your preferences are allocated among individuals in the way that the party has defined) instead of for individual candidates - not sure if this is in the spirit of true STV but it is allowed now over there.
It means most people follow the party’s pre-recommended ordering, which effectively turns STV into closed list PR. A bad thing! Just let people use as many preferences as they want. If they don’t want to use all of them, fine.
As good as Anderson has been, if you offered me a choice between peak Anderson and peak Hoggard, I'm taking Hoggard. I'm sure there were probably better swing bowlers previously, but I just loved Hoggard's action.
I remain four-square behind Single Stochastic Vote, as I call it. Everyone gets to vote for one candidate. Pick a random ballot paper and that determines the result. Perfectly proportional (on average), allows for multiple candidates from the same party (even encourages it), no safe seats, encourages everyone to take part.
On topic, multimember STV, where people can chose which Conservative/Labour/etc. candidate to represent them, is a form of PR I wholeheartedly support, unlike party lists which seem incredibly undemocratic.
It enables - for example - constituents to support more Brexit-friendly (or more Remain-friendly, depending on their point of view) candidates from within a party. It would also probably encourage the existence of independents.
However, it would also fundamentally rearrange British politics, and not necessarily to the advantage of any of the existing political parties.
I would still very much prefer AV as I don't like the larger constituency sizes with MM STV. I think it reduces the link between MP and Constituent too much.
I have never understood this view. No ones says they come from Wolverhampton South West or Liverpool Scotland Road, they say they are from Wolverhampton or from Liverpool. The boundaries are fiddly and often illogical in FPTP, and you need to be a political anorak, or indeed the candidate to know precisely where they are. So I can not see why being one of four or five MPs for a county, or part thereof for one of the larger counties, or a city or part thereof for a larger city, makes any real difference at all. If you back into history there were usually two knights of the shire for each county, so there is an historical precedent.
Because it pushes the MPs away from the constituents. It is not the name of the constituency that matters but the name of the MP. I want to know who my MP is and that they are responsible for representing my constituency in Parliament. I don't vote for a party. Never have done and never will, even if I use the party name sometimes as a shorthand on here so people know what I m referring to. I vote for an individual representative. That is lost in a multi member constituency. I know from living in wards with multi-member representation that it is too easy for the councillor to palm off questions and concerns as none of their business and that you would be better talking to one of the other councillors. You just end up going in circles.
ConHome finds in their latest survey Tory members reject any proposal to merge with ReformUK. However many do want to try and get an electoral pact with Reform.
you Tories will be fighting each other for the next 10 years instead of Labour. Or in your case surrendering to the LDs.
Reform have 5 seats and are second in 98 seats. Of that reform are second to Labour in 91 seats, seats the Tories havent a hope in hell of winning. Cut a pact to let them have a free ride in 100 seats and they stand down in the others.
Avoid a pointless conflict and take the war to Starmer. Farage will be trying to secure Labour votes while you worry about the Blue wall and the LDs.
You won't fit three of those egos in the same room. They'll spontaneously combust years before the next election.
Everyone bewails the possibility of the Tories going 'into their comfort zone' and becoming an unelectable party because they swerve right before seeing sense and embracing 'centrism' again, but what if their actual wilderness years aren't that - what if their unelectability is going to come from resentful centrist turds who insist that Farage and all his works be condemned to the last MP, and make the party into a corporatist ivory tower, Labour without the voters - the Lib Dems without the enthused base. Farage won't believe his luck.
Essentially the Tories need to get back to being Conservatives. If voters want the LDs they will vote LD, if voters want Reform they will vote Reform.
The Tories need to retain a distinctive Tory and conservative identity as their best chance to retain and increase support, especially if the Labour government loses popularity
Fking nonsense.
Just Tory navel gazing. Keep this up and youll be out of power for ages or just plain dead.
On what grounds? Any business or organisation to survive needs a distinctive brand and market share so I don't see anything wrong with what i said
Elon Musk's habit of lying is hardly debatable, let alone actionable.
Whereas accusing his business competitors of an "illegal deal" . . .
Coincidentally enough, Twitter (and other places...) are quite alive today with allegations that Twitter is deleting comments linking Musk and Epstein...
I see the Welsh are about to get rid of their non white First Minister very quickly, just like the Scots.
Are the Celts intrinsically racist as it is a bad look.
The English United Kingdomians didn't keep theirs all that long, either!
The only people to not have quickly rejected a non-white leader - and therefore least racist in the UK - are the Northern Irish
Northern Ireland was also the first to elect a parliamentarian of Chinese heritage. They’ve also elected three female First/deputy First Ministers. Very progressive place.
Derry has elected its first black mayor. Also it's first woman balck mayor.
Why? Ms Seenoi-Barr combined her given surname with that of her husband.
VERY common in the USA these days; is that something rich & rare on the other side of the Atlantic?
In the UK, combined surnames peaked at around 15% of newlywed couples in the early 2000s, but have fallen back to around half that rate. It's fine for a single generation, but beyond that you end up with quadruple- or octuple-barrelled names very easily, and start to find yourself sounding a bit ridiculous: Charles Philip Arthur George Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-und-Glücksburg, or whatever King Chas technically is.
In general, name changing has fallen sharply in the past decade: just over half of all women and around 10% of men now change their name on marriage.
You'd expect that fall to continue, especially since we're now preventing people from voting unless their names match those on their passports.
ConHome finds in their latest survey Tory members reject any proposal to merge with ReformUK. However many do want to try and get an electoral pact with Reform.
you Tories will be fighting each other for the next 10 years instead of Labour. Or in your case surrendering to the LDs.
Reform have 5 seats and are second in 98 seats. Of that reform are second to Labour in 91 seats, seats the Tories havent a hope in hell of winning. Cut a pact to let them have a free ride in 100 seats and they stand down in the others.
Avoid a pointless conflict and take the war to Starmer. Farage will be trying to secure Labour votes while you worry about the Blue wall and the LDs.
You won't fit three of those egos in the same room. They'll spontaneously combust years before the next election.
Everyone bewails the possibility of the Tories going 'into their comfort zone' and becoming an unelectable party because they swerve right before seeing sense and embracing 'centrism' again, but what if their actual wilderness years aren't that - what if their unelectability is going to come from resentful centrist turds who insist that Farage and all his works be condemned to the last MP, and make the party into a corporatist ivory tower, Labour without the voters - the Lib Dems without the enthused base. Farage won't believe his luck.
Essentially the Tories need to get back to being Conservatives. If voters want the LDs they will vote LD, if voters want Reform they will vote Reform.
The Tories need to retain a distinctive Tory and conservative identity as their best chance to retain and increase support, especially if the Labour government loses popularity
Fking nonsense.
Just Tory navel gazing. Keep this up and youll be out of power for ages or just plain dead.
On what grounds? Any business or organisation to survive needs a distinctive brand and market share so I don't see anything wrong with what i said
In principle I agree, but what is the distinctive brand of The Conservative Party?
Mr Musk is very fond of using the courts to try and bully people - something he has in common with - for example - Robert Maxwell and Donald Trump.
Indeed, he's inordinately fond of using the courts to try and prevent free speech. Which makes me think that he's only really in favour of the kind of free speech he agrees with.
Elon Musk's habit of lying is hardly debatable, let alone actionable.
Whereas accusing his business competitors of an "illegal deal" . . .
Coincidentally enough, Twitter (and other places...) are quite alive today with allegations that Twitter is deleting comments linking Musk and Epstein...
I always liked the way that Musk shut down the account of the person who used publicly available information to track his jet. A true free speech champion there.
Or, indeed, the way he sued Media Matters over their research.
Basically, like a lot of very rich people (of all political hues), he's turned into a bit of a bullying asshole.
ConHome finds in their latest survey Tory members reject any proposal to merge with ReformUK. However many do want to try and get an electoral pact with Reform.
you Tories will be fighting each other for the next 10 years instead of Labour. Or in your case surrendering to the LDs.
Reform have 5 seats and are second in 98 seats. Of that reform are second to Labour in 91 seats, seats the Tories havent a hope in hell of winning. Cut a pact to let them have a free ride in 100 seats and they stand down in the others.
Avoid a pointless conflict and take the war to Starmer. Farage will be trying to secure Labour votes while you worry about the Blue wall and the LDs.
You won't fit three of those egos in the same room. They'll spontaneously combust years before the next election.
Everyone bewails the possibility of the Tories going 'into their comfort zone' and becoming an unelectable party because they swerve right before seeing sense and embracing 'centrism' again, but what if their actual wilderness years aren't that - what if their unelectability is going to come from resentful centrist turds who insist that Farage and all his works be condemned to the last MP, and make the party into a corporatist ivory tower, Labour without the voters - the Lib Dems without the enthused base. Farage won't believe his luck.
Essentially the Tories need to get back to being Conservatives. If voters want the LDs they will vote LD, if voters want Reform they will vote Reform.
The Tories need to retain a distinctive Tory and conservative identity as their best chance to retain and increase support, especially if the Labour government loses popularity
Fking nonsense.
Just Tory navel gazing. Keep this up and youll be out of power for ages or just plain dead.
On what grounds? Any business or organisation to survive needs a distinctive brand and market share so I don't see anything wrong with what i said
In principle I agree, but what is the distinctive brand of The Conservative Party?
