Can we please remember, reading that article, that Gavin Newsom cannot be Harris' running mate unless one of them switches registration from California.
I'm not quite sure why people are still considering him as a possibility.
If Harris is hedging on the Gaza conflict that probably also reduces Shapiro's chances, given how stridently pro-Israel he is.
The North Carolina and Kentucky governors are fine politicians and hopefully have big futures, but are unlikely to deliver their states.
Whitmer, ditto the first, but has ruled herself out.
The obvious pick therefore is Kelly from Arizona. And Harris isn't exactly known for aggressive risk-taking.
Even if Harris holds AZ, NV and GA she still needs either MI or PA.
And Kelly offers nothing there.
I'm aware of that, but there's no pick that offers everything. Kelly probably offers as much as anyone else in terms of wide appeal and a real shot at Arizona's votes.
AZ appears to be trending Dem in any case.
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states shows a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
I would be interested in people’s views on whether the VP can deliver a swing state in any event.
I think I’m of the view it can, and can help with voter coalitions, but I suspect the individual in question really needs a strong personal following in their state. Eg, I hear Shapiro is very well liked, is that the case? Kelly seems decent but is there any card he holds that really makes him appeal to the people of Arizona (beyond the fact he’s won an election there?) is there an affinity with voters there?
VP choices aren’t always very reliable at delivering swing states and I think I’m right in saying the majority of them don’t really seek to exploit a personal vote. Paul Ryan was from Wisconsin which I suppose was a swing state (which Romney lost). Kaine was from Virginia but if Clinton was losing Virginia she was going to lose the election anyway.
All the others I can think of in this century haven’t been from swing states.
LBJ certainly delivered Texas for JFK and would have delivered the election for him too as Nixon would have won Illinois without Mayor Daley finding lots of dead bodies.
Personally I think Harris' only chance of beating Trump is to pick PA governor Shapiro as VP who can then deliver Pennsylvania for her ticket. She can then aim to get the black vote in Atlanta and Detroit to turn out in big numbers and keep Georgia and Michigan Democrat. She could then narrowly win the EC even if Trump narrowly wins the popular vote
Wisconsin and Arizona and probably Nevada look to be going for Trump this time.
No they don't.
Trump led Harris by 6% in the last Arizona poll and led Harris by 10% in Nevada
Can we please remember, reading that article, that Gavin Newsom cannot be Harris' running mate unless one of them switches registration from California.
I'm not quite sure why people are still considering him as a possibility.
If Harris is hedging on the Gaza conflict that probably also reduces Shapiro's chances, given how stridently pro-Israel he is.
The North Carolina and Kentucky governors are fine politicians and hopefully have big futures, but are unlikely to deliver their states.
Whitmer, ditto the first, but has ruled herself out.
The obvious pick therefore is Kelly from Arizona. And Harris isn't exactly known for aggressive risk-taking.
Even if Harris holds AZ, NV and GA she still needs either MI or PA.
And Kelly offers nothing there.
I'm aware of that, but there's no pick that offers everything. Kelly probably offers as much as anyone else in terms of wide appeal and a real shot at Arizona's votes.
AZ appears to be trending Dem in any case.
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states shows a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
I would be interested in people’s views on whether the VP can deliver a swing state in any event.
I think I’m of the view it can, and can help with voter coalitions, but I suspect the individual in question really needs a strong personal following in their state. Eg, I hear Shapiro is very well liked, is that the case? Kelly seems decent but is there any card he holds that really makes him appeal to the people of Arizona (beyond the fact he’s won an election there?) is there an affinity with voters there?
VP choices aren’t always very reliable at delivering swing states and I think I’m right in saying the majority of them don’t really seek to exploit a personal vote. Paul Ryan was from Wisconsin which I suppose was a swing state (which Romney lost). Kaine was from Virginia but if Clinton was losing Virginia she was going to lose the election anyway.
All the others I can think of in this century haven’t been from swing states.
LBJ certainly delivered Texas for JFK and would have delivered the election for him too as Nixon would have won Illinois without Mayor Daley finding lots of dead bodies.
Personally I think Harris' only chance of beating Trump is to pick PA governor Shapiro as VP who can then deliver Pennsylvania for her ticket. She can then aim to get the black vote in Atlanta and Detroit to turn out in big numbers and keep Georgia and Michigan Democrat. She could then narrowly win the EC even if Trump narrowly wins the popular vote
Wisconsin and Arizona and probably Nevada look to be going for Trump this time.
I have a vague memory of the then vice-president jokingly boasting that he had delivered the (very small in electoral college terms and reliably Republican) Great State of Wyoming for the Bush-Cheney ticket.
Can Trump win the popular vote? He lost to Hillary by 3 million in an election he won.
Yes no VP candidate has delivered the winning state for the Presidential candidate since LBJ but Shapiro could do so for Harris if she turns out black voters in Atlanta, Detroit and Philadelphia too.
Trump currently doesn't "lead". You insist on using pre- presumptive nominee polling. Why don't you pipe down until you have some realistic data to beat up Kamala?
Can we please remember, reading that article, that Gavin Newsom cannot be Harris' running mate unless one of them switches registration from California.
I'm not quite sure why people are still considering him as a possibility.
If Harris is hedging on the Gaza conflict that probably also reduces Shapiro's chances, given how stridently pro-Israel he is.
The North Carolina and Kentucky governors are fine politicians and hopefully have big futures, but are unlikely to deliver their states.
Whitmer, ditto the first, but has ruled herself out.
The obvious pick therefore is Kelly from Arizona. And Harris isn't exactly known for aggressive risk-taking.
Even if Harris holds AZ, NV and GA she still needs either MI or PA.
And Kelly offers nothing there.
I'm aware of that, but there's no pick that offers everything. Kelly probably offers as much as anyone else in terms of wide appeal and a real shot at Arizona's votes.
AZ appears to be trending Dem in any case.
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states shows a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
I would be interested in people’s views on whether the VP can deliver a swing state in any event.
I think I’m of the view it can, and can help with voter coalitions, but I suspect the individual in question really needs a strong personal following in their state. Eg, I hear Shapiro is very well liked, is that the case? Kelly seems decent but is there any card he holds that really makes him appeal to the people of Arizona (beyond the fact he’s won an election there?) is there an affinity with voters there?
VP choices aren’t always very reliable at delivering swing states and I think I’m right in saying the majority of them don’t really seek to exploit a personal vote. Paul Ryan was from Wisconsin which I suppose was a swing state (which Romney lost). Kaine was from Virginia but if Clinton was losing Virginia she was going to lose the election anyway.
All the others I can think of in this century haven’t been from swing states.
LBJ certainly delivered Texas for JFK and would have delivered the election for him too as Nixon would have won Illinois without Mayor Daley finding lots of dead bodies.
Personally I think Harris' only chance of beating Trump is to pick PA governor Shapiro as VP who can then deliver Pennsylvania for her ticket. She can then aim to get the black vote in Atlanta and Detroit to turn out in big numbers and keep Georgia and Michigan Democrat. She could then narrowly win the EC even if Trump narrowly wins the popular vote
Wisconsin and Arizona and probably Nevada look to be going for Trump this time.
No they don't.
Trump led Harris by 6% in the last Arizona poll and led Harris by 10% in Nevada
The Dems have finally come to their senses, but an overweight, seventy eight year-old male can't be a life-insurer's dream. Vance promises more of the same, without the political nous, if Trump should kick the bucket.
How about Nicky Haley as VP candidate? Might encourage some independents.
A genuine question.
The problem is she's sane and not a fully paid up MAGA fellow traveller for all she has belatedly endorsed Trump.
Remember, Trump doesn't want somebody to increase his popularity. He seems to genuinely believe he's enormously popular and will win easily. He wants a weak tool who will say or do whatever he orders. Vance fits that profile. Haley doesn't.
But that is the question now said to be assailing Trump: does Vance fit the lickspittle profile or is he independently assertive and/or bonkers? If you listen to Vance after being nominated (rather than the old stuff being dragged up) it is not quite what you would expect or Trump would hope for.
Listen to Vance's Ohio speech. It is being attacked because of a duff joke about racist Mountain Dew but listen to the whole thing and Trump is barely mentioned. It sounds more like Vote Vance than Vote Trump. That imo is why Trump will be having doubts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTKNOeKQdR4
"Next week Rachel Reeves will reveal an enormous funding deficit for core public services, having instructed Treasury officials to ask each department to list services that aren’t being financed adequately or are in danger of collapse or where there is some other hidden liability.
Just the liabilities we know about run to untold billions - from the NHS workforce plan, to infected blood and post office compensation, to public pay sector pay awards, to the advanced manufacturing plan, to our creaking nuclear defence capability, to more mainstream defence requirements, to commitments on education and overseas development, to the welfare costs of an epidemic of physical and mental disability, and so on and so on.
It is easy to get to a financing hole of well over £50bn without even taking up the public sector equivalent of the floorboards, or worrying how many of our failing privatised services, water in particular, will end up as taxpayer costs.
None of this is a surprise. I have been banging on for countless weeks that the new government would inherit a fiscal disaster.
So with a face that looks as though she has chewed through a crate of lemons, Reeves is doing a George Osborne: just as in 2010 he built a political and economic strategy for an entire parliament around the charge that the previous Labour government had been spending money it didn’t have, she is blaming Johnson, Truss and Sunak for her toxic fiscal legacy. .....
But what on earth is Reeves’s plan?
Austerity is not available to her - partly because the mess she has inherited was caused in part by that very austerity, and because even the most Starmerite of the hundreds of Labour MPs won’t wear it.
Also she has closed off the option of letting the national debt rise for longer, and mending the fabric through additional borrowing: her fiscal rules are never to be tweaked or re-interpreted, her colleagues tell me; it is as if she went up the mountain and a deity she calls Stability dictated them as permanent commandments.
So obviously she has to increase taxes. There’s nothing else for it. Her autumn budget will have to be a massive reset of the tax system to generate those colossal sums needed to fix the foundations of the state.
Except that approach too looks almost impossible - because Starmer promised in the election he wouldn’t raise money from the biggest available pools, namely income taxes on people, or VAT or corporation tax.
Reeves could increase taxes on capital, but that would alienate the investors and creditors she desperately needs to finance all those wind farms, and new homes and assorted infrastructure projects she and Starmer have promised.
What she’s left with is - possibly - reducing tax breaks on saving for a pension, taxing land and increasing the yield from council tax.
There are arguments for doing all or any of these. But quite how they would raise enough defeats me. "
Labour find things worse than expected especially after offering a wish list of spending to all departments.
Stunned !!
Whereas of course had the Conservatives been re-elected everything would have been sunshine and roses with big tax cuts and spending increases. The Conservatives caused this mess and did the equivalent of sfa about it. That poor can has had more kicks than a 1970s midfielder.
Okay, how to move forward? Assuming the "hole" really is £50 billion, it's not that bad when you consider we pay double that on debt interest payments thanks to previous inane borrowing but I accept it may be the tip of the financial iceberg (or moneyberg if you prefer).
Taxes will have to rise and I think there's more appetite (or acceptance) of that than is generally realised. "Fairness", which shot down Truss's plans, is still the game in town and lower income earners will want to see those with more getting more of the pain - I'm a fan of Land Value Taxation whose time has surely come.
Council Tax is going to be awkward but there has to be a recognition if you are still paying based on the value of your property in 1991 there's a fair chance your asset has multiplied in value quite a bit. We also need more bands so we can cover the extending range in house values up to £10 million.
Osborne, from memory, went with £5 of spending cuts and £1 from tax rises - Reeves might have to do something different.
The funding of Social Care remains one of the big issues around local Government finance.
Immigration has to stop, now. Virtually all of it
Data from Denmark and Holland show that most migrants end up a massive net drain on the exchequer. Yes you may get a nurse but her kids will need an education, which we pay for, and then she brings her mum who needs medication - and so on
Immigration has been a Ponzi scheme for many western countries and it’s all about to collapse. The university sector faces even greater problems
Britain is probably one of the worst placed countries in this respect. I’ve never been so pessimistic for my country. I’m increasingly unsure the UK can survive as we know it, barring some economic miracle (which might happen)
Some Uni's are in a rather bad state, mine is rather more rosy (nice financial statement last week from the departing VC). Ultimately the fees needs to go up a bit. If not, there will be consequences.
