When do they reduce it to the two going to the membership
I should know but I don't !!!!!!!!!!!!
Rounds three and four are next Wednesday and Thursday.
And then the final two go to the party in the country, but only after they've paid another £150,000 to CCHQ, so don't be surprised when one of them drops out and the members don't get a vote, as when Andrea Leadsom withdrew against Theresa May.
Eh? £150k? Wow. What possible justification is there for that?
Is that actually true? Surely not?
Under the Conservative party’s “pay to play” rules, those who make it to the final four on Tuesday next week will have to hand £50,000 to the party. The two candidates who make it to the final round after the party’s conference in October will have to sign a further cheque for £150,000 to Conservative campaign headquarters. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/sep/05/robert-jenrick-frontrunner-tory-leadership
Read that article on the candidates' fundraising and begin to see why it is the media, not the Conservatives, making the running on Starmer's freebiegate.
I have no problem with the media making a mockery of Keith Donkey and his free suits and designer geps. Hypocritical of Labour as usual.
But - and it’s a gargantuan but - taking a nice suit from a named party donor is different to paying out billions to your patrons for “PPE” or accidentally taking donations via shell companies etc. The Tories are brazenly and openly corrupt. Labour are stupid. There is a difference. The Tory media desperately trying to make them equivalent is in itself very funny.
I'll repeat myself from earlier today, I don't think she's a good candidate and is unlikely to ever be one. She has zero maturity of thought. Suggesting that 5-10% of the civil service should be on prison is just laughable and the kind of stuff I'd expect from an anti-establishment sixth former. I'm not exactly a huge fan of the civil service or the job they (don't) do but to suggest they should be imprisoned for it is just idiotic.
She could easily have made a very valid point that she believes that there's too many civil servants who work against elected ministers and there are loads who see it as their duty to block Tory policies and they should be rooted out and moved on. Suggesting jail time for them just makes her look ridiculous.
I like Kemi and think if she had the ability to think for a bit longer before speaking or forming an opinion on something she might be brilliant, as it stands she's just behaving like someone who wants to get a rise out of the people she opposes which isn't a grown up way to lead a party.
Estonia is proposing to introduce a war tax of 2% on individual/business profits and an extra 2% on VAT to help pay for increased defence spending and assistance to Ukraine. They're envisaging that 25% of their defence budget will be spent on ammunition over the next few years.
If only some larger countries would take the situation as seriously.
I'm willing to believe that half a dozen MPs might, theoretically, belong in jail. Perhaps even a handful of individuals in the civil service, if only by the law of averages.
50k civil servants ? That's the idle dream of a would be authoritarian.
Hang on: there are 72 LibDem MPs.
If you look at the Liberals of the 1970s and work out what proportion of them should have been in prison, and then apply that proportion to current numbers, you probably get to 50+. And that's just from a single party.
Name names. (Now, not then.)
Errr:
I can think of three (or four if you push it) Liberal MPs from the 1970s against whom there were serious allegations of criminality.
Which is not bad, considering there were only about six or seven of them.
No doubt she has been "misrepresented" by the media yet again.
You don't think between 5 and 10 percent of civil servants are very bad?
I think it's more the "should be in prison" that people will take issue with. The bar for incarcerating people is - one would hope - a high one.
I agree, but civil servants are agents of the state. If they do a bad job, and potentially their bad job is motivated by a wish to do down the Government of the day or frustrate their plans, that situation is a sticky one to a far greater degree than a lousy cashier or a decorator who leave the pictures up and paints round them. I am not sure all cases of the sort are worthy of a trip to the gaol, but nor can they be tolerated.
Yeah, but most civil servants - by number - have very little to do with the actions of ministers. They are junior staff in Swansea dealing with driving license administration.
But they could be Home Office staff running the asylum and immigration system, where what appears to be willful dysfunction (see the waaaay higher success levels of UK applications than the rest of Europe) has fuelled the migrant crisis.
The most unrealistic thing about Threads is that the survivors didn't clean up the debris even decades after the attack.
Wasn't it filmed in the 70s ? Fairly true to life, then. 😏
Eighties. 1983 or 1984.
Probably assuming a reversion to 70s norms, post apocalypse ? I'll have to get around to watching it.
Been nostalgia rewatching The Prisoner.
The guy who played the mute butler, Angelo Muscat, has the saddest story, dying in poverty, aged 47. Quote on IMDB: I always feel lonely. I feel that people don't want to know me. Girls don't fancy me, I'm tiny and nearly bald but I'm only in my thirties. That's why I'm so grateful to Patrick McGoohan. He has given me responsibility for the first time in my life. I am playing an important part in a big series. I AM something, for the first time ever...
I'm willing to believe that half a dozen MPs might, theoretically, belong in jail. Perhaps even a handful of individuals in the civil service, if only by the law of averages.
50k civil servants ? That's the idle dream of a would be authoritarian.
If she had said 50,000 should be sacked, it would be extreme but one could make an argument based on the classic big four model of chopping the bottom 10%. But for her mind to go straight to imprisonment? Bonkers.
To be fair she doesn't think 50,000 of them should be in jail. She thinks todays politicians can say what they want, without it being accurate, or even true, as long as they indicate whose side they are on. She might be right.
"Upsetting the right people", sadly, works rather well a lot of the time, and many politicians think that's all you need.
I don't think everything she says is bonkers though.
I'll repeat myself from earlier today, I don't think she's a good candidate and is unlikely to ever be one. She has zero maturity of thought. Suggesting that 5-10% of the civil service should be on prison is just laughable and the kind of stuff I'd expect from an anti-establishment sixth former. I'm not exactly a huge fan of the civil service or the job they (don't) do but to suggest they should be imprisoned for it is just idiotic.
She could easily have made a very valid point that she believes that there's too many civil servants who work against elected ministers and there are loads who see it as their duty to block Tory policies and they should be rooted out and moved on. Suggesting jail time for them just makes her look ridiculous.
I like Kemi and think if she had the ability to think for a bit longer before speaking or forming an opinion on something she might be brilliant, as it stands she's just behaving like someone who wants to get a rise out of the people she opposes which isn't a grown up way to lead a party.
There you go: proper nuance, and makes a good point.
As opposed to Kemi, who said something stupid.
I really think she's just targeting the old fuckers in the Tory party who lap all of this shite up after having their brains addled by the Daily Mail for the last 40 years. She seems to have forgotten that she needs to get MPs to put her in the final two ahead of Jenrick or Cleverly which just seems very unlikely.
I'll repeat myself from earlier today, I don't think she's a good candidate and is unlikely to ever be one. She has zero maturity of thought. Suggesting that 5-10% of the civil service should be on prison is just laughable and the kind of stuff I'd expect from an anti-establishment sixth former. I'm not exactly a huge fan of the civil service or the job they (don't) do but to suggest they should be imprisoned for it is just idiotic.
She could easily have made a very valid point that she believes that there's too many civil servants who work against elected ministers and there are loads who see it as their duty to block Tory policies and they should be rooted out and moved on. Suggesting jail time for them just makes her look ridiculous.