It should be lower taxes, control on public spending, control of our borders while welcoming those with skills we need, support for the monarchy and our traditions and consumer choice in public services and strong defence and law and order. Plus expanding home ownership while protecting the most beautiful parts of our public service
"As President Biden insists he will stay in the presidential race, Democrats are growing increasingly alarmed that his presence on the ticket is transforming the political map, turning light-blue states into contested battlegrounds.
Down-ballot Democrats, local elected officials and party strategists say Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia — all of which Mr. Biden won comfortably in 2020 — could be in play in November after his miserable debate performance last month."
I see the Welsh are about to get rid of their non white First Minister very quickly, just like the Scots.
Are the Celts intrinsically racist as it is a bad look.
Wait till you hear about the English.
The English are the best, the most important job in the country was held by a Muslim who left of his own accord.
Nasser Hussain captain of the men's cricket team, there is no more exalted rank in the world.
Nasser’s a Muslim name but I don’t think he’s Muslim is he?
He's about a good Muslim as I am.
But there is something about allegiance and cricket which irrationally gets to people. It famously annoyed Norman Tebbit. It has bewildered England's captain Nasser Hussain, a Madras-born, non-practising Muslim who cannot understand why British-born Asians do not support England.
"As President Biden insists he will stay in the presidential race, Democrats are growing increasingly alarmed that his presence on the ticket is transforming the political map, turning light-blue states into contested battlegrounds.
Down-ballot Democrats, local elected officials and party strategists say Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia — all of which Mr. Biden won comfortably in 2020 — could be in play in November after his miserable debate performance last month."
Elon Musk's habit of lying is hardly debatable, let alone actionable.
Whereas accusing his business competitors of an "illegal deal" . . .
Coincidentally enough, Twitter (and other places...) are quite alive today with allegations that Twitter is deleting comments linking Musk and Epstein...
I always liked the way that Musk shut down the account of the person who used publicly available information to track his jet. A true free speech champion there.
Or, indeed, the way he sued Media Matters over their research.
Basically, like a lot of very rich people (of all political hues), he's turned into a bit of a bullying asshole.
Reading between the lines, you can remove 'turned into' from your post. He's always been like this.
(and before his mother says "he was bullied!", kids who are bullied sometimes turn into bullies themselves.)
Country of two 'alves innit. It's bloody dreich in Brest ce soir.
It was luvverly when I was there, I am sorry it is dreich
If you get any breaks in the grisaille, do try the Crozon peninsula. And Ile De Sein is probably BETTER in the rain and mist - certainly if you want Noom
ConHome finds in their latest survey Tory members reject any proposal to merge with ReformUK. However many do want to try and get an electoral pact with Reform.
you Tories will be fighting each other for the next 10 years instead of Labour. Or in your case surrendering to the LDs.
Reform have 5 seats and are second in 98 seats. Of that reform are second to Labour in 91 seats, seats the Tories havent a hope in hell of winning. Cut a pact to let them have a free ride in 100 seats and they stand down in the others.
Avoid a pointless conflict and take the war to Starmer. Farage will be trying to secure Labour votes while you worry about the Blue wall and the LDs.
You won't fit three of those egos in the same room. They'll spontaneously combust years before the next election.
Everyone bewails the possibility of the Tories going 'into their comfort zone' and becoming an unelectable party because they swerve right before seeing sense and embracing 'centrism' again, but what if their actual wilderness years aren't that - what if their unelectability is going to come from resentful centrist turds who insist that Farage and all his works be condemned to the last MP, and make the party into a corporatist ivory tower, Labour without the voters - the Lib Dems without the enthused base. Farage won't believe his luck.
I think you are right.
Strategically, there is little to gain for the Tories in this Parliament trying to occupy the ground held by Labour and the LDs. That’s not necessarily my preference but I see how a Tory Party that just offers a less competent version of Labour could really suffer electorally.
At least for now it seems more beneficial to stem the flow to the right, and be ready to take advantage of any lapse in the centre as Labour disappoint (which however good they do they will to an extent).
That does still mean a risk of the going into a comfort zone territory, but I think there's a balance to be struck there - sort themselves out without going full on just please the extremes territory, it's basically about not closing off the possibility of going broader later, even if for now they need to focus on their core right-centre right audience.
I see the Welsh are about to get rid of their non white First Minister very quickly, just like the Scots.
Are the Celts intrinsically racist as it is a bad look.
Wait till you hear about the English.
The English are the best, the most important job in the country was held by a Muslim who left of his own accord.
Nasser Hussain captain of the men's cricket team, there is no more exalted rank in the world.
Nasser’s a Muslim name but I don’t think he’s Muslim is he?
He's about a good Muslim as I am.
But there is something about allegiance and cricket which irrationally gets to people. It famously annoyed Norman Tebbit. It has bewildered England's captain Nasser Hussain, a Madras-born, non-practising Muslim who cannot understand why British-born Asians do not support England.
This must be a first, ethics gets a lawyer into trouble.
'F**king finally, a criminal question' - barrister fined for swearing through ethics exam
A pupil barrister has been fined £500 by the Bar Standards Board for letting out his inner voice during an exam.
Jack Sadler, who was at 5KBW and is also an accomplished photographer, turned the air blue during his Professional Ethics Assessment last July.
Sadler was sitting the exam remotely and said he didn’t realise his webcam was being used to record his voice and actions. The BSB highlighted seven comments it viewed as crossing a line.
When the exam proctor, who can communicate with candidates via an online chat, told Sadler to show his desk to the camera and reminded him that he couldn’t wear any kind of watch, the barrister exclaimed, “What is a watch going to do, how the fuck am I going to cheat with a watch, come on”.
Sadler wasn't delighted at the proctor's attempts to contact him, blurting out, “What? Fucking piss off, I don’t need to start a fucking chat”.
“This is annoying, oh my god, this is going to really piss me off”, he said, before apparently deciding to ignore the alerts: “Right, go away now, fine, just going to sit there fucking flashing and be annoying”.
Later, Sadler expressed his relief at coming across a preferred topic: “Fucking finally, a criminal question… This civil shit... How can you have any ethics if you’re a civil practitioner, honestly”.
The thrill appears to have worn off quickly, however, prompting Sadler to remark, “I’m so fucking bored of this”.
ConHome finds in their latest survey Tory members reject any proposal to merge with ReformUK. However many do want to try and get an electoral pact with Reform.
you Tories will be fighting each other for the next 10 years instead of Labour. Or in your case surrendering to the LDs.
Reform have 5 seats and are second in 98 seats. Of that reform are second to Labour in 91 seats, seats the Tories havent a hope in hell of winning. Cut a pact to let them have a free ride in 100 seats and they stand down in the others.
Avoid a pointless conflict and take the war to Starmer. Farage will be trying to secure Labour votes while you worry about the Blue wall and the LDs.
You won't fit three of those egos in the same room. They'll spontaneously combust years before the next election.
Everyone bewails the possibility of the Tories going 'into their comfort zone' and becoming an unelectable party because they swerve right before seeing sense and embracing 'centrism' again, but what if their actual wilderness years aren't that - what if their unelectability is going to come from resentful centrist turds who insist that Farage and all his works be condemned to the last MP, and make the party into a corporatist ivory tower, Labour without the voters - the Lib Dems without the enthused base. Farage won't believe his luck.
I think you are right.
Strategically, there is little to gain for the Tories in this Parliament trying to occupy the ground held by Labour and the LDs. That’s not necessarily my preference but I see how a Tory Party that just offers a less competent version of Labour could really suffer electorally.
I mostly agree with that, and think that the Tories ought to be chasing whatever right-wing positions resonate with younger.
For example, plenty of under-40s think that the NHS is fucked beyond redemption, so the Faragist position of shutting it down might prove to be surprisingly popular. Perhaps the Tories could come up with a less extreme version - how about a policy of forcing private health insurers to stop requiring people to go through crap NHS GP gatekeepers? That would surely be a big vote-winner.
Ensuring that all employers provide private health insurance would be another sensible policy for them - workplace healthcare, to go alongside workplace pensions.
Personally, I'd prefer trying to fix the NHS - but I can see how continuing to run it down might be a very popular with the sort of voters the Tories will need to attract if they're to regain power at some point in the 2030s.
"As President Biden insists he will stay in the presidential race, Democrats are growing increasingly alarmed that his presence on the ticket is transforming the political map, turning light-blue states into contested battlegrounds.
Down-ballot Democrats, local elected officials and party strategists say Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia — all of which Mr. Biden won comfortably in 2020 — could be in play in November after his miserable debate performance last month."
NY Times
Yes, a few months ago despite worries over his age the hope was the old battleground states were going back into play. But can Biden win places like Arizona this time, which were so close last time? Doesn't look like it.
Elon Musk's habit of lying is hardly debatable, let alone actionable.
Whereas accusing his business competitors of an "illegal deal" . . .
Coincidentally enough, Twitter (and other places...) are quite alive today with allegations that Twitter is deleting comments linking Musk and Epstein...
"As President Biden insists he will stay in the presidential race, Democrats are growing increasingly alarmed that his presence on the ticket is transforming the political map, turning light-blue states into contested battlegrounds.
Down-ballot Democrats, local elected officials and party strategists say Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia — all of which Mr. Biden won comfortably in 2020 — could be in play in November after his miserable debate performance last month."
NY Times
Some Democrats must suspect that favourable polls for Biden at the moment are somehow pro-Trump misinformation.
Mr Musk is very fond of using the courts to try and bully people - something he has in common with - for example - Robert Maxwell and Donald Trump.
Indeed, he's inordinately fond of using the courts to try and prevent free speech. Which makes me think that he's only really in favour of the kind of free speech he agrees with.
