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.
I think it shows another aspect to Starmer's political tin ear. We've already seen his insensitivity in cancelling the winter fuel allowance for most pensioners to fund massive pay increases for his public sector union paymasters and now we see his hypocrisy in having clothes paid for him despite having objected to Boris's wallpaper.
Whenever challeneged, rather than defusing the story by returning the trivial gifts, he goes into prickly lawyer mode, never really explaining convincingly or apologising.
It's why his government has had such a quick collapse in YouGov approval ratings.
Especially when Starmer made such a play about cleaning up politics.
He's a wealthy man, why could he not pay for the hospitality at his Soccer club instead of just taking freebies.
"Giving the example of football tickets, which the Prime Minister is known to accept as gifts, he said: “I’m a massive Arsenal fan. I can’t go into the stands because of security reasons. Therefore, if I don’t accept a gift of hospitality, I can’t go to a game. You could say, ‘well, bad luck’. That’s why gifts have to be registered.
“But, you know, never going to an Arsenal game again because I can’t accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far.”"
Presumably Starmer means he needs a box for security reasons (also so he does not bump into fellow-Gooner Jeremy Corbyn). On the one hand, these are piffling amounts. On the other hand, many of us have to sit through annual training on the dangers and illegality of bribery, and Starmer himself had a front row seat for Boris's expense scandals.
The thing is a don't see either getting a seat at the football or those clothes as bribery.
1) the football is because everyone in Football wants the publicity that comes from pointing the camera at him watching a match once in a while (or even at every match). Now you could argue it's football trying to bribe him but it's a big industry in the UK 2) the clothing is again - companies want fancy people wearing their clothes because a photo in a newspaper is worth £x0,000 in advertising. So giving some clothes to the PM's wife makes sense on a cheap advertising basis alone...
Except the clothes donor got a No.10 pass that (AIUI) he should not have got. Odd, isn't it, that of all people, a donor gets a pass to the highest levels of power.
Corruption: plain and simple.
And Labour supporters would be screeching about this if it was a Tory PM.
No I don't think they would. No one minded Sunak's freebie to St Mary's mentioned by Foxy. Labour have chased big ticket corruption. The client media and the PB faithful are trying to equalise Mrs Starmer's frocks with Michelle Mone's PPE contracts.
Now do I believe Mrs Starmer should be getting free frocks when she can afford her own? No.
Ah "big ticket" corruption.
What utter b/s.
Starmer is meant to be better than this; it sad;y seems he is not. And the rot always starts at the top (*)
(*) Something I said about the Conservatives under Johnson many times...
I've said I think it is wrong, what more do you want? I can't agree that it has an equivalence to PPE contracts, putting sons of KGB grandees in the House of Lords and overruling planning issues for Richard Desmond rewarded by a paltry £10,000 donation* to the Conservative Party.
* For being so royally tucked up by Desmond, Jenrick is unfit for high office. Just ten grand? And it was worth nearly fifty million to Desmond.
You are excusing it by saying "the other lot are worse." That may be true, but it's also pretty irrelevant.
Starmer was meant to be better than this; he was sold as being better than this. And if this is happening at the top, you can guarantee other corruption is happening lower down the pecking order.
This is just triangulation.
What corrupt decisions has Mr Starmer made, or what identifiable personal or business benefits have 'donors' received from Mr Starmer?
(My political view on this is that the Opposition and the Right Side of the Media are going at this because otherwise their cupboard is bare.)
They're going after it because it not only looks dodgy, it is wrong.
I'm amused that Labour fans are having to defend the party over corruption after only a couple of months - and that the corruption goes to the top.
Where is the corruption?
I think you are just being a troll on this now. The offence was not declaring the gift. There probably hasn't been any corruption, but who knows what the future holds. When the phone rings, and Starmer answers and is asked "Do you remember those cloths I paid for? Well now I need..." That's the point of the rules around declaring gifts. FFS I need to do it as a lowly Uni academic.
AFAIK the gifts have been declared!
They have been NOW. They weren't at the time.
When he realised they should have been declared, he declared them though, right? (prior to any media interest?)
I'm interested in the sudden moral outrage.
Was there a Great Frothing Noise on PB about Mr Cameron's discounted-by-£2200 suit (for example),Sam Cam's Designer Wardrobe (contents thereof), or anything else similar before July 2024?
I'm also amused that I have become "a Labour supporter" .
LOL! Fair point
I have no problem with Lady Starmer being asked to wear a dress to promote British design, but every problem with Starmer receiving £76,000 for clothes, glasses, football and sporting tickets and his wife receiving thousands of pounds to buy dresses
You cannot see it is wrong as you are a Labour supporter but 62% in yesterday's yougov poll were against Starmer receiving this money and just 13% like yourself trying to defend the indefensible
I never had much hope about Starmer, but I did expect him to be better than this and not just another 'Tory' receiving gifts.
I would also ask where is his pride, a millionire allowing another millionaire to buy goodies for him and his wife
It is just indefensible, no matter how much his supporters say the tories were worse
Regarding the brief discussion with @rcs1000 last night, this sort of thing isn'tdirectly captured in the trade figures, but it's part of German exports getting crucified in China.
Denza - Wow.
2010: Mercedes and BYD form 50-50 JV creating the Denza brand. Sales: 132
2021: BYD increases to 90% - Mercedes 10% Sales: 4,800
Sept 2024: BYD 100% - Mercedes out Sales: 125,000 (f)
It's the Chinese way, force a JV with a western company, steal the IP, push the western company out of the JV and then use subsidies to bankrupt the western company the IP was stolen from. I don't understand how American and European companies keep falling for it, "this time it will be different" or "it happened to them but we've paid off the right people so it won't happen to us" seems to be the main logic.
But then you look at how Germany fell for what was quite possibly a Russian influence operation, and destroyed its nuclear industry in favour of gas.
Long term strategic thinking hasn't been a western strength for a while now.
No one was 'forced', of course. The example of Tesla demonstrates that (although China has quite happily nicked some of their manufacturing knowhow, too).
I actually think Merkel was beyond useful idiot for the Russians, I wouldn't be surprised if in some years we discover that she had much deeper ties to Russia and was considered indirectly an asset by Russian intelligence.
She was certainly an avid communist in her youth, but werent most young people in the seventies?
He scrapes Penn by the tiny margin and there are days of court cases but he holds it.
He wins NC and MI. Again by small numbers.
But its enough and America and the West are f*cked.
I'm depressed writing this prediction and hope I am very very wrong but I think the polling is underplaying his 'shy trump voters' who refuse to deal with polling.
Trump voters have never struck me as particularly shy.
Topping is sort of right. Many posters on here are irrationally terrified of Trump47 and work backwards from the lemma that such a thing is impossible.
'Many posters' think Trump47 is 'impossible'
You seem to have imagined this - have any posters said that, let alone many? The closest I can find is Barnesian I guess, though they don't say Trump winning is impossible.
Only Kinabalu does. Which of course is dumb, if expected from him. But the rest of you are befuddled as to why it should be so close.
You look at the opinion polls and say "it's close" but have no idea why or what is motivating likely Trump voters. Nor do you seem minded to investigate why this might me.
For a leading political analysis site it is near-unforgiveable.
"You look at the opinion polls and say "it's close" but have no idea why or what is motivating likely Trump voters. Nor do you seem minded to investigate why this might me."
Regarding the brief discussion with @rcs1000 last night, this sort of thing isn'tdirectly captured in the trade figures, but it's part of German exports getting crucified in China.
Denza - Wow.
2010: Mercedes and BYD form 50-50 JV creating the Denza brand. Sales: 132
2021: BYD increases to 90% - Mercedes 10% Sales: 4,800
Sept 2024: BYD 100% - Mercedes out Sales: 125,000 (f)
It's the Chinese way, force a JV with a western company, steal the IP, push the western company out of the JV and then use subsidies to bankrupt the western company the IP was stolen from. I don't understand how American and European companies keep falling for it, "this time it will be different" or "it happened to them but we've paid off the right people so it won't happen to us" seems to be the main logic.
But then you look at how Germany fell for what was quite possibly a Russian influence operation, and destroyed its nuclear industry in favour of gas.
Long term strategic thinking hasn't been a western strength for a while now.
No one was 'forced', of course. The example of Tesla demonstrates that (although China has quite happily nicked some of their manufacturing knowhow, too).
I actually think Merkel was beyond useful idiot for the Russians, I wouldn't be surprised if in some years we discover that she had much deeper ties to Russia and was considered indirectly an asset by Russian intelligence.
I wonder what a Russian asset who was Germany's Chancellor for 16 years would do ?
Run down Germany's military Get German industry hooked on Russian gas Get German banks hooked on Russian money Encourage a culture where business profits and politicians bribes were more important than national security and human rights Have as many disputes as possible with other western countries Let the third world migrate to Europe
Indeed, I think it goes beyond useful idiot and we'll find out that some of her inner circle were taking orders from the Kremlin and that she had been captured by their thinking making her their asset.
Wouldn't surprise me, after all Gerhard Schroeder became a willing Russian asset at some point.
Merkel also had 35 years of 'Russia is good, the West is bad' propaganda fed to her.
We're regularly told that a few years at Eton or in the Bullingdon influences a person for life so its certainly possible that Merkel's upbringing did too.
That's the Telegrunt trying to astroturf a tiny spat into a wedge issue, I think. It's a couple of Councillors creating a fuss, possibly using Welsh vs English as a stalking horse.
They have done three large articles on this since September 5th. I debunked most of it last time.
The only thing in the article which is about right imo is that it is to do with Nimbydom, not language; some people don't want 18 social houses in their village of 996 people.
It already has schools where there is a mix of pupils, and where the large majority are fine with Welsh or English.
The decision is imo unlikely to withstand an Appeal.
It is a small predominantly Welsh speaking community trying to retain its culture, but I agree it is most likely to fail the appeal
The problem is if you try to make that argument about say Englishness and overseas immigrants of a different culture and language, you are rather quickly accused of racism.
I don’t think the English language is under much threat TBH. It’s not a fair comparison. As for what “English culture” is, while it exists, its very success makes it a universal rather than local affair.
He scrapes Penn by the tiny margin and there are days of court cases but he holds it.
He wins NC and MI. Again by small numbers.
But its enough and America and the West are f*cked.
I'm depressed writing this prediction and hope I am very very wrong but I think the polling is underplaying his 'shy trump voters' who refuse to deal with polling.
Trump voters have never struck me as particularly shy.
potentially hard to find and poll though.
I've not got a clue how the American election is going to play out so no prediction from me...
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.
I think it shows another aspect to Starmer's political tin ear. We've already seen his insensitivity in cancelling the winter fuel allowance for most pensioners to fund massive pay increases for his public sector union paymasters and now we see his hypocrisy in having clothes paid for him despite having objected to Boris's wallpaper.
Whenever challeneged, rather than defusing the story by returning the trivial gifts, he goes into prickly lawyer mode, never really explaining convincingly or apologising.
It's why his government has had such a quick collapse in YouGov approval ratings.
Especially when Starmer made such a play about cleaning up politics.
He's a wealthy man, why could he not pay for the hospitality at his Soccer club instead of just taking freebies.
"Giving the example of football tickets, which the Prime Minister is known to accept as gifts, he said: “I’m a massive Arsenal fan. I can’t go into the stands because of security reasons. Therefore, if I don’t accept a gift of hospitality, I can’t go to a game. You could say, ‘well, bad luck’. That’s why gifts have to be registered.
“But, you know, never going to an Arsenal game again because I can’t accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far.”"
Presumably Starmer means he needs a box for security reasons (also so he does not bump into fellow-Gooner Jeremy Corbyn). On the one hand, these are piffling amounts. On the other hand, many of us have to sit through annual training on the dangers and illegality of bribery, and Starmer himself had a front row seat for Boris's expense scandals.
The thing is a don't see either getting a seat at the football or those clothes as bribery.
1) the football is because everyone in Football wants the publicity that comes from pointing the camera at him watching a match once in a while (or even at every match). Now you could argue it's football trying to bribe him but it's a big industry in the UK 2) the clothing is again - companies want fancy people wearing their clothes because a photo in a newspaper is worth £x0,000 in advertising. So giving some clothes to the PM's wife makes sense on a cheap advertising basis alone...
Except the clothes donor got a No.10 pass that (AIUI) he should not have got. Odd, isn't it, that of all people, a donor gets a pass to the highest levels of power.
Corruption: plain and simple.
And Labour supporters would be screeching about this if it was a Tory PM.
No I don't think they would. No one minded Sunak's freebie to St Mary's mentioned by Foxy. Labour have chased big ticket corruption. The client media and the PB faithful are trying to equalise Mrs Starmer's frocks with Michelle Mone's PPE contracts.
Now do I believe Mrs Starmer should be getting free frocks when she can afford her own? No.
Ah "big ticket" corruption.
What utter b/s.
Starmer is meant to be better than this; it sad;y seems he is not. And the rot always starts at the top (*)
(*) Something I said about the Conservatives under Johnson many times...
I've said I think it is wrong, what more do you want? I can't agree that it has an equivalence to PPE contracts, putting sons of KGB grandees in the House of Lords and overruling planning issues for Richard Desmond rewarded by a paltry £10,000 donation* to the Conservative Party.
* For being so royally tucked up by Desmond, Jenrick is unfit for high office. Just ten grand? And it was worth nearly fifty million to Desmond.
You are excusing it by saying "the other lot are worse." That may be true, but it's also pretty irrelevant.
Starmer was meant to be better than this; he was sold as being better than this. And if this is happening at the top, you can guarantee other corruption is happening lower down the pecking order.
This is just triangulation.
What corrupt decisions has Mr Starmer made, or what identifiable personal or business benefits have 'donors' received from Mr Starmer?
(My political view on this is that the Opposition and the Right Side of the Media are going at this because otherwise their cupboard is bare.)
They're going after it because it not only looks dodgy, it is wrong.
I'm amused that Labour fans are having to defend the party over corruption after only a couple of months - and that the corruption goes to the top.
Where is the corruption?
The same could be said for the last government. There was no evidence of corruption, because there almost certainly wouldnt have been any. Just lots of inuendo "he gave his pub landlord £37 billion for an app that didnt work" kind of thing. If you do corruption in UK politics you'll be getting your collar felt.
Regarding the brief discussion with @rcs1000 last night, this sort of thing isn'tdirectly captured in the trade figures, but it's part of German exports getting crucified in China.
Denza - Wow.
2010: Mercedes and BYD form 50-50 JV creating the Denza brand. Sales: 132
2021: BYD increases to 90% - Mercedes 10% Sales: 4,800
Sept 2024: BYD 100% - Mercedes out Sales: 125,000 (f)
It's the Chinese way, force a JV with a western company, steal the IP, push the western company out of the JV and then use subsidies to bankrupt the western company the IP was stolen from. I don't understand how American and European companies keep falling for it, "this time it will be different" or "it happened to them but we've paid off the right people so it won't happen to us" seems to be the main logic.