I like Kemi and think if she had the ability to think for a bit longer before speaking or forming an opinion on something she might be brilliant, as it stands she's just behaving like someone who wants to get a rise out of the people she opposes which isn't a grown up way to lead a party.
It can be really frustrating sometimes to see a point made poorly. Even if it is not one you share you can feel yourself shaking with annouance and going 'I could make that same point so much better'.
Estonia is proposing to introduce a war tax of 2% on individual/business profits and an extra 2% on VAT to help pay for increased defence spending and assistance to Ukraine. They're envisaging that 25% of their defence budget will be spent on ammunition over the next few years.
If only some larger countries would take the situation as seriously.
Well, it is a bit more 'real' to Estonia of course, but there have been some baffling delays and foot dragging on some issues from the bigger players, even with understandable concerns about 'escalation'.
No doubt she has been "misrepresented" by the media yet again.
You don't think between 5 and 10 percent of civil servants are very bad?
I think it's more the "should be in prison" that people will take issue with. The bar for incarcerating people is - one would hope - a high one.
I agree, but civil servants are agents of the state. If they do a bad job, and potentially their bad job is motivated by a wish to do down the Government of the day or frustrate their plans, that situation is a sticky one to a far greater degree than a lousy cashier or a decorator who leave the pictures up and paints round them. I am not sure all cases of the sort are worthy of a trip to the gaol, but nor can they be tolerated.
Yeah, but most civil servants - by number - have very little to do with the actions of ministers. They are junior staff in Swansea dealing with driving license administration.
But they could be Home Office staff running the asylum and immigration system, where what appears to be willful dysfunction (see the waaaay higher success levels of UK applications than the rest of Europe) has fuelled the migrant crisis.
Not to defend the civil service but our laws and legal rulings are completely different to France so blaming our high asylum success rate to a lower European one on the civil service seems like a big stretch. It needs legal reform to lower that rate which the Tories had 14 years to push through.
No, she didn’t take 34,000 words to say it via an impenetrable blog post.
I think you mean in a misunderstood genius blog post. He helped with the Brexit campaign, so anything he says must be amazing.
My respect for Mr Cummings dropped dramatically after I was sat only a few yards from him on a flight to the West Coast. He was shockingly rude to the BA cabin staff.
I'll repeat myself from earlier today, I don't think she's a good candidate and is unlikely to ever be one. She has zero maturity of thought. Suggesting that 5-10% of the civil service should be on prison is just laughable and the kind of stuff I'd expect from an anti-establishment sixth former. I'm not exactly a huge fan of the civil service or the job they (don't) do but to suggest they should be imprisoned for it is just idiotic.
She could easily have made a very valid point that she believes that there's too many civil servants who work against elected ministers and there are loads who see it as their duty to block Tory policies and they should be rooted out and moved on. Suggesting jail time for them just makes her look ridiculous.
I like Kemi and think if she had the ability to think for a bit longer before speaking or forming an opinion on something she might be brilliant, as it stands she's just behaving like someone who wants to get a rise out of the people she opposes which isn't a grown up way to lead a party.
Any chance you could enter the Tory leadership race?
Kemi's strategy for this contest is an interesting one. I think some of her incendiary statements are an outcome of her deciding to have no policies. She has no 'leave the ECHR' to talk about, so she's left with 'sounding' as right on as she can without actually proposing anything. Otherwise she'd be outshone and lose ground.
If there is a masterplan at play, it seems to be to keep herself to the right of Jenrick at all times - I don't know why. Perhaps she wants to be 'the one that got away' so the party longs for her and when Jenrick trips up, she gets it. Seems weird though - this should be her time - it's the right time. All she needed was some good policies, some good arguments, then sell them.
No, she didn’t take 34,000 words to say it via an impenetrable blog post.
I think you mean in a misunderstood genius blog post. He helped with the Brexit campaign, so anything he says must be amazing.
My respect for Mr Cummings dropped dramatically after I was sat only a few yards from him on a flight to the West Coast. He was shockingly rude to the BA cabin staff.
In today's least surprising news, Dom is a twat.
If he's like that in general in real life it would undermine any argument that his abrasiveness was just part of the need to be pushy and blunt to get things done in a political world that doesn't speak clearly.
I'll repeat myself from earlier today, I don't think she's a good candidate and is unlikely to ever be one. She has zero maturity of thought. Suggesting that 5-10% of the civil service should be on prison is just laughable and the kind of stuff I'd expect from an anti-establishment sixth former. I'm not exactly a huge fan of the civil service or the job they (don't) do but to suggest they should be imprisoned for it is just idiotic.
She could easily have made a very valid point that she believes that there's too many civil servants who work against elected ministers and there are loads who see it as their duty to block Tory policies and they should be rooted out and moved on. Suggesting jail time for them just makes her look ridiculous.
I like Kemi and think if she had the ability to think for a bit longer before speaking or forming an opinion on something she might be brilliant, as it stands she's just behaving like someone who wants to get a rise out of the people she opposes which isn't a grown up way to lead a party.
Any chance you could enter the Tory leadership race?
Leadership contests are all about playing to the home team. Starmer made himself to be pick me, Corbyn wasn't left wing enough to get elected, while Sunak tried to play the pick me I will be sensible and the membership bugger that, give me Trussonomics.
Estonia is proposing to introduce a war tax of 2% on individual/business profits and an extra 2% on VAT to help pay for increased defence spending and assistance to Ukraine. They're envisaging that 25% of their defence budget will be spent on ammunition over the next few years.
If only some larger countries would take the situation as seriously.
No doubt she has been "misrepresented" by the media yet again.
You don't think between 5 and 10 percent of civil servants are very bad?
I think it's more the "should be in prison" that people will take issue with. The bar for incarcerating people is - one would hope - a high one.
I agree, but civil servants are agents of the state. If they do a bad job, and potentially their bad job is motivated by a wish to do down the Government of the day or frustrate their plans, that situation is a sticky one to a far greater degree than a lousy cashier or a decorator who leave the pictures up and paints round them. I am not sure all cases of the sort are worthy of a trip to the gaol, but nor can they be tolerated.
Yeah, but most civil servants - by number - have very little to do with the actions of ministers. They are junior staff in Swansea dealing with driving license administration.
But they could be Home Office staff running the asylum and immigration system, where what appears to be willful dysfunction (see the waaaay higher success levels of UK applications than the rest of Europe) has fuelled the migrant crisis.
Not to defend the civil service but our laws and legal rulings are completely different to France so blaming our high asylum success rate to a lower European one on the civil service seems like a big stretch. It needs legal reform to lower that rate which the Tories had 14 years to push through.
As far as I am aware, we have not been outliers in application success like this in the past. I think you have a partial point - Theresa's stupid modern slavery legislation hasn't helped, but the Home Office is willfully uncooperative - whistleblowers have revealed evidence that supports this fact.