Quite. And if there's one thing that gets old fast it is a super rich and powerful person whinging like a teenager online. I'm sure he's smart, but that doesn't make him an expert on everything, but like a typical twitter commentator he believes it does, and he seems to believe anything he reads, then has a fresh moan if people react negatively.
And let us never forget that whatever he says now about his plans for Twitter and the importance of it, he wanted to and tried to back out of the deal (and I believe is suing or did sue the old twitter lawyers who successfully forced him to go through with it).
"As President Biden insists he will stay in the presidential race, Democrats are growing increasingly alarmed that his presence on the ticket is transforming the political map, turning light-blue states into contested battlegrounds.
Down-ballot Democrats, local elected officials and party strategists say Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia — all of which Mr. Biden won comfortably in 2020 — could be in play in November after his miserable debate performance last month."
NY Times
Yes, a few months ago despite worries over his age the hope was the old battleground states were going back into play. But can Biden win places like Arizona this time, which were so close last time? Doesn't look like it.
Biden lost to Trump on the Thursday evening of that debate. It's over. Maybe I am wrong but I think - brace!!
"As President Biden insists he will stay in the presidential race, Democrats are growing increasingly alarmed that his presence on the ticket is transforming the political map, turning light-blue states into contested battlegrounds.
Down-ballot Democrats, local elected officials and party strategists say Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia — all of which Mr. Biden won comfortably in 2020 — could be in play in November after his miserable debate performance last month."
NY Times
Yes, a few months ago despite worries over his age the hope was the old battleground states were going back into play. But can Biden win places like Arizona this time, which were so close last time? Doesn't look like it.
Biden lost to Trump on the Thursday evening of that debate. It's over. Maybe I am wrong but I think - brace!!
Ahead of that debate Trump's team obviously thought he would lose, since they were all over social media angrily complaining about how Biden would be hopped up on drugs and that would explain why he would perform well.
I see the Welsh are about to get rid of their non white First Minister very quickly, just like the Scots.
Are the Celts intrinsically racist as it is a bad look.
The English United Kingdomians didn't keep theirs all that long, either!
The only people to not have quickly rejected a non-white leader - and therefore least racist in the UK - are the Northern Irish
Northern Ireland was also the first to elect a parliamentarian of Chinese heritage. They’ve also elected three female First/deputy First Ministers. Very progressive place.
Derry has elected its first black mayor. Also it's first woman balck mayor.
Why? Ms Seenoi-Barr combined her given surname with that of her husband.
VERY common in the USA these days; is that something rich & rare on the other side of the Atlantic?
In the UK, combined surnames peaked at around 15% of newlywed couples in the early 2000s, but have fallen back to around half that rate. It's fine for a single generation, but beyond that you end up with quadruple- or octuple-barrelled names very easily, and start to find yourself sounding a bit ridiculous: Charles Philip Arthur George Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-und-Glücksburg, or whatever King Chas technically is.
In general, name changing has fallen sharply in the past decade: just over half of all women and around 10% of men now change their name on marriage.
You'd expect that fall to continue, especially since we're now preventing people from voting unless their names match those on their passports.
Source for your stats? (Not doubting, just curious!)
As for combining double-barrel names and ending up with quad-barrel monikers, never been that popular, even when Brit twits were (in)famous for seeming profusion of "Smith-Smythe" and the like.
UNLESS of course you're talking about royals & their relations spawned in the "German kennels"!
Country of two 'alves innit. It's bloody dreich in Brest ce soir.
It was luvverly when I was there, I am sorry it is dreich
If you get any breaks in the grisaille, do try the Crozon peninsula. And Ile De Sein is probably BETTER in the rain and mist - certainly if you want Noom
Will do. I am on someone else's boat but will try to introduce Ile de sein into itinerary wind and tide permitting.
I don't remember half of this venom being directed at Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, back when they were censoring the fuck out of the Leab Leak hypothesis, at the behest of the Biden Admin. Which is far far worse and more important than anything Musk has allegedly done
The PB left are pitifiul hypocrites, with weakened brains
Mr Musk is very fond of using the courts to try and bully people - something he has in common with - for example - Robert Maxwell and Donald Trump.
Indeed, he's inordinately fond of using the courts to try and prevent free speech. Which makes me think that he's only really in favour of the kind of free speech he agrees with.
Quite. And if there's one thing that gets old fast it is a super rich and powerful person whinging like a teenager online. I'm sure he's smart, but that doesn't make him an expert on everything, but like a typical twitter commentator he believes it does, and he seems to believe anything he reads, then has a fresh moan if people react negatively.
And let us never forget that whatever he says now about his plans for Twitter and the importance of it, he wanted to and tried to back out of the deal (and I believe is suing or did sue the old twitter lawyers who successfully forced him to go through with it).
Musk has the advantage of tens of thousands of bots weird nerds on t'Internet willing to defend anything he does, and to hype up every exaggerated claim of his greatness. It's also a disadvantage, if he actually believes what they are saying, encouraging him to go further.
Also from Wales - Snooker player Michael White gets 36 months in prison for two counts of ABH against his partner that caused injuries. Is this what you would normally expect? If I understand correctly ABH is less serious than GBH? We keep being told the prisons are full and dangerous people will have to be released early. Mr White clearly can't be regarded as 'safe' but it still seems a long time to lock him up. Woke sentencing? Or am I being unduly sensitive?
Country of two 'alves innit. It's bloody dreich in Brest ce soir.
It was luvverly when I was there, I am sorry it is dreich
If you get any breaks in the grisaille, do try the Crozon peninsula. And Ile De Sein is probably BETTER in the rain and mist - certainly if you want Noom
Will do. I am on someone else's boat but will try to introduce Ile de sein into itinerary wind and tide permitting.
It's fab. Ouessant is also nice but not spiritual like Ile De Sein, and it needs good weather, or mighty storms. And as a sea-lubber you've probably been there already
"As President Biden insists he will stay in the presidential race, Democrats are growing increasingly alarmed that his presence on the ticket is transforming the political map, turning light-blue states into contested battlegrounds.
Down-ballot Democrats, local elected officials and party strategists say Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia — all of which Mr. Biden won comfortably in 2020 — could be in play in November after his miserable debate performance last month."
NY Times
Yes, a few months ago despite worries over his age the hope was the old battleground states were going back into play. But can Biden win places like Arizona this time, which were so close last time? Doesn't look like it.
Biden lost to Trump on the Thursday evening of that debate. It's over. Maybe I am wrong but I think - brace!!
If he did Trump should be on 55-60% in polls now and heading for a landslide.
He isn't, he is still polling the 45% and a bit he got in 2016 and 2020. Independents are still not yet firmly in either camp. The conventions, Trump's sentencing and VP pick and the final debate if it goes ahead and how the economy looks in the autumn all remain factors
I don't remember half of this venom being directed at Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, back when they were censoring the fuck out of the Leab Leak hypothesis, at the behest of the Biden Admin. Which is far far worse and more important than anything Musk has allegedly done
The PB left are pitifiul hypocrites, with weakened brains
I don't remember Dorsey or Zuckerberg pretending to be champions of free speech while suing people who exercised that right?
This must be a first, ethics gets a lawyer into trouble.
'F**king finally, a criminal question' - barrister fined for swearing through ethics exam
A pupil barrister has been fined £500 by the Bar Standards Board for letting out his inner voice during an exam.
Jack Sadler, who was at 5KBW and is also an accomplished photographer, turned the air blue during his Professional Ethics Assessment last July.
Sadler was sitting the exam remotely and said he didn’t realise his webcam was being used to record his voice and actions. The BSB highlighted seven comments it viewed as crossing a line.
When the exam proctor, who can communicate with candidates via an online chat, told Sadler to show his desk to the camera and reminded him that he couldn’t wear any kind of watch, the barrister exclaimed, “What is a watch going to do, how the fuck am I going to cheat with a watch, come on”.
Sadler wasn't delighted at the proctor's attempts to contact him, blurting out, “What? Fucking piss off, I don’t need to start a fucking chat”.
“This is annoying, oh my god, this is going to really piss me off”, he said, before apparently deciding to ignore the alerts: “Right, go away now, fine, just going to sit there fucking flashing and be annoying”.
Later, Sadler expressed his relief at coming across a preferred topic: “Fucking finally, a criminal question… This civil shit... How can you have any ethics if you’re a civil practitioner, honestly”.
The thrill appears to have worn off quickly, however, prompting Sadler to remark, “I’m so fucking bored of this”.
Elon Musk's habit of lying is hardly debatable, let alone actionable.
Whereas accusing his business competitors of an "illegal deal" . . .
Coincidentally enough, Twitter (and other places...) are quite alive today with allegations that Twitter is deleting comments linking Musk and Epstein...
I always liked the way that Musk shut down the account of the person who used publicly available information to track his jet. A true free speech champion there.
Or, indeed, the way he sued Media Matters over their research.
Basically, like a lot of very rich people (of all political hues), he's turned into a bit of a bullying asshole.
You can buy them in almost any big French supermarket. Slather them in fine olive, oil, good butter, sea salt, cracked pepper, and shove them in a preheated oven - 250C - for just 15 minutes. 15 minutes!!!
They emerge perfect and golden. Easily as good as a good roast chicken, two of them feed one, and they are fun to eat because they're so tiny, you can chew some of the bones
"As President Biden insists he will stay in the presidential race, Democrats are growing increasingly alarmed that his presence on the ticket is transforming the political map, turning light-blue states into contested battlegrounds.