No, there needs to be consequences.
One ex Poly not too far from me decided to charge full fees then borrow £300milion to rebuild its campus on a new site based on future fees. Any fee rise is just moral hazard.
Can we please remember, reading that article, that Gavin Newsom cannot be Harris' running mate unless one of them switches registration from California.
I'm not quite sure why people are still considering him as a possibility.
If Harris is hedging on the Gaza conflict that probably also reduces Shapiro's chances, given how stridently pro-Israel he is.
The North Carolina and Kentucky governors are fine politicians and hopefully have big futures, but are unlikely to deliver their states.
Whitmer, ditto the first, but has ruled herself out.
The obvious pick therefore is Kelly from Arizona. And Harris isn't exactly known for aggressive risk-taking.
Even if Harris holds AZ, NV and GA she still needs either MI or PA.
And Kelly offers nothing there.
I'm aware of that, but there's no pick that offers everything. Kelly probably offers as much as anyone else in terms of wide appeal and a real shot at Arizona's votes.
AZ appears to be trending Dem in any case.
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states shows a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
I would be interested in people’s views on whether the VP can deliver a swing state in any event.
I think I’m of the view it can, and can help with voter coalitions, but I suspect the individual in question really needs a strong personal following in their state. Eg, I hear Shapiro is very well liked, is that the case? Kelly seems decent but is there any card he holds that really makes him appeal to the people of Arizona (beyond the fact he’s won an election there?) is there an affinity with voters there?
VP choices aren’t always very reliable at delivering swing states and I think I’m right in saying the majority of them don’t really seek to exploit a personal vote. Paul Ryan was from Wisconsin which I suppose was a swing state (which Romney lost). Kaine was from Virginia but if Clinton was losing Virginia she was going to lose the election anyway.
All the others I can think of in this century haven’t been from swing states.
LBJ certainly delivered Texas for JFK and would have delivered the election for him too as Nixon would have won Illinois without Mayor Daley finding lots of dead bodies.
Personally I think Harris' only chance of beating Trump is to pick PA governor Shapiro as VP who can then deliver Pennsylvania for her ticket. She can then aim to get the black vote in Atlanta and Detroit to turn out in big numbers and keep Georgia and Michigan Democrat. She could then narrowly win the EC even if Trump narrowly wins the popular vote
Wisconsin and Arizona and probably Nevada look to be going for Trump this time.
No they don't.
Trump led Harris by 6% in the last Arizona poll and led Harris by 10% in Nevada
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Interesting that Conservative commentators are debating about attacking her from the left, or excessively focussing on her personal life. They want Trump to stick to attacking her from the right on policy, and let a few of the commentators do the negative campaigning.
What they are going big on at the moment, is the fact that they’re attacking Trump as being a threat to democracy, while ignoring democracy in their own party by seeking to crown a replacement candidate without reference to their own voters.
They are not 'crowning' a replacement. The rules are quite clear; it's just that no one else is prepared to stand against her.
The GOP are just shit stirring, while standing in a midden.
It's not a matter of the rules but the lack of a contest is far from ideal. Surely you can see that?
Changing the nominee this late is the day is not ideal. Replacing him with the VP was going to be pretty well the only way it worked.
In the context of $80m plus in small donations in the 24hrs after Harris declared, how do you manufacture a contest ?
I don't know much about how American politics works. They've got themselves in a mess thanks largely to Biden or those around him. Clearly it would have been better had Harris won the nomination in a contest than simply being given it. I also have little time for the cowards who think 2024 isn't a great time to run so they are going to give it a miss and try for 2028.
How important is it actually to defeat Trump for these people? Is the Republic at risk or not?
Can we please remember, reading that article, that Gavin Newsom cannot be Harris' running mate unless one of them switches registration from California.
I'm not quite sure why people are still considering him as a possibility.
If Harris is hedging on the Gaza conflict that probably also reduces Shapiro's chances, given how stridently pro-Israel he is.
The North Carolina and Kentucky governors are fine politicians and hopefully have big futures, but are unlikely to deliver their states.
Whitmer, ditto the first, but has ruled herself out.
The obvious pick therefore is Kelly from Arizona. And Harris isn't exactly known for aggressive risk-taking.
Even if Harris holds AZ, NV and GA she still needs either MI or PA.
And Kelly offers nothing there.
I'm aware of that, but there's no pick that offers everything. Kelly probably offers as much as anyone else in terms of wide appeal and a real shot at Arizona's votes.
AZ appears to be trending Dem in any case.
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states shows a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
I would be interested in people’s views on whether the VP can deliver a swing state in any event.
I think I’m of the view it can, and can help with voter coalitions, but I suspect the individual in question really needs a strong personal following in their state. Eg, I hear Shapiro is very well liked, is that the case? Kelly seems decent but is there any card he holds that really makes him appeal to the people of Arizona (beyond the fact he’s won an election there?) is there an affinity with voters there?
VP choices aren’t always very reliable at delivering swing states and I think I’m right in saying the majority of them don’t really seek to exploit a personal vote. Paul Ryan was from Wisconsin which I suppose was a swing state (which Romney lost). Kaine was from Virginia but if Clinton was losing Virginia she was going to lose the election anyway.
All the others I can think of in this century haven’t been from swing states.
LBJ certainly delivered Texas for JFK and would have delivered the election for him too as Nixon would have won Illinois without Mayor Daley finding lots of dead bodies.
Personally I think Harris' only chance of beating Trump is to pick PA governor Shapiro as VP who can then deliver Pennsylvania for her ticket. She can then aim to get the black vote in Atlanta and Detroit to turn out in big numbers and keep Georgia and Michigan Democrat. She could then narrowly win the EC even if Trump narrowly wins the popular vote
Wisconsin and Arizona and probably Nevada look to be going for Trump this time.
I have a vague memory of the then vice-president jokingly boasting that he had delivered the (very small in electoral college terms and reliably Republican) Great State of Wyoming for the Bush-Cheney ticket.
Can Trump win the popular vote? He lost to Hillary by 3 million in an election he won.
Yes no VP candidate has delivered the winning state for the Presidential candidate since LBJ but Shapiro could do so for Harris if she turns out black voters in Atlanta, Detroit and Philadelphia too.
Trump currently doesn't "lead". You insist on using pre- presumptive nominee polling. Why don't you pipe down until you have some realistic data to beat up Kamala?
Renowned economist Valentina Bondarenko fell out of her window in Moscow and died. "Injuries sustained were not compatible with life." Her career focused on long-term socio-economic forecasting and modeling in Russia. https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1815895935039545576
The FSB really are an unimaginative bunch of scum.
At this point the repeated use of a ridiculously obvious “fake window accident” is surely a deliberate technique to terrify internal critics
It is so brazen it says “we don’t care that it looks bad, we can do exactly what we like, and no one can stop us”
Probably quite effective
It also tells us to watch the Russian economy. Why are they worried?
Shortly after the war began, they stopped providing the full economic data they were before. Recently, AIUI from Joe Bloggs' channel, they've stopped publishing even the truncated data. I doubt you could even trust those...
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Interesting that Conservative commentators are debating about attacking her from the left, or excessively focussing on her personal life. They want Trump to stick to attacking her from the right on policy, and let a few of the commentators do the negative campaigning.
What they are going big on at the moment, is the fact that they’re attacking Trump as being a threat to democracy, while ignoring democracy in their own party by seeking to crown a replacement candidate without reference to their own voters.
They are not 'crowning' a replacement. The rules are quite clear; it's just that no one else is prepared to stand against her.
The GOP are just shit stirring, while standing in a midden.
It's not a matter of the rules but the lack of a contest is far from ideal. Surely you can see that?
Changing the nominee this late is the day is not ideal. Replacing him with the VP was going to be pretty well the only way it worked.
In the context of $80m plus in small donations in the 24hrs after Harris declared, how do you manufacture a contest ?
And the polling, of course, shows that the vast majority of Democratic voters are behind the choice.
Call me a ridiculous old fuddy duddy but I cannot for the life of me understand why certain sporting events have started before the opening ceremony. If you need longer than 17 days (Friday 26th July to Sunday 11th of August) no-one is going to say you can't, surely?
I'd think it is very simple. All have to be done and dusted before the closing ceremony, I'd think, so the various politicos can glory in how many medals each won.
Subtle change of tone. Illegal migration now defined as something more benign, irregular migration.
I said before the election labour had an open door policy on the issue. Rather like the Tories. Let’s just make sure we have the infrastructure to support it as it’s going to happen anyway.
Irregular migration is a more accurate term. It's not illegal to seek asylum, even if some wish it so.
Yes, one of the many traps that the previous government got itself into was going on and on about illegal immigration when a very high percentage of the small boat people are found to qualify for asylum once they were processed. Under our current regime we are obliged to accept as many qualifying asylum seekers from around the world as can make it to our shores.
In which case we should be told what the number that could potentially be.
The alternative is to set a maximum number of qualifying asylum seekers to be allowed and if that was reached then its an immediate, if unfortunate, rejection of any beyond that.
I reckon there are at least a couple of billion people living in complete shitholes in danger of their life who will qualify for asylum if they make it here. It's why I do not think the current asylum arrangements are sustainable.
I agree that people living in complete shit holes would jump at the chance to live a better life, but sadly I don’t think there’s any way to prevent the people of Doncaster moving where they like in the UK.
House prices? The thought that Rotherham and Barnsley are probably worse?
Doncaster isn't exactly a leafy part of Surrey but it isn't all shit hole. Perhaps I need a photo series...
Like a Leon (or Ian) travel-photo essay, but from a staycation with a view to the Caster Donc Sell?
I'm not sure I'd go as far as recommending a staycation (though for circumstantial reasons, I've been stuck with that), but yes.
The Don isn't exactly the Tarn and the A1 viaducts aren't exactly Millau (even if one is listed) but there are parts that aren't entirely horrible.
There are plenty of areas of the UK that aren't great and could do with improvements but are there any entire cities/boroughs that have absolutely zero reason to go there? I'm not sure there are. There's always something to see. I think we do places down unnecessarily.
Even the aforementioned Rotherham and Barnsley have good points.
The Dems have finally come to their senses, but an overweight, seventy eight year-old male can't be a life-insurer's dream. Vance promises more of the same, without the political nous, if Trump should kick the bucket.
How about Nicky Haley as VP candidate? Might encourage some independents.
A genuine question.
The problem is she's sane and not a fully paid up MAGA fellow traveller for all she has belatedly endorsed Trump.
Remember, Trump doesn't want somebody to increase his popularity. He seems to genuinely believe he's enormously popular and will win easily. He wants a weak tool who will say or do whatever he orders. Vance fits that profile. Haley doesn't.
But that is the question now said to be assailing Trump: does Vance fit the lickspittle profile or is he independently assertive and/or bonkers? If you listen to Vance after being nominated (rather than the old stuff being dragged up) it is not quite what you would expect or Trump would hope for.
Listen to Vance's Ohio speech. It is being attacked because of a duff joke about racist Mountain Dew but listen to the whole thing and Trump is barely mentioned. It sounds more like Vote Vance than Vote Trump. That imo is why Trump will be having doubts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTKNOeKQdR4
McGovern kicked Eagleton off the ticket on August 1st in 1972. If DJT is going to dump JDV then the window to do it is pretty tight without causing irreparable damage to the campaign. Even doing it then mortally wounded McGovern. I can't imagine DJT knows anything at all about the '72 campaign but somebody on his staff must.
It's going to take a lot more than a few Trump skeptical quotes from a few years ago as long as the polls stay solid for Trump.
American politics is far more entertaining than British politics. Everything just matters so much more.
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Centrist? Trump has already called her radical left and said that even Biden was more mainstream.
Harris has now refused to attend PM Netanyahu's address to Congress in a snub to Israel and 'she was rated by the non-partisan congressional scorekeeper GovTrack as one of the most left-wing among dozens of Democratic senators during her tenure.' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn053pnv0k1o
She was attacked by the left when she was a prosecutor. For being too harsh
Harris may not be as radical left as AOC or Sanders yes but she will still be the most left liberal presidential candidate the Democrats have nominated since Dukakis, indeed arguably since McGovern
Can we please remember, reading that article, that Gavin Newsom cannot be Harris' running mate unless one of them switches registration from California.