The most unrealistic thing about Threads is that the survivors didn't clean up the debris even decades after the attack.
Wasn't it filmed in the 70s ? Fairly true to life, then. 😏
Eighties. 1983 or 1984.
Probably assuming a reversion to 70s norms, post apocalypse ? I'll have to get around to watching it.
Been nostalgia rewatching The Prisoner.
The guy who played the mute butler, Angelo Muscat, has the saddest story, dying in poverty, aged 47. Quote on IMDB: I always feel lonely. I feel that people don't want to know me. Girls don't fancy me, I'm tiny and nearly bald but I'm only in my thirties. That's why I'm so grateful to Patrick McGoohan. He has given me responsibility for the first time in my life. I am playing an important part in a big series. I AM something, for the first time ever...
I’m rewatching it too, just finished Hammer into Anvil. The 11th episode on the Blu Ray.
That’s very sad about Angelo Muscat. He also looked a lot older than that. It’s also sad he never lived to see how adored the series was, and still is, and he was.
I remember many years ago a guy wrote three articles about the Butler for the Prisoner fanzine. ‘Bossing the Butler’, ‘Serving the Butler’ and ‘Clocking the Butler’, the last of which detailed the time of every appearance the character made in every episode broken down scene by scene.
Ministers are being asked to draw up billions of pounds in cuts to infrastructure projects over the next 18 months despite Rachel Reeves pledging to invest more to grow the economy, the Guardian has learned.
Members of the cabinet have been asked to model cuts to their investment plans of up to 10% of their annual capital spending as part of this month’s spending review, government sources said.
I'll repeat myself from earlier today, I don't think she's a good candidate and is unlikely to ever be one. She has zero maturity of thought. Suggesting that 5-10% of the civil service should be on prison is just laughable and the kind of stuff I'd expect from an anti-establishment sixth former. I'm not exactly a huge fan of the civil service or the job they (don't) do but to suggest they should be imprisoned for it is just idiotic.
She could easily have made a very valid point that she believes that there's too many civil servants who work against elected ministers and there are loads who see it as their duty to block Tory policies and they should be rooted out and moved on. Suggesting jail time for them just makes her look ridiculous.
I like Kemi and think if she had the ability to think for a bit longer before speaking or forming an opinion on something she might be brilliant, as it stands she's just behaving like someone who wants to get a rise out of the people she opposes which isn't a grown up way to lead a party.
Any chance you could enter the Tory leadership race?
From my boozy lunch with my highly placed source, at the Groucho (and he knows them all)
Kemi: not good, quite disliked even by people who agree with her, bit of a bully
Jenrick: two faced, quite ruthless, v ambitious, could easily revert to Cameronism
Tugendhat: bland, pointless, meh
Cleverly: nicest of them all, but no plan
That's not great, is it? And this is a person with sympathy for the Tories. On this basis I think they should choose Jenrick. They could do worse than two faced and ruthless with ambition, ie any of the other three
I'll repeat myself from earlier today, I don't think she's a good candidate and is unlikely to ever be one. She has zero maturity of thought. Suggesting that 5-10% of the civil service should be on prison is just laughable and the kind of stuff I'd expect from an anti-establishment sixth former. I'm not exactly a huge fan of the civil service or the job they (don't) do but to suggest they should be imprisoned for it is just idiotic.
She could easily have made a very valid point that she believes that there's too many civil servants who work against elected ministers and there are loads who see it as their duty to block Tory policies and they should be rooted out and moved on. Suggesting jail time for them just makes her look ridiculous.
I like Kemi and think if she had the ability to think for a bit longer before speaking or forming an opinion on something she might be brilliant, as it stands she's just behaving like someone who wants to get a rise out of the people she opposes which isn't a grown up way to lead a party.
Any chance you could enter the Tory leadership race?
Ministers are being asked to draw up billions of pounds in cuts to infrastructure projects over the next 18 months despite Rachel Reeves pledging to invest more to grow the economy, the Guardian has learned.
Members of the cabinet have been asked to model cuts to their investment plans of up to 10% of their annual capital spending as part of this month’s spending review, government sources said.
I really don't understand this governments approach. You want growth, we know infrastructure needs upgrading, it politically fairly easy to borrow to invest in upgrading infrastructure...what the public get more funny about is public sector numbers and wages, they don't generally complain about borrowing to build schools, hospitals, etc. And isnt that the point of Labour in our yin / yang system, that they will splash the cash on these projects.
Its feeling like yet another government of managed decline.
From my boozy lunch with my highly placed source, at the Groucho (and he knows them all)
Kemi: not good, quite disliked even by people who agree with her, bit of a bully
Jenrick: two faced, quite ruthless, v ambitious, could easily revert to Cameronism
Tugendhat: bland, pointless, meh
Cleverly: nicest of them all, but no plan
That's not great, is it? And this is a person with sympathy for the Tories. On this basis I think they should choose Jenrick. They could do worse than two faced and ruthless with ambition, ie any of the other three
Why not pick Tugendhat or Cleverly who at least won't be ramble total BS every day, from which you can do a bit of bramd rebuild. That was Starmer strategy after Corbyn. You can even dump them in 3 years if you find somebody better.
I'll repeat myself from earlier today, I don't think she's a good candidate and is unlikely to ever be one. She has zero maturity of thought. Suggesting that 5-10% of the civil service should be on prison is just laughable and the kind of stuff I'd expect from an anti-establishment sixth former. I'm not exactly a huge fan of the civil service or the job they (don't) do but to suggest they should be imprisoned for it is just idiotic.
She could easily have made a very valid point that she believes that there's too many civil servants who work against elected ministers and there are loads who see it as their duty to block Tory policies and they should be rooted out and moved on. Suggesting jail time for them just makes her look ridiculous.
I like Kemi and think if she had the ability to think for a bit longer before speaking or forming an opinion on something she might be brilliant, as it stands she's just behaving like someone who wants to get a rise out of the people she opposes which isn't a grown up way to lead a party.
She's 44: she's already been a minister. If not now, then she's unlikely to suddenly discover such ability in the future ?
Kemi's strategy for this contest is an interesting one. I think some of her incendiary statements are an outcome of her deciding to have no policies. She has no 'leave the ECHR' to talk about, so she's left with 'sounding' as right on as she can without actually proposing anything. Otherwise she'd be outshone and lose ground.
If there is a masterplan at play, it seems to be to keep herself to the right of Jenrick at all times - I don't know why. Perhaps she wants to be 'the one that got away' so the party longs for her and when Jenrick trips up, she gets it. Seems weird though - this should be her time - it's the right time. All she needed was some good policies, some good arguments, then sell them.
But if she has neither the ideas nor the skills to sell them why should any time be her time?
I'm willing to believe that half a dozen MPs might, theoretically, belong in jail. Perhaps even a handful of individuals in the civil service, if only by the law of averages.
50k civil servants ? That's the idle dream of a would be authoritarian.
Hang on: there are 72 LibDem MPs.