Down-ballot Democrats, local elected officials and party strategists say Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia — all of which Mr. Biden won comfortably in 2020 — could be in play in November after his miserable debate performance last month."
NY Times
Yes, a few months ago despite worries over his age the hope was the old battleground states were going back into play. But can Biden win places like Arizona this time, which were so close last time? Doesn't look like it.
Biden lost to Trump on the Thursday evening of that debate. It's over. Maybe I am wrong but I think - brace!!
If he did Trump should be on 55-60% in polls now and heading for a landslide.
He isn't, he is still polling the 45% and a bit he got in 2016 and 2020. Independents are still not yet firmly in either camp. The conventions, Trump's sentencing and VP pick and the final debate if it goes ahead and how the economy looks in the autumn all remain factors
Biden is toast. Every appearence between now and the election will increase the realisation that he is not fit for office. Your faith in the polls is garbage as they are only valid until the next gaff.
If Biden is the candidate in November, Trump walks it and we are all screwed.
ConHome finds in their latest survey Tory members reject any proposal to merge with ReformUK. However many do want to try and get an electoral pact with Reform.
you Tories will be fighting each other for the next 10 years instead of Labour. Or in your case surrendering to the LDs.
Reform have 5 seats and are second in 98 seats. Of that reform are second to Labour in 91 seats, seats the Tories havent a hope in hell of winning. Cut a pact to let them have a free ride in 100 seats and they stand down in the others.
Avoid a pointless conflict and take the war to Starmer. Farage will be trying to secure Labour votes while you worry about the Blue wall and the LDs.
You won't fit three of those egos in the same room. They'll spontaneously combust years before the next election.
Everyone bewails the possibility of the Tories going 'into their comfort zone' and becoming an unelectable party because they swerve right before seeing sense and embracing 'centrism' again, but what if their actual wilderness years aren't that - what if their unelectability is going to come from resentful centrist turds who insist that Farage and all his works be condemned to the last MP, and make the party into a corporatist ivory tower, Labour without the voters - the Lib Dems without the enthused base. Farage won't believe his luck.
I think you are right.
Strategically, there is little to gain for the Tories in this Parliament trying to occupy the ground held by Labour and the LDs. That’s not necessarily my preference but I see how a Tory Party that just offers a less competent version of Labour could really suffer electorally.
I mostly agree with that, and think that the Tories ought to be chasing whatever right-wing positions resonate with younger.
For example, plenty of under-40s think that the NHS is fucked beyond redemption, so the Faragist position of shutting it down might prove to be surprisingly popular. Perhaps the Tories could come up with a less extreme version - how about a policy of forcing private health insurers to stop requiring people to go through crap NHS GP gatekeepers? That would surely be a big vote-winner.
Ensuring that all employers provide private health insurance would be another sensible policy for them - workplace healthcare, to go alongside workplace pensions.
Personally, I'd prefer trying to fix the NHS - but I can see how continuing to run it down might be a very popular with the sort of voters the Tories will need to attract if they're to regain power at some point in the 2030s.
Where is Nigel Farage's policy on shutting down the NHS?
CRITICAL REFORMS NEEDED IN THE FIRST 100 DAYS: End Doctor and Nurse Shortages All frontline NHS and social care staff to pay zero basic rate tax for 3 years. This will help retain existing staff and attract many who have left to return. End training caps for all UK medical students. Write off student fees pro rata per year over 10 years of NHS service for all doctors, nurses and medical staff. Use Independent Healthcare Capacity We will harness independent and not-for-profit health provision in the UK and overseas. Tax Relief of 20% on all Private Healthcare and Insurance This will improve care for all by relieving pressure on the NHS. Those who rely on the NHS will enjoy faster, better care. Independent healthcare capacity will grow rapidly, providing competition and reducing costs. Thereafter: Put Patients in Charge With a New NHS Voucher Scheme NHS Patients will receive a voucher for private treatment if they can’t see a GP within 3 days. For a consultant it would be 3 weeks. For an operation, 9 weeks. Services will always be free at the point of use. Improve Efficiency. Cut Waste and Unnecessary Managers Operating theatres must be open on weekends. Rotas must be planned further in advance. Nail down better prices using economies of scale. Review all NHS Private Finance Contracts for significant savings potential. Charge those who fail to attend medical appointments without notice. Abolish the NHS Race and Health Observatory. Save A&E Cut waiting times with a campaign of ‘Pharmacy First, GP Second, A&E Last’. We will offer tax incentives for new pharmacies and those who employ more staff to assist in relieving pressure on A&E. Excess Deaths and Vaccine Harms Public Inquiry Excess deaths are nearly as high as they were during the Covid pandemic. Young people are over-represented.
I don't remember half of this venom being directed at Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, back when they were censoring the fuck out of the Leab Leak hypothesis, at the behest of the Biden Admin. Which is far far worse and more important than anything Musk has allegedly done
The PB left are pitifiul hypocrites, with weakened brains
I don't remember Dorsey or Zuckerberg pretending to be champions of free speech while suing people who exercised that right?
lol! You don't think Facebook and Twitter sold themselves as "the good guys"???
I don't remember half of this venom being directed at Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, back when they were censoring the fuck out of the Leab Leak hypothesis, at the behest of the Biden Admin. Which is far far worse and more important than anything Musk has allegedly done
The PB left are pitifiul hypocrites, with weakened brains
I don't remember Dorsey or Zuckerberg pretending to be champions of free speech while suing people who exercised that right?
Zuckerberg did try to claim that he was defending people’s privacy *by* selling their personal data.
I see the Welsh are about to get rid of their non white First Minister very quickly, just like the Scots.
Are the Celts intrinsically racist as it is a bad look.
The English United Kingdomians didn't keep theirs all that long, either!
The only people to not have quickly rejected a non-white leader - and therefore least racist in the UK - are the Northern Irish
Northern Ireland was also the first to elect a parliamentarian of Chinese heritage. They’ve also elected three female First/deputy First Ministers. Very progressive place.
Derry has elected its first black mayor. Also it's first woman balck mayor.
Why? Ms Seenoi-Barr combined her given surname with that of her husband.
VERY common in the USA these days; is that something rich & rare on the other side of the Atlantic?
In the UK, combined surnames peaked at around 15% of newlywed couples in the early 2000s, but have fallen back to around half that rate. It's fine for a single generation, but beyond that you end up with quadruple- or octuple-barrelled names very easily, and start to find yourself sounding a bit ridiculous: Charles Philip Arthur George Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-und-Glücksburg, or whatever King Chas technically is.
In general, name changing has fallen sharply in the past decade: just over half of all women and around 10% of men now change their name on marriage.
You'd expect that fall to continue, especially since we're now preventing people from voting unless their names match those on their passports.
Source for your stats? (Not doubting, just curious!)
As for combining double-barrel names and ending up with quad-barrel monikers, never been that popular, even when Brit twits were (in)famous for seeming profusion of "Smith-Smythe" and the like.
UNLESS of course you're talking about royals & their relations spawned in the "German kennels"!
Hm, good question! I'm cribbing from a factsheet from the UK Cabinet Office - it's not private, but I can't find a publicly-accessible source. The general gist of it is that "more people change their names than you might think!"
"As President Biden insists he will stay in the presidential race, Democrats are growing increasingly alarmed that his presence on the ticket is transforming the political map, turning light-blue states into contested battlegrounds.
Down-ballot Democrats, local elected officials and party strategists say Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia — all of which Mr. Biden won comfortably in 2020 — could be in play in November after his miserable debate performance last month."
NY Times
Yes, a few months ago despite worries over his age the hope was the old battleground states were going back into play. But can Biden win places like Arizona this time, which were so close last time? Doesn't look like it.
Biden lost to Trump on the Thursday evening of that debate. It's over. Maybe I am wrong but I think - brace!!
If he did Trump should be on 55-60% in polls now and heading for a landslide.
He isn't, he is still polling the 45% and a bit he got in 2016 and 2020. Independents are still not yet firmly in either camp. The conventions, Trump's sentencing and VP pick and the final debate if it goes ahead and how the economy looks in the autumn all remain factors
Biden is toast. Every appearence between now and the election will increase the realisation that he is not fit for office. Your faith in the polls is garbage as they are only valid until the next gaff.
If Biden is the candidate in November, Trump walks it and we are all screwed.
Sadly, I agree with most of that (we cannot exclude Trump, or his campaign, imploding before November).
It's like the Tories: For yonks, I've been saying Labour would win a humongous majority. The reason? The Tories were damaged by their own actions, there was no sign of them learning from their mistakes, and even if they did, the media and public were in no mood to listen. There was no way back, especially given the time available.
It's the same with Biden now. Even if his faculties were 100%, and far better than any PBers, any slight gaffe or mistake would be taken as evidence that he wasn't. The story is that he is incapable, and people will look for stuff to reinforce that story, not the contrary. Because "Man is fine" is not much of a story. "Man is mentally ill!" is much more of a story.
"As President Biden insists he will stay in the presidential race, Democrats are growing increasingly alarmed that his presence on the ticket is transforming the political map, turning light-blue states into contested battlegrounds.
Down-ballot Democrats, local elected officials and party strategists say Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia — all of which Mr. Biden won comfortably in 2020 — could be in play in November after his miserable debate performance last month."
NY Times
Yes, a few months ago despite worries over his age the hope was the old battleground states were going back into play. But can Biden win places like Arizona this time, which were so close last time? Doesn't look like it.
