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Money, money, money – politicalbetting.com
Money, money, money – politicalbetting.com
The Conservatives are expected to use their party conference to hold the hustings between the final two candidates for leader amid concerns that the party doesn’t have enough money for a longer contest ?? https://t.co/RTbd3pSQHr
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https://x.com/Superbreeze_Bex/status/1813104826261115214
https://x.com/TSEofPB/status/1813105003017490760
winner takes it all.
Perhaps the likes of Cameron, Osborne, May, Boris and Truss might donate some of the many millions they've received from 'giving speeches' and pimping themselves out to oligarchs since leaving office.
SNP received no private donations in week before election
Party is also struggling with falling membership, which is believed to be down to half of its 2019 peak of 125,000
The SNP’s financial crisis has deepened after it was revealed that the party received no money from private donors during the crucial closing stages of the general election campaign.
According to figures reported to the Electoral Commission for the final week of campaigning and polling day itself, £1.9 million was given by donors to political parties. The UK Labour Party received nearly £1.4 million and the Conservatives £350,000.
But the Scottish nationalists received nothing, news that adds to an already bleak financial picture. The party has received no “reportable” private cash donations this year and the only substantial money it received was £317,511 in public funds.
It is also struggling with falling membership. The total number of members is thought to be about half its 2019 peak of 125,000.
Cash from private sources dried up during Humza Yousaf’s period as party leader and first minister, and membership subscriptions and taxpayer cash became the party’s main sources of funds.
However, taxpayer income will fall substantially, with the SNP standing to lose nearly a £1 million a year in Short money, the system under which parties receive £22,296 a year for each elected MP and £44.53 for every 200 votes to assist their work at Westminster.
The party’s hammering by Scottish Labour resulted in a plunge in the number of its MPs from 48 to nine, meaning a drop in income from £1.3 million to £350,000 in Short money.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/snp-received-no-private-donations-in-week-before-election-6b6gfqmh9
The sound quality isn't as good as ear-covering headphones, but about as good as in-ear plugs - except in noisy environments.
I swum two miles in the pool yesterday, and the headphones made the lengths fly by.
https://www.football365.com/news/opinion-16-conclusions-england-euro-2024-final-southgate-out-kane-walker
And (almost back on topic) is Klopp the serious Tom Tugenhadt style candidate to replace the dreary Southgate/ Sunak?
https://x.com/health00810/status/1813011010829361624?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
Either this is the greatest failure by anything ever anywhere since Creation, or some faction of the cops was involved
Ex-MP warns party will get ‘horsed’ at 2026 Holyrood elections unless it urgently changes
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/14/snp-plans-debate-on-national-anthem/
Every adult in Scotland could have donated £10,000 to the SNP in the final week and you wouldn't know.
I thought we were safe until at least 9.00!
But perhaps its a case of not asking what they can do for the Conservative party but what the Conservative party can do for them.
There's no shortage of rich and very rich Conservative politicians.
The reportable figure for a single donation for the last four weeks up to polling day is £11,180.
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Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old gunman who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, was spotted on the roof 26 minutes before the shooting occurred.
The FBI has confirmed that Crooks was seen by law enforcement members from the Allegheny County Police Department on the roof of a building with a clear sightline to the former president.
Despite being alerted to his presence, authorities failed to confront him, allowing him to remain hidden for nearly 30 minutes before he opened fire on Trump and the crowd.
The shocking new allegations have raised questions about how Crooks was able to evade detection and carry out the attack, which left Trump wounded and a member of the crowd dead.
A sniper even took a picture of the suspect with a rangefinder and radioed to the command post before the Trump assassination attempt, CBS reports.
Crooks was on local police and Secret Service's radar for nearly a half hour before the shooting attempt, but he kept "disappearing" before he climbed on the roof.
"Crooks disappeared again and then came back a THIRD time with a backpack," CBS reported. "The snipers called in with information that he had a backpack and said he was walking towards the back of the building."