If you look at the Liberals of the 1970s and work out what proportion of them should have been in prison, and then apply that proportion to current numbers, you probably get to 50+. And that's just from a single party.
Name names. (Now, not then.)
Errr:
I can think of three (or four if you push it) Liberal MPs from the 1970s against whom there were serious allegations of criminality.
Which is not bad, considering there were only about six or seven of them.
When do they reduce it to the two going to the membership
I should know but I don't !!!!!!!!!!!!
Rounds three and four are next Wednesday and Thursday.
And then the final two go to the party in the country, but only after they've paid another £150,000 to CCHQ, so don't be surprised when one of them drops out and the members don't get a vote, as when Andrea Leadsom withdrew against Theresa May.
Eh? £150k? Wow. What possible justification is there for that?
Is that actually true? Surely not?
Under the Conservative party’s “pay to play” rules, those who make it to the final four on Tuesday next week will have to hand £50,000 to the party. The two candidates who make it to the final round after the party’s conference in October will have to sign a further cheque for £150,000 to Conservative campaign headquarters. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/sep/05/robert-jenrick-frontrunner-tory-leadership
Read that article on the candidates' fundraising and begin to see why it is the media, not the Conservatives, making the running on Starmer's freebiegate.
I have no problem with the media making a mockery of Keith Donkey and his free suits and designer geps. Hypocritical of Labour as usual.
But - and it’s a gargantuan but - taking a nice suit from a named party donor is different to paying out billions to your patrons for “PPE” or accidentally taking donations via shell companies etc. The Tories are brazenly and openly corrupt. Labour are stupid. There is a difference. The Tory media desperately trying to make them equivalent is in itself very funny.
I love the idea of the Tories running a “the real thing” campaign based on the fact that at least they aren’t hypocrites, we expect them to take free lunches, and anyway they take bribes from everyone so no one is advantaged. “Don’t trust Labour, some of them look as if £50k actually impresses them”.
Ministers are being asked to draw up billions of pounds in cuts to infrastructure projects over the next 18 months despite Rachel Reeves pledging to invest more to grow the economy, the Guardian has learned.
Members of the cabinet have been asked to model cuts to their investment plans of up to 10% of their annual capital spending as part of this month’s spending review, government sources said.
I'll repeat myself from earlier today, I don't think she's a good candidate and is unlikely to ever be one. She has zero maturity of thought. Suggesting that 5-10% of the civil service should be on prison is just laughable and the kind of stuff I'd expect from an anti-establishment sixth former. I'm not exactly a huge fan of the civil service or the job they (don't) do but to suggest they should be imprisoned for it is just idiotic.
She could easily have made a very valid point that she believes that there's too many civil servants who work against elected ministers and there are loads who see it as their duty to block Tory policies and they should be rooted out and moved on. Suggesting jail time for them just makes her look ridiculous.
I like Kemi and think if she had the ability to think for a bit longer before speaking or forming an opinion on something she might be brilliant, as it stands she's just behaving like someone who wants to get a rise out of the people she opposes which isn't a grown up way to lead a party.
Any chance you could enter the Tory leadership race?
I'm willing to believe that half a dozen MPs might, theoretically, belong in jail. Perhaps even a handful of individuals in the civil service, if only by the law of averages.
50k civil servants ? That's the idle dream of a would be authoritarian.
Hang on: there are 72 LibDem MPs.
If you look at the Liberals of the 1970s and work out what proportion of them should have been in prison, and then apply that proportion to current numbers, you probably get to 50+. And that's just from a single party.
Name names. (Now, not then.)
Errr:
I can think of three (or four if you push it) Liberal MPs from the 1970s against whom there were serious allegations of criminality.
Which is not bad, considering there were only about six or seven of them.
No doubt she has been "misrepresented" by the media yet again.
You don't think between 5 and 10 percent of civil servants are very bad?
I think it's more the "should be in prison" that people will take issue with. The bar for incarcerating people is - one would hope - a high one.
I agree, but civil servants are agents of the state. If they do a bad job, and potentially their bad job is motivated by a wish to do down the Government of the day or frustrate their plans, that situation is a sticky one to a far greater degree than a lousy cashier or a decorator who leave the pictures up and paints round them. I am not sure all cases of the sort are worthy of a trip to the gaol, but nor can they be tolerated.
Yeah, but most civil servants - by number - have very little to do with the actions of ministers. They are junior staff in Swansea dealing with driving license administration.
But they could be Home Office staff running the asylum and immigration system, where what appears to be willful dysfunction (see the waaaay higher success levels of UK applications than the rest of Europe) has fuelled the migrant crisis.
Not to defend the civil service but our laws and legal rulings are completely different to France so blaming our high asylum success rate to a lower European one on the civil service seems like a big stretch. It needs legal reform to lower that rate which the Tories had 14 years to push through.
As far as I am aware, we have not been outliers in application success like this in the past. I think you have a partial point - Theresa's stupid modern slavery legislation hasn't helped, but the Home Office is willfully uncooperative - whistleblowers have revealed evidence that supports this fact.
Being uncooperative would make no difference if the laws were properly tightened (including the ridiculously broad modern slavery definition that allowed Albanians to win asylum claims on the basis that they were being enslaved by other Albanians) then the judgements would follow. That's on the politicians not the blob.
Ministers are being asked to draw up billions of pounds in cuts to infrastructure projects over the next 18 months despite Rachel Reeves pledging to invest more to grow the economy, the Guardian has learned.
Members of the cabinet have been asked to model cuts to their investment plans of up to 10% of their annual capital spending as part of this month’s spending review, government sources said.
Ministers are being asked to draw up billions of pounds in cuts to infrastructure projects over the next 18 months despite Rachel Reeves pledging to invest more to grow the economy, the Guardian has learned.
Members of the cabinet have been asked to model cuts to their investment plans of up to 10% of their annual capital spending as part of this month’s spending review, government sources said.
A budget for growth, yes, sure…
Hahahahah
My God, they are going to be the most disastrous and unpopular government since.... I was gonna say Truss but I think even worse than THAT. This will be unparallelled
I am not fan of Khan, but I would say a lot of those freebies are things you would hope / expect the leader of the city to attend. But whats with the weird clothes donations again.
I'll repeat myself from earlier today, I don't think she's a good candidate and is unlikely to ever be one. She has zero maturity of thought. Suggesting that 5-10% of the civil service should be on prison is just laughable and the kind of stuff I'd expect from an anti-establishment sixth former. I'm not exactly a huge fan of the civil service or the job they (don't) do but to suggest they should be imprisoned for it is just idiotic.
She could easily have made a very valid point that she believes that there's too many civil servants who work against elected ministers and there are loads who see it as their duty to block Tory policies and they should be rooted out and moved on. Suggesting jail time for them just makes her look ridiculous.
I like Kemi and think if she had the ability to think for a bit longer before speaking or forming an opinion on something she might be brilliant, as it stands she's just behaving like someone who wants to get a rise out of the people she opposes which isn't a grown up way to lead a party.