I'm not quite sure why people are still considering him as a possibility.
If Harris is hedging on the Gaza conflict that probably also reduces Shapiro's chances, given how stridently pro-Israel he is.
The North Carolina and Kentucky governors are fine politicians and hopefully have big futures, but are unlikely to deliver their states.
Whitmer, ditto the first, but has ruled herself out.
The obvious pick therefore is Kelly from Arizona. And Harris isn't exactly known for aggressive risk-taking.
Even if Harris holds AZ, NV and GA she still needs either MI or PA.
And Kelly offers nothing there.
I'm aware of that, but there's no pick that offers everything. Kelly probably offers as much as anyone else in terms of wide appeal and a real shot at Arizona's votes.
AZ appears to be trending Dem in any case.
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states shows a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
I would be interested in people’s views on whether the VP can deliver a swing state in any event.
I think I’m of the view it can, and can help with voter coalitions, but I suspect the individual in question really needs a strong personal following in their state. Eg, I hear Shapiro is very well liked, is that the case? Kelly seems decent but is there any card he holds that really makes him appeal to the people of Arizona (beyond the fact he’s won an election there?) is there an affinity with voters there?
VP choices aren’t always very reliable at delivering swing states and I think I’m right in saying the majority of them don’t really seek to exploit a personal vote. Paul Ryan was from Wisconsin which I suppose was a swing state (which Romney lost). Kaine was from Virginia but if Clinton was losing Virginia she was going to lose the election anyway.
All the others I can think of in this century haven’t been from swing states.
LBJ certainly delivered Texas for JFK and would have delivered the election for him too as Nixon would have won Illinois without Mayor Daley finding lots of dead bodies.
Personally I think Harris' only chance of beating Trump is to pick PA governor Shapiro as VP who can then deliver Pennsylvania for her ticket. She can then aim to get the black vote in Atlanta and Detroit to turn out in big numbers and keep Georgia and Michigan Democrat. She could then narrowly win the EC even if Trump narrowly wins the popular vote
Wisconsin and Arizona and probably Nevada look to be going for Trump this time.
I have a vague memory of the then vice-president jokingly boasting that he had delivered the (very small in electoral college terms and reliably Republican) Great State of Wyoming for the Bush-Cheney ticket.
Can Trump win the popular vote? He lost to Hillary by 3 million in an election he won.
Yes no VP candidate has delivered the winning state for the Presidential candidate since LBJ but Shapiro could do so for Harris if she turns out black voters in Atlanta, Detroit and Philadelphia too.
Trump currently doesn't "lead". You insist on using pre- presumptive nominee polling. Why don't you pipe down until you have some realistic data to beat up Kamala?
The Reuters poll which you ignore puts Harris ahead.
There are few on here who can extrapolate polling as astutely as you can. Why then are you ignoring your own instincts to use dodgy data to shill for Trump?
Nice PMQs. Rishi is much better as LOTO than he was PM.
Subtle change of tone. Illegal migration now defined as something more benign, irregular migration.
I said before the election labour had an open door policy on the issue. Rather like the Tories. Let’s just make sure we have the infrastructure to support it as it’s going to happen anyway.
Irregular migration is a more accurate term. It's not illegal to seek asylum, even if some wish it so.
Yes, one of the many traps that the previous government got itself into was going on and on about illegal immigration when a very high percentage of the small boat people are found to qualify for asylum once they were processed. Under our current regime we are obliged to accept as many qualifying asylum seekers from around the world as can make it to our shores.
In which case we should be told what the number that could potentially be.
The alternative is to set a maximum number of qualifying asylum seekers to be allowed and if that was reached then its an immediate, if unfortunate, rejection of any beyond that.
I reckon there are at least a couple of billion people living in complete shitholes in danger of their life who will qualify for asylum if they make it here. It's why I do not think the current asylum arrangements are sustainable.
I agree that people living in complete shit holes would jump at the chance to live a better life, but sadly I don’t think there’s any way to prevent the people of Doncaster moving where they like in the UK.
House prices? The thought that Rotherham and Barnsley are probably worse?
Doncaster isn't exactly a leafy part of Surrey but it isn't all shit hole. Perhaps I need a photo series...
Like a Leon (or Ian) travel-photo essay, but from a staycation with a view to the Caster Donc Sell?
I'm not sure I'd go as far as recommending a staycation (though for circumstantial reasons, I've been stuck with that), but yes.
The Don isn't exactly the Tarn and the A1 viaducts aren't exactly Millau (even if one is listed) but there are parts that aren't entirely horrible.
There are plenty of areas of the UK that aren't great and could do with improvements but are there any entire cities/boroughs that have absolutely zero reason to go there? I'm not sure there are. There's always something to see. I think we do places down unnecessarily.
Even the aforementioned Rotherham and Barnsley have good points.
Graun has been doing a series on less obvious UK towns to visit.
For instance, this one in the series covers Port Talbot, Rochdale, Wick, Croydon and Kettering
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Interesting that Conservative commentators are debating about attacking her from the left, or excessively focussing on her personal life. They want Trump to stick to attacking her from the right on policy, and let a few of the commentators do the negative campaigning.
What they are going big on at the moment, is the fact that they’re attacking Trump as being a threat to democracy, while ignoring democracy in their own party by seeking to crown a replacement candidate without reference to their own voters.
They are not 'crowning' a replacement. The rules are quite clear; it's just that no one else is prepared to stand against her.
The GOP are just shit stirring, while standing in a midden.
It's not a matter of the rules but the lack of a contest is far from ideal. Surely you can see that?
Changing the nominee this late is the day is not ideal. Replacing him with the VP was going to be pretty well the only way it worked.
In the context of $80m plus in small donations in the 24hrs after Harris declared, how do you manufacture a contest ?
And the polling, of course, shows that the vast majority of Democratic voters are behind the choice.
Harris will need to repeat Obama's trick in 2012 and get huge black turnout in swing states to overcome Independents likely going for Trump as they went for Romney then. Plus have a VP from a swing state like Shapiro, Whitmer or Kelly to add that to her column
Subtle change of tone. Illegal migration now defined as something more benign, irregular migration.
I said before the election labour had an open door policy on the issue. Rather like the Tories. Let’s just make sure we have the infrastructure to support it as it’s going to happen anyway.
Irregular migration is a more accurate term. It's not illegal to seek asylum, even if some wish it so.
Yes, one of the many traps that the previous government got itself into was going on and on about illegal immigration when a very high percentage of the small boat people are found to qualify for asylum once they were processed. Under our current regime we are obliged to accept as many qualifying asylum seekers from around the world as can make it to our shores.
In which case we should be told what the number that could potentially be.
The alternative is to set a maximum number of qualifying asylum seekers to be allowed and if that was reached then its an immediate, if unfortunate, rejection of any beyond that.
I reckon there are at least a couple of billion people living in complete shitholes in danger of their life who will qualify for asylum if they make it here. It's why I do not think the current asylum arrangements are sustainable.
I agree that people living in complete shit holes would jump at the chance to live a better life, but sadly I don’t think there’s any way to prevent the people of Doncaster moving where they like in the UK.
House prices? The thought that Rotherham and Barnsley are probably worse?
Doncaster isn't exactly a leafy part of Surrey but it isn't all shit hole. Perhaps I need a photo series...
Like a Leon (or Ian) travel-photo essay, but from a staycation with a view to the Caster Donc Sell?
I'm not sure I'd go as far as recommending a staycation (though for circumstantial reasons, I've been stuck with that), but yes.
The Don isn't exactly the Tarn and the A1 viaducts aren't exactly Millau (even if one is listed) but there are parts that aren't entirely horrible.
There are plenty of areas of the UK that aren't great and could do with improvements but are there any entire cities/boroughs that have absolutely zero reason to go there? I'm not sure there are. There's always something to see. I think we do places down unnecessarily.
Even the aforementioned Rotherham and Barnsley have good points.
Renowned economist Valentina Bondarenko fell out of her window in Moscow and died. "Injuries sustained were not compatible with life." Her career focused on long-term socio-economic forecasting and modeling in Russia. https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1815895935039545576
The FSB really are an unimaginative bunch of scum.
At this point the repeated use of a ridiculously obvious “fake window accident” is surely a deliberate technique to terrify internal critics
It is so brazen it says “we don’t care that it looks bad, we can do exactly what we like, and no one can stop us”
Probably quite effective
It also tells us to watch the Russian economy. Why are they worried?
Russian interest rates are about to go up from 16% to possibly 18%, definitely nothing to worry about there whatsoever…
Apologies if I have missed this, but is anything known about why the soldier was stabbed in Kent? No mention of terrorism, but that doesn't rule it out, surely?
Drunken thuggery? Mental health? Family dispute?
All are orders of magnitude more likely than terrorism.
Why do you say that? Its not like we've not a previous incident of a soldier stabbed in a terror attack?
Orders of magnitude more soldiers have been stabbed for the above reasons than for terrorism.
Subtle change of tone. Illegal migration now defined as something more benign, irregular migration.
I said before the election labour had an open door policy on the issue. Rather like the Tories. Let’s just make sure we have the infrastructure to support it as it’s going to happen anyway.
Irregular migration is a more accurate term. It's not illegal to seek asylum, even if some wish it so.
Yes, one of the many traps that the previous government got itself into was going on and on about illegal immigration when a very high percentage of the small boat people are found to qualify for asylum once they were processed. Under our current regime we are obliged to accept as many qualifying asylum seekers from around the world as can make it to our shores.
In which case we should be told what the number that could potentially be.
The alternative is to set a maximum number of qualifying asylum seekers to be allowed and if that was reached then its an immediate, if unfortunate, rejection of any beyond that.
I reckon there are at least a couple of billion people living in complete shitholes in danger of their life who will qualify for asylum if they make it here. It's why I do not think the current asylum arrangements are sustainable.
I agree that people living in complete shit holes would jump at the chance to live a better life, but sadly I don’t think there’s any way to prevent the people of Doncaster moving where they like in the UK.
House prices? The thought that Rotherham and Barnsley are probably worse?
Doncaster isn't exactly a leafy part of Surrey but it isn't all shit hole. Perhaps I need a photo series...
Like a Leon (or Ian) travel-photo essay, but from a staycation with a view to the Caster Donc Sell?
I'm not sure I'd go as far as recommending a staycation (though for circumstantial reasons, I've been stuck with that), but yes.
The Don isn't exactly the Tarn and the A1 viaducts aren't exactly Millau (even if one is listed) but there are parts that aren't entirely horrible.
There are plenty of areas of the UK that aren't great and could do with improvements but are there any entire cities/boroughs that have absolutely zero reason to go there? I'm not sure there are. There's always something to see. I think we do places down unnecessarily.
Even the aforementioned Rotherham and Barnsley have good points.
Newent
I said that business with Dujardin would set him off.
Christ. The details on the gillingham stabbing are grim indeed
Twitter-search with caution
I know you like a good conspiracy to follow...Quite a series of coincidences....
- Lee Rigby's killer Michael Adebolajo, Fishmongers' Hall terrorist Usman Khan and London Bridge ringleader Khuram Butt, whose attacks claimed the lives of 11 innocent victims in total, all had close ties to Choudary.
- During court case, it was revealed, Anjem Choudary officiated at marriage of Lee Rigby killer.
- Tuesday afternoon - Radical preacher Anjem Choudary has been found guilty of directing a group banned under UK terror laws and encouraging support for it online. Choudary faces life in prison after he was convicted of taking a "caretaker role" in Islamist group al-Muhajiroun.
- Tuesday evening - Solider gets stabbed in similar scenario to Lee Rigby.
Subtle change of tone. Illegal migration now defined as something more benign, irregular migration.
I said before the election labour had an open door policy on the issue. Rather like the Tories. Let’s just make sure we have the infrastructure to support it as it’s going to happen anyway.
Irregular migration is a more accurate term. It's not illegal to seek asylum, even if some wish it so.
Yes, one of the many traps that the previous government got itself into was going on and on about illegal immigration when a very high percentage of the small boat people are found to qualify for asylum once they were processed. Under our current regime we are obliged to accept as many qualifying asylum seekers from around the world as can make it to our shores.
