NEW: Keir Starmer says he wouldn't be able to watch Arsenal play if nobody paid for his tickets
"Never going to an Arsenal game again because I can't accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far."
Well the vast majority of the other 60,000 people at each match manage to buy their own tickets just fine, and I’ll take a random guess that most of them get paid considerably less than the Prime Minister.
£10 says he gets to watch Oasis as a guest of the FA at Wembley too.
Sadly the days when a PM could go to a match with no security detail are gone. Though have any ever tried?
It’s been such a long time since Rishi was PM. What a different world we lived in!
NEW: Keir Starmer says he wouldn't be able to watch Arsenal play if nobody paid for his tickets
"Never going to an Arsenal game again because I can't accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far."
Well the vast majority of the other 60,000 people at each match manage to buy their own tickets just fine, and I’ll take a random guess that most of them get paid considerably less than the Prime Minister.
£10 says he gets to watch Oasis as a guest of the FA at Wembley too.
Sadly the days when a PM could go to a match with no security detail are gone. Though have any ever tried?
Those look awfully like the hospitality seats at the Dell:
I had hospitality seats once at The Walkers Stadium, given by one of the directors as a thank you for treating them. Nice bloke, but the only time I have had to wear collar and tie to a match. Sandwiches and drinks at half time, and no queue for the bogs were nice, but a bit soulless compare to my usual seat.
I got the full hospitality experience at the Rugby once. That was fun
Twickenham hospitality once as well, awesome day out.
Two memories of that day, the first was that England beat Australia, and we scored a try from their 22 right at the end. The other was that it was around Remembrance Day, and before the match 80,000 people stood for two minutes’ silence so impeccably observed that you could have heard the proverbial pin drop in the stadium.
NEW: Keir Starmer says he wouldn't be able to watch Arsenal play if nobody paid for his tickets
"Never going to an Arsenal game again because I can't accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far."
Well the vast majority of the other 60,000 people at each match manage to buy their own tickets just fine, and I’ll take a random guess that most of them get paid considerably less than the Prime Minister.
£10 says he gets to watch Oasis as a guest of the FA at Wembley too.
Sadly the days when a PM could go to a match with no security detail are gone. Though have any ever tried?
I once saw Tony Blair in the Surfside Bar in Holetown watching the Arsenal v Chelsea game and he didn't have any protection. Not quite the same, I appreciate.
This is the result of a series of high quality national polls showing Harris's margin increasing to 4%+ and some good polls in some of the states too. It appears that the debate has shifted perceptions somewhat. Although the move is modest, when it is added to Harris's previous advantage it is becoming significant.
Trump needs to find a way to change perceptions. With no new debates its not immediately obvious how he is going to do that.
Oh, and isn't it great having our posts back the right way up. Well done Robert!
NEW: Keir Starmer says he wouldn't be able to watch Arsenal play if nobody paid for his tickets
"Never going to an Arsenal game again because I can't accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far."
Sir Sleazy and Lady Muck.
A less entertaining version of Boris and Carrie.
Sir Keir Sponger - will he gain two awful nicknames before he's completed a year in office?
I'll freely admit it's giving me warm feelings for Rishi Sunak. At least he did sit in the stands, even if one suspected it was a sort of pose, like when he filled up his nanny's Dacia Duster.
I’ll eat one of my hats if there’s a better double entendre today.
That’s nothing, Kamala Harris’s husband once filled up his nanny.
NEW: Keir Starmer says he wouldn't be able to watch Arsenal play if nobody paid for his tickets
"Never going to an Arsenal game again because I can't accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far."
Well the vast majority of the other 60,000 people at each match manage to buy their own tickets just fine, and I’ll take a random guess that most of them get paid considerably less than the Prime Minister.
£10 says he gets to watch Oasis as a guest of the FA at Wembley too.
Sadly the days when a PM could go to a match with no security detail are gone. Though have any ever tried?
Those look awfully like the hospitality seats at the Dell:
I had hospitality seats once at The Walkers Stadium, given by one of the directors as a thank you for treating them. Nice bloke, but the only time I have had to wear collar and tie to a match. Sandwiches and drinks at half time, and no queue for the bogs were nice, but a bit soulless compare to my usual seat.
I got the full hospitality experience at the Rugby once. That was fun
I did at Twickenham many moons ago. Thanks to a toolmaker I dealt with. It was ace.
Nowadays I cannot accept anything more than a desk diary from any company I deal with.
NEW: Keir Starmer says he wouldn't be able to watch Arsenal play if nobody paid for his tickets
"Never going to an Arsenal game again because I can't accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far."
Well the vast majority of the other 60,000 people at each match manage to buy their own tickets just fine, and I’ll take a random guess that most of them get paid considerably less than the Prime Minister.
£10 says he gets to watch Oasis as a guest of the FA at Wembley too.
Sadly the days when a PM could go to a match with no security detail are gone. Though have any ever tried?
For an unscheduled attendance at a sporting event, a couple of policemen could I’m sure be accomodated by the ground.