She's 44: she's already been a minister. If not now, then she's unlikely to suddenly discover such ability in the future ?
Quite, she's not a rookie in modern political terms. Ok, it was still not that much experience, but those core skills are hard to change. And how many of the Tory hopefuls, if they don't get the gig, will be sticking around long term to be future candidates or even ministers again?
From my boozy lunch with my highly placed source, at the Groucho (and he knows them all)
Kemi: not good, quite disliked even by people who agree with her, bit of a bully
Jenrick: two faced, quite ruthless, v ambitious, could easily revert to Cameronism
Tugendhat: bland, pointless, meh
Cleverly: nicest of them all, but no plan
That's not great, is it? And this is a person with sympathy for the Tories. On this basis I think they should choose Jenrick. They could do worse than two faced and ruthless with ambition, ie any of the other three
These are very much aspects of my thoughts on all the candidates too. And I have come to the same conclusion you have - Jenrick is the only show in town.
The most unrealistic thing about Threads is that the survivors didn't clean up the debris even decades after the attack.
Wasn't it filmed in the 70s ? Fairly true to life, then. 😏
Eighties. 1983 or 1984.
Probably assuming a reversion to 70s norms, post apocalypse ? I'll have to get around to watching it.
Been nostalgia rewatching The Prisoner.
The guy who played the mute butler, Angelo Muscat, has the saddest story, dying in poverty, aged 47. Quote on IMDB: I always feel lonely. I feel that people don't want to know me. Girls don't fancy me, I'm tiny and nearly bald but I'm only in my thirties. That's why I'm so grateful to Patrick McGoohan. He has given me responsibility for the first time in my life. I am playing an important part in a big series. I AM something, for the first time ever...
I’m rewatching it too, just finished Hammer into Anvil. The 11th episode on the Blu Ray.
That’s very sad about Angelo Muscat. He also looked a lot older than that. It’s also sad he never lived to see how adored the series was, and still is, and he was.
I remember many years ago a guy wrote three articles about the Butler for the Prisoner fanzine. ‘Bossing the Butler’, ‘Serving the Butler’ and ‘Clocking the Butler’, the last of which detailed the time of every appearance the character made in every episode broken down scene by scene.
When do they reduce it to the two going to the membership
I should know but I don't !!!!!!!!!!!!
Rounds three and four are next Wednesday and Thursday.
And then the final two go to the party in the country, but only after they've paid another £150,000 to CCHQ, so don't be surprised when one of them drops out and the members don't get a vote, as when Andrea Leadsom withdrew against Theresa May.
Eh? £150k? Wow. What possible justification is there for that?
Is that actually true? Surely not?
Under the Conservative party’s “pay to play” rules, those who make it to the final four on Tuesday next week will have to hand £50,000 to the party. The two candidates who make it to the final round after the party’s conference in October will have to sign a further cheque for £150,000 to Conservative campaign headquarters. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/sep/05/robert-jenrick-frontrunner-tory-leadership
Read that article on the candidates' fundraising and begin to see why it is the media, not the Conservatives, making the running on Starmer's freebiegate.
Ministers are being asked to draw up billions of pounds in cuts to infrastructure projects over the next 18 months despite Rachel Reeves pledging to invest more to grow the economy, the Guardian has learned.
Members of the cabinet have been asked to model cuts to their investment plans of up to 10% of their annual capital spending as part of this month’s spending review, government sources said.
I really don't understand this governments approach. You want growth, we know infrastructure needs upgrading, it politically fairly easy to borrow to invest in upgrading infrastructure...what the public get more funny about is public sector numbers and wages, they don't generally complain about borrowing to build schools, hospitals, etc. And isnt that the point of Labour in our yin / yang system, that they will splash the cash on these projects.
Its feeling like yet another government of managed decline.
But the bloke gets to stand on the other side of the big table with the big golden stick for a few years. I think you are underestimating what a seismic change this is.
No doubt she has been "misrepresented" by the media yet again.
You don't think between 5 and 10 percent of civil servants are very bad?
I think it's more the "should be in prison" that people will take issue with. The bar for incarcerating people is - one would hope - a high one.
I agree, but civil servants are agents of the state. If they do a bad job, and potentially their bad job is motivated by a wish to do down the Government of the day or frustrate their plans, that situation is a sticky one to a far greater degree than a lousy cashier or a decorator who leave the pictures up and paints round them. I am not sure all cases of the sort are worthy of a trip to the gaol, but nor can they be tolerated.
Yeah, but most civil servants - by number - have very little to do with the actions of ministers. They are junior staff in Swansea dealing with driving license administration.
But they could be Home Office staff running the asylum and immigration system, where what appears to be willful dysfunction (see the waaaay higher success levels of UK applications than the rest of Europe) has fuelled the migrant crisis.
Not to defend the civil service but our laws and legal rulings are completely different to France so blaming our high asylum success rate to a lower European one on the civil service seems like a big stretch. It needs legal reform to lower that rate which the Tories had 14 years to push through.
As far as I am aware, we have not been outliers in application success like this in the past. I think you have a partial point - Theresa's stupid modern slavery legislation hasn't helped, but the Home Office is willfully uncooperative - whistleblowers have revealed evidence that supports this fact.
Being uncooperative would make no difference if the laws were properly tightened (including the ridiculously broad modern slavery definition that allowed Albanians to win asylum claims on the basis that they were being enslaved by other Albanians) then the judgements would follow. That's on the politicians not the blob.
The "Blob" is usually just an excuse for incompetence and laziness on the part of politicians.
The Thatcher Government faced both civil service intransigence and EEC legislation. Yet it managed enormous changes.
I think the real difference is that in the 1980s, there will still politicians of substance. The Thatcher cabinets from 1979 to 1986 were extraordinarily talented. And even the opposition benches contained many people who - even if I disagree with them - were clearly moral, hard working and dedicated.
When do they reduce it to the two going to the membership
I should know but I don't !!!!!!!!!!!!
Rounds three and four are next Wednesday and Thursday.
And then the final two go to the party in the country, but only after they've paid another £150,000 to CCHQ, so don't be surprised when one of them drops out and the members don't get a vote, as when Andrea Leadsom withdrew against Theresa May.
Eh? £150k? Wow. What possible justification is there for that?
Is that actually true? Surely not?
Under the Conservative party’s “pay to play” rules, those who make it to the final four on Tuesday next week will have to hand £50,000 to the party. The two candidates who make it to the final round after the party’s conference in October will have to sign a further cheque for £150,000 to Conservative campaign headquarters. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/sep/05/robert-jenrick-frontrunner-tory-leadership
Read that article on the candidates' fundraising and begin to see why it is the media, not the Conservatives, making the running on Starmer's freebiegate.
I have no problem with the media making a mockery of Keith Donkey and his free suits and designer geps. Hypocritical of Labour as usual.
But - and it’s a gargantuan but - taking a nice suit from a named party donor is different to paying out billions to your patrons for “PPE” or accidentally taking donations via shell companies etc. The Tories are brazenly and openly corrupt. Labour are stupid. There is a difference. The Tory media desperately trying to make them equivalent is in itself very funny.