In which case we should be told what the number that could potentially be.
The alternative is to set a maximum number of qualifying asylum seekers to be allowed and if that was reached then its an immediate, if unfortunate, rejection of any beyond that.
I reckon there are at least a couple of billion people living in complete shitholes in danger of their life who will qualify for asylum if they make it here. It's why I do not think the current asylum arrangements are sustainable.
I agree that people living in complete shit holes would jump at the chance to live a better life, but sadly I don’t think there’s any way to prevent the people of Doncaster moving where they like in the UK.
House prices? The thought that Rotherham and Barnsley are probably worse?
Doncaster isn't exactly a leafy part of Surrey but it isn't all shit hole. Perhaps I need a photo series...
Like a Leon (or Ian) travel-photo essay, but from a staycation with a view to the Caster Donc Sell?
I'm not sure I'd go as far as recommending a staycation (though for circumstantial reasons, I've been stuck with that), but yes.
The Don isn't exactly the Tarn and the A1 viaducts aren't exactly Millau (even if one is listed) but there are parts that aren't entirely horrible.
There are plenty of areas of the UK that aren't great and could do with improvements but are there any entire cities/boroughs that have absolutely zero reason to go there? I'm not sure there are. There's always something to see. I think we do places down unnecessarily.
Even the aforementioned Rotherham and Barnsley have good points.
Newent
Bentley's cider and Perry farm. Three Choirs Winery. And a statue of a little horse.
I believe Swindon is entirely without redeeming features. Or so I am constantly told by a good friend who grew up there and couldn’t wait to leave
You mean the Magic Roundabout isn’t a tourist attraction, and that most people of means who live there there aren’t on the first train to London or Bristol every morning?
Call me a ridiculous old fuddy duddy but I cannot for the life of me understand why certain sporting events have started before the opening ceremony. If you need longer than 17 days (Friday 26th July to Sunday 11th of August) no-one is going to say you can't, surely?
I'd think it is very simple. All have to be done and dusted before the closing ceremony, I'd think, so the various politicos can glory in how many medals each won.
So move the opening ceremony earlier or the closing later.
Apologies if I have missed this, but is anything known about why the soldier was stabbed in Kent? No mention of terrorism, but that doesn't rule it out, surely?
Drunken thuggery? Mental health? Family dispute?
All are orders of magnitude more likely than terrorism.
Why do you say that? Its not like we've not a previous incident of a soldier stabbed in a terror attack?
Orders of magnitude more soldiers have been stabbed for the above reasons than for terrorism.
Subtle change of tone. Illegal migration now defined as something more benign, irregular migration.
I said before the election labour had an open door policy on the issue. Rather like the Tories. Let’s just make sure we have the infrastructure to support it as it’s going to happen anyway.
Irregular migration is a more accurate term. It's not illegal to seek asylum, even if some wish it so.
Yes, one of the many traps that the previous government got itself into was going on and on about illegal immigration when a very high percentage of the small boat people are found to qualify for asylum once they were processed. Under our current regime we are obliged to accept as many qualifying asylum seekers from around the world as can make it to our shores.
In which case we should be told what the number that could potentially be.
The alternative is to set a maximum number of qualifying asylum seekers to be allowed and if that was reached then its an immediate, if unfortunate, rejection of any beyond that.
I reckon there are at least a couple of billion people living in complete shitholes in danger of their life who will qualify for asylum if they make it here. It's why I do not think the current asylum arrangements are sustainable.
I agree that people living in complete shit holes would jump at the chance to live a better life, but sadly I don’t think there’s any way to prevent the people of Doncaster moving where they like in the UK.
I believe Swindon is entirely without redeeming features. Or so I am constantly told by a good friend who grew up there and couldn’t wait to leave
You mean the Magic Roundabout isn’t a tourist attraction, and that most people of means who live there there aren’t on the first train to London or Bristol every morning?
Call me a ridiculous old fuddy duddy but I cannot for the life of me understand why certain sporting events have started before the opening ceremony. If you need longer than 17 days (Friday 26th July to Sunday 11th of August) no-one is going to say you can't, surely?
I'd think it is very simple. All have to be done and dusted before the closing ceremony, I'd think, so the various politicos can glory in how many medals each won.
You want the opening ceremony to be on a Friday evening, so that’s when it is. What’s unobvious about that?
Renowned economist Valentina Bondarenko fell out of her window in Moscow and died. "Injuries sustained were not compatible with life." Her career focused on long-term socio-economic forecasting and modeling in Russia. https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1815895935039545576
The FSB really are an unimaginative bunch of scum.
At this point the repeated use of a ridiculously obvious “fake window accident” is surely a deliberate technique to terrify internal critics
It is so brazen it says “we don’t care that it looks bad, we can do exactly what we like, and no one can stop us”
Probably quite effective
Their m.o. under Putin has been implausible deniability
I believe Swindon is entirely without redeeming features. Or so I am constantly told by a good friend who grew up there and couldn’t wait to leave
Not quite without redeeming features. The magic roundabout is a triumph of design. If you know it you can use it with ease. If you arrive at it for the first time it can induce heart palpitations/bowel loosening terror.
One simple rule.
Give way to the left.
I cannot understand why there aren't more of them...
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Interesting that Conservative commentators are debating about attacking her from the left, or excessively focussing on her personal life. They want Trump to stick to attacking her from the right on policy, and let a few of the commentators do the negative campaigning.
What they are going big on at the moment, is the fact that they’re attacking Trump as being a threat to democracy, while ignoring democracy in their own party by seeking to crown a replacement candidate without reference to their own voters.
They are not 'crowning' a replacement. The rules are quite clear; it's just that no one else is prepared to stand against her.
The GOP are just shit stirring, while standing in a midden.
It's not a matter of the rules but the lack of a contest is far from ideal. Surely you can see that?
Changing the nominee this late is the day is not ideal. Replacing him with the VP was going to be pretty well the only way it worked.
In the context of $80m plus in small donations in the 24hrs after Harris declared, how do you manufacture a contest ?
I don't know much about how American politics works. They've got themselves in a mess thanks largely to Biden or those around him. Clearly it would have been better had Harris won the nomination in a contest than simply being given it. I also have little time for the cowards who think 2024 isn't a great time to run so they are going to give it a miss and try for 2028.
How important is it actually to defeat Trump for these people? Is the Republic at risk or not?
The highlighted bit is the point. But Biden's presidency proved rather more successful than his pessimistic party expected (remember 'adequate in the circumstances'), and he made the mistake of thinking it a good idea that he run for a second term - which most people back in 2020 probably didn't expect. (FWIW, I was laying him as the 2024 nominees almost as soon as it was possible to do so, to my cost.)
US politics makes it very hard indeed to challenge a sitting president for the nomination, unless they have made a complete hash of the presidency - and even then they're probably still favourite. LBJ, for example, shocked his party when he withdrew voluntarily. And there are very few other examples of voluntary one term presidents.
No one really knew what would happen when Biden stepped down, despite it being discussed for weeks beforehand. The speed with which support coalesced around Harris came as a surprise, I think, but it made the idea of arranging a contest, which had been floated by quite a number of the party's leaders, completely redundant within 24 hours.
Christ. The details on the gillingham stabbing are grim indeed
Twitter-search with caution
I know you like a good conspiracy to follow...Quite a series of coincidences....
- Lee Rigby's killer Michael Adebolajo, Fishmongers' Hall terrorist Usman Khan and London Bridge ringleader Khuram Butt, whose attacks claimed the lives of 11 innocent victims in total, all had close ties to Choudary.
- During court case, it was revealed, Anjem Choudary officiated at marriage of Lee Rigby killer.
- Tuesday afternoon - Radical preacher Anjem Choudary has been found guilty of directing a group banned under UK terror laws and encouraging support for it online. Choudary faces life in prison after he was convicted of taking a "caretaker role" in Islamist group al-Muhajiroun.
- Tuesday evening - Solider gets stabbed in similar scenario to Lee Rigby.
Yes. A black British Muslim with links to Choudary seems like a pretty good hypothesis. That doesn’t rule him out as a nutter as well, of course
I believe Swindon is entirely without redeeming features. Or so I am constantly told by a good friend who grew up there and couldn’t wait to leave
You mean the Magic Roundabout isn’t a tourist attraction, and that most people of means who live there there aren’t on the first train to London or Bristol every morning?
Swindon includes part of the North Wessex Downs AONB, so there must be some pleasant parts at least.
Good on Davey to keep on at the appalling situation with carers and DWP.
Not so good on Davy for his part in turning a blind eye to the post office scandal. Claims not to have known. Either stupid or a liar. He is happy though as he has got away with it.
I believe Swindon is entirely without redeeming features. Or so I am constantly told by a good friend who grew up there and couldn’t wait to leave
Not quite without redeeming features. The magic roundabout is a triumph of design. If you know it you can use it with ease. If you arrive at it for the first time it can induce heart palpitations/bowel loosening terror.
One simple rule.
Give way to the left.
I cannot understand why there aren't more of them...
Apologies if I have missed this, but is anything known about why the soldier was stabbed in Kent? No mention of terrorism, but that doesn't rule it out, surely?
Drunken thuggery? Mental health? Family dispute?
All are orders of magnitude more likely than terrorism.
Why do you say that? Its not like we've not a previous incident of a soldier stabbed in a terror attack?
Orders of magnitude more soldiers have been stabbed for the above reasons than for terrorism.
Randomly in the street? When in uniform?
He was also “saved by his wife” who was at the scene - it must be her terrible screams you can hear in the awful audio
Put the killer in heavy chains and in total isolation for the rest of his life
A good PMQs so far. Sunak impressive given how he must feel.
Good to see him leading on Ukraine, and things they can agree on. Although I think Sunak's final question on ?Tempest? and Saudi Arabia was a bit of a trap, which Starmer just ignored. Labour MPs would have noticed, though.
As an aside: more stuff about Jo Cox. Which is fair enough. Except there was no mention of David Amess, murdered five years after Jo Cox. It's like he's being forgotten when compared to her. What is more: Amess's killer also looked at killing Starmer. At the very least, there should have been something like: "And we remember all members who have been killed in the course of their duties."
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Centrist? Trump has already called her radical left and said that even Biden was more mainstream.
Harris has now refused to attend PM Netanyahu's address to Congress in a snub to Israel and 'she was rated by the non-partisan congressional scorekeeper GovTrack as one of the most left-wing among dozens of Democratic senators during her tenure.' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn053pnv0k1o
She was attacked by the left when she was a prosecutor. For being too harsh
Harris may not be as radical left as AOC or Sanders yes but she will still be the most left liberal presidential candidate the Democrats have nominated since Dukakis, indeed arguably since McGovern
Harris is on the right of the Democratic party.
Harris is a representative of law and order. Trump is a fraudster, rapist and criminal.
I believe Swindon is entirely without redeeming features. Or so I am constantly told by a good friend who grew up there and couldn’t wait to leave
You mean the Magic Roundabout isn’t a tourist attraction, and that most people of means who live there there aren’t on the first train to London or Bristol every morning?
Swindon has one incredible selling point.
It's not Slough.
Swindon used to be my go-to for a reasonably affordable prosperous place. But it's now priced out plus i think it's gone downhill. Basically Reading, but five-ten years behind
Apologies if I have missed this, but is anything known about why the soldier was stabbed in Kent? No mention of terrorism, but that doesn't rule it out, surely?
Drunken thuggery? Mental health? Family dispute?
All are orders of magnitude more likely than terrorism.
Why do you say that? Its not like we've not a previous incident of a soldier stabbed in a terror attack?
Orders of magnitude more soldiers have been stabbed for the above reasons than for terrorism.
Randomly in the street? When in uniform?
He was also “saved by his wife” who was at the scene - it must be her terrible screams you can hear in the awful audio
Put the killer in heavy chains and in total isolation for the rest of his life
Call me a ridiculous old fuddy duddy but I cannot for the life of me understand why certain sporting events have started before the opening ceremony. If you need longer than 17 days (Friday 26th July to Sunday 11th of August) no-one is going to say you can't, surely?
I'd think it is very simple. All have to be done and dusted before the closing ceremony, I'd think, so the various politicos can glory in how many medals each won.