But then you look at how Germany fell for what was quite possibly a Russian influence operation, and destroyed its nuclear industry in favour of gas.
Long term strategic thinking hasn't been a western strength for a while now.
No one was 'forced', of course. The example of Tesla demonstrates that (although China has quite happily nicked some of their manufacturing knowhow, too).
I actually think Merkel was beyond useful idiot for the Russians, I wouldn't be surprised if in some years we discover that she had much deeper ties to Russia and was considered indirectly an asset by Russian intelligence.
She was certainly an avid communist in her youth, but werent most young people in the seventies?
Topping is sort of right. Many posters on here are irrationally terrified of Trump47 and work backwards from the lemma that such a thing is impossible.
'Many posters' think Trump47 is 'impossible'
You seem to have imagined this - have any posters said that, let alone many? The closest I can find is Barnesian I guess, though they don't say Trump winning is impossible.
Only Kinabalu does. Which of course is dumb, if expected from him. But the rest of you are befuddled as to why it should be so close.
You look at the opinion polls and say "it's close" but have no idea why or what is motivating likely Trump voters. Nor do you seem minded to investigate why this might me.
For a leading political analysis site it is near-unforgiveable.
We're not here to spoon-feed you, so you can drop the 'unforgivable' nonsense. DYOR.
Classic "I have no idea" deflection ploy.
Ok: the US is close to 50% loons, fruitcakes and closet racists
Seriously though, it's not that hard, is it? As here (to a lesser extent now) there are whole groups who identify by political party and will vote GOP (or Dem) pretty much whoever the candidate is. There are those horrified by their country being taken away from them (believing, for good reasons or bad that the Dems are too liberal/woke/pro-immigrant, not religious enough, unborn baby killers). There are too many for whom the US isn't working, so why should they vote for the Harris who is a major figure in the present government and, fairly or not, can therefore be labeled continuity-Biden. If things are shit, it's hardly irrational to vote for change.
All that helps explain why Trump won in 2016. Some of it helps explain why he can win in 2024. The bit I have trouble with is why the many the US government conutally fails would vote for Trump given he failed to really do anything for them in 2016-2020. Do they believe he was somehow nobbled by the libs? Maybe.
It's easy to vote for the sensible, nice people when you're doing ok. That worked for Blair it worked for Cameron in 2015 and - just about - for May in 2017. But for those failed by governments then change, any change, is appealing. That's behind Corbyn 2017 doing so well, behind Reform, behind Brexit.
Regarding the brief discussion with @rcs1000 last night, this sort of thing isn'tdirectly captured in the trade figures, but it's part of German exports getting crucified in China.
Denza - Wow.
2010: Mercedes and BYD form 50-50 JV creating the Denza brand. Sales: 132
2021: BYD increases to 90% - Mercedes 10% Sales: 4,800
Sept 2024: BYD 100% - Mercedes out Sales: 125,000 (f)
It's the Chinese way, force a JV with a western company, steal the IP, push the western company out of the JV and then use subsidies to bankrupt the western company the IP was stolen from. I don't understand how American and European companies keep falling for it, "this time it will be different" or "it happened to them but we've paid off the right people so it won't happen to us" seems to be the main logic.
But then you look at how Germany fell for what was quite possibly a Russian influence operation, and destroyed its nuclear industry in favour of gas.
Long term strategic thinking hasn't been a western strength for a while now.
No one was 'forced', of course. The example of Tesla demonstrates that (although China has quite happily nicked some of their manufacturing knowhow, too).
I actually think Merkel was beyond useful idiot for the Russians, I wouldn't be surprised if in some years we discover that she had much deeper ties to Russia and was considered indirectly an asset by Russian intelligence.
She was certainly an avid communist in her youth, but werent most young people in the seventies?
Safer to be so in the DDR.
I think it was probably safer to be a communist outside of the DDR, the only communism permitted in the DDR was of the large C communism of the Party line.
Regarding the brief discussion with @rcs1000 last night, this sort of thing isn'tdirectly captured in the trade figures, but it's part of German exports getting crucified in China.
Denza - Wow.
2010: Mercedes and BYD form 50-50 JV creating the Denza brand. Sales: 132
2021: BYD increases to 90% - Mercedes 10% Sales: 4,800
Sept 2024: BYD 100% - Mercedes out Sales: 125,000 (f)
It's the Chinese way, force a JV with a western company, steal the IP, push the western company out of the JV and then use subsidies to bankrupt the western company the IP was stolen from. I don't understand how American and European companies keep falling for it, "this time it will be different" or "it happened to them but we've paid off the right people so it won't happen to us" seems to be the main logic.
But then you look at how Germany fell for what was quite possibly a Russian influence operation, and destroyed its nuclear industry in favour of gas.
Long term strategic thinking hasn't been a western strength for a while now.
No one was 'forced', of course. The example of Tesla demonstrates that (although China has quite happily nicked some of their manufacturing knowhow, too).
I actually think Merkel was beyond useful idiot for the Russians, I wouldn't be surprised if in some years we discover that she had much deeper ties to Russia and was considered indirectly an asset by Russian intelligence.
She was certainly an avid communist in her youth, but werent most young people in the seventies?
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.
I think it shows another aspect to Starmer's political tin ear. We've already seen his insensitivity in cancelling the winter fuel allowance for most pensioners to fund massive pay increases for his public sector union paymasters and now we see his hypocrisy in having clothes paid for him despite having objected to Boris's wallpaper.
Whenever challeneged, rather than defusing the story by returning the trivial gifts, he goes into prickly lawyer mode, never really explaining convincingly or apologising.
It's why his government has had such a quick collapse in YouGov approval ratings.
Especially when Starmer made such a play about cleaning up politics.
He's a wealthy man, why could he not pay for the hospitality at his Soccer club instead of just taking freebies.
"Giving the example of football tickets, which the Prime Minister is known to accept as gifts, he said: “I’m a massive Arsenal fan. I can’t go into the stands because of security reasons. Therefore, if I don’t accept a gift of hospitality, I can’t go to a game. You could say, ‘well, bad luck’. That’s why gifts have to be registered.
“But, you know, never going to an Arsenal game again because I can’t accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far.”"
Presumably Starmer means he needs a box for security reasons (also so he does not bump into fellow-Gooner Jeremy Corbyn). On the one hand, these are piffling amounts. On the other hand, many of us have to sit through annual training on the dangers and illegality of bribery, and Starmer himself had a front row seat for Boris's expense scandals.
The thing is a don't see either getting a seat at the football or those clothes as bribery.
1) the football is because everyone in Football wants the publicity that comes from pointing the camera at him watching a match once in a while (or even at every match). Now you could argue it's football trying to bribe him but it's a big industry in the UK 2) the clothing is again - companies want fancy people wearing their clothes because a photo in a newspaper is worth £x0,000 in advertising. So giving some clothes to the PM's wife makes sense on a cheap advertising basis alone...
Except the clothes donor got a No.10 pass that (AIUI) he should not have got. Odd, isn't it, that of all people, a donor gets a pass to the highest levels of power.
Corruption: plain and simple.
And Labour supporters would be screeching about this if it was a Tory PM.
No I don't think they would. No one minded Sunak's freebie to St Mary's mentioned by Foxy. Labour have chased big ticket corruption. The client media and the PB faithful are trying to equalise Mrs Starmer's frocks with Michelle Mone's PPE contracts.
Now do I believe Mrs Starmer should be getting free frocks when she can afford her own? No.
Ah "big ticket" corruption.
What utter b/s.
Starmer is meant to be better than this; it sad;y seems he is not. And the rot always starts at the top (*)
(*) Something I said about the Conservatives under Johnson many times...
I've said I think it is wrong, what more do you want? I can't agree that it has an equivalence to PPE contracts, putting sons of KGB grandees in the House of Lords and overruling planning issues for Richard Desmond rewarded by a paltry £10,000 donation* to the Conservative Party.
* For being so royally tucked up by Desmond, Jenrick is unfit for high office. Just ten grand? And it was worth nearly fifty million to Desmond.
You are excusing it by saying "the other lot are worse." That may be true, but it's also pretty irrelevant.
Starmer was meant to be better than this; he was sold as being better than this. And if this is happening at the top, you can guarantee other corruption is happening lower down the pecking order.
This is just triangulation.
What corrupt decisions has Mr Starmer made, or what identifiable personal or business benefits have 'donors' received from Mr Starmer?
(My political view on this is that the Opposition and the Right Side of the Media are going at this because otherwise their cupboard is bare.)
They're going after it because it not only looks dodgy, it is wrong.
I'm amused that Labour fans are having to defend the party over corruption after only a couple of months - and that the corruption goes to the top.
Where is the corruption?
I think you are just being a troll on this now. The offence was not declaring the gift. There probably hasn't been any corruption, but who knows what the future holds. When the phone rings, and Starmer answers and is asked "Do you remember those cloths I paid for? Well now I need..." That's the point of the rules around declaring gifts. FFS I need to do it as a lowly Uni academic.
AFAIK the gifts have been declared!
They have been NOW. They weren't at the time.
When he realised they should have been declared, he declared them though, right? (prior to any media interest?)
I'm interested in the sudden moral outrage.
Was there a Great Frothing Noise on PB about Mr Cameron's discounted-by-£2200 suit (for example),Sam Cam's Designer Wardrobe (contents thereof), or anything else similar before July 2024?
I'm also amused that I have become "a Labour supporter" .
LOL! Fair point
I have no problem with Lady Starmer being asked to wear a dress to promote British design, but every problem with Starmer receiving £76,000 for clothes, glasses, football and sporting tickets and his wife receiving thousands of pounds to buy dresses
You cannot see it is wrong as you are a Labour supporter but 62% in yesterday's yougov poll were against Starmer receiving this money and just 13% like yourself trying to defend the indefensible
I never had much hope about Starmer, but I did expect him to be better than this and not just another 'Tory' receiving gifts.
I would also ask where is his pride, a millionire allowing another millionaire to buy goodies for him and his wife
It is just indefensible, no matter how much his supporters say the tories were worse
It's the same as the Bamfords paying for Carrie's to refurb of No 10. It was wrong then and it's wrong now.
Interesting that Khan's plan to pedestrianise Oxford Street is being met with almost universal acclaim, with lots of people asking why Soho and other areas aren't being considered too.
Tide is turning somewhat.
It’s a great idea. Except for where you put the buses? Doing that in the London grid is difficult. Easy to say - “the parallel streets”. But those parallel streets are already used. So you’d end up rebuilding them.. etc etc
Especially with statutory duties regarding access to step free transport - IIRC, anything that makes that *worse* is problematic, in planning terms.
I actually think the best idea would have been to tear up Oxford Street, dig a tunnel the whole length and put the buses and cabs down below. Problem is, that is a CanDo project in a Can’tDo Country.
Westminster council are currently doing work and pointed out that elderly and disabled people need the buses to get to the front door of the places they want to go to.
It's a long walk from the next street north of Oxford Street to Oxford Street - one my mum couldn't easily do anymore.
We'll see how Oxford Street turns out.
There's no problem with through-buses as long as the level of motor-traffic is in a distinct minority so it is clear that they are "guests in a pedestrian space", and that demarcation is clear.
The Exhibition Road scheme in 2010 failed because "shared space" (ie leave the safety of pedestrians reliant on motor vehicle drivers not being selfish - pigs might fly) left motors uncontrolled. So the vehicular route just became a road without safety features.
One to watch is Taxi Driver organisations using a segment of disabled people as a human shield for their own interest, against the interest of all the other disabled people. That is their modus operandi in eg LTNs and the debate around Bank Junction.
Same here. Sudden, novel concern about disabled people whenever something like this is suggested. Particularly the case with floating bus stops.
If you suggest removing some parking bays to make way for disabled spots, or a pavement parking ban so that folk in wheelchairs can get around, or remind people that one of ways people pick up disabilities in the first place is in vehicle/pedestrian collisions - silence.
That's not to say there aren't legitimate concerns about how disabled people will access these streets. You just need to listen carefully to what the RNIB and other organisations say rather than these vested interests.
Regarding the brief discussion with @rcs1000 last night, this sort of thing isn'tdirectly captured in the trade figures, but it's part of German exports getting crucified in China.
Denza - Wow.
2010: Mercedes and BYD form 50-50 JV creating the Denza brand. Sales: 132
2021: BYD increases to 90% - Mercedes 10% Sales: 4,800
Sept 2024: BYD 100% - Mercedes out Sales: 125,000 (f)
It's the Chinese way, force a JV with a western company, steal the IP, push the western company out of the JV and then use subsidies to bankrupt the western company the IP was stolen from. I don't understand how American and European companies keep falling for it, "this time it will be different" or "it happened to them but we've paid off the right people so it won't happen to us" seems to be the main logic.
But then you look at how Germany fell for what was quite possibly a Russian influence operation, and destroyed its nuclear industry in favour of gas.
Long term strategic thinking hasn't been a western strength for a while now.
No one was 'forced', of course. The example of Tesla demonstrates that (although China has quite happily nicked some of their manufacturing knowhow, too).
I actually think Merkel was beyond useful idiot for the Russians, I wouldn't be surprised if in some years we discover that she had much deeper ties to Russia and was considered indirectly an asset by Russian intelligence.
She was certainly an avid communist in her youth, but werent most young people in the seventies?
Safer to be so in the DDR.
I think it was probably safer to be a communist outside of the DDR, the only communism permitted in the DDR was of the large C communism of the Party line.
True! Indeed true of the whole of Eastern Europe at the time.
He scrapes Penn by the tiny margin and there are days of court cases but he holds it.
He wins NC and MI. Again by small numbers.
But its enough and America and the West are f*cked.
I'm depressed writing this prediction and hope I am very very wrong but I think the polling is underplaying his 'shy trump voters' who refuse to deal with polling.
As I pointed out earlier that was the case in the last two elections and I think that pollsters are compensating, possibly overcompensating, for these “shy” voters.
FWIW I think, globally, “shy” voters are less of an issue in internet polling. People are not shy of speaking their mind to a computer or smartphone screen - as we see on TwiX and here. The issue is voters pollsters are not reaching at all.
Anyway, my micro impact on this election is helping ensure the wife’s ballot makes CT in time if she decides not to go in person ie no impact at all. Pointless worrying about what you can’t change. What good does it do?
He scrapes Penn by the tiny margin and there are days of court cases but he holds it.
He wins NC and MI. Again by small numbers.
But its enough and America and the West are f*cked.
I'm depressed writing this prediction and hope I am very very wrong but I think the polling is underplaying his 'shy trump voters' who refuse to deal with polling.
Counterfactual: If Hillary Clinton had become President in 2016 instead of Trump, what would have happened in Ukraine?
He scrapes Penn by the tiny margin and there are days of court cases but he holds it.
He wins NC and MI. Again by small numbers.
But its enough and America and the West are f*cked.