Biden lost to Trump on the Thursday evening of that debate. It's over. Maybe I am wrong but I think - brace!!
If he did Trump should be on 55-60% in polls now and heading for a landslide.
He isn't, he is still polling the 45% and a bit he got in 2016 and 2020. Independents are still not yet firmly in either camp. The conventions, Trump's sentencing and VP pick and the final debate if it goes ahead and how the economy looks in the autumn all remain factors
Biden is toast. Every appearence between now and the election will increase the realisation that he is not fit for office. Your faith in the polls is garbage as they are only valid until the next gaff.
If Biden is the candidate in November, Trump walks it and we are all screwed.
Trump didn't do very much in his first term, and I can't see him doing much in his second beyond trying to be president for life.
Generally politicians not doing stuff is better than when they do in my view, but with Trump I'd prefer not to take the risk and Biden needs to go damned sharpish.
ConHome finds in their latest survey Tory members reject any proposal to merge with ReformUK. However many do want to try and get an electoral pact with Reform.
you Tories will be fighting each other for the next 10 years instead of Labour. Or in your case surrendering to the LDs.
Reform have 5 seats and are second in 98 seats. Of that reform are second to Labour in 91 seats, seats the Tories havent a hope in hell of winning. Cut a pact to let them have a free ride in 100 seats and they stand down in the others.
Avoid a pointless conflict and take the war to Starmer. Farage will be trying to secure Labour votes while you worry about the Blue wall and the LDs.
You won't fit three of those egos in the same room. They'll spontaneously combust years before the next election.
Everyone bewails the possibility of the Tories going 'into their comfort zone' and becoming an unelectable party because they swerve right before seeing sense and embracing 'centrism' again, but what if their actual wilderness years aren't that - what if their unelectability is going to come from resentful centrist turds who insist that Farage and all his works be condemned to the last MP, and make the party into a corporatist ivory tower, Labour without the voters - the Lib Dems without the enthused base. Farage won't believe his luck.
Essentially the Tories need to get back to being Conservatives. If voters want the LDs they will vote LD, if voters want Reform they will vote Reform.
The Tories need to retain a distinctive Tory and conservative identity as their best chance to retain and increase support, especially if the Labour government loses popularity
And how does that differ from what Reform are offering?
ConHome finds in their latest survey Tory members reject any proposal to merge with ReformUK. However many do want to try and get an electoral pact with Reform.
you Tories will be fighting each other for the next 10 years instead of Labour. Or in your case surrendering to the LDs.
Reform have 5 seats and are second in 98 seats. Of that reform are second to Labour in 91 seats, seats the Tories havent a hope in hell of winning. Cut a pact to let them have a free ride in 100 seats and they stand down in the others.
Avoid a pointless conflict and take the war to Starmer. Farage will be trying to secure Labour votes while you worry about the Blue wall and the LDs.
You won't fit three of those egos in the same room. They'll spontaneously combust years before the next election.
Everyone bewails the possibility of the Tories going 'into their comfort zone' and becoming an unelectable party because they swerve right before seeing sense and embracing 'centrism' again, but what if their actual wilderness years aren't that - what if their unelectability is going to come from resentful centrist turds who insist that Farage and all his works be condemned to the last MP, and make the party into a corporatist ivory tower, Labour without the voters - the Lib Dems without the enthused base. Farage won't believe his luck.
Essentially the Tories need to get back to being Conservatives. If voters want the LDs they will vote LD, if voters want Reform they will vote Reform.
The Tories need to retain a distinctive Tory and conservative identity as their best chance to retain and increase support, especially if the Labour government loses popularity
And how does that differ from what Reform are offering?
Reform are more populist, more anti immigration and wanted a No Deal Brexit. They are also less respectful of tradition
"As President Biden insists he will stay in the presidential race, Democrats are growing increasingly alarmed that his presence on the ticket is transforming the political map, turning light-blue states into contested battlegrounds.
Down-ballot Democrats, local elected officials and party strategists say Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia — all of which Mr. Biden won comfortably in 2020 — could be in play in November after his miserable debate performance last month."
NY Times
Yes, a few months ago despite worries over his age the hope was the old battleground states were going back into play. But can Biden win places like Arizona this time, which were so close last time? Doesn't look like it.
Biden lost to Trump on the Thursday evening of that debate. It's over. Maybe I am wrong but I think - brace!!
If he did Trump should be on 55-60% in polls now and heading for a landslide.
He isn't, he is still polling the 45% and a bit he got in 2016 and 2020. Independents are still not yet firmly in either camp. The conventions, Trump's sentencing and VP pick and the final debate if it goes ahead and how the economy looks in the autumn all remain factors
Biden is toast. Every appearence between now and the election will increase the realisation that he is not fit for office. Your faith in the polls is garbage as they are only valid until the next gaff.
If Biden is the candidate in November, Trump walks it and we are all screwed.
So you keep saying yet not one poll shows much difference between Biden and the other Dem candidates, indeed many show them doing worse. None show Trump over 50%.
It remains close. Nearly half of Americans will vote for Trump even if he is in prison, nearly half of Americans will vote for Biden even if he is in a coma.
ConHome finds in their latest survey Tory members reject any proposal to merge with ReformUK. However many do want to try and get an electoral pact with Reform.
you Tories will be fighting each other for the next 10 years instead of Labour. Or in your case surrendering to the LDs.
Reform have 5 seats and are second in 98 seats. Of that reform are second to Labour in 91 seats, seats the Tories havent a hope in hell of winning. Cut a pact to let them have a free ride in 100 seats and they stand down in the others.
Avoid a pointless conflict and take the war to Starmer. Farage will be trying to secure Labour votes while you worry about the Blue wall and the LDs.
You won't fit three of those egos in the same room. They'll spontaneously combust years before the next election.
Everyone bewails the possibility of the Tories going 'into their comfort zone' and becoming an unelectable party because they swerve right before seeing sense and embracing 'centrism' again, but what if their actual wilderness years aren't that - what if their unelectability is going to come from resentful centrist turds who insist that Farage and all his works be condemned to the last MP, and make the party into a corporatist ivory tower, Labour without the voters - the Lib Dems without the enthused base. Farage won't believe his luck.
Essentially the Tories need to get back to being Conservatives. If voters want the LDs they will vote LD, if voters want Reform they will vote Reform.
The Tories need to retain a distinctive Tory and conservative identity as their best chance to retain and increase support, especially if the Labour government loses popularity
You may struggle with that aim. The Conservative Party doesn't seem to stand for anything except bungs for rich pensioners, and half the fossil membership is, apparently, desperate for a merger with Reform.
I don't remember half of this venom being directed at Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, back when they were censoring the fuck out of the Leab Leak hypothesis, at the behest of the Biden Admin. Which is far far worse and more important than anything Musk has allegedly done
The PB left are pitifiul hypocrites, with weakened brains
I don't remember Dorsey or Zuckerberg pretending to be champions of free speech while suing people who exercised that right?
lol! You don't think Facebook and Twitter sold themselves as "the good guys"???
Get a grip
With all due respect, my issue is simply this:
Musk pretends that he gives a shit about free speech. Zuckerberg and Dorsey might or might not give a shit about free speech. But they certainly don't go out and pretend that they are - what were Musk's words - "a free speech absolutist".
Musk then demonstrates he is only really in favor of free speech he agrees with when he starts trying to sue critics into oblivion and publicly cancels the Twitter account of someone who does nothing more than track his private jet.
At the very least, he is absurdly thin skinned. More likely, he's a total hypocrite.
ConHome finds in their latest survey Tory members reject any proposal to merge with ReformUK. However many do want to try and get an electoral pact with Reform.
you Tories will be fighting each other for the next 10 years instead of Labour. Or in your case surrendering to the LDs.
Reform have 5 seats and are second in 98 seats. Of that reform are second to Labour in 91 seats, seats the Tories havent a hope in hell of winning. Cut a pact to let them have a free ride in 100 seats and they stand down in the others.
Avoid a pointless conflict and take the war to Starmer. Farage will be trying to secure Labour votes while you worry about the Blue wall and the LDs.
You won't fit three of those egos in the same room. They'll spontaneously combust years before the next election.
Everyone bewails the possibility of the Tories going 'into their comfort zone' and becoming an unelectable party because they swerve right before seeing sense and embracing 'centrism' again, but what if their actual wilderness years aren't that - what if their unelectability is going to come from resentful centrist turds who insist that Farage and all his works be condemned to the last MP, and make the party into a corporatist ivory tower, Labour without the voters - the Lib Dems without the enthused base. Farage won't believe his luck.
Essentially the Tories need to get back to being Conservatives. If voters want the LDs they will vote LD, if voters want Reform they will vote Reform.
The Tories need to retain a distinctive Tory and conservative identity as their best chance to retain and increase support, especially if the Labour government loses popularity
You may struggle with that aim. The Conservative Party doesn't seem to stand for anything except bungs for rich pensioners, and half the fossil membership is, apparently, desperate for a merger with Reform.
This must be a first, ethics gets a lawyer into trouble.
'F**king finally, a criminal question' - barrister fined for swearing through ethics exam
A pupil barrister has been fined £500 by the Bar Standards Board for letting out his inner voice during an exam.
Jack Sadler, who was at 5KBW and is also an accomplished photographer, turned the air blue during his Professional Ethics Assessment last July.
Sadler was sitting the exam remotely and said he didn’t realise his webcam was being used to record his voice and actions. The BSB highlighted seven comments it viewed as crossing a line.