The #NotesForVotes scandal in which candidates have to give shadowy men in grey suits six figure sums to stand for Tory leader. Mon dieu!
Ministers are being asked to draw up billions of pounds in cuts to infrastructure projects over the next 18 months despite Rachel Reeves pledging to invest more to grow the economy, the Guardian has learned.
Members of the cabinet have been asked to model cuts to their investment plans of up to 10% of their annual capital spending as part of this month’s spending review, government sources said.
I've been withholding judgment, but if this proves correct, then they're being imbecilic.
...Treasury officials say delaying or stopping (capital infrastructure) projects that have not yet begun is easier than changing welfare schemes that are already in place, or making large-scale redundancies. ..
No doubt she has been "misrepresented" by the media yet again.
You don't think between 5 and 10 percent of civil servants are very bad?
I think it's more the "should be in prison" that people will take issue with. The bar for incarcerating people is - one would hope - a high one.
I agree, but civil servants are agents of the state. If they do a bad job, and potentially their bad job is motivated by a wish to do down the Government of the day or frustrate their plans, that situation is a sticky one to a far greater degree than a lousy cashier or a decorator who leave the pictures up and paints round them. I am not sure all cases of the sort are worthy of a trip to the gaol, but nor can they be tolerated.
Yeah, but most civil servants - by number - have very little to do with the actions of ministers. They are junior staff in Swansea dealing with driving license administration.
But they could be Home Office staff running the asylum and immigration system, where what appears to be willful dysfunction (see the waaaay higher success levels of UK applications than the rest of Europe) has fuelled the migrant crisis.
Not to defend the civil service but our laws and legal rulings are completely different to France so blaming our high asylum success rate to a lower European one on the civil service seems like a big stretch. It needs legal reform to lower that rate which the Tories had 14 years to push through.
As far as I am aware, we have not been outliers in application success like this in the past. I think you have a partial point - Theresa's stupid modern slavery legislation hasn't helped, but the Home Office is willfully uncooperative - whistleblowers have revealed evidence that supports this fact.
Being uncooperative would make no difference if the laws were properly tightened (including the ridiculously broad modern slavery definition that allowed Albanians to win asylum claims on the basis that they were being enslaved by other Albanians) then the judgements would follow. That's on the politicians not the blob.
Everything, including the behaviour of 'the blob' is on politicians - they pass laws and are meant to manage the CS. That doesn't mean that the culture and behaviour of civil servants doesn't have a huge impact on the success or otherwise of the country.
No doubt she has been "misrepresented" by the media yet again.
You don't think between 5 and 10 percent of civil servants are very bad?
I think it's more the "should be in prison" that people will take issue with. The bar for incarcerating people is - one would hope - a high one.
I agree, but civil servants are agents of the state. If they do a bad job, and potentially their bad job is motivated by a wish to do down the Government of the day or frustrate their plans, that situation is a sticky one to a far greater degree than a lousy cashier or a decorator who leave the pictures up and paints round them. I am not sure all cases of the sort are worthy of a trip to the gaol, but nor can they be tolerated.
Yeah, but most civil servants - by number - have very little to do with the actions of ministers. They are junior staff in Swansea dealing with driving license administration.
But they could be Home Office staff running the asylum and immigration system, where what appears to be willful dysfunction (see the waaaay higher success levels of UK applications than the rest of Europe) has fuelled the migrant crisis.
Not to defend the civil service but our laws and legal rulings are completely different to France so blaming our high asylum success rate to a lower European one on the civil service seems like a big stretch. It needs legal reform to lower that rate which the Tories had 14 years to push through.
As far as I am aware, we have not been outliers in application success like this in the past. I think you have a partial point - Theresa's stupid modern slavery legislation hasn't helped, but the Home Office is willfully uncooperative - whistleblowers have revealed evidence that supports this fact.
Being uncooperative would make no difference if the laws were properly tightened (including the ridiculously broad modern slavery definition that allowed Albanians to win asylum claims on the basis that they were being enslaved by other Albanians) then the judgements would follow. That's on the politicians not the blob.
The "Blob" is usually just an excuse for incompetence and laziness on the part of politicians.
The Thatcher Government faced both civil service intransigence and EEC legislation. Yet it managed enormous changes.
I think the real difference is that in the 1980s, there will still politicians of substance. The Thatcher cabinets from 1979 to 1986 were extraordinarily talented. And even the opposition benches contained many people who - even if I disagree with them - were clearly moral, hard working and dedicated.
Today, who would go into politics?
Why dont you try rcs. You seem very knowleagable and anyone who can parlay a degree in philosophy into a career in goldman sachs has a unique talent.
Ministers are being asked to draw up billions of pounds in cuts to infrastructure projects over the next 18 months despite Rachel Reeves pledging to invest more to grow the economy, the Guardian has learned.
Members of the cabinet have been asked to model cuts to their investment plans of up to 10% of their annual capital spending as part of this month’s spending review, government sources said.
I've been withholding judgment, but if this proves correct, then they're being imbecilic.
...Treasury officials say delaying or stopping (capital infrastructure) projects that have not yet begun is easier than changing welfare schemes that are already in place, or making large-scale redundancies. ..
People are far less likely to notice or complain unless interested in the particular project as well.
Ministers are being asked to draw up billions of pounds in cuts to infrastructure projects over the next 18 months despite Rachel Reeves pledging to invest more to grow the economy, the Guardian has learned.
Members of the cabinet have been asked to model cuts to their investment plans of up to 10% of their annual capital spending as part of this month’s spending review, government sources said.
From my boozy lunch with my highly placed source, at the Groucho (and he knows them all)
Kemi: not good, quite disliked even by people who agree with her, bit of a bully
Jenrick: two faced, quite ruthless, v ambitious, could easily revert to Cameronism
Tugendhat: bland, pointless, meh
Cleverly: nicest of them all, but no plan
That's not great, is it? And this is a person with sympathy for the Tories. On this basis I think they should choose Jenrick. They could do worse than two faced and ruthless with ambition, ie any of the other three
These are very much aspects of my thoughts on all the candidates too. And I have come to the same conclusion you have - Jenrick is the only show in town.
I suspect they will go with Jenrick and I’m not even convinced he’s a worse choice than the others right now.
At least, unlike Badenoch, he’s being outspoken about topics that are big issues to chunks of the electorate.
I think it’s very questionable that he has the character to appeal to the electorate at large but I will say again that the Tories do face an immediate threat on their right flank and they could do worse than try to shore that up in the next year or so.
No doubt she has been "misrepresented" by the media yet again.
You don't think between 5 and 10 percent of civil servants are very bad?
I think it's more the "should be in prison" that people will take issue with. The bar for incarcerating people is - one would hope - a high one.