I'm depressed writing this prediction and hope I am very very wrong but I think the polling is underplaying his 'shy trump voters' who refuse to deal with polling.
Trump voters have never struck me as particularly shy.
People use the word "shy" in polling from when people didn't want to admit voting for John Major but I don't think it's what's going on here. Part of it seems to be just that Trump voters disproportionately don't want to talk to pollsters.
One change that one pollster (NYT/Siena) made is that if you answer the poll and say you'll vote for Trump but then you refuse to complete the rest of the interview, they'll count you in the sample and do without the other details. Apparently this makes quite a big difference to their results compared to their old method of throwing out any incomplete response.
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.
I think it shows another aspect to Starmer's political tin ear. We've already seen his insensitivity in cancelling the winter fuel allowance for most pensioners to fund massive pay increases for his public sector union paymasters and now we see his hypocrisy in having clothes paid for him despite having objected to Boris's wallpaper.
Whenever challeneged, rather than defusing the story by returning the trivial gifts, he goes into prickly lawyer mode, never really explaining convincingly or apologising.
It's why his government has had such a quick collapse in YouGov approval ratings.
Especially when Starmer made such a play about cleaning up politics.
He's a wealthy man, why could he not pay for the hospitality at his Soccer club instead of just taking freebies.
"Giving the example of football tickets, which the Prime Minister is known to accept as gifts, he said: “I’m a massive Arsenal fan. I can’t go into the stands because of security reasons. Therefore, if I don’t accept a gift of hospitality, I can’t go to a game. You could say, ‘well, bad luck’. That’s why gifts have to be registered.
“But, you know, never going to an Arsenal game again because I can’t accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far.”"
Presumably Starmer means he needs a box for security reasons (also so he does not bump into fellow-Gooner Jeremy Corbyn). On the one hand, these are piffling amounts. On the other hand, many of us have to sit through annual training on the dangers and illegality of bribery, and Starmer himself had a front row seat for Boris's expense scandals.
The thing is a don't see either getting a seat at the football or those clothes as bribery.
1) the football is because everyone in Football wants the publicity that comes from pointing the camera at him watching a match once in a while (or even at every match). Now you could argue it's football trying to bribe him but it's a big industry in the UK 2) the clothing is again - companies want fancy people wearing their clothes because a photo in a newspaper is worth £x0,000 in advertising. So giving some clothes to the PM's wife makes sense on a cheap advertising basis alone...
Except the clothes donor got a No.10 pass that (AIUI) he should not have got. Odd, isn't it, that of all people, a donor gets a pass to the highest levels of power.
Corruption: plain and simple.
And Labour supporters would be screeching about this if it was a Tory PM.
No I don't think they would. No one minded Sunak's freebie to St Mary's mentioned by Foxy. Labour have chased big ticket corruption. The client media and the PB faithful are trying to equalise Mrs Starmer's frocks with Michelle Mone's PPE contracts.
Now do I believe Mrs Starmer should be getting free frocks when she can afford her own? No.
Ah "big ticket" corruption.
What utter b/s.
Starmer is meant to be better than this; it sad;y seems he is not. And the rot always starts at the top (*)
(*) Something I said about the Conservatives under Johnson many times...
I've said I think it is wrong, what more do you want? I can't agree that it has an equivalence to PPE contracts, putting sons of KGB grandees in the House of Lords and overruling planning issues for Richard Desmond rewarded by a paltry £10,000 donation* to the Conservative Party.
* For being so royally tucked up by Desmond, Jenrick is unfit for high office. Just ten grand? And it was worth nearly fifty million to Desmond.
You are excusing it by saying "the other lot are worse." That may be true, but it's also pretty irrelevant.
Starmer was meant to be better than this; he was sold as being better than this. And if this is happening at the top, you can guarantee other corruption is happening lower down the pecking order.
This is just triangulation.
What corrupt decisions has Mr Starmer made, or what identifiable personal or business benefits have 'donors' received from Mr Starmer?
(My political view on this is that the Opposition and the Right Side of the Media are going at this because otherwise their cupboard is bare.)
They're going after it because it not only looks dodgy, it is wrong.
I'm amused that Labour fans are having to defend the party over corruption after only a couple of months - and that the corruption goes to the top.
Where is the corruption?
Giving a donor a pass, where the donations that were not declared.
Topping is sort of right. Many posters on here are irrationally terrified of Trump47 and work backwards from the lemma that such a thing is impossible.
'Many posters' think Trump47 is 'impossible'
You seem to have imagined this - have any posters said that, let alone many? The closest I can find is Barnesian I guess, though they don't say Trump winning is impossible.
Only Kinabalu does. Which of course is dumb, if expected from him. But the rest of you are befuddled as to why it should be so close.
You look at the opinion polls and say "it's close" but have no idea why or what is motivating likely Trump voters. Nor do you seem minded to investigate why this might me.
For a leading political analysis site it is near-unforgiveable.
As just one example to counter this I posted a couple of times ages ago a reference to a must-read book that helps explain Trump's rise: Williams, 'The White Working Class'.
There's also books by Micheal Lind.
If you want something more accessible there is of course Hillbilly Elegy. Interesting book and well written. No idea what became of the author.
Edit: And Sarah Churchwell's 'Behold America' is fascinating on the long history from 1920s and 1930s of much of the crap that Trump spouts.
He scrapes Penn by the tiny margin and there are days of court cases but he holds it.
He wins NC and MI. Again by small numbers.
But its enough and America and the West are f*cked.
I'm depressed writing this prediction and hope I am very very wrong but I think the polling is underplaying his 'shy trump voters' who refuse to deal with polling.
Counterfactual: If Hillary Clinton had become President in 2016 instead of Trump, what would have happened in Ukraine?
What a pointless post. Since your days of an impressive critique of what Brexit would mean to the UK has someone dropped you on your head?
I couldn't work out whether it was the Telegraph going off on one or Alanbrooke and it turned out to be a mixture of the two.
Nothing to see .....;move on
Oh Roger even the BBC said the Junior Doctore will be back for more.
Regrettably there will be a lot more news on Labour incompetence over the next 5 years and you cant keep blaming the messengers.
Ed Miliband - theres a fk up on two legs who hasnt a clue what he is doing.
They deserve it. We demand so much from doctors that they should hold out for every penny they can. Good luck to them. They should use their leverage. We want medical care, we need to pay for it. You’ll save more elderly lives with better paid and more motivated doctors than giving millionaire pensioners winter fuel bungs. Thankfully we’ve a government that realises this now.
He scrapes Penn by the tiny margin and there are days of court cases but he holds it.
He wins NC and MI. Again by small numbers.
But its enough and America and the West are f*cked.
I'm depressed writing this prediction and hope I am very very wrong but I think the polling is underplaying his 'shy trump voters' who refuse to deal with polling.
Counterfactual: If Hillary Clinton had become President in 2016 instead of Trump, what would have happened in Ukraine?
Not much different IMO. The warm conflict in the Donbass would have continued, but Putin was not in a position to make an attempt on Kyiv and the rest of the country as they were in a heavy rebuilding phase. Then Covid happened and Putin hid away. 2022 was about the earliest the Russian military *could* do anything about Ukraine.
Fortunately, they went too early and still were not ready.
The idea that Putin did not go after Ukraine because of Trump ignores reality.
Regarding the brief discussion with @rcs1000 last night, this sort of thing isn'tdirectly captured in the trade figures, but it's part of German exports getting crucified in China.
Denza - Wow.
2010: Mercedes and BYD form 50-50 JV creating the Denza brand. Sales: 132
2021: BYD increases to 90% - Mercedes 10% Sales: 4,800
Sept 2024: BYD 100% - Mercedes out Sales: 125,000 (f)
It's the Chinese way, force a JV with a western company, steal the IP, push the western company out of the JV and then use subsidies to bankrupt the western company the IP was stolen from. I don't understand how American and European companies keep falling for it, "this time it will be different" or "it happened to them but we've paid off the right people so it won't happen to us" seems to be the main logic.
But then you look at how Germany fell for what was quite possibly a Russian influence operation, and destroyed its nuclear industry in favour of gas.
Long term strategic thinking hasn't been a western strength for a while now.
No one was 'forced', of course. The example of Tesla demonstrates that (although China has quite happily nicked some of their manufacturing knowhow, too).
I actually think Merkel was beyond useful idiot for the Russians, I wouldn't be surprised if in some years we discover that she had much deeper ties to Russia and was considered indirectly an asset by Russian intelligence.
She was certainly an avid communist in her youth, but werent most young people in the seventies?
Safer to be so in the DDR.
I think it was probably safer to be a communist outside of the DDR, the only communism permitted in the DDR was of the large C communism of the Party line.
True! Indeed true of the whole of Eastern Europe at the time.
True indeed of any communist state, and probably true of any state that got to where it was through communism or fascism. When the reality of the ideas doesn't match, pointing it out turns you into a dangerous counter revolutionary, and will be dealt with accordingly.
He scrapes Penn by the tiny margin and there are days of court cases but he holds it.
He wins NC and MI. Again by small numbers.
But its enough and America and the West are f*cked.
I'm depressed writing this prediction and hope I am very very wrong but I think the polling is underplaying his 'shy trump voters' who refuse to deal with polling.
Counterfactual: If Hillary Clinton had become President in 2016 instead of Trump, what would have happened in Ukraine?
Not much different IMO. The warm conflict in the Donbass would have continued, but Putin was not in a position to make an attempt on Kyiv and the rest of the country as they were in a heavy rebuilding phase. Then Covid happened and Putin hid away. 2022 was about the earliest the Russian military *could* do anything about Ukraine.
Fortunately, they went too early and still were not ready.
The idea that Putin did not go after Ukraine because of Trump ignores reality.
The invasion appeared to rely heavily on old stocks. Why could he not have done it in 2016?
The reality is that Putin gained territory in Ukraine under Obama and Biden and not under Trump.
It still feels early in the campaign to me, I think because obviously Harris joined the race so recently.
I think she'll win the popular vote. I'm going to guess she squeaks home in the EC.
It's about half way through from her point of view.
For Trump, who's effectively been campaigning for the last four years, it's almost all the way through. And he still hasn't worked out what his health policy is.
FWIW, I'd expect Harris to have rather more to say on policy over the next few weeks. She's surprised on the upside, in introducing herself to the US public, and has successfully drawn a contrast with Trump on character. Doing the same on policy would solidify the apparent lead in the polls.
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.
I think it shows another aspect to Starmer's political tin ear. We've already seen his insensitivity in cancelling the winter fuel allowance for most pensioners to fund massive pay increases for his public sector union paymasters and now we see his hypocrisy in having clothes paid for him despite having objected to Boris's wallpaper.
Whenever challeneged, rather than defusing the story by returning the trivial gifts, he goes into prickly lawyer mode, never really explaining convincingly or apologising.
It's why his government has had such a quick collapse in YouGov approval ratings.
Especially when Starmer made such a play about cleaning up politics.
He's a wealthy man, why could he not pay for the hospitality at his Soccer club instead of just taking freebies.
"Giving the example of football tickets, which the Prime Minister is known to accept as gifts, he said: “I’m a massive Arsenal fan. I can’t go into the stands because of security reasons. Therefore, if I don’t accept a gift of hospitality, I can’t go to a game. You could say, ‘well, bad luck’. That’s why gifts have to be registered.
“But, you know, never going to an Arsenal game again because I can’t accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far.”"
Presumably Starmer means he needs a box for security reasons (also so he does not bump into fellow-Gooner Jeremy Corbyn). On the one hand, these are piffling amounts. On the other hand, many of us have to sit through annual training on the dangers and illegality of bribery, and Starmer himself had a front row seat for Boris's expense scandals.
The thing is a don't see either getting a seat at the football or those clothes as bribery.
1) the football is because everyone in Football wants the publicity that comes from pointing the camera at him watching a match once in a while (or even at every match). Now you could argue it's football trying to bribe him but it's a big industry in the UK 2) the clothing is again - companies want fancy people wearing their clothes because a photo in a newspaper is worth £x0,000 in advertising. So giving some clothes to the PM's wife makes sense on a cheap advertising basis alone...
Except the clothes donor got a No.10 pass that (AIUI) he should not have got. Odd, isn't it, that of all people, a donor gets a pass to the highest levels of power.
Corruption: plain and simple.
And Labour supporters would be screeching about this if it was a Tory PM.
No I don't think they would. No one minded Sunak's freebie to St Mary's mentioned by Foxy. Labour have chased big ticket corruption. The client media and the PB faithful are trying to equalise Mrs Starmer's frocks with Michelle Mone's PPE contracts.
Now do I believe Mrs Starmer should be getting free frocks when she can afford her own? No.
Ah "big ticket" corruption.
What utter b/s.
Starmer is meant to be better than this; it sad;y seems he is not. And the rot always starts at the top (*)
(*) Something I said about the Conservatives under Johnson many times...
I've said I think it is wrong, what more do you want? I can't agree that it has an equivalence to PPE contracts, putting sons of KGB grandees in the House of Lords and overruling planning issues for Richard Desmond rewarded by a paltry £10,000 donation* to the Conservative Party.
* For being so royally tucked up by Desmond, Jenrick is unfit for high office. Just ten grand? And it was worth nearly fifty million to Desmond.
You are excusing it by saying "the other lot are worse." That may be true, but it's also pretty irrelevant.
Starmer was meant to be better than this; he was sold as being better than this. And if this is happening at the top, you can guarantee other corruption is happening lower down the pecking order.
This is just triangulation.
What corrupt decisions has Mr Starmer made, or what identifiable personal or business benefits have 'donors' received from Mr Starmer?
(My political view on this is that the Opposition and the Right Side of the Media are going at this because otherwise their cupboard is bare.)
They're going after it because it not only looks dodgy, it is wrong.
I'm amused that Labour fans are having to defend the party over corruption after only a couple of months - and that the corruption goes to the top.
Where is the corruption?
I think you are just being a troll on this now. The offence was not declaring the gift. There probably hasn't been any corruption, but who knows what the future holds. When the phone rings, and Starmer answers and is asked "Do you remember those cloths I paid for? Well now I need..." That's the point of the rules around declaring gifts. FFS I need to do it as a lowly Uni academic.
AFAIK the gifts have been declared!
They have been NOW. They weren't at the time.
When he realised they should have been declared, he declared them though, right? (prior to any media interest?)
I'm interested in the sudden moral outrage.
Was there a Great Frothing Noise on PB about Mr Cameron's discounted-by-£2200 suit (for example),Sam Cam's Designer Wardrobe (contents thereof), or anything else similar before July 2024?
I'm also amused that I have become "a Labour supporter" .
LOL! Fair point
I have no problem with Lady Starmer being asked to wear a dress to promote British design, but every problem with Starmer receiving £76,000 for clothes, glasses, football and sporting tickets and his wife receiving thousands of pounds to buy dresses
You cannot see it is wrong as you are a Labour supporter but 62% in yesterday's yougov poll were against Starmer receiving this money and just 13% like yourself trying to defend the indefensible
I never had much hope about Starmer, but I did expect him to be better than this and not just another 'Tory' receiving gifts.