So move the opening ceremony earlier or the closing later.
The opening ceremony and closing ceremony are always going to be Fri/Sat/Sun primetime, because TV. So because football needs longer than 17 days (and has done since 1992) it has to start earlier - because the alternative is stringing the Games out over three full weeks, which at present I suspect they feel would dilute it too much.
Handball and rugby sevens are unusually starting before the OC this year because of venue clashes - the rugby needs to finish before the athletics starts, and the handball has to decamp to the basketball arena in time for the weightlifting to start.
The IOC rule is no competitors eliminated and no medals awarded before the OC.
I believe Swindon is entirely without redeeming features. Or so I am constantly told by a good friend who grew up there and couldn’t wait to leave
Not quite without redeeming features. The magic roundabout is a triumph of design. If you know it you can use it with ease. If you arrive at it for the first time it can induce heart palpitations/bowel loosening terror.
One simple rule.
Give way to the left.
I cannot understand why there aren't more of them...
Swindon also home to one of the two Wernham Hogg offices.
Christ. The details on the gillingham stabbing are grim indeed
Twitter-search with caution
I know you like a good conspiracy to follow...Quite a series of coincidences....
- Lee Rigby's killer Michael Adebolajo, Fishmongers' Hall terrorist Usman Khan and London Bridge ringleader Khuram Butt, whose attacks claimed the lives of 11 innocent victims in total, all had close ties to Choudary.
- During court case, it was revealed, Anjem Choudary officiated at marriage of Lee Rigby killer.
- Tuesday afternoon - Radical preacher Anjem Choudary has been found guilty of directing a group banned under UK terror laws and encouraging support for it online. Choudary faces life in prison after he was convicted of taking a "caretaker role" in Islamist group al-Muhajiroun.
- Tuesday evening - Solider gets stabbed in similar scenario to Lee Rigby.
Yes. A black British Muslim with links to Choudary seems like a pretty good hypothesis. That doesn’t rule him out as a nutter as well, of course
I believe Swindon is entirely without redeeming features. Or so I am constantly told by a good friend who grew up there and couldn’t wait to leave
You mean the Magic Roundabout isn’t a tourist attraction, and that most people of means who live there there aren’t on the first train to London or Bristol every morning?
Swindon includes part of the North Wessex Downs AONB, so there must be some pleasant parts at least.
Yes. To be fair, the roads North to Cirencester and South to Marlborough are both very pleasant journeys through the countryside.
Apologies if I have missed this, but is anything known about why the soldier was stabbed in Kent? No mention of terrorism, but that doesn't rule it out, surely?
Drunken thuggery? Mental health? Family dispute?
All are orders of magnitude more likely than terrorism.
Why do you say that? Its not like we've not a previous incident of a soldier stabbed in a terror attack?
Orders of magnitude more soldiers have been stabbed for the above reasons than for terrorism.
Randomly in the street? When in uniform?
Yup. Because it doesn't make the news, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
You've never been to Bicester - well, back before it became Bicester Factory Outlet Land ?
For those dissing Swindon it did have the Oasis Swimming Pool which had some awesome (for the early 80s) slides and a wave machine where I spend several happy days celebrating friends' birthdays. It was shut on New Years' Day though so we couldn't celebrate mine there The eponymous band were named after it.
The Museum of the Great Western Railway is also worth a visit.
Good on Davey to keep on at the appalling situation with carers and DWP.
Not so good on Davy for his part in turning a blind eye to the post office scandal. Claims not to have known. Either stupid or a liar. He is happy though as he has got away with it.
He didn't turn a blind eye. He was lied to like many politicians of all parties, as well as the subpostmasters themselves. As well as the lawyers, and judges.
For those dissing Swindon it did have the Oasis Swimming Pool which had some awesome (for the early 80s) slides and a wave machine where I spend several happy days celebrating friends' birthdays. It was shut on New Years' Day though so we couldn't celebrate mine there The eponymous band were named after it.
The Museum of the Great Western Railway is also worth a visit.
Well, the swimming pool is logical, but I'm surprised the Museum let a seal in.
Apologies if I have missed this, but is anything known about why the soldier was stabbed in Kent? No mention of terrorism, but that doesn't rule it out, surely?
Drunken thuggery? Mental health? Family dispute?
All are orders of magnitude more likely than terrorism.
Why do you say that? Its not like we've not a previous incident of a soldier stabbed in a terror attack?
Orders of magnitude more soldiers have been stabbed for the above reasons than for terrorism.
Randomly in the street? When in uniform?
He was also “saved by his wife” who was at the scene - it must be her terrible screams you can hear in the awful audio
Put the killer in heavy chains and in total isolation for the rest of his life
Are you suggesting the soldier is dead?
Apologies. My bad. We don’t know that he’s dead
Pray that he survives - but “stabbed seventy times” with a “ten inch long blade” does not sound hopeful
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Interesting that Conservative commentators are debating about attacking her from the left, or excessively focussing on her personal life. They want Trump to stick to attacking her from the right on policy, and let a few of the commentators do the negative campaigning.
What they are going big on at the moment, is the fact that they’re attacking Trump as being a threat to democracy, while ignoring democracy in their own party by seeking to crown a replacement candidate without reference to their own voters.
They are not 'crowning' a replacement. The rules are quite clear; it's just that no one else is prepared to stand against her.
The GOP are just shit stirring, while standing in a midden.
It's not a matter of the rules but the lack of a contest is far from ideal. Surely you can see that?
Changing the nominee this late is the day is not ideal. Replacing him with the VP was going to be pretty well the only way it worked.
In the context of $80m plus in small donations in the 24hrs after Harris declared, how do you manufacture a contest ?
I don't know much about how American politics works. They've got themselves in a mess thanks largely to Biden or those around him. Clearly it would have been better had Harris won the nomination in a contest than simply being given it. I also have little time for the cowards who think 2024 isn't a great time to run so they are going to give it a miss and try for 2028.
How important is it actually to defeat Trump for these people? Is the Republic at risk or not?
The highlighted bit is the point. But Biden's presidency proved rather more successful than his pessimistic party expected (remember 'adequate in the circumstances'), and he made the mistake of thinking it a good idea that he run for a second term - which most people back in 2020 probably didn't expect. (FWIW, I was laying him as the 2024 nominees almost as soon as it was possible to do so, to my cost.)
US politics makes it very hard indeed to challenge a sitting president for the nomination, unless they have made a complete hash of the presidency - and even then they're probably still favourite. LBJ, for example, shocked his party when he withdrew voluntarily. And there are very few other examples of voluntary one term presidents.
No one really knew what would happen when Biden stepped down, despite it being discussed for weeks beforehand. The speed with which support coalesced around Harris came as a surprise, I think, but it made the idea of arranging a contest, which had been floated by quite a number of the party's leaders, completely redundant within 24 hours.
The coalessing of support around Harris wasn't a surprise to many observers.
- There is no one in the party who is head and shoulders above the others. - So "other than Harris" doesn't really improve the chances of a win that much - Going with Harris is much easier on financial (donation to campaign), procedural reasons. - A floor fight at the convention might work. It *might* even produce a winner. But if a non-Harris nominee fails, they will be blamed. And all their supporters. For Trump getting in again. Which means their careers are ended.
So everyone else stepping back and ushering Harris forward is the easy solution.
Apologies if I have missed this, but is anything known about why the soldier was stabbed in Kent? No mention of terrorism, but that doesn't rule it out, surely?
Drunken thuggery? Mental health? Family dispute?
All are orders of magnitude more likely than terrorism.
Why do you say that? Its not like we've not a previous incident of a soldier stabbed in a terror attack?
Orders of magnitude more soldiers have been stabbed for the above reasons than for terrorism.
Randomly in the street? When in uniform?
Yup. Because it doesn't make the news, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
You've never been to Bicester - well, back before it became Bicester Factory Outlet Land ?
I cannot remember one occasion when a British army soldier in uniform was stabbed in the street seventy times because of a “family dispute”. But if this is orders of magnitude more likely you must be able to offer many links to these events?
Good on Davey to keep on at the appalling situation with carers and DWP.
Not so good on Davy for his part in turning a blind eye to the post office scandal. Claims not to have known. Either stupid or a liar. He is happy though as he has got away with it.
He didn't turn a blind eye. He was lied to like many politicians of all parties, as well as the subpostmasters themselves. As well as the lawyers, and judges.
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Interesting that Conservative commentators are debating about attacking her from the left, or excessively focussing on her personal life. They want Trump to stick to attacking her from the right on policy, and let a few of the commentators do the negative campaigning.
What they are going big on at the moment, is the fact that they’re attacking Trump as being a threat to democracy, while ignoring democracy in their own party by seeking to crown a replacement candidate without reference to their own voters.
They are not 'crowning' a replacement. The rules are quite clear; it's just that no one else is prepared to stand against her.
The GOP are just shit stirring, while standing in a midden.
It's not a matter of the rules but the lack of a contest is far from ideal. Surely you can see that?
Changing the nominee this late is the day is not ideal. Replacing him with the VP was going to be pretty well the only way it worked.
In the context of $80m plus in small donations in the 24hrs after Harris declared, how do you manufacture a contest ?
I don't know much about how American politics works. They've got themselves in a mess thanks largely to Biden or those around him. Clearly it would have been better had Harris won the nomination in a contest than simply being given it. I also have little time for the cowards who think 2024 isn't a great time to run so they are going to give it a miss and try for 2028.
How important is it actually to defeat Trump for these people? Is the Republic at risk or not?
The highlighted bit is the point. But Biden's presidency proved rather more successful than his pessimistic party expected (remember 'adequate in the circumstances'), and he made the mistake of thinking it a good idea that he run for a second term - which most people back in 2020 probably didn't expect. (FWIW, I was laying him as the 2024 nominees almost as soon as it was possible to do so, to my cost.)
US politics makes it very hard indeed to challenge a sitting president for the nomination, unless they have made a complete hash of the presidency - and even then they're probably still favourite. LBJ, for example, shocked his party when he withdrew voluntarily. And there are very few other examples of voluntary one term presidents.
No one really knew what would happen when Biden stepped down, despite it being discussed for weeks beforehand. The speed with which support coalesced around Harris came as a surprise, I think, but it made the idea of arranging a contest, which had been floated by quite a number of the party's leaders, completely redundant within 24 hours.
The coalessing of support around Harris wasn't a surprise to many observers.
- There is no one in the party who is head and shoulders above the others. - So "other than Harris" doesn't really improve the chances of a win that much - Going with Harris is much easier on financial (donation to campaign), procedural reasons. - A floor fight at the convention might work. It *might* even produce a winner. But if a non-Harris nominee fails, they will be blamed. And all their supporters. For Trump getting in again. Which means their careers are ended.
So everyone else stepping back and ushering Harris forward is the easy solution.
Well I too predicted it the most likely outcome. But it was the speed, and the enthusiasm with which it happened that was the surprise.
"Next week Rachel Reeves will reveal an enormous funding deficit for core public services, having instructed Treasury officials to ask each department to list services that aren’t being financed adequately or are in danger of collapse or where there is some other hidden liability.
Just the liabilities we know about run to untold billions - from the NHS workforce plan, to infected blood and post office compensation, to public pay sector pay awards, to the advanced manufacturing plan, to our creaking nuclear defence capability, to more mainstream defence requirements, to commitments on education and overseas development, to the welfare costs of an epidemic of physical and mental disability, and so on and so on.
It is easy to get to a financing hole of well over £50bn without even taking up the public sector equivalent of the floorboards, or worrying how many of our failing privatised services, water in particular, will end up as taxpayer costs.
None of this is a surprise. I have been banging on for countless weeks that the new government would inherit a fiscal disaster.
So with a face that looks as though she has chewed through a crate of lemons, Reeves is doing a George Osborne: just as in 2010 he built a political and economic strategy for an entire parliament around the charge that the previous Labour government had been spending money it didn’t have, she is blaming Johnson, Truss and Sunak for her toxic fiscal legacy. .....
But what on earth is Reeves’s plan?
Austerity is not available to her - partly because the mess she has inherited was caused in part by that very austerity, and because even the most Starmerite of the hundreds of Labour MPs won’t wear it.