He doesn’t need to be given several hundred quid’s worth of hospitality sitting with the prawn sandwich and champagne brigade.
He could even buy his own hospitality ticket if he wants, he gets paid net £10k a month.
Freebies are one of the perks of being a front bencher, and a long tradition.
It's buying influence and access of course, just like those party fundraising dinners, or prizes of playing tennis with David Cameron etc.
Few seem able to resist.
Starmer's problem is he claimed he would drain the swamp of low level corruption like PPE contracts and overruling planning objections to Richard Desmond's property empire ambitions, and here he is doing things that are far, far worse
Thanks to @williamglenn for keeping the light shining on this corruption.
NEW: Keir Starmer says he wouldn't be able to watch Arsenal play if nobody paid for his tickets
"Never going to an Arsenal game again because I can't accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far."
Well the vast majority of the other 60,000 people at each match manage to buy their own tickets just fine, and I’ll take a random guess that most of them get paid considerably less than the Prime Minister.
£10 says he gets to watch Oasis as a guest of the FA at Wembley too.
Sadly the days when a PM could go to a match with no security detail are gone. Though have any ever tried?
Those look awfully like the hospitality seats at the Dell:
I had hospitality seats once at The Walkers Stadium, given by one of the directors as a thank you for treating them. Nice bloke, but the only time I have had to wear collar and tie to a match. Sandwiches and drinks at half time, and no queue for the bogs were nice, but a bit soulless compare to my usual seat.
I got the full hospitality experience at the Rugby once. That was fun
I did at Twickenham many moons ago. Thanks to a toolmaker I dealt with. It was ace.
Nowadays I cannot accept anything more than a desk diary from any company I deal with.
NEW: Keir Starmer says he wouldn't be able to watch Arsenal play if nobody paid for his tickets
"Never going to an Arsenal game again because I can't accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far."
Well the vast majority of the other 60,000 people at each match manage to buy their own tickets just fine, and I’ll take a random guess that most of them get paid considerably less than the Prime Minister.
£10 says he gets to watch Oasis as a guest of the FA at Wembley too.
Sadly the days when a PM could go to a match with no security detail are gone. Though have any ever tried?
Those look awfully like the hospitality seats at the Dell:
I had hospitality seats once at The Walkers Stadium, given by one of the directors as a thank you for treating them. Nice bloke, but the only time I have had to wear collar and tie to a match. Sandwiches and drinks at half time, and no queue for the bogs were nice, but a bit soulless compare to my usual seat.
I got the full hospitality experience at the Rugby once. That was fun
I did at Twickenham many moons ago. Thanks to a toolmaker I dealt with. It was ace.
Nowadays I cannot accept anything more than a desk diary from any company I deal with.
I think this touches on a point why it has become more toxic. Lots of jobs you can't accept any gifts personally these days, where as 30-40 years ago it was quite normal part of doing business (and the soft and hard corruption that can come along with it).
There was the story about a lowly street cleaner not even been able to accept a holiday that residents fund raised for.
Where as PM's are having the very fancy wallpaper and suits paid for when they are millionaires and can make multiples of that as soon as they leave office.
NEW: Keir Starmer says he wouldn't be able to watch Arsenal play if nobody paid for his tickets
"Never going to an Arsenal game again because I can't accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far."
Well the vast majority of the other 60,000 people at each match manage to buy their own tickets just fine, and I’ll take a random guess that most of them get paid considerably less than the Prime Minister.
£10 says he gets to watch Oasis as a guest of the FA at Wembley too.
Sadly the days when a PM could go to a match with no security detail are gone. Though have any ever tried?
Those look awfully like the hospitality seats at the Dell:
I had hospitality seats once at The Walkers Stadium, given by one of the directors as a thank you for treating them. Nice bloke, but the only time I have had to wear collar and tie to a match. Sandwiches and drinks at half time, and no queue for the bogs were nice, but a bit soulless compare to my usual seat.
I got the full hospitality experience at the Rugby once. That was fun
I did at Twickenham many moons ago. Thanks to a toolmaker I dealt with. It was ace.
Nowadays I cannot accept anything more than a desk diary from any company I deal with.
You knew Sir Keir's dad??
I never knew he was a toolmarker. Always wondered what he did for a living.
NEW: Keir Starmer says he wouldn't be able to watch Arsenal play if nobody paid for his tickets
"Never going to an Arsenal game again because I can't accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far."
Well the vast majority of the other 60,000 people at each match manage to buy their own tickets just fine, and I’ll take a random guess that most of them get paid considerably less than the Prime Minister.
£10 says he gets to watch Oasis as a guest of the FA at Wembley too.
Sadly the days when a PM could go to a match with no security detail are gone. Though have any ever tried?
Those look awfully like the hospitality seats at the Dell:
I had hospitality seats once at The Walkers Stadium, given by one of the directors as a thank you for treating them. Nice bloke, but the only time I have had to wear collar and tie to a match. Sandwiches and drinks at half time, and no queue for the bogs were nice, but a bit soulless compare to my usual seat.