I would also ask where is his pride, a millionire allowing another millionaire to buy goodies for him and his wife
It is just indefensible, no matter how much his supporters say the tories were worse
It's the same as the Bamfords paying for Carrie's to refurb of No 10. It was wrong then and it's wrong now.
It wasn't the Bamfords, didn't they buy all the holidays and groceries? It was Lord Brownlow.
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.
I think it shows another aspect to Starmer's political tin ear. We've already seen his insensitivity in cancelling the winter fuel allowance for most pensioners to fund massive pay increases for his public sector union paymasters and now we see his hypocrisy in having clothes paid for him despite having objected to Boris's wallpaper.
Whenever challeneged, rather than defusing the story by returning the trivial gifts, he goes into prickly lawyer mode, never really explaining convincingly or apologising.
It's why his government has had such a quick collapse in YouGov approval ratings.
Especially when Starmer made such a play about cleaning up politics.
He's a wealthy man, why could he not pay for the hospitality at his Soccer club instead of just taking freebies.
"Giving the example of football tickets, which the Prime Minister is known to accept as gifts, he said: “I’m a massive Arsenal fan. I can’t go into the stands because of security reasons. Therefore, if I don’t accept a gift of hospitality, I can’t go to a game. You could say, ‘well, bad luck’. That’s why gifts have to be registered.
“But, you know, never going to an Arsenal game again because I can’t accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far.”"
Presumably Starmer means he needs a box for security reasons (also so he does not bump into fellow-Gooner Jeremy Corbyn). On the one hand, these are piffling amounts. On the other hand, many of us have to sit through annual training on the dangers and illegality of bribery, and Starmer himself had a front row seat for Boris's expense scandals.
The thing is a don't see either getting a seat at the football or those clothes as bribery.
1) the football is because everyone in Football wants the publicity that comes from pointing the camera at him watching a match once in a while (or even at every match). Now you could argue it's football trying to bribe him but it's a big industry in the UK 2) the clothing is again - companies want fancy people wearing their clothes because a photo in a newspaper is worth £x0,000 in advertising. So giving some clothes to the PM's wife makes sense on a cheap advertising basis alone...
Except the clothes donor got a No.10 pass that (AIUI) he should not have got. Odd, isn't it, that of all people, a donor gets a pass to the highest levels of power.
Corruption: plain and simple.
And Labour supporters would be screeching about this if it was a Tory PM.
No I don't think they would. No one minded Sunak's freebie to St Mary's mentioned by Foxy. Labour have chased big ticket corruption. The client media and the PB faithful are trying to equalise Mrs Starmer's frocks with Michelle Mone's PPE contracts.
Now do I believe Mrs Starmer should be getting free frocks when she can afford her own? No.
Ah "big ticket" corruption.
What utter b/s.
Starmer is meant to be better than this; it sad;y seems he is not. And the rot always starts at the top (*)
(*) Something I said about the Conservatives under Johnson many times...
I've said I think it is wrong, what more do you want? I can't agree that it has an equivalence to PPE contracts, putting sons of KGB grandees in the House of Lords and overruling planning issues for Richard Desmond rewarded by a paltry £10,000 donation* to the Conservative Party.
* For being so royally tucked up by Desmond, Jenrick is unfit for high office. Just ten grand? And it was worth nearly fifty million to Desmond.
You are excusing it by saying "the other lot are worse." That may be true, but it's also pretty irrelevant.
Starmer was meant to be better than this; he was sold as being better than this. And if this is happening at the top, you can guarantee other corruption is happening lower down the pecking order.
This is just triangulation.
What corrupt decisions has Mr Starmer made, or what identifiable personal or business benefits have 'donors' received from Mr Starmer?
(My political view on this is that the Opposition and the Right Side of the Media are going at this because otherwise their cupboard is bare.)
They're going after it because it not only looks dodgy, it is wrong.
I'm amused that Labour fans are having to defend the party over corruption after only a couple of months - and that the corruption goes to the top.
Where is the corruption?
Giving a donor a pass, where the donations that were not declared.
It stinks, doesn't it?
The donations have been declared, and were declared prior to any media interest.
Is there any rule that prevents a party fixer from having a pass to No. 10? This is a genuine question, to which I have received no answer.
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.
I think it shows another aspect to Starmer's political tin ear. We've already seen his insensitivity in cancelling the winter fuel allowance for most pensioners to fund massive pay increases for his public sector union paymasters and now we see his hypocrisy in having clothes paid for him despite having objected to Boris's wallpaper.
Whenever challeneged, rather than defusing the story by returning the trivial gifts, he goes into prickly lawyer mode, never really explaining convincingly or apologising.
It's why his government has had such a quick collapse in YouGov approval ratings.
Especially when Starmer made such a play about cleaning up politics.
He's a wealthy man, why could he not pay for the hospitality at his Soccer club instead of just taking freebies.
"Giving the example of football tickets, which the Prime Minister is known to accept as gifts, he said: “I’m a massive Arsenal fan. I can’t go into the stands because of security reasons. Therefore, if I don’t accept a gift of hospitality, I can’t go to a game. You could say, ‘well, bad luck’. That’s why gifts have to be registered.
“But, you know, never going to an Arsenal game again because I can’t accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far.”"
Presumably Starmer means he needs a box for security reasons (also so he does not bump into fellow-Gooner Jeremy Corbyn). On the one hand, these are piffling amounts. On the other hand, many of us have to sit through annual training on the dangers and illegality of bribery, and Starmer himself had a front row seat for Boris's expense scandals.
The thing is a don't see either getting a seat at the football or those clothes as bribery.
1) the football is because everyone in Football wants the publicity that comes from pointing the camera at him watching a match once in a while (or even at every match). Now you could argue it's football trying to bribe him but it's a big industry in the UK 2) the clothing is again - companies want fancy people wearing their clothes because a photo in a newspaper is worth £x0,000 in advertising. So giving some clothes to the PM's wife makes sense on a cheap advertising basis alone...
Except the clothes donor got a No.10 pass that (AIUI) he should not have got. Odd, isn't it, that of all people, a donor gets a pass to the highest levels of power.
Corruption: plain and simple.
And Labour supporters would be screeching about this if it was a Tory PM.
No I don't think they would. No one minded Sunak's freebie to St Mary's mentioned by Foxy. Labour have chased big ticket corruption. The client media and the PB faithful are trying to equalise Mrs Starmer's frocks with Michelle Mone's PPE contracts.
Now do I believe Mrs Starmer should be getting free frocks when she can afford her own? No.
Ah "big ticket" corruption.
What utter b/s.
Starmer is meant to be better than this; it sad;y seems he is not. And the rot always starts at the top (*)
(*) Something I said about the Conservatives under Johnson many times...
I've said I think it is wrong, what more do you want? I can't agree that it has an equivalence to PPE contracts, putting sons of KGB grandees in the House of Lords and overruling planning issues for Richard Desmond rewarded by a paltry £10,000 donation* to the Conservative Party.
* For being so royally tucked up by Desmond, Jenrick is unfit for high office. Just ten grand? And it was worth nearly fifty million to Desmond.
You are excusing it by saying "the other lot are worse." That may be true, but it's also pretty irrelevant.
Starmer was meant to be better than this; he was sold as being better than this. And if this is happening at the top, you can guarantee other corruption is happening lower down the pecking order.
This is just triangulation.
What corrupt decisions has Mr Starmer made, or what identifiable personal or business benefits have 'donors' received from Mr Starmer?
(My political view on this is that the Opposition and the Right Side of the Media are going at this because otherwise their cupboard is bare.)
They're going after it because it not only looks dodgy, it is wrong.
I'm amused that Labour fans are having to defend the party over corruption after only a couple of months - and that the corruption goes to the top.
Where is the corruption?
I think you are just being a troll on this now. The offence was not declaring the gift. There probably hasn't been any corruption, but who knows what the future holds. When the phone rings, and Starmer answers and is asked "Do you remember those cloths I paid for? Well now I need..." That's the point of the rules around declaring gifts. FFS I need to do it as a lowly Uni academic.
AFAIK the gifts have been declared!
They have been NOW. They weren't at the time.
When he realised they should have been declared, he declared them though, right? (prior to any media interest?)
I'm interested in the sudden moral outrage.
Was there a Great Frothing Noise on PB about Mr Cameron's discounted-by-£2200 suit (for example),Sam Cam's Designer Wardrobe (contents thereof), or anything else similar before July 2024?
I'm also amused that I have become "a Labour supporter" .
LOL! Fair point
I have no problem with Lady Starmer being asked to wear a dress to promote British design, but every problem with Starmer receiving £76,000 for clothes, glasses, football and sporting tickets and his wife receiving thousands of pounds to buy dresses
You cannot see it is wrong as you are a Labour supporter but 62% in yesterday's yougov poll were against Starmer receiving this money and just 13% like yourself trying to defend the indefensible
I never had much hope about Starmer, but I did expect him to be better than this and not just another 'Tory' receiving gifts.
I would also ask where is his pride, a millionire allowing another millionaire to buy goodies for him and his wife
It is just indefensible, no matter how much his supporters say the tories were worse
It's the same as the Bamfords paying for Carrie's to refurb of No 10. It was wrong then and it's wrong now.
I don't understand how they make pretty much the entire financial sector whiter than white on this kind of stuff, but think they should have a free pass because they fancy watching the football or having nicer clothes or furniture.
Of course the taxpayer needs to pay for security costs for the PM going to events. That's clearly necessary, even if the risk of violence isn't like it is in the US. But I think there should be a more-or-less blanket ban on gifts over £50 to politicians. If it's a business lunch, split it 50:50 and expense it. Of course total expenses then need to then be kept to within reasonable levels.
I think Starmer comes across as a bit entitled on this topic.
Topping is sort of right. Many posters on here are irrationally terrified of Trump47 and work backwards from the lemma that such a thing is impossible.
'Many posters' think Trump47 is 'impossible'
You seem to have imagined this - have any posters said that, let alone many? The closest I can find is Barnesian I guess, though they don't say Trump winning is impossible.
Only Kinabalu does. Which of course is dumb, if expected from him. But the rest of you are befuddled as to why it should be so close.
You look at the opinion polls and say "it's close" but have no idea why or what is motivating likely Trump voters. Nor do you seem minded to investigate why this might me.
For a leading political analysis site it is near-unforgiveable.
Not at all. My assessment atm is 67/33 - Harris's chances are about double Trump's. In betfair terms a 3 vs 1.5.
I also think a big Harris win is quite likely. By big I mean by more in PV and EC terms than Biden won by. This is a minority view but shared by a few others - eg Barnesian, Monksfield, NigelB, Thomas Nashe, Marque Mark.
The PB consensus is knife edge. There's your groupthink.
As for why people vote for Trump, perhaps you can link again to that very interesting article from 2016 that you found.
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.
I think it shows another aspect to Starmer's political tin ear. We've already seen his insensitivity in cancelling the winter fuel allowance for most pensioners to fund massive pay increases for his public sector union paymasters and now we see his hypocrisy in having clothes paid for him despite having objected to Boris's wallpaper.
Whenever challeneged, rather than defusing the story by returning the trivial gifts, he goes into prickly lawyer mode, never really explaining convincingly or apologising.
It's why his government has had such a quick collapse in YouGov approval ratings.
Especially when Starmer made such a play about cleaning up politics.
He's a wealthy man, why could he not pay for the hospitality at his Soccer club instead of just taking freebies.
"Giving the example of football tickets, which the Prime Minister is known to accept as gifts, he said: “I’m a massive Arsenal fan. I can’t go into the stands because of security reasons. Therefore, if I don’t accept a gift of hospitality, I can’t go to a game. You could say, ‘well, bad luck’. That’s why gifts have to be registered.
“But, you know, never going to an Arsenal game again because I can’t accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far.”"
I’ve seen it suggested that a 10 person Arsenal box is £10k.
Buy one, a couple of places for security. Then flog the other 7 seats to politicians who are rich. Charge them £1500 each.
Lots of people would really like to go to top flight football and can't or won't because of its ludicrous cost. (My long ago Arsenal attending days were when you paid well under £1 to stand in the North Bank and listen to racist chanting).
It is reasonable for our PM to be able to attend, just as our PM should generally be an Arsenal, Middlesex (or Surrey) and Saracens supporter.
In general he should be very clearly paying for his ticket; the fact that the totality would also cost loads extra because of his security situation should be borne by the taxpayer.
To govern is to choose. To choose to go to football is to make a personal economic choice, and this should be true for PMs too.
Starmer has got it wrong and should move to get it right.
The North Bank used to have a reputation for original chants. I fondly remember:
Tiptoe, through the North Bank With your boots on, And we'll kick your 'ead in.
Those were the days.
He's blond, he's quick, his name's a porno flick....
For all their faults, Arsenal fans have always had a rather enderaing wit about them.
One cannot say the same about Chelsea. In fact it is hard to find anything endearing about them. Of course you are moving several notches down the IQ scale there.
You may even be down to single figures.
Arsenal include in their fan base Starmer, Osama bin Laden, Jeremy Corbyn, and worst of all Piers Morgan.
Time to shut the club down.
Why do all these political celebrities (including Osama) follow these big designer clubs? To be fair to Cameron he went full Cinderella, flying the flag for Aston Ham United.
The Cameron derby is one of the highlights of the Premier League season.
Imagine having to select the right scarf for such an event! 😁
Topping is sort of right. Many posters on here are irrationally terrified of Trump47 and work backwards from the lemma that such a thing is impossible.
'Many posters' think Trump47 is 'impossible'
You seem to have imagined this - have any posters said that, let alone many? The closest I can find is Barnesian I guess, though they don't say Trump winning is impossible.
Only Kinabalu does. Which of course is dumb, if expected from him. But the rest of you are befuddled as to why it should be so close.
You look at the opinion polls and say "it's close" but have no idea why or what is motivating likely Trump voters. Nor do you seem minded to investigate why this might me.
For a leading political analysis site it is near-unforgiveable.
Not at all. My assessment atm is 67/33 - Harris's chances are about double Trump's. In betfair terms a 3 vs 1.5.
I also think a big Harris win is quite likely. By big I mean by more in PV and EC terms than Biden won by. This is a minority view but shared by a few others - eg Barnesian, Monksfield, NigelB, Thomas Nashe, Marque Mark.
The PB consensus is knife edge. There's your groupthink.
As for why people vote for Trump, perhaps you can link again to that very interesting article from 2016 that you found.
He scrapes Penn by the tiny margin and there are days of court cases but he holds it.
He wins NC and MI. Again by small numbers.
But its enough and America and the West are f*cked.
I'm depressed writing this prediction and hope I am very very wrong but I think the polling is underplaying his 'shy trump voters' who refuse to deal with polling.
Counterfactual: If Hillary Clinton had become President in 2016 instead of Trump, what would have happened in Ukraine?