Also she has closed off the option of letting the national debt rise for longer, and mending the fabric through additional borrowing: her fiscal rules are never to be tweaked or re-interpreted, her colleagues tell me; it is as if she went up the mountain and a deity she calls Stability dictated them as permanent commandments.
So obviously she has to increase taxes. There’s nothing else for it. Her autumn budget will have to be a massive reset of the tax system to generate those colossal sums needed to fix the foundations of the state.
Except that approach too looks almost impossible - because Starmer promised in the election he wouldn’t raise money from the biggest available pools, namely income taxes on people, or VAT or corporation tax.
Reeves could increase taxes on capital, but that would alienate the investors and creditors she desperately needs to finance all those wind farms, and new homes and assorted infrastructure projects she and Starmer have promised.
What she’s left with is - possibly - reducing tax breaks on saving for a pension, taxing land and increasing the yield from council tax.
There are arguments for doing all or any of these. But quite how they would raise enough defeats me. "
Labour find things worse than expected especially after offering a wish list of spending to all departments.
Stunned !!
Whereas of course had the Conservatives been re-elected everything would have been sunshine and roses with big tax cuts and spending increases. The Conservatives caused this mess and did the equivalent of sfa about it. That poor can has had more kicks than a 1970s midfielder.
Okay, how to move forward? Assuming the "hole" really is £50 billion, it's not that bad when you consider we pay double that on debt interest payments thanks to previous inane borrowing but I accept it may be the tip of the financial iceberg (or moneyberg if you prefer).
Taxes will have to rise and I think there's more appetite (or acceptance) of that than is generally realised. "Fairness", which shot down Truss's plans, is still the game in town and lower income earners will want to see those with more getting more of the pain - I'm a fan of Land Value Taxation whose time has surely come.
Council Tax is going to be awkward but there has to be a recognition if you are still paying based on the value of your property in 1991 there's a fair chance your asset has multiplied in value quite a bit. We also need more bands so we can cover the extending range in house values up to £10 million.
Osborne, from memory, went with £5 of spending cuts and £1 from tax rises - Reeves might have to do something different.
The funding of Social Care remains one of the big issues around local Government finance.
Immigration has to stop, now. Virtually all of it
Data from Denmark and Holland show that most migrants end up a massive net drain on the exchequer. Yes you may get a nurse but her kids will need an education, which we pay for, and then she brings her mum who needs medication - and so on
Immigration has been a Ponzi scheme for many western countries and it’s all about to collapse. The university sector faces even greater problems
Britain is probably one of the worst placed countries in this respect. I’ve never been so pessimistic for my country. I’m increasingly unsure the UK can survive as we know it, barring some economic miracle (which might happen)
Given that you seem to be too stupid to realise that all children need an education I think it's safe to ignore the rest of your analysis.
“Dutch study: immigration costs state €17 billion per year”
Don't have time to read it now, but if what you got from it is that children and nurses are a net negative for the exchequer then either it's a load of crap, or you completely failed to understand it (which is admittedly extremely likely).
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Interesting that Conservative commentators are debating about attacking her from the left, or excessively focussing on her personal life. They want Trump to stick to attacking her from the right on policy, and let a few of the commentators do the negative campaigning.
What they are going big on at the moment, is the fact that they’re attacking Trump as being a threat to democracy, while ignoring democracy in their own party by seeking to crown a replacement candidate without reference to their own voters.
They are not 'crowning' a replacement. The rules are quite clear; it's just that no one else is prepared to stand against her.
The GOP are just shit stirring, while standing in a midden.
It's not a matter of the rules but the lack of a contest is far from ideal. Surely you can see that?
Changing the nominee this late is the day is not ideal. Replacing him with the VP was going to be pretty well the only way it worked.
In the context of $80m plus in small donations in the 24hrs after Harris declared, how do you manufacture a contest ?
I don't know much about how American politics works. They've got themselves in a mess thanks largely to Biden or those around him. Clearly it would have been better had Harris won the nomination in a contest than simply being given it. I also have little time for the cowards who think 2024 isn't a great time to run so they are going to give it a miss and try for 2028.
How important is it actually to defeat Trump for these people? Is the Republic at risk or not?
The highlighted bit is the point. But Biden's presidency proved rather more successful than his pessimistic party expected (remember 'adequate in the circumstances'), and he made the mistake of thinking it a good idea that he run for a second term - which most people back in 2020 probably didn't expect. (FWIW, I was laying him as the 2024 nominees almost as soon as it was possible to do so, to my cost.)
US politics makes it very hard indeed to challenge a sitting president for the nomination, unless they have made a complete hash of the presidency - and even then they're probably still favourite. LBJ, for example, shocked his party when he withdrew voluntarily. And there are very few other examples of voluntary one term presidents.
No one really knew what would happen when Biden stepped down, despite it being discussed for weeks beforehand. The speed with which support coalesced around Harris came as a surprise, I think, but it made the idea of arranging a contest, which had been floated by quite a number of the party's leaders, completely redundant within 24 hours.
The coalessing of support around Harris wasn't a surprise to many observers.
- There is no one in the party who is head and shoulders above the others. - So "other than Harris" doesn't really improve the chances of a win that much - Going with Harris is much easier on financial (donation to campaign), procedural reasons. - A floor fight at the convention might work. It *might* even produce a winner. But if a non-Harris nominee fails, they will be blamed. And all their supporters. For Trump getting in again. Which means their careers are ended.
So everyone else stepping back and ushering Harris forward is the easy solution.
Well I too predicted it the most likely outcome. But it was the speed, and the enthusiasm with which it happened that was the surprise.
Watching the whole party pivot, inside 72 hours, from “Biden’s doing just fine” to “Kamala for President”, cheered on so uncritically and enthusiastically by much of the media, has certainly been a sight to behold watching from afar.
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Centrist? Trump has already called her radical left and said that even Biden was more mainstream.
Harris has now refused to attend PM Netanyahu's address to Congress in a snub to Israel and 'she was rated by the non-partisan congressional scorekeeper GovTrack as one of the most left-wing among dozens of Democratic senators during her tenure.' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn053pnv0k1o
She was attacked by the left when she was a prosecutor. For being too harsh
Harris may not be as radical left as AOC or Sanders yes but she will still be the most left liberal presidential candidate the Democrats have nominated since Dukakis, indeed arguably since McGovern
Harris is on the right of the Democratic party.
A lot of American leftists don't like her because she did things like prosecute cannabis users in California when it was against the law, whereas in fact she was doing exactly the right thing at that time.
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Interesting that Conservative commentators are debating about attacking her from the left, or excessively focussing on her personal life. They want Trump to stick to attacking her from the right on policy, and let a few of the commentators do the negative campaigning.
What they are going big on at the moment, is the fact that they’re attacking Trump as being a threat to democracy, while ignoring democracy in their own party by seeking to crown a replacement candidate without reference to their own voters.
They are not 'crowning' a replacement. The rules are quite clear; it's just that no one else is prepared to stand against her.
The GOP are just shit stirring, while standing in a midden.
It's not a matter of the rules but the lack of a contest is far from ideal. Surely you can see that?
Changing the nominee this late is the day is not ideal. Replacing him with the VP was going to be pretty well the only way it worked.
In the context of $80m plus in small donations in the 24hrs after Harris declared, how do you manufacture a contest ?
I don't know much about how American politics works. They've got themselves in a mess thanks largely to Biden or those around him. Clearly it would have been better had Harris won the nomination in a contest than simply being given it. I also have little time for the cowards who think 2024 isn't a great time to run so they are going to give it a miss and try for 2028.
How important is it actually to defeat Trump for these people? Is the Republic at risk or not?
The highlighted bit is the point. But Biden's presidency proved rather more successful than his pessimistic party expected (remember 'adequate in the circumstances'), and he made the mistake of thinking it a good idea that he run for a second term - which most people back in 2020 probably didn't expect. (FWIW, I was laying him as the 2024 nominees almost as soon as it was possible to do so, to my cost.)
US politics makes it very hard indeed to challenge a sitting president for the nomination, unless they have made a complete hash of the presidency - and even then they're probably still favourite. LBJ, for example, shocked his party when he withdrew voluntarily. And there are very few other examples of voluntary one term presidents.
No one really knew what would happen when Biden stepped down, despite it being discussed for weeks beforehand. The speed with which support coalesced around Harris came as a surprise, I think, but it made the idea of arranging a contest, which had been floated by quite a number of the party's leaders, completely redundant within 24 hours.
The coalessing of support around Harris wasn't a surprise to many observers.
- There is no one in the party who is head and shoulders above the others. - So "other than Harris" doesn't really improve the chances of a win that much - Going with Harris is much easier on financial (donation to campaign), procedural reasons. - A floor fight at the convention might work. It *might* even produce a winner. But if a non-Harris nominee fails, they will be blamed. And all their supporters. For Trump getting in again. Which means their careers are ended.
So everyone else stepping back and ushering Harris forward is the easy solution.
Well I too predicted it the most likely outcome. But it was the speed, and the enthusiasm with which it happened that was the surprise.
Watching the whole party pivot, inside 72 hours, from “Biden’s doing just fine” to “Kamala for President”, cheered on so uncritically and enthusiastically by much of the media, has certainly been a sight to behold watching from afar.
We have skipped past the bit of who knew Biden was senile and for how long...we had one day of the media pearl clutching of how could they have hidden it from us.
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Interesting that Conservative commentators are debating about attacking her from the left, or excessively focussing on her personal life. They want Trump to stick to attacking her from the right on policy, and let a few of the commentators do the negative campaigning.
What they are going big on at the moment, is the fact that they’re attacking Trump as being a threat to democracy, while ignoring democracy in their own party by seeking to crown a replacement candidate without reference to their own voters.
They are not 'crowning' a replacement. The rules are quite clear; it's just that no one else is prepared to stand against her.
The GOP are just shit stirring, while standing in a midden.
It's not a matter of the rules but the lack of a contest is far from ideal. Surely you can see that?
Changing the nominee this late is the day is not ideal. Replacing him with the VP was going to be pretty well the only way it worked.
In the context of $80m plus in small donations in the 24hrs after Harris declared, how do you manufacture a contest ?
I don't know much about how American politics works. They've got themselves in a mess thanks largely to Biden or those around him. Clearly it would have been better had Harris won the nomination in a contest than simply being given it. I also have little time for the cowards who think 2024 isn't a great time to run so they are going to give it a miss and try for 2028.
How important is it actually to defeat Trump for these people? Is the Republic at risk or not?
The highlighted bit is the point. But Biden's presidency proved rather more successful than his pessimistic party expected (remember 'adequate in the circumstances'), and he made the mistake of thinking it a good idea that he run for a second term - which most people back in 2020 probably didn't expect. (FWIW, I was laying him as the 2024 nominees almost as soon as it was possible to do so, to my cost.)
US politics makes it very hard indeed to challenge a sitting president for the nomination, unless they have made a complete hash of the presidency - and even then they're probably still favourite. LBJ, for example, shocked his party when he withdrew voluntarily. And there are very few other examples of voluntary one term presidents.
No one really knew what would happen when Biden stepped down, despite it being discussed for weeks beforehand. The speed with which support coalesced around Harris came as a surprise, I think, but it made the idea of arranging a contest, which had been floated by quite a number of the party's leaders, completely redundant within 24 hours.
The coalessing of support around Harris wasn't a surprise to many observers.
- There is no one in the party who is head and shoulders above the others. - So "other than Harris" doesn't really improve the chances of a win that much - Going with Harris is much easier on financial (donation to campaign), procedural reasons. - A floor fight at the convention might work. It *might* even produce a winner. But if a non-Harris nominee fails, they will be blamed. And all their supporters. For Trump getting in again. Which means their careers are ended.
So everyone else stepping back and ushering Harris forward is the easy solution.
Well I too predicted it the most likely outcome. But it was the speed, and the enthusiasm with which it happened that was the surprise.
Not so sure on that - once the avalanche has started etc.
Who was going to say - "I'm running" - what would they expect to get out it?
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Centrist? Trump has already called her radical left and said that even Biden was more mainstream.