When the exam proctor, who can communicate with candidates via an online chat, told Sadler to show his desk to the camera and reminded him that he couldn’t wear any kind of watch, the barrister exclaimed, “What is a watch going to do, how the fuck am I going to cheat with a watch, come on”.
Sadler wasn't delighted at the proctor's attempts to contact him, blurting out, “What? Fucking piss off, I don’t need to start a fucking chat”.
“This is annoying, oh my god, this is going to really piss me off”, he said, before apparently deciding to ignore the alerts: “Right, go away now, fine, just going to sit there fucking flashing and be annoying”.
Later, Sadler expressed his relief at coming across a preferred topic: “Fucking finally, a criminal question… This civil shit... How can you have any ethics if you’re a civil practitioner, honestly”.
The thrill appears to have worn off quickly, however, prompting Sadler to remark, “I’m so fucking bored of this”.
I don't remember half of this venom being directed at Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, back when they were censoring the fuck out of the Leab Leak hypothesis, at the behest of the Biden Admin. Which is far far worse and more important than anything Musk has allegedly done
The PB left are pitifiul hypocrites, with weakened brains
I don't remember Dorsey or Zuckerberg pretending to be champions of free speech while suing people who exercised that right?
Zuckerberg did try to claim that he was defending people’s privacy *by* selling their personal data.
This is why many people love Zuckerberg. Not.
A fairly easy assumption is that any social media trillionaire is quite evil. My informed guess is that Musk is considerably less evil than most. Facebook knowingly invented the Like button even as they were told it would be deleterious for human mental health
Compared to that??
OMG Musk allows right wing views on his website! Well, guess what, a lot of people have rightwing views. They exist. Hear them, or you end up with voters electing Nazis
I don't remember half of this venom being directed at Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, back when they were censoring the fuck out of the Leab Leak hypothesis, at the behest of the Biden Admin. Which is far far worse and more important than anything Musk has allegedly done
The PB left are pitifiul hypocrites, with weakened brains
I don't remember Dorsey or Zuckerberg pretending to be champions of free speech while suing people who exercised that right?
lol! You don't think Facebook and Twitter sold themselves as "the good guys"???
Get a grip
With all due respect, my issue is simply this:
Musk pretends that he gives a shit about free speech. Zuckerberg and Dorsey might or might not give a shit about free speech. But they certainly don't go out and pretend that they are - what were Musk's words - "a free speech absolutist".
Musk then demonstrates he is only really in favor of free speech he agrees with when he starts trying to sue critics into oblivion and publicly cancels the Twitter account of someone who does nothing more than track his private jet.
At the very least, he is absurdly thin skinned. More likely, he's a total hypocrite.
I don't remember half of this venom being directed at Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, back when they were censoring the fuck out of the Leab Leak hypothesis, at the behest of the Biden Admin. Which is far far worse and more important than anything Musk has allegedly done
The PB left are pitifiul hypocrites, with weakened brains
I don't remember Dorsey or Zuckerberg pretending to be champions of free speech while suing people who exercised that right?
Zuckerberg did try to claim that he was defending people’s privacy *by* selling their personal data.
This is why many people love Zuckerberg. Not.
A fairly easy assumption is that any social media trillionaire is quite evil. My informed guess is that Musk is considerably less evil than most. Facebook knowingly invented the Like button even as they were told it would be deleterious for human mental health
Compared to that??
OMG Musk allows right wing views on his website! Well, guess what, a lot of people have rightwing views. They exist. Hear them, or you end up with voters electing Nazis
I thought the Tories were Nazis if you believe half of Twitter or they were until Farage came along and won his seat on election night and took the left's loathing?
ConHome finds in their latest survey Tory members reject any proposal to merge with ReformUK. However many do want to try and get an electoral pact with Reform.
you Tories will be fighting each other for the next 10 years instead of Labour. Or in your case surrendering to the LDs.
Reform have 5 seats and are second in 98 seats. Of that reform are second to Labour in 91 seats, seats the Tories havent a hope in hell of winning. Cut a pact to let them have a free ride in 100 seats and they stand down in the others.
Avoid a pointless conflict and take the war to Starmer. Farage will be trying to secure Labour votes while you worry about the Blue wall and the LDs.
You won't fit three of those egos in the same room. They'll spontaneously combust years before the next election.
Everyone bewails the possibility of the Tories going 'into their comfort zone' and becoming an unelectable party because they swerve right before seeing sense and embracing 'centrism' again, but what if their actual wilderness years aren't that - what if their unelectability is going to come from resentful centrist turds who insist that Farage and all his works be condemned to the last MP, and make the party into a corporatist ivory tower, Labour without the voters - the Lib Dems without the enthused base. Farage won't believe his luck.
I think you are right.
Strategically, there is little to gain for the Tories in this Parliament trying to occupy the ground held by Labour and the LDs. That’s not necessarily my preference but I see how a Tory Party that just offers a less competent version of Labour could really suffer electorally.
I mostly agree with that, and think that the Tories ought to be chasing whatever right-wing positions resonate with younger.
For example, plenty of under-40s think that the NHS is fucked beyond redemption, so the Faragist position of shutting it down might prove to be surprisingly popular. Perhaps the Tories could come up with a less extreme version - how about a policy of forcing private health insurers to stop requiring people to go through crap NHS GP gatekeepers? That would surely be a big vote-winner.
Ensuring that all employers provide private health insurance would be another sensible policy for them - workplace healthcare, to go alongside workplace pensions.
Personally, I'd prefer trying to fix the NHS - but I can see how continuing to run it down might be a very popular with the sort of voters the Tories will need to attract if they're to regain power at some point in the 2030s.
Where is Nigel Farage's policy on shutting down the NHS?
CRITICAL REFORMS NEEDED IN THE FIRST 100 DAYS: End Doctor and Nurse Shortages All frontline NHS and social care staff to pay zero basic rate tax for 3 years. This will help retain existing staff and attract many who have left to return. End training caps for all UK medical students. Write off student fees pro rata per year over 10 years of NHS service for all doctors, nurses and medical staff. Use Independent Healthcare Capacity We will harness independent and not-for-profit health provision in the UK and overseas. Tax Relief of 20% on all Private Healthcare and Insurance This will improve care for all by relieving pressure on the NHS. Those who rely on the NHS will enjoy faster, better care. Independent healthcare capacity will grow rapidly, providing competition and reducing costs. Thereafter: Put Patients in Charge With a New NHS Voucher Scheme NHS Patients will receive a voucher for private treatment if they can’t see a GP within 3 days. For a consultant it would be 3 weeks. For an operation, 9 weeks. Services will always be free at the point of use. Improve Efficiency. Cut Waste and Unnecessary Managers Operating theatres must be open on weekends. Rotas must be planned further in advance. Nail down better prices using economies of scale. Review all NHS Private Finance Contracts for significant savings potential. Charge those who fail to attend medical appointments without notice. Abolish the NHS Race and Health Observatory. Save A&E Cut waiting times with a campaign of ‘Pharmacy First, GP Second, A&E Last’. We will offer tax incentives for new pharmacies and those who employ more staff to assist in relieving pressure on A&E. Excess Deaths and Vaccine Harms Public Inquiry Excess deaths are nearly as high as they were during the Covid pandemic. Young people are over-represented.
That bit of the manifesto pre-dates Farage's return as leader. He said in the BBC debate that the NHS was broken, and that he wanted insurance-based system instead.
It's the one Refuk policy that stands out amongst people I know - most people get private health insurance from their employer (and pay tax on it!), but can't use it because how does anyone with a job ever manage to see an NHS GP?
Even the online doctor services turn out to be NHS fronts. The only ones that aren't only offer extremely limited services, around stuff like hair loss or fertility. It's generally cheaper and easier to go to another country if you have connections there.
"As President Biden insists he will stay in the presidential race, Democrats are growing increasingly alarmed that his presence on the ticket is transforming the political map, turning light-blue states into contested battlegrounds.
Down-ballot Democrats, local elected officials and party strategists say Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia — all of which Mr. Biden won comfortably in 2020 — could be in play in November after his miserable debate performance last month."
NY Times
Yes, a few months ago despite worries over his age the hope was the old battleground states were going back into play. But can Biden win places like Arizona this time, which were so close last time? Doesn't look like it.
Biden lost to Trump on the Thursday evening of that debate. It's over. Maybe I am wrong but I think - brace!!
If he did Trump should be on 55-60% in polls now and heading for a landslide.
He isn't, he is still polling the 45% and a bit he got in 2016 and 2020. Independents are still not yet firmly in either camp. The conventions, Trump's sentencing and VP pick and the final debate if it goes ahead and how the economy looks in the autumn all remain factors
Biden is toast. Every appearence between now and the election will increase the realisation that he is not fit for office. Your faith in the polls is garbage as they are only valid until the next gaff.
If Biden is the candidate in November, Trump walks it and we are all screwed.
Sadly, I agree with most of that (we cannot exclude Trump, or his campaign, imploding before November).
It's like the Tories: For yonks, I've been saying Labour would win a humongous majority. The reason? The Tories were damaged by their own actions, there was no sign of them learning from their mistakes, and even if they did, the media and public were in no mood to listen. There was no way back, especially given the time available.
It's the same with Biden now. Even if his faculties were 100%, and far better than any PBers, any slight gaffe or mistake would be taken as evidence that he wasn't. The story is that he is incapable, and people will look for stuff to reinforce that story, not the contrary. Because "Man is fine" is not much of a story. "Man is mentally ill!" is much more of a story.