Not much different IMO. The warm conflict in the Donbass would have continued, but Putin was not in a position to make an attempt on Kyiv and the rest of the country as they were in a heavy rebuilding phase. Then Covid happened and Putin hid away. 2022 was about the earliest the Russian military *could* do anything about Ukraine.
Fortunately, they went too early and still were not ready.
The idea that Putin did not go after Ukraine because of Trump ignores reality.
The invasion appeared to rely heavily on old stocks. Why could he not have done it in 2016?
The reality is that Putin gained territory in Ukraine under Obama and Biden and not under Trump.
Actually, lots of the stuff the Russians used in the early months was fairly new. They got to the older stuff when they used up too much of the new stuff after the retreat. Besides, it wasn't just material: it was training, doctrine and systems in general. The Russians got their backsides handed to them in Chechnya, and were using Syria as valuable training and testing. That takes time.
The 'reality' you mention is simply a case of correlation, not causation.
That's the Telegrunt trying to astroturf a tiny spat into a wedge issue, I think. It's a couple of Councillors creating a fuss, possibly using Welsh vs English as a stalking horse.
They have done three large articles on this since September 5th. I debunked most of it last time.
The only thing in the article which is about right imo is that it is to do with Nimbydom, not language; some people don't want 18 social houses in their village of 996 people.
It already has schools where there is a mix of pupils, and where the large majority are fine with Welsh or English.
The decision is imo unlikely to withstand an Appeal.
It is a small predominantly Welsh speaking community trying to retain its culture, but I agree it is most likely to fail the appeal
The problem is if you try to make that argument about say Englishness and overseas immigrants of a different culture and language, you are rather quickly accused of racism.
I don’t think the English language is under much threat TBH. It’s not a fair comparison. As for what “English culture” is, while it exists, its very success makes it a universal rather than local affair.
Arguably vast swathes of some cities have had a rather stark culture change in the last 50 years through immigration. How is this that different?
Topping is sort of right. Many posters on here are irrationally terrified of Trump47 and work backwards from the lemma that such a thing is impossible.
'Many posters' think Trump47 is 'impossible'
You seem to have imagined this - have any posters said that, let alone many? The closest I can find is Barnesian I guess, though they don't say Trump winning is impossible.
Trump winning obviously is not impossible but I think it is unlikely. Because I think there is a herd phenomenon among the undecided, I think the Harris win will be decisive. Her campaign should be flying many aircraft over Penn with large banners declaring "Kamala Winning Here". LDs win by-elections and target seats by overwhelming local presence. So can the Dems in target states. They have the money
I couldn't work out whether it was the Telegraph going off on one or Alanbrooke and it turned out to be a mixture of the two.
Nothing to see .....;move on
Oh Roger even the BBC said the Junior Doctore will be back for more.
Regrettably there will be a lot more news on Labour incompetence over the next 5 years and you cant keep blaming the messengers.
Ed Miliband - theres a fk up on two legs who hasnt a clue what he is doing.
Miliband could get awfully lucky that fuel and energy prices are so high at the moment. So the effect of them not going down, isn’t noticed as much as them going up would have been.
Compared to the early 2022 baseline, they’re going way up even when O&G prices fall back.
It already costs more in many cases to fill up an electric car than a petrol one, at motorway service stations.
He scrapes Penn by the tiny margin and there are days of court cases but he holds it.
He wins NC and MI. Again by small numbers.
But its enough and America and the West are f*cked.
I'm depressed writing this prediction and hope I am very very wrong but I think the polling is underplaying his 'shy trump voters' who refuse to deal with polling.
Trump voters have never struck me as particularly shy.
Yes. And let's hope the EC spreads come out before that becomes a more common view. I want to buy @ 280.
I'm disconcerted by your new profile pic. The old tin o' beans was a great visual handle to easily see who was speaking. One of the best. Can I request its return after the election?
I couldn't work out whether it was the Telegraph going off on one or Alanbrooke and it turned out to be a mixture of the two.
Nothing to see .....;move on
Oh Roger even the BBC said the Junior Doctore will be back for more.
Regrettably there will be a lot more news on Labour incompetence over the next 5 years and you cant keep blaming the messengers.
Ed Miliband - theres a fk up on two legs who hasnt a clue what he is doing.
Not sure about the Ed Miliband thing - offshore wind development has 82% approval rating, including 82% among Tories and 73% among Reform voters.
The more they get Miliband on the news talking about the successful auctions, the better.
The 100000+ people who will lose their jobs might see it different..
Still since most of them are in Scotland why should you care ?
You are way out on your numbers. 1) it's only about 30k directly employed on rigs 2) those jobs only disappear when the facility shuts down 3) new offshore facilities will have far fewer offshore staff 4) new development would be west of Shetland, that'll be subsea facilities in the main because the seastates are severe, and costs are high. 5) there'll be jobs in offshore wind and renewables Rather than cling to a sector that will disappear they should be transitioning to the sector that will be the future.
I'm not sure why Scientific American thought it a good idea to endorse Harris. What data there is suggests it's likely to harm to them, and do little for her campaign.
Of course this is only one set of data, and circumstances are different, but still..
Political endorsement by Nature and trust in scientific expertise during COVID-19 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01537-5 High-profile political endorsements by scientific publications have become common in recent years, raising concerns about backlash against the endorsing organizations and scientific expertise. In a preregistered large-sample controlled experiment, I randomly assigned participants to receive information about the endorsement of Joe Biden by the scientific journal Nature during the COVID-19 pandemic. The endorsement message caused large reductions in stated trust in Nature among Trump supporters. This distrust lowered the demand for COVID-related information provided by Nature, as evidenced by substantially reduced requests for Nature articles on vaccine efficacy when offered. The endorsement also reduced Trump supporters’ trust in scientists in general. The estimated effects on Biden supporters’ trust in Nature and scientists were positive, small and mostly statistically insignificant. I found little evidence that the endorsement changed views about Biden and Trump. These results suggest that political endorsement by scientific journals can undermine and polarize public confidence in the endorsing journals and the scientific community...
I'm not sure why Scientific American thought it a good idea to endorse Harris. What data there is suggests it's likely to harm to them, and do little for her campaign.
Of course this is only one set of data, and circumstances are different, but still..
Political endorsement by Nature and trust in scientific expertise during COVID-19 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01537-5 High-profile political endorsements by scientific publications have become common in recent years, raising concerns about backlash against the endorsing organizations and scientific expertise. In a preregistered large-sample controlled experiment, I randomly assigned participants to receive information about the endorsement of Joe Biden by the scientific journal Nature during the COVID-19 pandemic. The endorsement message caused large reductions in stated trust in Nature among Trump supporters. This distrust lowered the demand for COVID-related information provided by Nature, as evidenced by substantially reduced requests for Nature articles on vaccine efficacy when offered. The endorsement also reduced Trump supporters’ trust in scientists in general. The estimated effects on Biden supporters’ trust in Nature and scientists were positive, small and mostly statistically insignificant. I found little evidence that the endorsement changed views about Biden and Trump. These results suggest that political endorsement by scientific journals can undermine and polarize public confidence in the endorsing journals and the scientific community...
Because they've been captured by a cult, the worms are wriggling through the brain.
Reagan has become one of those historical figures whom both sides cite for their advantage.
Ronald Reagan: “Can we doubt that only a divine providence placed this land...here as a refuge for all those people in the world who yearn to breathe freely: Jews and Christians…the boat people of Southeast Asia, of Cuba and of Haiti?” https://x.com/AccountableGOP/status/1835735665096700090
I couldn't work out whether it was the Telegraph going off on one or Alanbrooke and it turned out to be a mixture of the two.
Nothing to see .....;move on
Oh Roger even the BBC said the Junior Doctore will be back for more.
Regrettably there will be a lot more news on Labour incompetence over the next 5 years and you cant keep blaming the messengers.
Ed Miliband - theres a fk up on two legs who hasnt a clue what he is doing.
Not sure about the Ed Miliband thing - offshore wind development has 82% approval rating, including 82% among Tories and 73% among Reform voters.
The more they get Miliband on the news talking about the successful auctions, the better.
The 100000+ people who will lose their jobs might see it different..
Still since most of them are in Scotland why should you care ?
You are way out on your numbers. 1) it's only about 30k directly employed on rigs 2) those jobs only disappear when the facility shuts down 3) new offshore facilities will have far fewer offshore staff 4) new development would be west of Shetland, that'll be subsea facilities in the main because the seastates are severe, and costs are high. 5) there'll be jobs in offshore wind and renewables Rather than cling to a sector that will disappear they should be transitioning to the sector that will be the future.
Even if we started using less oil and gas for energy generation/transportation, we still need the stuff for other things. As long as it exists and licenses are granted to extract it the demand will be there. This is forced closure of an industry that creates a product that will simple be extracted somewhere else, making no difference to the net global extraction. It's industrial unilateralism.
Yes. And let's hope the EC spreads come out before that becomes a more common view. I want to buy @ 280.
I'm disconcerted by your new profile pic. The old tin o' beans was a great visual handle to easily see who was speaking. One of the best. Can I request its return after the election?
Yes, deal. This is just until Nov 6th. I feel so strongly about this election that I had to do something. I thought about flying over there to help out but in the end decided the most effective thing I could do was change my PB profile pic.
I’ve called the election for Harris and that it won’t be close. That’s not - as certain posters think - because I can’t conceive of Trump winning or why people will vote for him. It’s because the tide is sweeping his feet out from underneath him me he has no idea what to do other than incoherently rage.
Of course his base will vote for him and I know why. They want their country back! But their problem is that increasingly they can’t persuade enough people to share their view. Why do people call Trump a lunatic or a fascist? How about because he shows so much evidence to back that up?
Final point - this isn’t a left / right thing! Conservatives should vote for the conservative candidate - which is Kamala Harris. Trump is many things, but he isn’t conservative.
He scrapes Penn by the tiny margin and there are days of court cases but he holds it.
He wins NC and MI. Again by small numbers.
But its enough and America and the West are f*cked.
I'm depressed writing this prediction and hope I am very very wrong but I think the polling is underplaying his 'shy trump voters' who refuse to deal with polling.
Trump voters have never struck me as particularly shy.
Dem wives of Trump voters are probably shy!
Yep, hopefully they’ve now been reassured that Hubby need never find out how they actually vote.
Yes. And let's hope the EC spreads come out before that becomes a more common view. I want to buy @ 280.
I'm disconcerted by your new profile pic. The old tin o' beans was a great visual handle to easily see who was speaking. One of the best. Can I request its return after the election?
Yes, deal. This is just until Nov 6th. I feel so strongly about this election that I had to do something. I thought about flying over there to help out but in the end decided the most effective thing I could do was change my PB profile pic.
Very noble of you. That alone should swing Pennsylvania, and probably also Michigan, Iowa and North Carolina.
I couldn't work out whether it was the Telegraph going off on one or Alanbrooke and it turned out to be a mixture of the two.
Nothing to see .....;move on
Oh Roger even the BBC said the Junior Doctore will be back for more.
Regrettably there will be a lot more news on Labour incompetence over the next 5 years and you cant keep blaming the messengers.
Ed Miliband - theres a fk up on two legs who hasnt a clue what he is doing.
Not sure about the Ed Miliband thing - offshore wind development has 82% approval rating, including 82% among Tories and 73% among Reform voters.
The more they get Miliband on the news talking about the successful auctions, the better.
The 100000+ people who will lose their jobs might see it different..
Still since most of them are in Scotland why should you care ?
You are way out on your numbers. 1) it's only about 30k directly employed on rigs 2) those jobs only disappear when the facility shuts down 3) new offshore facilities will have far fewer offshore staff 4) new development would be west of Shetland, that'll be subsea facilities in the main because the seastates are severe, and costs are high. 5) there'll be jobs in offshore wind and renewables Rather than cling to a sector that will disappear they should be transitioning to the sector that will be the future.
Fairliered jnr. who works offshore, has moved from an oil and gas company to a renewables company earlier this year.
Many of the rig workers have been in the industry since the 70s and 80s and are retiring, or are close to retirement.
However, the North East of Scotland should be supported. We can’t afford to repeat the mistakes of the 1980s, when communities that had lost their major employers were left to rot.
Yes. And let's hope the EC spreads come out before that becomes a more common view. I want to buy @ 280.
I'm disconcerted by your new profile pic. The old tin o' beans was a great visual handle to easily see who was speaking. One of the best. Can I request its return after the election?
Yes, deal. This is just until Nov 6th. I feel so strongly about this election that I had to do something. I thought about flying over there to help out but in the end decided the most effective thing I could do was change my PB profile pic.
Or buy some Basildon Bond and some airmail stamps. That might help.
I’ve called the election for Harris and that it won’t be close. That’s not - as certain posters think - because I can’t conceive of Trump winning or why people will vote for him. It’s because the tide is sweeping his feet out from underneath him me he has no idea what to do other than incoherently rage.
Of course his base will vote for him and I know why. They want their country back! But their problem is that increasingly they can’t persuade enough people to share their view. Why do people call Trump a lunatic or a fascist? How about because he shows so much evidence to back that up?
Final point - this isn’t a left / right thing! Conservatives should vote for the conservative candidate - which is Kamala Harris. Trump is many things, but he isn’t conservative.
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.
I think it shows another aspect to Starmer's political tin ear. We've already seen his insensitivity in cancelling the winter fuel allowance for most pensioners to fund massive pay increases for his public sector union paymasters and now we see his hypocrisy in having clothes paid for him despite having objected to Boris's wallpaper.
Whenever challeneged, rather than defusing the story by returning the trivial gifts, he goes into prickly lawyer mode, never really explaining convincingly or apologising.
It's why his government has had such a quick collapse in YouGov approval ratings.
Especially when Starmer made such a play about cleaning up politics.
He's a wealthy man, why could he not pay for the hospitality at his Soccer club instead of just taking freebies.
"Giving the example of football tickets, which the Prime Minister is known to accept as gifts, he said: “I’m a massive Arsenal fan. I can’t go into the stands because of security reasons. Therefore, if I don’t accept a gift of hospitality, I can’t go to a game. You could say, ‘well, bad luck’. That’s why gifts have to be registered.
“But, you know, never going to an Arsenal game again because I can’t accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far.”"
Presumably Starmer means he needs a box for security reasons (also so he does not bump into fellow-Gooner Jeremy Corbyn). On the one hand, these are piffling amounts. On the other hand, many of us have to sit through annual training on the dangers and illegality of bribery, and Starmer himself had a front row seat for Boris's expense scandals.
The thing is a don't see either getting a seat at the football or those clothes as bribery.
1) the football is because everyone in Football wants the publicity that comes from pointing the camera at him watching a match once in a while (or even at every match). Now you could argue it's football trying to bribe him but it's a big industry in the UK 2) the clothing is again - companies want fancy people wearing their clothes because a photo in a newspaper is worth £x0,000 in advertising. So giving some clothes to the PM's wife makes sense on a cheap advertising basis alone...