Harris has now refused to attend PM Netanyahu's address to Congress in a snub to Israel and 'she was rated by the non-partisan congressional scorekeeper GovTrack as one of the most left-wing among dozens of Democratic senators during her tenure.' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn053pnv0k1o
She was attacked by the left when she was a prosecutor. For being too harsh
Harris may not be as radical left as AOC or Sanders yes but she will still be the most left liberal presidential candidate the Democrats have nominated since Dukakis, indeed arguably since McGovern
Harris is on the right of the Democratic party.
A lot of American leftists don't like her because she did things like prosecute cannabis users in California when it was against the law, whereas in fact she was doing exactly the right thing at that time.
She also used the standard tactic of American DAs - using the threat of enormous sentences to get people to plead guilty. Even when there is substantial doubt about their guilt. All to get that perfect 100% conviction record.
She didn't do much different to other DAs, but in the age of Black Lives Matter, jamming up ethnic minority defendants in huge numbers is not the cool look.
Call me a ridiculous old fuddy duddy but I cannot for the life of me understand why certain sporting events have started before the opening ceremony. If you need longer than 17 days (Friday 26th July to Sunday 11th of August) no-one is going to say you can't, surely?
Well this has been a feature of the Olympics since I was a child. You are looking at a few dozen different sports with different requirements so not sure why allowing some flexibility in the timetabling is so perplexing to you.
For those dissing Swindon it did have the Oasis Swimming Pool which had some awesome (for the early 80s) slides and a wave machine where I spend several happy days celebrating friends' birthdays. It was shut on New Years' Day though so we couldn't celebrate mine there The eponymous band were named after it.
The Museum of the Great Western Railway is also worth a visit.
Well, the swimming pool is logical, but I'm surprised the Museum let a seal in.
I also liked the railway worker house if it is still open. Would need to be a small seal to get round that compact dwelling, though.
I believe Swindon is entirely without redeeming features. Or so I am constantly told by a good friend who grew up there and couldn’t wait to leave
Not quite without redeeming features. The magic roundabout is a triumph of design. If you know it you can use it with ease. If you arrive at it for the first time it can induce heart palpitations/bowel loosening terror.
One simple rule.
Give way to the left.
I cannot understand why there aren't more of them...
It's also the closest largeish town to some great spots like Avebury
The headline seasonally adjusted S&P Global Flash UK PMI Composite Output Index rose from 52.3 in June to 52.7 in July, signalling a solid upturn in private sector activity. Expansions have now been recorded in each of the past nine months, with the index having averaged 53.0 in 2024 so far.
Once again, the manufacturing sector posted the sharper increase in activity, as production levels rose for the third month running following a lengthy downturn. Companies mainly increased output due to stronger order book volumes, whilst also maintaining efforts to reduce outstanding workloads.
Activity growth among services firms quickened slightly in July, supported by a much faster increase in new work compared to June. That said, the pace of activity expansion was still among the softest recorded in 2024 to date.
Sales growth across both manufacturing and services accelerated in July, leading to the strongest increase in total new business since April 2023. Companies often commented on an improvement in market confidence and the securing of new contracts, following some reports of a pause in client spending decisions prior to the general election. Demand from overseas also improved, with firms indicating the fastest uplift in new export orders for 16 months. This was centred on the services sector, though the drop in manufacturing exports was the joint-weakest in two-and-a-half years.
The latest survey data also pointed to a strengthening of employment growth at the start of the third quarter, as staffing numbers rose at a solid rate that was the fastest observed in just over a year. Recruitment at services firms was often linked to a greater uplift in demand, outweighing some mentions of redundancies and budget cuts. Notably, job numbers at manufacturing firms were stable in July, ending a 21-month sequence of decline.
Businesses and individuals will hold off on investment decisions until the budget though, I think.
Certainly what we're noticing in my world. Noone knows what the spending commitments and tax burden will be, or how heavy it will land. Until they do they won't commit.
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Interesting that Conservative commentators are debating about attacking her from the left, or excessively focussing on her personal life. They want Trump to stick to attacking her from the right on policy, and let a few of the commentators do the negative campaigning.
What they are going big on at the moment, is the fact that they’re attacking Trump as being a threat to democracy, while ignoring democracy in their own party by seeking to crown a replacement candidate without reference to their own voters.
They are not 'crowning' a replacement. The rules are quite clear; it's just that no one else is prepared to stand against her.
The GOP are just shit stirring, while standing in a midden.
It's not a matter of the rules but the lack of a contest is far from ideal. Surely you can see that?
Changing the nominee this late is the day is not ideal. Replacing him with the VP was going to be pretty well the only way it worked.
In the context of $80m plus in small donations in the 24hrs after Harris declared, how do you manufacture a contest ?
I don't know much about how American politics works. They've got themselves in a mess thanks largely to Biden or those around him. Clearly it would have been better had Harris won the nomination in a contest than simply being given it. I also have little time for the cowards who think 2024 isn't a great time to run so they are going to give it a miss and try for 2028.
How important is it actually to defeat Trump for these people? Is the Republic at risk or not?
The highlighted bit is the point. But Biden's presidency proved rather more successful than his pessimistic party expected (remember 'adequate in the circumstances'), and he made the mistake of thinking it a good idea that he run for a second term - which most people back in 2020 probably didn't expect. (FWIW, I was laying him as the 2024 nominees almost as soon as it was possible to do so, to my cost.)
US politics makes it very hard indeed to challenge a sitting president for the nomination, unless they have made a complete hash of the presidency - and even then they're probably still favourite. LBJ, for example, shocked his party when he withdrew voluntarily. And there are very few other examples of voluntary one term presidents.
No one really knew what would happen when Biden stepped down, despite it being discussed for weeks beforehand. The speed with which support coalesced around Harris came as a surprise, I think, but it made the idea of arranging a contest, which had been floated by quite a number of the party's leaders, completely redundant within 24 hours.
The coalessing of support around Harris wasn't a surprise to many observers.
- There is no one in the party who is head and shoulders above the others. - So "other than Harris" doesn't really improve the chances of a win that much - Going with Harris is much easier on financial (donation to campaign), procedural reasons. - A floor fight at the convention might work. It *might* even produce a winner. But if a non-Harris nominee fails, they will be blamed. And all their supporters. For Trump getting in again. Which means their careers are ended.
So everyone else stepping back and ushering Harris forward is the easy solution.
Well I too predicted it the most likely outcome. But it was the speed, and the enthusiasm with which it happened that was the surprise.
Watching the whole party pivot, inside 72 hours, from “Biden’s doing just fine” to “Kamala for President”, cheered on so uncritically and enthusiastically by much of the media, has certainly been a sight to behold watching from afar.
That's what political parties do when leaders change. Enthusiastic supporters of the old leader become enthusiastic supporters of the new leader. People who swore they would die in the ditch for Boris Johnson became huge fans of Liz Truss and then cheerleaders for Rishi Sunak and so on. You can call it loyalty or stupidity or whatever you like but that's how it is.
It's those who can't take the change of leader and/or potential change in direction who have their "loyalty" tested and that's when you lose members and support. Look at how some supporters of Corbyn simply couldn't deal with the direction Starmer wanted to take Labour and left -you could argue some of those who supported Johnson went to Reform (I don't know). The diehard loyalist will support any and every leader.
Subtle change of tone. Illegal migration now defined as something more benign, irregular migration.
I said before the election labour had an open door policy on the issue. Rather like the Tories. Let’s just make sure we have the infrastructure to support it as it’s going to happen anyway.
Irregular migration is a more accurate term. It's not illegal to seek asylum, even if some wish it so.
Yes, one of the many traps that the previous government got itself into was going on and on about illegal immigration when a very high percentage of the small boat people are found to qualify for asylum once they were processed. Under our current regime we are obliged to accept as many qualifying asylum seekers from around the world as can make it to our shores.
In which case we should be told what the number that could potentially be.
The alternative is to set a maximum number of qualifying asylum seekers to be allowed and if that was reached then its an immediate, if unfortunate, rejection of any beyond that.
I reckon there are at least a couple of billion people living in complete shitholes in danger of their life who will qualify for asylum if they make it here. It's why I do not think the current asylum arrangements are sustainable.
They're not.
The only way that's managed at present is the difficulty and cost of getting here.
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Centrist? Trump has already called her radical left and said that even Biden was more mainstream.
Harris has now refused to attend PM Netanyahu's address to Congress in a snub to Israel and 'she was rated by the non-partisan congressional scorekeeper GovTrack as one of the most left-wing among dozens of Democratic senators during her tenure.' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn053pnv0k1o
She was attacked by the left when she was a prosecutor. For being too harsh
Harris may not be as radical left as AOC or Sanders yes but she will still be the most left liberal presidential candidate the Democrats have nominated since Dukakis, indeed arguably since McGovern
Harris is on the right of the Democratic party.
A lot of American leftists don't like her because she did things like prosecute cannabis users in California when it was against the law, whereas in fact she was doing exactly the right thing at that time.
She also used the standard tactic of American DAs - using the threat of enormous sentences to get people to plead guilty. Even when there is substantial doubt about their guilt. All to get that perfect 100% conviction record.
She didn't do much different to other DAs, but in the age of Black Lives Matter, jamming up ethnic minority defendants in huge numbers is not the cool look.
BLM are already calling for a proper nomination process, as they dislike Harris as much as they dislike any other prosecutor.
For those dissing Swindon it did have the Oasis Swimming Pool which had some awesome (for the early 80s) slides and a wave machine where I spend several happy days celebrating friends' birthdays. It was shut on New Years' Day though so we couldn't celebrate mine there The eponymous band were named after it.
The Museum of the Great Western Railway is also worth a visit.
Well, the swimming pool is logical, but I'm surprised the Museum let a seal in.
I also liked the railway worker house if it is still open. Would need to be a small seal to get round that compact dwelling, though.
My only time to Swindon (aside from being through it on a train...) was trying to park a motorhome outside an old railway worker's cottage on Christmas Day. It was not easy finding a parking space...
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Centrist? Trump has already called her radical left and said that even Biden was more mainstream.
Harris has now refused to attend PM Netanyahu's address to Congress in a snub to Israel and 'she was rated by the non-partisan congressional scorekeeper GovTrack as one of the most left-wing among dozens of Democratic senators during her tenure.' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn053pnv0k1o
She was attacked by the left when she was a prosecutor. For being too harsh
Harris may not be as radical left as AOC or Sanders yes but she will still be the most left liberal presidential candidate the Democrats have nominated since Dukakis, indeed arguably since McGovern
Harris is on the right of the Democratic party.
A lot of American leftists don't like her because she did things like prosecute cannabis users in California when it was against the law, whereas in fact she was doing exactly the right thing at that time.
She also used the standard tactic of American DAs - using the threat of enormous sentences to get people to plead guilty. Even when there is substantial doubt about their guilt. All to get that perfect 100% conviction record.
She didn't do much different to other DAs, but in the age of Black Lives Matter, jamming up ethnic minority defendants in huge numbers is not the cool look.
I've often wondered what I'd do if I fell foul of American prosecutors and was extradited.
I'd probably feel immense pressure to plea bargain for a 2-3 year term in a moderate jail to avoid the 200+ years in a horrible one, even if i was innocent.
You'd have to have deep pockets and balls of steel to do anything else.
I believe Swindon is entirely without redeeming features. Or so I am constantly told by a good friend who grew up there and couldn’t wait to leave
You mean the Magic Roundabout isn’t a tourist attraction, and that most people of means who live there there aren’t on the first train to London or Bristol every morning?
Swindon includes part of the North Wessex Downs AONB, so there must be some pleasant parts at least.
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Centrist? Trump has already called her radical left and said that even Biden was more mainstream.
Harris has now refused to attend PM Netanyahu's address to Congress in a snub to Israel and 'she was rated by the non-partisan congressional scorekeeper GovTrack as one of the most left-wing among dozens of Democratic senators during her tenure.' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn053pnv0k1o
She was attacked by the left when she was a prosecutor. For being too harsh
Harris may not be as radical left as AOC or Sanders yes but she will still be the most left liberal presidential candidate the Democrats have nominated since Dukakis, indeed arguably since McGovern
Harris is on the right of the Democratic party.