I agree, but civil servants are agents of the state. If they do a bad job, and potentially their bad job is motivated by a wish to do down the Government of the day or frustrate their plans, that situation is a sticky one to a far greater degree than a lousy cashier or a decorator who leave the pictures up and paints round them. I am not sure all cases of the sort are worthy of a trip to the gaol, but nor can they be tolerated.
Yeah, but most civil servants - by number - have very little to do with the actions of ministers. They are junior staff in Swansea dealing with driving license administration.
But they could be Home Office staff running the asylum and immigration system, where what appears to be willful dysfunction (see the waaaay higher success levels of UK applications than the rest of Europe) has fuelled the migrant crisis.
Not to defend the civil service but our laws and legal rulings are completely different to France so blaming our high asylum success rate to a lower European one on the civil service seems like a big stretch. It needs legal reform to lower that rate which the Tories had 14 years to push through.
As far as I am aware, we have not been outliers in application success like this in the past. I think you have a partial point - Theresa's stupid modern slavery legislation hasn't helped, but the Home Office is willfully uncooperative - whistleblowers have revealed evidence that supports this fact.
Being uncooperative would make no difference if the laws were properly tightened (including the ridiculously broad modern slavery definition that allowed Albanians to win asylum claims on the basis that they were being enslaved by other Albanians) then the judgements would follow. That's on the politicians not the blob.
The "Blob" is usually just an excuse for incompetence and laziness on the part of politicians.
The Thatcher Government faced both civil service intransigence and EEC legislation. Yet it managed enormous changes.
I think the real difference is that in the 1980s, there will still politicians of substance. The Thatcher cabinets from 1979 to 1986 were extraordinarily talented. And even the opposition benches contained many people who - even if I disagree with them - were clearly moral, hard working and dedicated.
Today, who would go into politics?
Why dont you try rcs. You seem very knowleagable and anyone who can parlay a degree in philosophy into a career in goldman sachs has a unique talent.
And now I run the most profitable auto insurance company in the world.
The most unrealistic thing about Threads is that the survivors didn't clean up the debris even decades after the attack.
Wasn't it filmed in the 70s ? Fairly true to life, then. 😏
Eighties. 1983 or 1984.
Probably assuming a reversion to 70s norms, post apocalypse ? I'll have to get around to watching it.
Been nostalgia rewatching The Prisoner.
The guy who played the mute butler, Angelo Muscat, has the saddest story, dying in poverty, aged 47. Quote on IMDB: I always feel lonely. I feel that people don't want to know me. Girls don't fancy me, I'm tiny and nearly bald but I'm only in my thirties. That's why I'm so grateful to Patrick McGoohan. He has given me responsibility for the first time in my life. I am playing an important part in a big series. I AM something, for the first time ever...
I’m rewatching it too, just finished Hammer into Anvil. The 11th episode on the Blu Ray.
That’s very sad about Angelo Muscat. He also looked a lot older than that. It’s also sad he never lived to see how adored the series was, and still is, and he was.
I remember many years ago a guy wrote three articles about the Butler for the Prisoner fanzine. ‘Bossing the Butler’, ‘Serving the Butler’ and ‘Clocking the Butler’, the last of which detailed the time of every appearance the character made in every episode broken down scene by scene.
I was very disappointed with the 2000's remake of The Prisoner. Felt like it could have said something new for a younger generation. And was just... meh.
Maybe that says more about the current world. But they could have at least made a point of it being 'meh'.
Kemi's strategy for this contest is an interesting one. I think some of her incendiary statements are an outcome of her deciding to have no policies. She has no 'leave the ECHR' to talk about, so she's left with 'sounding' as right on as she can without actually proposing anything. Otherwise she'd be outshone and lose ground.
If there is a masterplan at play, it seems to be to keep herself to the right of Jenrick at all times - I don't know why. Perhaps she wants to be 'the one that got away' so the party longs for her and when Jenrick trips up, she gets it. Seems weird though - this should be her time - it's the right time. All she needed was some good policies, some good arguments, then sell them.
But if she has neither the ideas nor the skills to sell them why should any time be her time?
Oh, I agree, but what I mean is I don't think there will be a better time for her than this.
Ministers are being asked to draw up billions of pounds in cuts to infrastructure projects over the next 18 months despite Rachel Reeves pledging to invest more to grow the economy, the Guardian has learned.
Members of the cabinet have been asked to model cuts to their investment plans of up to 10% of their annual capital spending as part of this month’s spending review, government sources said.
I've been withholding judgment, but if this proves correct, then they're being imbecilic.
...Treasury officials say delaying or stopping (capital infrastructure) projects that have not yet begun is easier than changing welfare schemes that are already in place, or making large-scale redundancies. ..
On one hand, that's what the Treasury always says, which is why all of this looks like this.
And we all know the game at B-day minus 4 weeks. It always goes like this. But if this is the actual outcome, then yes. Bugger benefit of the doubt.
The most unrealistic thing about Threads is that the survivors didn't clean up the debris even decades after the attack.
Wasn't it filmed in the 70s ? Fairly true to life, then. 😏
Eighties. 1983 or 1984.
Probably assuming a reversion to 70s norms, post apocalypse ? I'll have to get around to watching it.
Been nostalgia rewatching The Prisoner.
The guy who played the mute butler, Angelo Muscat, has the saddest story, dying in poverty, aged 47. Quote on IMDB: I always feel lonely. I feel that people don't want to know me. Girls don't fancy me, I'm tiny and nearly bald but I'm only in my thirties. That's why I'm so grateful to Patrick McGoohan. He has given me responsibility for the first time in my life. I am playing an important part in a big series. I AM something, for the first time ever...
I’m rewatching it too, just finished Hammer into Anvil. The 11th episode on the Blu Ray.
That’s very sad about Angelo Muscat. He also looked a lot older than that. It’s also sad he never lived to see how adored the series was, and still is, and he was.
I remember many years ago a guy wrote three articles about the Butler for the Prisoner fanzine. ‘Bossing the Butler’, ‘Serving the Butler’ and ‘Clocking the Butler’, the last of which detailed the time of every appearance the character made in every episode broken down scene by scene.
I was very disappointed with the 2000's remake of The Prisoner. Felt like it could have said something new for a younger generation. And was just... meh.
Maybe that says more about the current world. But they could have at least made a point of it being 'meh'.
Some things would be very hard to recapture the same impact in a remake. Hitchhiker's Guide being redone probably would not work for example.
From my boozy lunch with my highly placed source, at the Groucho (and he knows them all)
Kemi: not good, quite disliked even by people who agree with her, bit of a bully
Jenrick: two faced, quite ruthless, v ambitious, could easily revert to Cameronism
Tugendhat: bland, pointless, meh
Cleverly: nicest of them all, but no plan
That's not great, is it? And this is a person with sympathy for the Tories. On this basis I think they should choose Jenrick. They could do worse than two faced and ruthless with ambition, ie any of the other three
These are very much aspects of my thoughts on all the candidates too. And I have come to the same conclusion you have - Jenrick is the only show in town.