I posted this morning that I’m a few years older than Biden, and sound of mind, although not of body! No way nowadays would I commit myself to a long-term project although my wife assures me that I could.
ConHome finds in their latest survey Tory members reject any proposal to merge with ReformUK. However many do want to try and get an electoral pact with Reform.
you Tories will be fighting each other for the next 10 years instead of Labour. Or in your case surrendering to the LDs.
Reform have 5 seats and are second in 98 seats. Of that reform are second to Labour in 91 seats, seats the Tories havent a hope in hell of winning. Cut a pact to let them have a free ride in 100 seats and they stand down in the others.
Avoid a pointless conflict and take the war to Starmer. Farage will be trying to secure Labour votes while you worry about the Blue wall and the LDs.
You won't fit three of those egos in the same room. They'll spontaneously combust years before the next election.
Everyone bewails the possibility of the Tories going 'into their comfort zone' and becoming an unelectable party because they swerve right before seeing sense and embracing 'centrism' again, but what if their actual wilderness years aren't that - what if their unelectability is going to come from resentful centrist turds who insist that Farage and all his works be condemned to the last MP, and make the party into a corporatist ivory tower, Labour without the voters - the Lib Dems without the enthused base. Farage won't believe his luck.
I think you are right.
Strategically, there is little to gain for the Tories in this Parliament trying to occupy the ground held by Labour and the LDs. That’s not necessarily my preference but I see how a Tory Party that just offers a less competent version of Labour could really suffer electorally.
I mostly agree with that, and think that the Tories ought to be chasing whatever right-wing positions resonate with younger.
For example, plenty of under-40s think that the NHS is fucked beyond redemption, so the Faragist position of shutting it down might prove to be surprisingly popular. Perhaps the Tories could come up with a less extreme version - how about a policy of forcing private health insurers to stop requiring people to go through crap NHS GP gatekeepers? That would surely be a big vote-winner.
Ensuring that all employers provide private health insurance would be another sensible policy for them - workplace healthcare, to go alongside workplace pensions.
Personally, I'd prefer trying to fix the NHS - but I can see how continuing to run it down might be a very popular with the sort of voters the Tories will need to attract if they're to regain power at some point in the 2030s.
My (working) son had a painful sinus condition. Phoned doctor. All appointments gone, try again at 8AM tomorrow.
looked up web GP on Google. Secured 15 min video appointment 2 hours later. £40. Prescription provided direct to chemists for collection an hour later. Because it was a private prescription he paid actual cost £5, half the price of an NHS prescription.
Is it any surprise young people think it's a waste of the taxes they pay?
I don't remember half of this venom being directed at Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, back when they were censoring the fuck out of the Leab Leak hypothesis, at the behest of the Biden Admin. Which is far far worse and more important than anything Musk has allegedly done
The PB left are pitifiul hypocrites, with weakened brains
I don't remember Dorsey or Zuckerberg pretending to be champions of free speech while suing people who exercised that right?
It seems to me that a lot of people are posting what they think the position should be rather than looking objectively at what the position actually is.
I suggest everyone goes to the link and takes just a couple of minutes to carefully scroll down 538's listing of the most recent polls.
There's no evidence at all that Harris is outperforming Biden - indeed the contrary is the case - in most cases Biden is outpolling Harris. And that's despite the debate - which will fade over time, and there isn't going to be a debate near election day.
Essentially the Tories need to get back to being Conservatives. If voters want the LDs they will vote LD, if voters want Reform they will vote Reform.
The Tories need to retain a distinctive Tory and conservative identity as their best chance to retain and increase support, especially if the Labour government loses popularity
As I don't support either the Conservatives or Reform, I imagine my view doesn't count for much in this.
From the outside, however, I've always seen a huge paradox in Reform - the leadership (Farage, Tice) are Thatcherites supporting lower taxes especially (I suspect) for the wealthy and arguing the benefits of trickledown. The Reform voter set is more complex and nuanced - there will be some who think that way but my feeling is many want higher spending but they want it in WWC areas rather than on "migrants". Both sides of the Reform circle can agree on the need to reduce immigration but that's more about tightening the rules of entry for the 96% legal migration rather than worrying about the 4% illegal. Beyond that, and a general cultural conservatism,. I don't see much to hold Reform together.
As for the Conservative Party, the key has to be to return to the days of sound fiscal management. Eliminating the deficit and reducing the debt (and hoping economic growth and lower interest rates will alleviate the debt repayments). The elephant in the room is how do you return the public finances to surplus (or near) given the huge pressures on Services (NHS, education, defence, prisons to name but four)? Osborne worked on £5 of spending cuts for every £1 of tax rises - now, a future Conservative Shadow CoE might play a similar game or they might take a long look at tax rates and allowances.
I don't remember half of this venom being directed at Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, back when they were censoring the fuck out of the Leab Leak hypothesis, at the behest of the Biden Admin. Which is far far worse and more important than anything Musk has allegedly done
The PB left are pitifiul hypocrites, with weakened brains
I don't remember Dorsey or Zuckerberg pretending to be champions of free speech while suing people who exercised that right?
lol! You don't think Facebook and Twitter sold themselves as "the good guys"???
Get a grip
With all due respect, my issue is simply this:
Musk pretends that he gives a shit about free speech. Zuckerberg and Dorsey might or might not give a shit about free speech. But they certainly don't go out and pretend that they are - what were Musk's words - "a free speech absolutist".
Musk then demonstrates he is only really in favor of free speech he agrees with when he starts trying to sue critics into oblivion and publicly cancels the Twitter account of someone who does nothing more than track his private jet.
At the very least, he is absurdly thin skinned. More likely, he's a total hypocrite.
BIB - Are you talking about Leon or Musk?
One thing I am not is thin-skinned. People say ALL kinds of shit about mne on here, like I am a Nazi, a pedophile, or a fucking secret Lib Dem, I don't mind, it's a site for debate and I like vigorous debate, and I really don't care about nasty words
Also, no, not a hypocrite. A drunken hedonistic narcissist with major kinky dom issues, sure, I did a rape trial for that, but they acquitted me. What I am NOT is an over-sharer
Comments
And Reform aren't going to have a list of results achieved. Piss and wind will be the sum of their presence in Westminster.
"Mike Brearley: Jimmy Anderson is the best swing bowler ever but I could have got more out of him
The former England captain looks back on his cricketing career and explains how he used locker-room techniques to retrain as a psychoanalyst"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/12/mike-brearley-on-jimmy-anderson/
Just Tory navel gazing. Keep this up and youll be out of power for ages or just plain dead.
Strategically, there is little to gain for the Tories in this Parliament trying to occupy the ground held by Labour and the LDs. That’s not necessarily my preference but I see how a Tory Party that just offers a less competent version of Labour could really suffer electorally.
The focus is still almost entirely on Biden's weaknesses, and if he is nominated I'm sure that will continue.
If Starmer can make his realignment stick it might cause some difficulties for the Libdems in 2029.
Because if not, you have an identical American twin taking a holiday here. En famille
Now I wonder who else is here from PB. I think the clearly insane guy glaring at me over his crème de menthe frappe might be @IanB2
Anyway we will find out more soon enough:
"We look forward to a very public battle in court, so that the people of Europe can know the truth"
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1811805084981834164?t=MuJnuBka61jDheKDj54evg&s=19
Then we can all be like Rupe and back the winner every time.
Whereas accusing his business competitors of an "illegal deal" . . .
If so, I will warn her.
Nasser Hussain captain of the men's cricket team, there is no more exalted rank in the world.
In general, name changing has fallen sharply in the past decade: just over half of all women and around 10% of men now change their name on marriage.
You'd expect that fall to continue, especially since we're now preventing people from voting unless their names match those on their passports.
Bloody lazy cricketers...
James Taylor
@Jamestaylor2
There you go…confirmation of the new Minister for Disabled People
@stephenctimms - great appointment. We @scope look forward to working with you
https://x.com/Jamestaylor2/status/1811792180349898978
Indeed, he's inordinately fond of using the courts to try and prevent free speech. Which makes me think that he's only really in favour of the kind of free speech he agrees with.
Or, indeed, the way he sued Media Matters over their research.
Basically, like a lot of very rich people (of all political hues), he's turned into a bit of a bullying asshole.
"As President Biden insists he will stay in the presidential race, Democrats are growing increasingly alarmed that his presence on the ticket is transforming the political map, turning light-blue states into contested battlegrounds.
Down-ballot Democrats, local elected officials and party strategists say Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia — all of which Mr. Biden won comfortably in 2020 — could be in play in November after his miserable debate performance last month."
NY Times
(I feel sure this point will have been made by the time my comment comes through).
But there is something about allegiance and cricket which irrationally gets to people. It famously annoyed Norman Tebbit. It has bewildered England's captain Nasser Hussain, a Madras-born, non-practising Muslim who cannot understand why British-born Asians do not support England.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2002/jun/21/cricket.religion
(and before his mother says "he was bullied!", kids who are bullied sometimes turn into bullies themselves.)
If you get any breaks in the grisaille, do try the Crozon peninsula. And Ile De Sein is probably BETTER in the rain and mist - certainly if you want Noom
That does still mean a risk of the going into a comfort zone territory, but I think there's a balance to be struck there - sort themselves out without going full on just please the extremes territory, it's basically about not closing off the possibility of going broader later, even if for now they need to focus on their core right-centre right audience.