Except the clothes donor got a No.10 pass that (AIUI) he should not have got. Odd, isn't it, that of all people, a donor gets a pass to the highest levels of power.
Corruption: plain and simple.
And Labour supporters would be screeching about this if it was a Tory PM.
No I don't think they would. No one minded Sunak's freebie to St Mary's mentioned by Foxy. Labour have chased big ticket corruption. The client media and the PB faithful are trying to equalise Mrs Starmer's frocks with Michelle Mone's PPE contracts.
Now do I believe Mrs Starmer should be getting free frocks when she can afford her own? No.
Ah "big ticket" corruption.
What utter b/s.
Starmer is meant to be better than this; it sad;y seems he is not. And the rot always starts at the top (*)
(*) Something I said about the Conservatives under Johnson many times...
I've said I think it is wrong, what more do you want? I can't agree that it has an equivalence to PPE contracts, putting sons of KGB grandees in the House of Lords and overruling planning issues for Richard Desmond rewarded by a paltry £10,000 donation* to the Conservative Party.
* For being so royally tucked up by Desmond, Jenrick is unfit for high office. Just ten grand? And it was worth nearly fifty million to Desmond.
You are excusing it by saying "the other lot are worse." That may be true, but it's also pretty irrelevant.
Starmer was meant to be better than this; he was sold as being better than this. And if this is happening at the top, you can guarantee other corruption is happening lower down the pecking order.
This is just triangulation.
What corrupt decisions has Mr Starmer made, or what identifiable personal or business benefits have 'donors' received from Mr Starmer?
(My political view on this is that the Opposition and the Right Side of the Media are going at this because otherwise their cupboard is bare.)
They're going after it because it not only looks dodgy, it is wrong.
I'm amused that Labour fans are having to defend the party over corruption after only a couple of months - and that the corruption goes to the top.
Where is the corruption?
I think you are just being a troll on this now. The offence was not declaring the gift. There probably hasn't been any corruption, but who knows what the future holds. When the phone rings, and Starmer answers and is asked "Do you remember those cloths I paid for? Well now I need..." That's the point of the rules around declaring gifts. FFS I need to do it as a lowly Uni academic.
AFAIK the gifts have been declared!
They have been NOW. They weren't at the time.
When he realised they should have been declared, he declared them though, right? (prior to any media interest?)
I'm interested in the sudden moral outrage.
Was there a Great Frothing Noise on PB about Mr Cameron's discounted-by-£2200 suit (for example),Sam Cam's Designer Wardrobe (contents thereof), or anything else similar before July 2024?
I'm also amused that I have become "a Labour supporter" .
LOL! Fair point
I have no problem with Lady Starmer being asked to wear a dress to promote British design, but every problem with Starmer receiving £76,000 for clothes, glasses, football and sporting tickets and his wife receiving thousands of pounds to buy dresses
You cannot see it is wrong as you are a Labour supporter but 62% in yesterday's yougov poll were against Starmer receiving this money and just 13% like yourself trying to defend the indefensible
I never had much hope about Starmer, but I did expect him to be better than this and not just another 'Tory' receiving gifts.
I would also ask where is his pride, a millionire allowing another millionaire to buy goodies for him and his wife
It is just indefensible, no matter how much his supporters say the tories were worse
Yes. Slightly boring, honest, transparent, dull competence was, it seems to me, the big reason behind Labour being lent a lot of votes. The sense that you cannot be bought, that being the government is a servant responsibility was central to the voter and to the campaign.
I couldn't work out whether it was the Telegraph going off on one or Alanbrooke and it turned out to be a mixture of the two.
Nothing to see .....;move on
Oh Roger even the BBC said the Junior Doctore will be back for more.
Regrettably there will be a lot more news on Labour incompetence over the next 5 years and you cant keep blaming the messengers.
Ed Miliband - theres a fk up on two legs who hasnt a clue what he is doing.
Not sure about the Ed Miliband thing - offshore wind development has 82% approval rating, including 82% among Tories and 73% among Reform voters.
The more they get Miliband on the news talking about the successful auctions, the better.
Offshore wind is not in anyone's back yard, though.
Onshore wind, on the other hand, I think the previous government was right to be cautious about.
Latest plan in this part of the world is for a large area of the Pennines north of Calderdale to be turned into a monster wind development. It is the nearest bit of open land for quite a large population and part of a peat restoration project. Not surprisingly it is somewhat controversial but if Ed decides that we must suffer this for the net zero project, it will no doubt get built.
Yes. And let's hope the EC spreads come out before that becomes a more common view. I want to buy @ 280.
I'm disconcerted by your new profile pic. The old tin o' beans was a great visual handle to easily see who was speaking. One of the best. Can I request its return after the election?
Yes, deal. This is just until Nov 6th. I feel so strongly about this election that I had to do something. I thought about flying over there to help out but in the end decided the most effective thing I could do was change my PB profile pic.
I couldn't work out whether it was the Telegraph going off on one or Alanbrooke and it turned out to be a mixture of the two.
Nothing to see .....;move on
Oh Roger even the BBC said the Junior Doctore will be back for more.
Regrettably there will be a lot more news on Labour incompetence over the next 5 years and you cant keep blaming the messengers.
Ed Miliband - theres a fk up on two legs who hasnt a clue what he is doing.
Not sure about the Ed Miliband thing - offshore wind development has 82% approval rating, including 82% among Tories and 73% among Reform voters.
The more they get Miliband on the news talking about the successful auctions, the better.
The 100000+ people who will lose their jobs might see it different..
Still since most of them are in Scotland why should you care ?
You are way out on your numbers. 1) it's only about 30k directly employed on rigs 2) those jobs only disappear when the facility shuts down 3) new offshore facilities will have far fewer offshore staff 4) new development would be west of Shetland, that'll be subsea facilities in the main because the seastates are severe, and costs are high. 5) there'll be jobs in offshore wind and renewables Rather than cling to a sector that will disappear they should be transitioning to the sector that will be the future.
Fairliered jnr. who works offshore, has moved from an oil and gas company to a renewables company earlier this year.
Many of the rig workers have been in the industry since the 70s and 80s and are retiring, or are close to retirement.
However, the North East of Scotland should be supported. We can’t afford to repeat the mistakes of the 1980s, when communities that had lost their major employers were left to rot.
Which is why I was campaigning for a just energy transition. The move away from oil and gas towards renewables is already under way and is unstoppable. But that does not mean just turning the North Sea off - that would be vandalism.
The North Sea is ramping down because we’ve tapped it out. But we have to keep extracting the resources that still exist because to not do so just means we import it. Which would be crazy. So invest like hell into renewables, but protect the existing industry as we transition. Protect jobs and skills. That is what just means. Labour are as bad as the SNP on this one. And don’t get me started on the Greens…
Yes. And let's hope the EC spreads come out before that becomes a more common view. I want to buy @ 280.
I certainly won't be buying at that - nor will I be selling My steer is far too weak for that. I do think a Harris landslide, possibly including Florida, Georgia and North Carolina could materialise though despite her awful ads.
Reagan has become one of those historical figures whom both sides cite for their advantage.
Ronald Reagan: “Can we doubt that only a divine providence placed this land...here as a refuge for all those people in the world who yearn to breathe freely: Jews and Christians…the boat people of Southeast Asia, of Cuba and of Haiti?” https://x.com/AccountableGOP/status/1835735665096700090
Definitely one of the most quotable of modern Presidents since Kennedy. Had a real knack of summarising a point in a pithy sentence.
Yes. And let's hope the EC spreads come out before that becomes a more common view. I want to buy @ 280.
I'm disconcerted by your new profile pic. The old tin o' beans was a great visual handle to easily see who was speaking. One of the best. Can I request its return after the election?
Yes, deal. This is just until Nov 6th. I feel so strongly about this election that I had to do something. I thought about flying over there to help out but in the end decided the most effective thing I could do was change my PB profile pic.
And you are looking gorgeous. I'd vote for you Kinabalu!🤣
I couldn't work out whether it was the Telegraph going off on one or Alanbrooke and it turned out to be a mixture of the two.
Nothing to see .....;move on
Oh Roger even the BBC said the Junior Doctore will be back for more.
Regrettably there will be a lot more news on Labour incompetence over the next 5 years and you cant keep blaming the messengers.
Ed Miliband - theres a fk up on two legs who hasnt a clue what he is doing.
Not sure about the Ed Miliband thing - offshore wind development has 82% approval rating, including 82% among Tories and 73% among Reform voters.
The more they get Miliband on the news talking about the successful auctions, the better.
Offshore wind is not in anyone's back yard, though.
Onshore wind, on the other hand, I think the previous government was right to be cautious about.
Latest plan in this part of the world is for a large area of the Pennines north of Calderdale to be turned into a monster wind development. It is the nearest bit of open land for quite a large population and part of a peat restoration project. Not surprisingly it is somewhat controversial but if Ed decides that we must suffer this for the net zero project, it will no doubt get built.
I couldn't work out whether it was the Telegraph going off on one or Alanbrooke and it turned out to be a mixture of the two.
Nothing to see .....;move on
Oh Roger even the BBC said the Junior Doctore will be back for more.
Regrettably there will be a lot more news on Labour incompetence over the next 5 years and you cant keep blaming the messengers.
Ed Miliband - theres a fk up on two legs who hasnt a clue what he is doing.
Not sure about the Ed Miliband thing - offshore wind development has 82% approval rating, including 82% among Tories and 73% among Reform voters.
The more they get Miliband on the news talking about the successful auctions, the better.
The 100000+ people who will lose their jobs might see it different..
Still since most of them are in Scotland why should you care ?
You are way out on your numbers. 1) it's only about 30k directly employed on rigs 2) those jobs only disappear when the facility shuts down 3) new offshore facilities will have far fewer offshore staff 4) new development would be west of Shetland, that'll be subsea facilities in the main because the seastates are severe, and costs are high. 5) there'll be jobs in offshore wind and renewables Rather than cling to a sector that will disappear they should be transitioning to the sector that will be the future.
It's worth reminding folk that the North Sea was running down anyway, currently enjoys significant tax incentives for new exploration and extraction (90% allowance), and the changes Miliband has make only make a very small dent in the projected extraction over the next decade.
He scrapes Penn by the tiny margin and there are days of court cases but he holds it.
He wins NC and MI. Again by small numbers.
But its enough and America and the West are f*cked.
I'm depressed writing this prediction and hope I am very very wrong but I think the polling is underplaying his 'shy trump voters' who refuse to deal with polling.
Counterfactual: If Hillary Clinton had become President in 2016 instead of Trump, what would have happened in Ukraine?
Clinton was a hawk on Russia. I think it's quite possible she would have provided more support for the strengthening of Ukraine's armed forces, earlier. Hostilities might have begun in 2022 when Ukrainian armed forces launched a successful operation to liberate the occupied areas of Donetsk and Luhansk, Russia ultimately declining to go to war to defend its puppet states due to the strong deterrence posture of the US.
Reagan has become one of those historical figures whom both sides cite for their advantage.
Ronald Reagan: “Can we doubt that only a divine providence placed this land...here as a refuge for all those people in the world who yearn to breathe freely: Jews and Christians…the boat people of Southeast Asia, of Cuba and of Haiti?” https://x.com/AccountableGOP/status/1835735665096700090
Definitely one of the most quotable of modern Presidents since Kennedy. Had a real knack of summarising a point in a pithy sentence.
Yup.
"They say that hard work never killed anyone, but, I figure, why take the chance?"
He scrapes Penn by the tiny margin and there are days of court cases but he holds it.
He wins NC and MI. Again by small numbers.
But its enough and America and the West are f*cked.
I'm depressed writing this prediction and hope I am very very wrong but I think the polling is underplaying his 'shy trump voters' who refuse to deal with polling.
Trump voters have never struck me as particularly shy.
shy as in they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree with them. They are highly distrustful to the point of paranoia and do not answer the phone to unrecognised number. I dont think Brits understand how far off the deep end the American right has gone. They live in a different information universe. And thus these polls are next to useless when it comes to a candidate like Trump. Add three points to each poll for Trump.
My photo quota for the day: The New Brompton folding cycle with 20" wheels. Mechanical and e-assist versions. Just in time for the 50th anniversary.
Everything is similar - a bit bigger folded, a bit heavier (20kg electric, 15kg acoustic), with some big incremental improvements such as balloon tyres, hydraulic disk brakes and 8-speed hub gears (not on the electric - that is 4 speed). The electric one costs £3495, with a 30 mile+ range.
The coverage will all be about "use it on gravel" and "out of town", but a big benefit will be those big tyres in town making it feel French, not German (ie boneshaker), and like a normal cycle not a dodgem car (ask me how I know ).
There needs to be a titanium version to get the weight of the electric one down, then a folding tricycle. But this is interesting, and I would suggest may add 50% to sales quite quickly, as it is far more pit'n'pothole tolerant.
Yes. And let's hope the EC spreads come out before that becomes a more common view. I want to buy @ 280.
I'm disconcerted by your new profile pic. The old tin o' beans was a great visual handle to easily see who was speaking. One of the best. Can I request its return after the election?
Yes, deal. This is just until Nov 6th. I feel so strongly about this election that I had to do something. I thought about flying over there to help out but in the end decided the most effective thing I could do was change my PB profile pic.
Or buy some Basildon Bond and some airmail stamps. That might help.
Is that as effective as changing a profile picture on PB.com ?
It's sending a pretty strong message to the USA after all.
Council tax: how likely is it that Labour would abolish the single person discount? This would put their council tax bills up by a third overnight. Can't see it myself. Where has this rumour come from?
I couldn't work out whether it was the Telegraph going off on one or Alanbrooke and it turned out to be a mixture of the two.
Nothing to see .....;move on
Oh Roger even the BBC said the Junior Doctore will be back for more.
Regrettably there will be a lot more news on Labour incompetence over the next 5 years and you cant keep blaming the messengers.
Ed Miliband - theres a fk up on two legs who hasnt a clue what he is doing.
Not sure about the Ed Miliband thing - offshore wind development has 82% approval rating, including 82% among Tories and 73% among Reform voters.
The more they get Miliband on the news talking about the successful auctions, the better.
Offshore wind is not in anyone's back yard, though.
Onshore wind, on the other hand, I think the previous government was right to be cautious about.
Latest plan in this part of the world is for a large area of the Pennines north of Calderdale to be turned into a monster wind development. It is the nearest bit of open land for quite a large population and part of a peat restoration project. Not surprisingly it is somewhat controversial but if Ed decides that we must suffer this for the net zero project, it will no doubt get built.
As if the peat restoration couldn't take place _without_ building lots of roads and 200m turbines...
If the turbine project doesn't take place then the land continues I assume to be used as a grouse shoot - which in terms of biodiversity and carbon is pretty much bottom of the pile for that sort of peat land I think. I'd be inclined to be in favour of the project though I don't know too much about it other than the blurb on the site.