It gets crazier. The New York Post reports local police were INSIDE the building that Thomas Crooks climbed on top of. The building was carved out of the Secret Service security perimeter and delegated to local police despite it being a "well-known high priority vulnerability.”
Before the shooting, a police officer actually confronted Crooks, who had a rifle. The police officer scrambled back down the ladder, allowing the shooter to fire at least five rounds at the former president.
No one had warned Trump.”
At the very least Trump should have delayed /got off the stage until it was checked out.
It's worth remembering it's only by a real fluke, and an inch or so, that he isn't dead.
*Do not bet on that
This looks increasingly like - at the least - some kind of co-ordinated attempt on Trump’s life, if only by utter negligence. They wanted him dead
Obviously. All the evidence is there. Leon organised the attack.
The counterbalance is that those who want a lot of attention from a political party can buy a lot more sycophancy for their buck. But the market for that has got somewhat weaker as the numbers who have got grief and unwelcome attention from their donations increase. Things are looking tough for the Tories.
FPT: I think managing the relationship with a loose-cannon USA run by a President interested in nothing but himself will be a very major issue, though perhaps with the substance largely hidden, for Mr Starmer. And a tightrope to walk.
We do have a lot of integration in place with European countries in defence, and have some history of creating insulation against Usonian self-interested knee jerks - for example I think Storm Shadow is ITAR-proof ("International Traffic in Arms Regulations" - USA mechanism of control).
By the way, as someone in finance, I strongly recommend against transactions win £9,999 or similar. Short of phoning the police and arranging to have your assets seized....
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/political-party-donations-and-loans-great-britain/which-donations-and-loans-do-you-need-report
FWIW, the last accounts of the SNP had the central party as absolutely insolvent in that it could not pay the money it was due to pay to the branches. That doesn't stop it trading as long as the branches forbear from demanding payment of course but it was a hell of a position to enter a GE campaign from. I don't think I saw a single SNP poster anywhere in my travels.
The several he publicly and falsely labelled as such in Parliament, who had nothing to do with causing the collisions they were involved in, would have something of a motive. To be clear here, the other half of the ones on his little list *did* cause their collisions.
Also to be clear, this is an OT observation, and I'm too busy to do debate
I've heard that the Poles are very interested in (a) setting up factories on their own soil for the defence spending spree and (b) are trying to insist on complete control and ownership without strings on the resulting products.
Funny that.
But I don't think that there is any doubt that the SNP are not attracting the funding they did in Nicola's day and they have not been doing so for a while. Branchform must have a chilling effect on this. Why would anyone want to donate a substantial sum to a political party who are being investigated for misappropriation? There comes a point when this is simply unfair and in my personal view we are now past that.
You're too short.
How likely is that?
For SNP politicos and members this poses a question. Some people want to devote their political lives to causes that can't happen. But not all do. The current situation seems to finish the relevant careers of ambitious SNPs who could have looked to being the group that got victory.
Do they stay and vegetate (PC), stay and really fight (SF), go and do good works (Rory, Portillo, Miliband) or join a mainstream party?
His corrupt judges and Supreme Court judges will back him as we already see.
Plus the strangely delayed scheduling of European produced missile integration into F35 where an American made competitor exists.
But those are compromises of being in bed with an elephant, and I agree need addressing further.
Ultimately much of the required reliance will need to be self-reliance.
Which means spending more on defence and more on industrial infrastructure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_shadow_factories
Sounds like the layers of security (inner/mid/outer) weren't talking to each other as it was a multi-agency effort.
Well done again to the guy who slotted the shooter as it takes a lot of presence and training to identify, acquire and then shoot the guy as it appears he (the SS agent) was looking for a threat further out than this guy so had to make an immediate adjustment to himself and the way he used his weapon.
Hadn't heard that crackers accusation from Trump's VP pick until now.
Ironic, given Labour lost half a dozen seats to Gaza-fixated types.
The UK is, among a rather poor collection, the nuclear state with the most stable government and political system at this moment. Expect this to become more and more interesting to non-nuclear European countries.