No she isn't, she was one of the most leftwing Democratic Senators as rated by GovTrack, she is only right of AOC and Sanders she is certainly not on the right of the Democratic party
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Interesting that Conservative commentators are debating about attacking her from the left, or excessively focussing on her personal life. They want Trump to stick to attacking her from the right on policy, and let a few of the commentators do the negative campaigning.
What they are going big on at the moment, is the fact that they’re attacking Trump as being a threat to democracy, while ignoring democracy in their own party by seeking to crown a replacement candidate without reference to their own voters.
They are not 'crowning' a replacement. The rules are quite clear; it's just that no one else is prepared to stand against her.
The GOP are just shit stirring, while standing in a midden.
It's not a matter of the rules but the lack of a contest is far from ideal. Surely you can see that?
Changing the nominee this late is the day is not ideal. Replacing him with the VP was going to be pretty well the only way it worked.
In the context of $80m plus in small donations in the 24hrs after Harris declared, how do you manufacture a contest ?
I don't know much about how American politics works. They've got themselves in a mess thanks largely to Biden or those around him. Clearly it would have been better had Harris won the nomination in a contest than simply being given it. I also have little time for the cowards who think 2024 isn't a great time to run so they are going to give it a miss and try for 2028.
How important is it actually to defeat Trump for these people? Is the Republic at risk or not?
The highlighted bit is the point. But Biden's presidency proved rather more successful than his pessimistic party expected (remember 'adequate in the circumstances'), and he made the mistake of thinking it a good idea that he run for a second term - which most people back in 2020 probably didn't expect. (FWIW, I was laying him as the 2024 nominees almost as soon as it was possible to do so, to my cost.)
US politics makes it very hard indeed to challenge a sitting president for the nomination, unless they have made a complete hash of the presidency - and even then they're probably still favourite. LBJ, for example, shocked his party when he withdrew voluntarily. And there are very few other examples of voluntary one term presidents.
No one really knew what would happen when Biden stepped down, despite it being discussed for weeks beforehand. The speed with which support coalesced around Harris came as a surprise, I think, but it made the idea of arranging a contest, which had been floated by quite a number of the party's leaders, completely redundant within 24 hours.
The coalessing of support around Harris wasn't a surprise to many observers.
- There is no one in the party who is head and shoulders above the others. - So "other than Harris" doesn't really improve the chances of a win that much - Going with Harris is much easier on financial (donation to campaign), procedural reasons. - A floor fight at the convention might work. It *might* even produce a winner. But if a non-Harris nominee fails, they will be blamed. And all their supporters. For Trump getting in again. Which means their careers are ended.
So everyone else stepping back and ushering Harris forward is the easy solution.
Well I too predicted it the most likely outcome. But it was the speed, and the enthusiasm with which it happened that was the surprise.
Watching the whole party pivot, inside 72 hours, from “Biden’s doing just fine” to “Kamala for President”, cheered on so uncritically and enthusiastically by much of the media, has certainly been a sight to behold watching from afar.
Err, I think if it was ‘the whole party’ saying Biden’s fine, he’d still be in place. Isn’t the point that it was a whole load of significant Dems saying he wasn’t fine that has moved things on?
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Centrist? Trump has already called her radical left and said that even Biden was more mainstream.
Harris has now refused to attend PM Netanyahu's address to Congress in a snub to Israel and 'she was rated by the non-partisan congressional scorekeeper GovTrack as one of the most left-wing among dozens of Democratic senators during her tenure.' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn053pnv0k1o
She was attacked by the left when she was a prosecutor. For being too harsh
Harris may not be as radical left as AOC or Sanders yes but she will still be the most left liberal presidential candidate the Democrats have nominated since Dukakis, indeed arguably since McGovern
Harris is on the right of the Democratic party.
A lot of American leftists don't like her because she did things like prosecute cannabis users in California when it was against the law, whereas in fact she was doing exactly the right thing at that time.
She also used the standard tactic of American DAs - using the threat of enormous sentences to get people to plead guilty. Even when there is substantial doubt about their guilt. All to get that perfect 100% conviction record.
She didn't do much different to other DAs, but in the age of Black Lives Matter, jamming up ethnic minority defendants in huge numbers is not the cool look.
I've often wondered what I'd do if I fell foul of American prosecutors and was extradited.
I'd probably feel immense pressure to plea bargain for a 2-3 year term in a moderate jail to avoid the 200+ years in a horrible one, even if i was innocent.
You'd have to have deep pockets and balls of steel to do anything else.
On the upside, if it's not a federal case, you can get early release after 2/3rds. So after 133 years...
Comments
https://insideradvantage.com/three-more-battleground-polls-trump-leads-in-pa-nv-az-no-post-shooting-bump-but-large-enthusiasm-gap-harris-trails-trump/
Listen to Vance's Ohio speech. It is being attacked because of a duff joke about racist Mountain Dew but listen to the whole thing and Trump is barely mentioned. It sounds more like Vote Vance than Vote Trump. That imo is why Trump will be having doubts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTKNOeKQdR4
One ex Poly not too far from me decided to charge full fees then borrow £300milion to rebuild its campus on a new site based on future fees. Any fee rise is just moral hazard.
How important is it actually to defeat Trump for these people? Is the Republic at risk or not?
https://maristpoll.marist.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/NPR_PBS-News_Marist-Poll_USA-NOS-and-Tables_202407222001.pdf
Firstly, he would hate nothing more than reporting to a non white woman.
Secondly, it would neutralize any suggestion she was a member of the radical left.
Thirdly, it would confuse the living daylights out of Trump supporters.
The only downside is that it would mean handing the tie break vote in the Senate to him.
The ones unhappy with it, as this clip shows, are the GOP.
https://x.com/Acyn/status/1815880659883417651
Twitter-search with caution
I'm not sure I'd go as far as recommending a staycation (though for circumstantial reasons, I've been stuck with that), but yes.
The Don isn't exactly the Tarn and the A1 viaducts aren't exactly Millau (even if one is listed) but there are parts that aren't entirely horrible.
There are plenty of areas of the UK that aren't great and could do with improvements but are there any entire cities/boroughs that have absolutely zero reason to go there? I'm not sure there are. There's always something to see. I think we do places down unnecessarily.
Even the aforementioned Rotherham and Barnsley have good points.
It's going to take a lot more than a few Trump skeptical quotes from a few years ago as long as the polls stay solid for Trump.
American politics is far more entertaining than British politics. Everything just matters so much more.
When was the last time a defeated PM took part in PMQs as LOTO? Did John Major do it?
There are few on here who can extrapolate polling as astutely as you can. Why then are you ignoring your own instincts to use dodgy data to shill for Trump?
Nice PMQs. Rishi is much better as LOTO than he was PM.
For instance, this one in the series covers Port Talbot, Rochdale, Wick, Croydon and Kettering
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/feb/22/where-tourists-seldom-tread-part-8-five-more-towns-with-hidden-treasures
The chap managed to spot Pulteneytown in Wick, for one thing, so that's a good sign.
Harris will need to repeat Obama's trick in 2012 and get huge black turnout in swing states to overcome Independents likely going for Trump as they went for Romney then. Plus have a VP from a swing state like Shapiro, Whitmer or Kelly to add that to her column
- Whatifalthist (2024/07/23): the political compass is inadequate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrJ_vYe14ok
- Viewcode (2024/01/07): the political compass is inadequate: https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/01/07/classification/
You don't pay me enoughI believe Swindon is entirely without redeeming features. Or so I am constantly told by a good friend who grew up there and couldn’t wait to leave
LOL. Richly deserved for taking us all for fools in recent years.
Stabbed seventy times
The assailant is black and (prepare yourself) apparently licked the blood off his blade
There is an audio recording. It is so harrowing I shan’t even link. But it’s there if you want it
My guess is terror AND mental health
Short answer, yes.
As did James Callaghan before him so basically they all do it.
- Lee Rigby's killer Michael Adebolajo, Fishmongers' Hall terrorist Usman Khan and London Bridge ringleader Khuram Butt, whose attacks claimed the lives of 11 innocent victims in total, all had close ties to Choudary.
- During court case, it was revealed, Anjem Choudary officiated at marriage of Lee Rigby killer.
- Tuesday afternoon - Radical preacher Anjem Choudary has been found guilty of directing a group banned under UK terror laws and encouraging support for it online. Choudary faces life in prison after he was convicted of taking a "caretaker role" in Islamist group al-Muhajiroun.
- Tuesday evening - Solider gets stabbed in similar scenario to Lee Rigby.
I'm sold!
It's not Slough.
One simple rule.
Give way to the left.
I cannot understand why there aren't more of them...
But Biden's presidency proved rather more successful than his pessimistic party expected (remember 'adequate in the circumstances'), and he made the mistake of thinking it a good idea that he run for a second term - which most people back in 2020 probably didn't expect.
(FWIW, I was laying him as the 2024 nominees almost as soon as it was possible to do so, to my cost.)
US politics makes it very hard indeed to challenge a sitting president for the nomination, unless they have made a complete hash of the presidency - and even then they're probably still favourite. LBJ, for example, shocked his party when he withdrew voluntarily. And there are very few other examples of voluntary one term presidents.
No one really knew what would happen when Biden stepped down, despite it being discussed for weeks beforehand. The speed with which support coalesced around Harris came as a surprise, I think, but it made the idea of arranging a contest, which had been floated by quite a number of the party's leaders, completely redundant within 24 hours.
scene - it must be her terrible screams you can hear in the awful audio
Put the killer in heavy chains and in total isolation for the rest of his life
Good to see him leading on Ukraine, and things they can agree on. Although I think Sunak's final question on ?Tempest? and Saudi Arabia was a bit of a trap, which Starmer just ignored. Labour MPs would have noticed, though.
As an aside: more stuff about Jo Cox. Which is fair enough. Except there was no mention of David Amess, murdered five years after Jo Cox. It's like he's being forgotten when compared to her. What is more: Amess's killer also looked at killing Starmer. At the very least, there should have been something like: "And we remember all members who have been killed in the course of their duties."
Handball and rugby sevens are unusually starting before the OC this year because of venue clashes - the rugby needs to finish before the athletics starts, and the handball has to decamp to the basketball arena in time for the weightlifting to start.
The IOC rule is no competitors eliminated and no medals awarded before the OC.
https://olympics.com/en/news/paris-2024-olympic-games-football-rugby-sevens-handball-why-some-events-before-opening-ceremony
You've never been to Bicester - well, back before it became Bicester Factory Outlet Land ?
The Museum of the Great Western Railway is also worth a visit.
Not that that would set it apart from most education policies of course.
Pray that he survives - but “stabbed seventy times” with a “ten inch long blade” does not sound hopeful
- There is no one in the party who is head and shoulders above the others.
- So "other than Harris" doesn't really improve the chances of a win that much
- Going with Harris is much easier on financial (donation to campaign), procedural reasons.
- A floor fight at the convention might work. It *might* even produce a winner. But if a non-Harris nominee fails, they will be blamed. And all their supporters. For Trump getting in again. Which means their careers are ended.
So everyone else stepping back and ushering Harris forward is the easy solution.
I do, however, remember Lee Rigby
But it was the speed, and the enthusiasm with which it happened that was the surprise.
Who was going to say - "I'm running" - what would they expect to get out it?
Each way, *may* still be worth backing but it's more marginal.
She didn't do much different to other DAs, but in the age of Black Lives Matter, jamming up ethnic minority defendants in huge numbers is not the cool look.
Certainly what we're noticing in my world. Noone knows what the spending commitments and tax burden will be, or how heavy it will land. Until they do they won't commit.
It's those who can't take the change of leader and/or potential change in direction who have their "loyalty" tested and that's when you lose members and support. Look at how some supporters of Corbyn simply couldn't deal with the direction Starmer wanted to take Labour and left -you could argue some of those who supported Johnson went to Reform (I don't know). The diehard loyalist will support any and every leader.
https://x.com/tpostmillennial/status/1816070891693912567
“Trump announces meeting with Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago Friday”
The only way that's managed at present is the difficulty and cost of getting here.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/black-lives-matter-demands-dnc-host-virtual-primary-2024-07-23/
I'd probably feel immense pressure to plea bargain for a 2-3 year term in a moderate jail to avoid the 200+ years in a horrible one, even if i was innocent.
You'd have to have deep pockets and balls of steel to do anything else.