I’ve called the election for Harris and that it won’t be close. That’s not - as certain posters think - because I can’t conceive of Trump winning or why people will vote for him. It’s because the tide is sweeping his feet out from underneath him me he has no idea what to do other than incoherently rage.
Of course his base will vote for him and I know why. They want their country back! But their problem is that increasingly they can’t persuade enough people to share their view. Why do people call Trump a lunatic or a fascist? How about because he shows so much evidence to back that up?
Final point - this isn’t a left / right thing! Conservatives should vote for the conservative candidate - which is Kamala Harris. Trump is many things, but he isn’t conservative.
What, in your view, are the US pollsters missing?
They aren’t missing it. A surge in voter registration. A growing chasm between men and women especially young men and women. The polls are lagging because they’re not fully capturing the shift - the more young and female voters there are, the bigger the Harris win. But we are now seeing this filter through in the polls. And play the trend forward to November and it won’t be close.
This is based on two things: 1) the Harris campaign not soiling itself. She is way better than was portrayed. If she keeps doing what she’s doing then she will continue to broaden her support as conservatives switch to vote for her as the conservative candidate 2) Trump continuing to melt down. Apparently I shouldn’t call out his growing insanity or his descent into delusions of fascism. Despite it happening before our eyes. But it is happening, and it’s both reducing his vote and motivating her vote.
Yes. And let's hope the EC spreads come out before that becomes a more common view. I want to buy @ 280.
I'm disconcerted by your new profile pic. The old tin o' beans was a great visual handle to easily see who was speaking. One of the best. Can I request its return after the election?
Yes, deal. This is just until Nov 6th. I feel so strongly about this election that I had to do something. I thought about flying over there to help out but in the end decided the most effective thing I could do was change my PB profile pic.
This was posted entirely without irony, I assume?
Well my posts are widely read and the audience are largely influential people - so having a picture of Kamala Harris alongside each one might (subliminally) nudge opinion in the right direction.
I couldn't work out whether it was the Telegraph going off on one or Alanbrooke and it turned out to be a mixture of the two.
Nothing to see .....;move on
Oh Roger even the BBC said the Junior Doctore will be back for more.
Regrettably there will be a lot more news on Labour incompetence over the next 5 years and you cant keep blaming the messengers.
Ed Miliband - theres a fk up on two legs who hasnt a clue what he is doing.
Not sure about the Ed Miliband thing - offshore wind development has 82% approval rating, including 82% among Tories and 73% among Reform voters.
The more they get Miliband on the news talking about the successful auctions, the better.
The 100000+ people who will lose their jobs might see it different..
Still since most of them are in Scotland why should you care ?
You are way out on your numbers. 1) it's only about 30k directly employed on rigs 2) those jobs only disappear when the facility shuts down 3) new offshore facilities will have far fewer offshore staff 4) new development would be west of Shetland, that'll be subsea facilities in the main because the seastates are severe, and costs are high. 5) there'll be jobs in offshore wind and renewables Rather than cling to a sector that will disappear they should be transitioning to the sector that will be the future.
It's worth reminding folk that the North Sea was running down anyway, currently enjoys significant tax incentives for new exploration and extraction (90% allowance), and the changes Miliband has make only make a very small dent in the projected extraction over the next decade.
The thing that seems illogical to some, is that as we head to net zero, oil consumption will collapse. But not disappear in the immediate future.
We could use the remaining North Sea oil to end imports of oil and oil derived materials and products during the long tail of substitution that will be required, after transport is gone.
Instead, we will continue to fund some really lovely people is various places.
Reagan has become one of those historical figures whom both sides cite for their advantage.
Ronald Reagan: “Can we doubt that only a divine providence placed this land...here as a refuge for all those people in the world who yearn to breathe freely: Jews and Christians…the boat people of Southeast Asia, of Cuba and of Haiti?” https://x.com/AccountableGOP/status/1835735665096700090
Definitely one of the most quotable of modern Presidents since Kennedy. Had a real knack of summarising a point in a pithy sentence.
“Are you better off than you were four years ago?” - a phrase that could still yet swing this coming election.
Council tax: how likely is it that Labour would abolish the single person discount? This would put their council tax bills up by a third overnight. Can't see it myself. Where has this rumour come from?
I couldn't work out whether it was the Telegraph going off on one or Alanbrooke and it turned out to be a mixture of the two.
Nothing to see .....;move on
Oh Roger even the BBC said the Junior Doctore will be back for more.
Regrettably there will be a lot more news on Labour incompetence over the next 5 years and you cant keep blaming the messengers.
Ed Miliband - theres a fk up on two legs who hasnt a clue what he is doing.
Not sure about the Ed Miliband thing - offshore wind development has 82% approval rating, including 82% among Tories and 73% among Reform voters.
The more they get Miliband on the news talking about the successful auctions, the better.
Offshore wind is not in anyone's back yard, though.
Onshore wind, on the other hand, I think the previous government was right to be cautious about.
Latest plan in this part of the world is for a large area of the Pennines north of Calderdale to be turned into a monster wind development. It is the nearest bit of open land for quite a large population and part of a peat restoration project. Not surprisingly it is somewhat controversial but if Ed decides that we must suffer this for the net zero project, it will no doubt get built.
Council tax: how likely is it that Labour would abolish the single person discount? This would put their council tax bills up by a third overnight. Can't see it myself. Where has this rumour come from?
Maybe Starmer just doesn't fancy Labour having too many councillors by the end of his first term.
Terrifying piece just appeared on the Guardian website, by David Daley: "There’s a danger that the US supreme court, not voters, picks the next president"
He writes that "Millions of Americans will vote this fall – but six Republican justices might have the final say, in a Bush v Gore redux."
Yes. And let's hope the EC spreads come out before that becomes a more common view. I want to buy @ 280.
I'm disconcerted by your new profile pic. The old tin o' beans was a great visual handle to easily see who was speaking. One of the best. Can I request its return after the election?
Yes, deal. This is just until Nov 6th. I feel so strongly about this election that I had to do something. I thought about flying over there to help out but in the end decided the most effective thing I could do was change my PB profile pic.
Or buy some Basildon Bond and some airmail stamps. That might help.
Is that as effective as changing a profile picture on PB.com ?
It's sending a pretty strong message to the USA after all.
If there's one thing the USA will understand it's overwhelming force.
OT if you fancy grabbing a sandwich at the House of Lords, now (or rather the conference season) is your chance. Also, if you want to see a badly designed booking site.
Topping is sort of right. Many posters on here are irrationally terrified of Trump47 and work backwards from the lemma that such a thing is impossible.
'Many posters' think Trump47 is 'impossible'
You seem to have imagined this - have any posters said that, let alone many? The closest I can find is Barnesian I guess, though they don't say Trump winning is impossible.
Only Kinabalu does. Which of course is dumb, if expected from him. But the rest of you are befuddled as to why it should be so close.
You look at the opinion polls and say "it's close" but have no idea why or what is motivating likely Trump voters. Nor do you seem minded to investigate why this might me.
For a leading political analysis site it is near-unforgiveable.
We're not here to spoon-feed you, so you can drop the 'unforgivable' nonsense. DYOR.
Classic "I have no idea" deflection ploy.
Ok: the US is close to 50% loons, fruitcakes and closet racists
Seriously though, it's not that hard, is it? As here (to a lesser extent now) there are whole groups who identify by political party and will vote GOP (or Dem) pretty much whoever the candidate is. There are those horrified by their country being taken away from them (believing, for good reasons or bad that the Dems are too liberal/woke/pro-immigrant, not religious enough, unborn baby killers). There are too many for whom the US isn't working, so why should they vote for the Harris who is a major figure in the present government and, fairly or not, can therefore be labeled continuity-Biden. If things are shit, it's hardly irrational to vote for change.
All that helps explain why Trump won in 2016. Some of it helps explain why he can win in 2024. The bit I have trouble with is why the many the US government conutally fails would vote for Trump given he failed to really do anything for them in 2016-2020. Do they believe he was somehow nobbled by the libs? Maybe.
It's easy to vote for the sensible, nice people when you're doing ok. That worked for Blair it worked for Cameron in 2015 and - just about - for May in 2017. But for those failed by governments then change, any change, is appealing. That's behind Corbyn 2017 doing so well, behind Reform, behind Brexit.
It is of course interesting to focus on the voters Trump has brought to the Republican (presidential candidate) who otherwise wouldn't have voted, or would have voted Democrat, and they may well decide the election. But when people ask why do 45% of voters vote for Trump - don't forget most of those 45% are voters who would have voted for Romney in 2012, and for similar reasons.
And look at the exit polling for 2020: Income less than $50k Biden 57% Trump 42% 50k-100k Biden 56 Trump 43 over 100k Biden 43 Trump 54
Of course it's no surprise that more of the rich vote Republican, but you'd get the opposite impression from a lot of the commentary.
For comparison 2012 was Under 50k Obama 60 Romney 38 50k-100k Obama 46 Romney 52 Over 100k Obama 44 Romney 54
Council tax: how likely is it that Labour would abolish the single person discount? This would put their council tax bills up by a third overnight. Can't see it myself. Where has this rumour come from?
I posted yesterday that I did some research on this.
The discount never existed in the days of rates but was introduced after the poll tax because single householders would have gone from £1000 in rates to £200 in poll tax and were looking at a £1000 bill again.
Hence the single person discount to make it look reasonable.
And if council tax is changing to something else Labour are being careful enough to make sure they aren't stuck with a stupid idea if the plan is a straightforward 0.5% of current value
I’ve called the election for Harris and that it won’t be close. That’s not - as certain posters think - because I can’t conceive of Trump winning or why people will vote for him. It’s because the tide is sweeping his feet out from underneath him me he has no idea what to do other than incoherently rage.
Of course his base will vote for him and I know why. They want their country back! But their problem is that increasingly they can’t persuade enough people to share their view. Why do people call Trump a lunatic or a fascist? How about because he shows so much evidence to back that up?
Final point - this isn’t a left / right thing! Conservatives should vote for the conservative candidate - which is Kamala Harris. Trump is many things, but he isn’t conservative.
What, in your view, are the US pollsters missing?
They aren’t missing it. A surge in voter registration. A growing chasm between men and women especially young men and women. The polls are lagging because they’re not fully capturing the shift - the more young and female voters there are, the bigger the Harris win. But we are now seeing this filter through in the polls. And play the trend forward to November and it won’t be close.
This is based on two things: 1) the Harris campaign not soiling itself. She is way better than was portrayed. If she keeps doing what she’s doing then she will continue to broaden her support as conservatives switch to vote for her as the conservative candidate 2) Trump continuing to melt down. Apparently I shouldn’t call out his growing insanity or his descent into delusions of fascism. Despite it happening before our eyes. But it is happening, and it’s both reducing his vote and motivating her vote.
I’m not seeing much evidence of the Trump vote going away. Harris seems to have picked up votes from undecideds/Kennedy voters.
It would actually be rather interesting to see data on where her newer voters are coming from. The above is just an opinion - maybe Trump has both lost and gained etc…
I couldn't work out whether it was the Telegraph going off on one or Alanbrooke and it turned out to be a mixture of the two.
Nothing to see .....;move on
Oh Roger even the BBC said the Junior Doctore will be back for more.
Regrettably there will be a lot more news on Labour incompetence over the next 5 years and you cant keep blaming the messengers.
Ed Miliband - theres a fk up on two legs who hasnt a clue what he is doing.
Not sure about the Ed Miliband thing - offshore wind development has 82% approval rating, including 82% among Tories and 73% among Reform voters.
The more they get Miliband on the news talking about the successful auctions, the better.
Offshore wind is not in anyone's back yard, though.
Onshore wind, on the other hand, I think the previous government was right to be cautious about.
Latest plan in this part of the world is for a large area of the Pennines north of Calderdale to be turned into a monster wind development. It is the nearest bit of open land for quite a large population and part of a peat restoration project. Not surprisingly it is somewhat controversial but if Ed decides that we must suffer this for the net zero project, it will no doubt get built.
As if the peat restoration couldn't take place _without_ building lots of roads and 200m turbines...
If the turbine project doesn't take place then the land continues I assume to be used as a grouse shoot - which in terms of biodiversity and carbon is pretty much bottom of the pile for that sort of peat land I think. I'd be inclined to be in favour of the project though I don't know too much about it other than the blurb on the site.
Flatlander is right about peatlands - a huge carbon sink that we shouldn't disrupt. There is surprising YIMByism around turbines now - you can plonk them around where people live instead.
Minor gossip from the barber's shop: Apparently the music went dead suddenly at 1:30am at an Albanian beach music festival recently. The reason? The prime minister was hosting Tony Blair at his beach house nearby, and they wanted to get some sleep.
I couldn't work out whether it was the Telegraph going off on one or Alanbrooke and it turned out to be a mixture of the two.
Nothing to see .....;move on
Oh Roger even the BBC said the Junior Doctore will be back for more.
Regrettably there will be a lot more news on Labour incompetence over the next 5 years and you cant keep blaming the messengers.
Ed Miliband - theres a fk up on two legs who hasnt a clue what he is doing.
Not sure about the Ed Miliband thing - offshore wind development has 82% approval rating, including 82% among Tories and 73% among Reform voters.
The more they get Miliband on the news talking about the successful auctions, the better.
Offshore wind is not in anyone's back yard, though.
Onshore wind, on the other hand, I think the previous government was right to be cautious about.
Latest plan in this part of the world is for a large area of the Pennines north of Calderdale to be turned into a monster wind development. It is the nearest bit of open land for quite a large population and part of a peat restoration project. Not surprisingly it is somewhat controversial but if Ed decides that we must suffer this for the net zero project, it will no doubt get built.
As if the peat restoration couldn't take place _without_ building lots of roads and 200m turbines...
If the turbine project doesn't take place then the land continues I assume to be used as a grouse shoot - which in terms of biodiversity and carbon is pretty much bottom of the pile for that sort of peat land I think. I'd be inclined to be in favour of the project though I don't know too much about it other than the blurb on the site.
"£2.5m annual Community Benefit Fund paid to Calderdale Council to help relieve fuel poverty for 30 years.." will possible swing it.
That works out at around £8 per annum, per kW of capacity.
Yes. And let's hope the EC spreads come out before that becomes a more common view. I want to buy @ 280.
I'm disconcerted by your new profile pic. The old tin o' beans was a great visual handle to easily see who was speaking. One of the best. Can I request its return after the election?
Yes, deal. This is just until Nov 6th. I feel so strongly about this election that I had to do something. I thought about flying over there to help out but in the end decided the most effective thing I could do was change my PB profile pic.
This was posted entirely without irony, I assume?
Well my posts are widely read and the audience are largely influential people - so having a picture of Kamala Harris alongside each one might (subliminally) nudge opinion in the right direction.
I think you need to get your head out of your own arse.
My profile picture is cuts of beef from a cow, and I'm under no illusions it's convincing the masses to eat beef.