"A separate bill has been promised to extend the right to make equal pay claims under the Equality Act to ethnic minority workers and disabled people."
I was pretty sure that equal pay already applied to not just both sexes, but races as well. Was that not the case?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c51y7pqy1v3o
It’s a massive cockup not to have delayed the event though, if they knew there was someone suspicious with a rangefinder and a packback in the close vicinity of the venue and only 150yds from the stage.
The inquiry is going to be all the different groups of police blaming each other. Apparently six different LEAs involved, plus local private security. The FBI will be pleased to be the lead agency running the investigation, that way they’re least likely to have to take any of the blame.
One can well imagine someone of means stepping forward to fund a class action lawsuit on behalf of the victims, although the fundraisers for them are already well into the millions of dollars.
A side bet would be the LDs replacing the Tories as the second party, but psephology makes it hard. LD never (almost) contests with Labour for first and second place.
The fact that they had a good look at this guy just shows that they were doing their job. Even if he was wandering around with a firearm that would be completely legal in the state & the security services wouldn’t have been able to stop him!
The outrageous failure (it seems to me) was to fail to secure the rooftop: It seems that the building had been handed over to the local PD & they failed to secure the building? I doubt Trump’s USSS detail will make that mistake again.
The lesson from Ukraine is don't give up your nuke weapons.
But it could play a small part in condemning a generation of innocent men, women and children to untold misery under Russian occupation.
Think before you post for once
As you say conspiracies are hard because they are far far too complex to work and it is impossible to ensure everyone keeps quiet afterwards. Real life is far too messy.
@leon commented the other day about him having stuff in his car that implied he must have had an escape plan and that was impossible and that therefore he was probably set up (rather than being a lone loony). Someone else responded that it was more likely he was 'a fucking idiot'. The latter is more credible.
I.E. Cockup not conspiracy.
And the problem with calling all cockups conspiracies is that when there is a real conspiracy we miss it because we have cried wolf so many times.
It’s a very weird and very American culture. There was discussion earlier about the local high school having a gun club and a rifle range. The kids in place like PA go hunting with their fathers at the weekend.
The later engages things like benchmarking - so dinner ladies can compare themselves to warehouse operators, for example. That cannot be applied for race and disabled discrimination under the A, which is much more individually focused for redress.
So it is bringing it into line. An average disabled person would be 15-20% down on the non-disabled person, which for a woman would be on top of the "woman discount".
For a comparison. one of my constant problems with anti-wheelchair barriers blocking footpaths is that only an individual disabled person subject to discrimination (eg kept out of the public footpath) by *that* barrier can take legal action under EA2010, and must do it personally. So the difficult process can be used to avoid addressing the issue.
That's as understand it. Note that I personally have certain qualms about how benchmarking works, but that is what I think they are doing.
Most Americans would welcome stricter gun control. The NRA opposes it. It's no contest.
If you’re intent on going out in a way that maximises your infamy then which option are you going to pick?
As you say it seems to be that the local police were handling this area (looking at the uniforms) and not doing it well because they didn't react appropriately for the circumstances.
In the early days of Trump rallies, they actually had to keep making a point of telling everyone to leave their guns at home, as everyone gets searched on the way in (by local security, supervised by the USSS).
The problem here, was that the area where the shooter was seen was outside the official perimeter, but still close enough to get a good view, so there were a lot of people hanging around that area rather than actually going in to the event.
They have been under the legal cosh for corruption, fraud etc for some time, some of it lead by New York DA Letitia James (another reason Trumpists dislike her), and I am not sure what is still standing of the NRA.
Had he taken a single shot & immediately backed off he would might even still be alive, although there’s a decent chance the local PD would have shot him regardless.
Or the police might have reported the crowd suspicions back to the station and left it to them to call someone in Washington. Officer Dibble would not have a radio hotline to the Secret Service. In Britain a common feature of reports into terrorist outrages and other large incidents is the difficulty of inter-agency communication. Each service is on its own network with its own reporting structure, following its own protocols. I expect it is the same there.