I got the full hospitality experience at the Rugby once. That was fun
I did at Twickenham many moons ago. Thanks to a toolmaker I dealt with. It was ace.
Nowadays I cannot accept anything more than a desk diary from any company I deal with.
I think this touches on a point why it has become more toxic. Lots of jobs you can't accept any gifts personally these days, where as 30-40 years ago it was quite normal part of doing business (and the soft and hard corruption that can come along with it).
There was the story about a lowly street cleaner not even been able to accept a holiday that residents fund raised for.
Where as PM's are having the very fancy wallpaper and suits paid for when they are millionaires and can make multiples of that as soon as they leave office.
Excuse me, after months of graft Boris Johnson may now be a multi millionaire, but he was as poor as a church mouse when he was slumming it in that public sector flat in Downing Street.
I hope Starmer's wallpaper freebie is less ostentatious than the Lulu Lytle monstrosity that currently tanks the value of the No 11 apartment.
"The 22-year-old nursing student in Georgia who was barbarically murdered by an illegal alien animal. The Democrats say please don’t call them animals. I said, no, they’re not humans, they’re animals"
I don't think any of Trump's wives were illegal aliens when he married them, though didn't Melania work illegally in the US before they were married? So does that count?
NEW: Keir Starmer says he wouldn't be able to watch Arsenal play if nobody paid for his tickets
"Never going to an Arsenal game again because I can't accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far."
Well the vast majority of the other 60,000 people at each match manage to buy their own tickets just fine, and I’ll take a random guess that most of them get paid considerably less than the Prime Minister.
£10 says he gets to watch Oasis as a guest of the FA at Wembley too.
Sadly the days when a PM could go to a match with no security detail are gone. Though have any ever tried?
Those look awfully like the hospitality seats at the Dell:
I had hospitality seats once at The Walkers Stadium, given by one of the directors as a thank you for treating them. Nice bloke, but the only time I have had to wear collar and tie to a match. Sandwiches and drinks at half time, and no queue for the bogs were nice, but a bit soulless compare to my usual seat.
I got the full hospitality experience at the Rugby once. That was fun
I did at Twickenham many moons ago. Thanks to a toolmaker I dealt with. It was ace.
Nowadays I cannot accept anything more than a desk diary from any company I deal with.
This is, twitter informs me, only 4% more than they would have got by accepting the pay rises over the last couple of years as they came in. No idea of the veracity.
Four percent more for last year, plus this year's pay review recommendation in full.
The second bit shouldn't be controversial, but it possibly is.
It shows that all the "35% is needed as a minimum" was a load of crap.
This could have been sorted out last year if the BMA had wanted to.
The other health unions did so, why not the doctors.
The 35% is a longer term ambition.
It wasn't the BMA that kept the strikes going, it was the members voting massively in favour of striking.
And make your mind up, is 22% over 2 years massively inflationary? Or trivally more than the Tories were offering?
Doctors lied, people died.
They could have had 22% a year ago if they'd been prepared to negotiate honestly.
This certainly shows that the Conservative government was correct in opposing the doctors dishonest pay claims.
Comments
Two memories of that day, the first was that England beat Australia, and we scored a try from their 22 right at the end. The other was that it was around Remembrance Day, and before the match 80,000 people stood for two minutes’ silence so impeccably observed that you could have heard the proverbial pin drop in the stadium.
The days of Baldwins famous train anecdote are long gone.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2024-election-forecast/
This is the result of a series of high quality national polls showing Harris's margin increasing to 4%+ and some good polls in some of the states too. It appears that the debate has shifted perceptions somewhat. Although the move is modest, when it is added to Harris's previous advantage it is becoming significant.
Trump needs to find a way to change perceptions. With no new debates its not immediately obvious how he is going to do that.
Oh, and isn't it great having our posts back the right way up. Well done Robert!
Nowadays I cannot accept anything more than a desk diary from any company I deal with.
https://x.com/flying_rodent/status/1835901830091436389?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
Thanks to @williamglenn for keeping the light shining on this corruption.
There was the story about a lowly street cleaner not even been able to accept a holiday that residents fund raised for.
Waste firm Veolia has refused to let a beloved street cleaner accept nearly £3,000 raised by his neighbours
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13735507/Veolia-street-cleaner-raised-money-holiday-Portugal-offer-cash-charity.html
Where as PM's are having the very fancy wallpaper and suits paid for when they are millionaires and can make multiples of that as soon as they leave office.
NEW THREAD
I hope Starmer's wallpaper freebie is less ostentatious than the Lulu Lytle monstrosity that currently tanks the value of the No 11 apartment.
"The 22-year-old nursing student in Georgia who was barbarically murdered by an illegal alien animal. The Democrats say please don’t call them animals. I said, no, they’re not humans, they’re animals"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jyDbqa-nHc
I don't think any of Trump's wives were illegal aliens when he married them, though didn't Melania work illegally in the US before they were married? So does that count?
They could have had 22% a year ago if they'd been prepared to negotiate honestly.
This certainly shows that the Conservative government was correct in opposing the doctors dishonest pay claims.