Interesting that Khan's plan to pedestrianise Oxford Street is being met with almost universal acclaim, with lots of people asking why Soho and other areas aren't being considered too.
Tide is turning somewhat.
It’s a great idea. Except for where you put the buses? Doing that in the London grid is difficult. Easy to say - “the parallel streets”. But those parallel streets are already used. So you’d end up rebuilding them.. etc etc
Especially with statutory duties regarding access to step free transport - IIRC, anything that makes that *worse* is problematic, in planning terms.
I actually think the best idea would have been to tear up Oxford Street, dig a tunnel the whole length and put the buses and cabs down below. Problem is, that is a CanDo project in a Can’tDo Country.
Westminster council are currently doing work and pointed out that elderly and disabled people need the buses to get to the front door of the places they want to go to.
It's a long walk from the next street north of Oxford Street to Oxford Street - one my mum couldn't easily do anymore.
We'll see how Oxford Street turns out.
There's no problem with through-buses as long as the level of motor-traffic is in a distinct minority so it is clear that they are "guests in a pedestrian space", and that demarcation is clear.
The Exhibition Road scheme in 2010 failed because "shared space" (ie leave the safety of pedestrians reliant on motor vehicle drivers not being selfish - pigs might fly) left motors uncontrolled. So the vehicular route just became a road without safety features.
One to watch is Taxi Driver organisations using a segment of disabled people as a human shield for their own interest, against the interest of all the other disabled people. That is their modus operandi in eg LTNs and the debate around Bank Junction.
Same here. Sudden, novel concern about disabled people whenever something like this is suggested. Particularly the case with floating bus stops.
If you suggest removing some parking bays to make way for disabled spots, or a pavement parking ban so that folk in wheelchairs can get around, or remind people that one of ways people pick up disabilities in the first place is in vehicle/pedestrian collisions - silence.
That's not to say there aren't legitimate concerns about how disabled people will access these streets. You just need to listen carefully to what the RNIB and other organisations say rather than these vested interests.
Otoh, as a non-driving pedestrian, buses and taxis are important to me, and that means keeping traffic flowing and allowing them to stop at convenient places.
Yes. And let's hope the EC spreads come out before that becomes a more common view. I want to buy @ 280.
I'm disconcerted by your new profile pic. The old tin o' beans was a great visual handle to easily see who was speaking. One of the best. Can I request its return after the election?
Yes, deal. This is just until Nov 6th. I feel so strongly about this election that I had to do something. I thought about flying over there to help out but in the end decided the most effective thing I could do was change my PB profile pic.
This was posted entirely without irony, I assume?
Well my posts are widely read and the audience are largely influential people - so having a picture of Kamala Harris alongside each one might (subliminally) nudge opinion in the right direction.
I think you need to get your head out of your own arse.
My profile picture is cuts of beef from a cow, and I'm under no illusions it's convincing the masses to eat beef.
So it is! I never really looked at it, and the thumbnail is very small and truncated (well that's my excuse) I always assumed it was some weird map of the US
Comments
You cannot see it is wrong as you are a Labour supporter but 62% in yesterday's yougov poll were against Starmer receiving this money and just 13% like yourself trying to defend the indefensible
I never had much hope about Starmer, but I did expect him to be better than this and not just another 'Tory' receiving gifts.
I would also ask where is his pride, a millionire allowing another millionaire to buy goodies for him and his wife
It is just indefensible, no matter how much his supporters say the tories were worse
Speak for yourself!
Merkel also had 35 years of 'Russia is good, the West is bad' propaganda fed to her.
We're regularly told that a few years at Eton or in the Bullingdon influences a person for life so its certainly possible that Merkel's upbringing did too.
I've not got a clue how the American election is going to play out so no prediction from me...
If you do corruption in UK politics you'll be getting your collar felt.
Seriously though, it's not that hard, is it? As here (to a lesser extent now) there are whole groups who identify by political party and will vote GOP (or Dem) pretty much whoever the candidate is. There are those horrified by their country being taken away from them (believing, for good reasons or bad that the Dems are too liberal/woke/pro-immigrant, not religious enough, unborn baby killers). There are too many for whom the US isn't working, so why should they vote for the Harris who is a major figure in the present government and, fairly or not, can therefore be labeled continuity-Biden. If things are shit, it's hardly irrational to vote for change.
All that helps explain why Trump won in 2016. Some of it helps explain why he can win in 2024. The bit I have trouble with is why the many the US government conutally fails would vote for Trump given he failed to really do anything for them in 2016-2020. Do they believe he was somehow nobbled by the libs? Maybe.
It's easy to vote for the sensible, nice people when you're doing ok. That worked for Blair it worked for Cameron in 2015 and - just about - for May in 2017. But for those failed by governments then change, any change, is appealing. That's behind Corbyn 2017 doing so well, behind Reform, behind Brexit.
Nothing to see .....;move on
If you suggest removing some parking bays to make way for disabled spots, or a pavement parking ban so that folk in wheelchairs can get around, or remind people that one of ways people pick up disabilities in the first place is in vehicle/pedestrian collisions - silence.
That's not to say there aren't legitimate concerns about how disabled people will access these streets. You just need to listen carefully to what the RNIB and other organisations say rather than these vested interests.
I think she'll win the popular vote. I'm going to guess she squeaks home in the EC.
the case in the last two elections and I think that pollsters are compensating, possibly overcompensating, for these “shy” voters.
FWIW I think, globally, “shy” voters are less of an issue in internet polling. People are not shy of speaking their mind to a computer or smartphone screen - as we see on TwiX and here. The issue is voters pollsters are not reaching at all.
Anyway, my micro impact on this election is helping ensure the wife’s ballot makes CT in time if she decides not to go in person ie no impact at all. Pointless worrying about what you can’t change. What good does it do?
One change that one pollster (NYT/Siena) made is that if you answer the poll and say you'll vote for Trump but then you refuse to complete the rest of the interview, they'll count you in the sample and do without the other details. Apparently this makes quite a big difference to their results compared to their old method of throwing out any incomplete response.
Regrettably there will be a lot more news on Labour incompetence over the next 5 years and you cant keep blaming the messengers.
Ed Miliband - theres a fk up on two legs who hasnt a clue what he is doing.
It stinks, doesn't it?
As just one example to counter this I posted a couple of times ages ago a reference to a must-read book that helps explain Trump's rise: Williams, 'The White Working Class'.
There's also books by Micheal Lind.
If you want something more accessible there is of course Hillbilly Elegy. Interesting book and well written. No idea what became of the author.
Edit: And Sarah Churchwell's 'Behold America' is fascinating on the long history from 1920s and 1930s of much of the crap that Trump spouts.
Give your head a wobble!
Fortunately, they went too early and still were not ready.
The idea that Putin did not go after Ukraine because of Trump ignores reality.
The more they get Miliband on the news talking about the successful auctions, the better.
The reality is that Putin gained territory in Ukraine under Obama and Biden and not under Trump.
For Trump, who's effectively been campaigning for the last four years, it's almost all the way through. And he still hasn't worked out what his health policy is.
FWIW, I'd expect Harris to have rather more to say on policy over the next few weeks. She's surprised on the upside, in introducing herself to the US public, and has successfully drawn a contrast with Trump on character.
Doing the same on policy would solidify the apparent lead in the polls.
Is there any rule that prevents a party fixer from having a pass to No. 10? This is a genuine question, to which I have received no answer.
Of course the taxpayer needs to pay for security costs for the PM going to events. That's clearly necessary, even if the risk of violence isn't like it is in the US. But I think there should be a more-or-less blanket ban on gifts over £50 to politicians. If it's a business lunch, split it 50:50 and expense it. Of course total expenses then need to then be kept to within reasonable levels.
I think Starmer comes across as a bit entitled on this topic.
I also think a big Harris win is quite likely. By big I mean by more in PV and EC terms than Biden won by. This is a minority view but shared by a few others - eg Barnesian, Monksfield, NigelB, Thomas Nashe, Marque Mark.
The PB consensus is knife edge. There's your groupthink.
As for why people vote for Trump, perhaps you can link again to that very interesting article from 2016 that you found.
Still since most of them are in Scotland why should you care ?
The 'reality' you mention is simply a case of correlation, not causation.
Because I think there is a herd phenomenon among the undecided, I think the Harris win will be decisive.
Her campaign should be flying many aircraft over Penn with large banners declaring "Kamala Winning Here".
LDs win by-elections and target seats by overwhelming local presence. So can the Dems in target states. They have the money
Compared to the early 2022 baseline, they’re going way up even when O&G prices fall back.
It already costs more in many cases to fill up an electric car than a petrol one, at motorway service stations.
1) it's only about 30k directly employed on rigs
2) those jobs only disappear when the facility shuts down
3) new offshore facilities will have far fewer offshore staff
4) new development would be west of Shetland, that'll be subsea facilities in the main because the seastates are severe, and costs are high.
5) there'll be jobs in offshore wind and renewables
Rather than cling to a sector that will disappear they should be transitioning to the sector that will be the future.
What data there is suggests it's likely to harm to them, and do little for her campaign.
Of course this is only one set of data, and circumstances are different, but still..
Political endorsement by Nature and trust in scientific expertise during COVID-19
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01537-5
High-profile political endorsements by scientific publications have become common in recent years, raising concerns about backlash against the endorsing organizations and scientific expertise. In a preregistered large-sample controlled experiment, I randomly assigned participants to receive information about the endorsement of Joe Biden by the scientific journal Nature during the COVID-19 pandemic. The endorsement message caused large reductions in stated trust in Nature among Trump supporters. This distrust lowered the demand for COVID-related information provided by Nature, as evidenced by substantially reduced requests for Nature articles on vaccine efficacy when offered. The endorsement also reduced Trump supporters’ trust in scientists in general. The estimated effects on Biden supporters’ trust in Nature and scientists were positive, small and mostly statistically insignificant. I found little evidence that the endorsement changed views about Biden and Trump. These results suggest that political endorsement by scientific journals can undermine and polarize public confidence in the endorsing journals and the scientific community...
Ronald Reagan: “Can we doubt that only a divine providence placed this land...here as a refuge for all those people in the world who yearn to breathe freely: Jews and Christians…the boat people of Southeast Asia, of Cuba and of Haiti?”
https://x.com/AccountableGOP/status/1835735665096700090
Of course his base will vote for him and I know why. They want their country back! But their problem is that increasingly they can’t persuade enough people to share their view. Why do people call Trump a lunatic or a fascist? How about because he shows so much evidence to back that up?
Final point - this isn’t a left / right thing! Conservatives should vote for the conservative candidate - which is Kamala Harris. Trump is many things, but he isn’t conservative.
Many of the rig workers have been in the industry since the 70s and 80s and are retiring, or are close to retirement.
However, the North East of Scotland should be supported. We can’t afford to repeat the mistakes of the 1980s, when communities that had lost their major employers were left to rot.
This is easy to lose, and hard to gain.
Onshore wind, on the other hand, I think the previous government was right to be cautious about.
Latest plan in this part of the world is for a large area of the Pennines north of Calderdale to be turned into a monster wind development. It is the nearest bit of open land for quite a large population and part of a peat restoration project. Not surprisingly it is somewhat controversial but if Ed decides that we must suffer this for the net zero project, it will no doubt get built.
https://calderdalewind.co.uk/site/
As if the peat restoration couldn't take place _without_ building lots of roads and 200m turbines...
The North Sea is ramping down because we’ve tapped it out. But we have to keep extracting the resources that still exist because to not do so just means we import it. Which would be crazy. So invest like hell into renewables, but protect the existing industry as we transition. Protect jobs and skills. That is what just means. Labour are as bad as the SNP on this one. And don’t get me started on the Greens…
Who does a better job representing the interests of:
Middle class: Harris +13
Small businesses: Harris +11
Union workers: Harris +10
Blue collar workers: Harris +7
Large corporations: Trump +44
Wealthy people: Trump +48
https://x.com/USA_Polling/status/1835517461996659159
Offshore, they are still only limited by materials concerns - they can go bigger yet.
In addition there vastly more potential capacity offshore for wind than we can use.
Crimea would remain an occupied anomaly.
"They say that hard work never killed anyone, but, I figure, why take the chance?"
Everything is similar - a bit bigger folded, a bit heavier (20kg electric, 15kg acoustic), with some big incremental improvements such as balloon tyres, hydraulic disk brakes and 8-speed hub gears (not on the electric - that is 4 speed). The electric one costs £3495, with a 30 mile+ range.
The coverage will all be about "use it on gravel" and "out of town", but a big benefit will be those big tyres in town making it feel French, not German (ie boneshaker), and like a normal cycle not a dodgem car (ask me how I know
There needs to be a titanium version to get the weight of the electric one down, then a folding tricycle. But this is interesting, and I would suggest may add 50% to sales quite quickly, as it is far more pit'n'pothole tolerant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYfINR9OUdo
It's sending a pretty strong message to the USA after all.
This is based on two things:
1) the Harris campaign not soiling itself. She is way better than was portrayed. If she keeps doing what she’s doing then she will continue to broaden her support as conservatives switch to vote for her as the conservative candidate
2) Trump continuing to melt down. Apparently I shouldn’t call out his growing insanity or his descent into delusions of fascism. Despite it happening before our eyes. But it is happening, and it’s both reducing his vote and motivating her vote.
56 No
44 Yes
https://x.com/YouGov/status/1835984106787619140?t=RJzLdbDFQV_UYp_4lkEPXA&s=19
We could use the remaining North Sea oil to end imports of oil and oil derived materials and products during the long tail of substitution that will be required, after transport is gone.
Instead, we will continue to fund some really lovely people is various places.
https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/documents/Internal_Energy_240730_Merge.pdf
"There’s a danger that the US supreme court, not voters, picks the next president"
He writes that "Millions of Americans will vote this fall – but six Republican justices might have the final say, in a Bush v Gore redux."
https://dishcult.com/restaurant/peersdiningroomatthehouseoflords
And look at the exit polling for 2020:
Income less than $50k Biden 57% Trump 42%
50k-100k Biden 56 Trump 43
over 100k Biden 43 Trump 54
Of course it's no surprise that more of the rich vote Republican, but you'd get the opposite impression from a lot of the commentary.
For comparison 2012 was
Under 50k Obama 60 Romney 38
50k-100k Obama 46 Romney 52
Over 100k Obama 44 Romney 54
The discount never existed in the days of rates but was introduced after the poll tax because single householders would have gone from £1000 in rates to £200 in poll tax and were looking at a £1000 bill again.
Hence the single person discount to make it look reasonable.
And if council tax is changing to something else Labour are being careful enough to make sure they aren't stuck with a stupid idea if the plan is a straightforward 0.5% of current value
It would actually be rather interesting to see data on where her newer voters are coming from. The above is just an opinion - maybe Trump has both lost and gained etc…
Guardian in talks to sell the Observer
That works out at around £8 per annum, per kW of capacity.
My profile picture is cuts of beef from a cow, and I'm under no illusions it's convincing the masses to eat beef.