'F**king finally, a criminal question' - barrister fined for swearing through ethics exam
A pupil barrister has been fined £500 by the Bar Standards Board for letting out his inner voice during an exam.
Jack Sadler, who was at 5KBW and is also an accomplished photographer, turned the air blue during his Professional Ethics Assessment last July.
Sadler was sitting the exam remotely and said he didn’t realise his webcam was being used to record his voice and actions. The BSB highlighted seven comments it viewed as crossing a line.
When the exam proctor, who can communicate with candidates via an online chat, told Sadler to show his desk to the camera and reminded him that he couldn’t wear any kind of watch, the barrister exclaimed, “What is a watch going to do, how the fuck am I going to cheat with a watch, come on”.
Sadler wasn't delighted at the proctor's attempts to contact him, blurting out, “What? Fucking piss off, I don’t need to start a fucking chat”.
“This is annoying, oh my god, this is going to really piss me off”, he said, before apparently deciding to ignore the alerts: “Right, go away now, fine, just going to sit there fucking flashing and be annoying”.
Later, Sadler expressed his relief at coming across a preferred topic: “Fucking finally, a criminal question… This civil shit... How can you have any ethics if you’re a civil practitioner, honestly”.
The thrill appears to have worn off quickly, however, prompting Sadler to remark, “I’m so fucking bored of this”.
https://www.rollonfriday.com/news-content/fking-finally-criminal-question-barrister-fined-swearing-through-ethics-exam
For example, plenty of under-40s think that the NHS is fucked beyond redemption, so the Faragist position of shutting it down might prove to be surprisingly popular. Perhaps the Tories could come up with a less extreme version - how about a policy of forcing private health insurers to stop requiring people to go through crap NHS GP gatekeepers? That would surely be a big vote-winner.
Ensuring that all employers provide private health insurance would be another sensible policy for them - workplace healthcare, to go alongside workplace pensions.
Personally, I'd prefer trying to fix the NHS - but I can see how continuing to run it down might be a very popular with the sort of voters the Tories will need to attract if they're to regain power at some point in the 2030s.
Hackers steal call records of 'nearly all' AT&T customers
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c51yemmmg9mo
Call and text metadata can reveal who was in contact with whom.
And let us never forget that whatever he says now about his plans for Twitter and the importance of it, he wanted to and tried to back out of the deal (and I believe is suing or did sue the old twitter lawyers who successfully forced him to go through with it).
"Violent offenders among inmates set for early release to solve prisons crisis"
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/prison-early-release-plan-labour-starmer-67cnfc9k9
If only that had been the case!
As for combining double-barrel names and ending up with quad-barrel monikers, never been that popular, even when Brit twits were (in)famous for seeming profusion of "Smith-Smythe" and the like.
UNLESS of course you're talking about royals & their relations spawned in the "German kennels"!
I don't remember half of this venom being directed at Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, back when they were censoring the fuck out of the Leab Leak hypothesis, at the behest of the Biden Admin. Which is far far worse and more important than anything Musk has allegedly done
The PB left are pitifiul hypocrites, with weakened brains
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c72546evnpxo
He isn't, he is still polling the 45% and a bit he got in 2016 and 2020. Independents are still not yet firmly in either camp. The conventions, Trump's sentencing and VP pick and the final debate if it goes ahead and how the economy looks in the autumn all remain factors
Quail
You can buy them in almost any big French supermarket. Slather them in fine olive, oil, good butter, sea salt, cracked pepper, and shove them in a preheated oven - 250C - for just 15 minutes. 15 minutes!!!
They emerge perfect and golden. Easily as good as a good roast chicken, two of them feed one, and they are fun to eat because they're so tiny, you can chew some of the bones
So simple. Why can't we have quail in Tesco?
If Biden is the candidate in November, Trump walks it and we are all screwed.
CRITICAL REFORMS NEEDED IN THE
FIRST 100 DAYS:
End Doctor and Nurse Shortages
All frontline NHS and social care staff to pay zero
basic rate tax for 3 years. This will help retain existing
staff and attract many who have left to return. End
training caps for all UK medical students. Write off
student fees pro rata per year over 10 years of NHS
service for all doctors, nurses and medical staff.
Use Independent Healthcare Capacity
We will harness independent and not-for-profit
health provision in the UK and overseas.
Tax Relief of 20% on all Private Healthcare
and Insurance
This will improve care for all by relieving pressure
on the NHS. Those who rely on the NHS will enjoy
faster, better care. Independent healthcare capacity
will grow rapidly, providing competition and
reducing costs.
Thereafter:
Put Patients in Charge With a New NHS
Voucher Scheme
NHS Patients will receive a voucher for private
treatment if they can’t see a GP within 3 days.
For a consultant it would be 3 weeks. For an
operation, 9 weeks. Services will always be free
at the point of use.
Improve Efficiency. Cut Waste and
Unnecessary Managers
Operating theatres must be open on weekends.
Rotas must be planned further in advance. Nail
down better prices using economies of scale.
Review all NHS Private Finance Contracts for
significant savings potential. Charge those who fail
to attend medical appointments without notice.
Abolish the NHS Race and Health Observatory.
Save A&E
Cut waiting times with a campaign of ‘Pharmacy
First, GP Second, A&E Last’. We will offer tax
incentives for new pharmacies and those who
employ more staff to assist in relieving pressure
on A&E.
Excess Deaths and Vaccine Harms
Public Inquiry
Excess deaths are nearly as high as they were
during the Covid pandemic. Young people are
over-represented.
Get a grip
This is why many people love Zuckerberg. Not.
The best alternative I can find is https://metro.co.uk/2024/02/21/dont-understand-women-change-surname-marriage-20321581/ which reckons 60% of people change name, but appears to be based on a voodoo poll for a site promoting big weddings, so is probably fairly distorted.
It's like the Tories: For yonks, I've been saying Labour would win a humongous majority. The reason? The Tories were damaged by their own actions, there was no sign of them learning from their mistakes, and even if they did, the media and public were in no mood to listen. There was no way back, especially given the time available.
It's the same with Biden now. Even if his faculties were 100%, and far better than any PBers, any slight gaffe or mistake would be taken as evidence that he wasn't. The story is that he is incapable, and people will look for stuff to reinforce that story, not the contrary. Because "Man is fine" is not much of a story. "Man is mentally ill!" is much more of a story.
Generally politicians not doing stuff is better than when they do in my view, but with Trump I'd prefer not to take the risk and Biden needs to go damned sharpish.
It remains close. Nearly half of Americans will vote for Trump even if he is in prison, nearly half of Americans will vote for Biden even if he is in a coma.
Musk pretends that he gives a shit about free speech. Zuckerberg and Dorsey might or might not give a shit about free speech. But they certainly don't go out and pretend that they are - what were Musk's words - "a free speech absolutist".
Musk then demonstrates he is only really in favor of free speech he agrees with when he starts trying to sue critics into oblivion and publicly cancels the Twitter account of someone who does nothing more than track his private jet.
At the very least, he is absurdly thin skinned. More likely, he's a total hypocrite.
https://conservativehome.com/2024/07/12/our-survey-by-the-barest-of-margins-a-majority-of-panellists-reject-allying-with-reform-uk/
(Yes, they did work with the Post Office on Horizon.)
Compared to that??
OMG Musk allows right wing views on his website! Well, guess what, a lot of people have rightwing views. They exist. Hear them, or you end up with voters electing Nazis
It's the one Refuk policy that stands out amongst people I know - most people get private health insurance from their employer (and pay tax on it!), but can't use it because how does anyone with a job ever manage to see an NHS GP?
Even the online doctor services turn out to be NHS fronts. The only ones that aren't only offer extremely limited services, around stuff like hair loss or fertility. It's generally cheaper and easier to go to another country if you have connections there.
looked up web GP on Google. Secured 15 min video appointment 2 hours later. £40. Prescription provided direct to chemists for collection an hour later. Because it was a private prescription he paid actual cost £5, half the price of an NHS prescription.
Is it any surprise young people think it's a waste of the taxes they pay?
I suggest everyone goes to the link and takes just a couple of minutes to carefully scroll down 538's listing of the most recent polls.
There's no evidence at all that Harris is outperforming Biden - indeed the contrary is the case - in most cases Biden is outpolling Harris. And that's despite the debate - which will fade over time, and there isn't going to be a debate near election day.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/
From the outside, however, I've always seen a huge paradox in Reform - the leadership (Farage, Tice) are Thatcherites supporting lower taxes especially (I suspect) for the wealthy and arguing the benefits of trickledown. The Reform voter set is more complex and nuanced - there will be some who think that way but my feeling is many want higher spending but they want it in WWC areas rather than on "migrants". Both sides of the Reform circle can agree on the need to reduce immigration but that's more about tightening the rules of entry for the 96% legal migration rather than worrying about the 4% illegal. Beyond that, and a general cultural conservatism,. I don't see much to hold Reform together.
As for the Conservative Party, the key has to be to return to the days of sound fiscal management. Eliminating the deficit and reducing the debt (and hoping economic growth and lower interest rates will alleviate the debt repayments). The elephant in the room is how do you return the public finances to surplus (or near) given the huge pressures on Services (NHS, education, defence, prisons to name but four)? Osborne worked on £5 of spending cuts for every £1 of tax rises - now, a future Conservative Shadow CoE might play a similar game or they might take a long look at tax rates and allowances.
Also, no, not a hypocrite. A drunken hedonistic narcissist with major kinky dom issues, sure, I did a rape trial for that, but they acquitted me. What I am NOT is an over-sharer