Yes, I've tried to like Kemi (she is on the face of it, the most interesting) but Jeez. So many unforced errors, and she is so lightweight. And a bit ditzy
They should choose between Cleverly and Jenrick, and with reluctance I would go for Jenrick. He has tons of baggage, looks like a Tory villain, but he is also smart and articulate - good on TV - and might make Starmer look dim, fat and slow
And if he is willing to go right to win the election, then great, I don't care if he believes it, he just has to be so ruthless he will do it
From my boozy lunch with my highly placed source, at the Groucho (and he knows them all)
Kemi: not good, quite disliked even by people who agree with her, bit of a bully
Jenrick: two faced, quite ruthless, v ambitious, could easily revert to Cameronism
Tugendhat: bland, pointless, meh
Cleverly: nicest of them all, but no plan
That's not great, is it? And this is a person with sympathy for the Tories. On this basis I think they should choose Jenrick. They could do worse than two faced and ruthless with ambition, ie any of the other three
That's exactly my summary. You could have skipped the hobnobbing at the Gaucho and just asked me.
Jenrick is a Tory SKS. He plans to win the leadership from the right then move the party to the centre in a determined attempt to become PM.
As a Labour supporter I'd have preferred Badenoch. If they get a final 2 of Jenrick and Cleverly, that's them making the best of a bad job. Either of those might do ok as LOTO.
The most unrealistic thing about Threads is that the survivors didn't clean up the debris even decades after the attack.
Wasn't it filmed in the 70s ? Fairly true to life, then. 😏
Eighties. 1983 or 1984.
Probably assuming a reversion to 70s norms, post apocalypse ? I'll have to get around to watching it.
Been nostalgia rewatching The Prisoner.
The guy who played the mute butler, Angelo Muscat, has the saddest story, dying in poverty, aged 47. Quote on IMDB: I always feel lonely. I feel that people don't want to know me. Girls don't fancy me, I'm tiny and nearly bald but I'm only in my thirties. That's why I'm so grateful to Patrick McGoohan. He has given me responsibility for the first time in my life. I am playing an important part in a big series. I AM something, for the first time ever...
I’m rewatching it too, just finished Hammer into Anvil. The 11th episode on the Blu Ray.
That’s very sad about Angelo Muscat. He also looked a lot older than that. It’s also sad he never lived to see how adored the series was, and still is, and he was.
I remember many years ago a guy wrote three articles about the Butler for the Prisoner fanzine. ‘Bossing the Butler’, ‘Serving the Butler’ and ‘Clocking the Butler’, the last of which detailed the time of every appearance the character made in every episode broken down scene by scene.
Last couple of episodes are, sadly, awful.
I liked the final episode but there is a dip in quality in the episodes prior,to that. I’d agree.
From my boozy lunch with my highly placed source, at the Groucho (and he knows them all)
Kemi: not good, quite disliked even by people who agree with her, bit of a bully
Jenrick: two faced, quite ruthless, v ambitious, could easily revert to Cameronism
Tugendhat: bland, pointless, meh
Cleverly: nicest of them all, but no plan
That's not great, is it? And this is a person with sympathy for the Tories. On this basis I think they should choose Jenrick. They could do worse than two faced and ruthless with ambition, ie any of the other three
These are very much aspects of my thoughts on all the candidates too. And I have come to the same conclusion you have - Jenrick is the only show in town.
Yes, I've tried to like Kemi (she is on the face of it, the most interesting) but Jeez. So many unforced errors, and she is so lightweight. And a bit ditzy
They should choose between Cleverly and Jenrick, and with reluctance I would go for Jenrick. He has tons of baggage, looks like a Tory villain, but he is also smart and articulate - good on TV - and might make Starmer look dim, fat and slow
And if he is willing to go right to win the election, then great, I don't care if he believes it, he just has to be so ruthless he will do it
Yes I think Cleverly is nicer than Jenrick but Jenrick is more charismatic and ruthless so on a forced choice I would go with him. Though my top preference remains Tugendhat
I doubt either Netanyahu or Iran really care what Starmer thinks, hopefully the situation there won't escalate further and Israel will return to focusing on getting the hostages in Gaza back not full scale war in the Middle East
A look at Kemi's track record at Business would tell you she's all mouth, no trousers. Jenrick is yuck.
But who's paying any attention to the Tories anyway? They may as well elect a piece of Stilton as leader, frankly.
When Hague was elected leader, you had Blair, who would govern for a decade. When the next Tory leader comes in, they will face Starmer, whose premiership may well be measured in months. It matters a lot who is leader.
No doubt she has been "misrepresented" by the media yet again.
You don't think between 5 and 10 percent of civil servants are very bad?
I think it's more the "should be in prison" that people will take issue with. The bar for incarcerating people is - one would hope - a high one.
I agree, but civil servants are agents of the state. If they do a bad job, and potentially their bad job is motivated by a wish to do down the Government of the day or frustrate their plans, that situation is a sticky one to a far greater degree than a lousy cashier or a decorator who leave the pictures up and paints round them. I am not sure all cases of the sort are worthy of a trip to the gaol, but nor can they be tolerated.
Yeah, but most civil servants - by number - have very little to do with the actions of ministers. They are junior staff in Swansea dealing with driving license administration.
But they could be Home Office staff running the asylum and immigration system, where what appears to be willful dysfunction (see the waaaay higher success levels of UK applications than the rest of Europe) has fuelled the migrant crisis.
Not to defend the civil service but our laws and legal rulings are completely different to France so blaming our high asylum success rate to a lower European one on the civil service seems like a big stretch. It needs legal reform to lower that rate which the Tories had 14 years to push through.
As far as I am aware, we have not been outliers in application success like this in the past. I think you have a partial point - Theresa's stupid modern slavery legislation hasn't helped, but the Home Office is willfully uncooperative - whistleblowers have revealed evidence that supports this fact.
Being uncooperative would make no difference if the laws were properly tightened (including the ridiculously broad modern slavery definition that allowed Albanians to win asylum claims on the basis that they were being enslaved by other Albanians) then the judgements would follow. That's on the politicians not the blob.
The "Blob" is usually just an excuse for incompetence and laziness on the part of politicians.
The Thatcher Government faced both civil service intransigence and EEC legislation. Yet it managed enormous changes.
I think the real difference is that in the 1980s, there will still politicians of substance. The Thatcher cabinets from 1979 to 1986 were extraordinarily talented. And even the opposition benches contained many people who - even if I disagree with them - were clearly moral, hard working and dedicated.
Today, who would go into politics?
Why dont you try rcs. You seem very knowleagable and anyone who can parlay a degree in philosophy into a career in goldman sachs has a unique talent.
I wonder how many PB personalities are listed on the official documentation for Russian trolls? One can only aspire...
No doubt she has been "misrepresented" by the media yet again.
You don't think between 5 and 10 percent of civil servants are very bad?
I think it's more the "should be in prison" that people will take issue with. The bar for incarcerating people is - one would hope - a high one.
I agree, but civil servants are agents of the state. If they do a bad job, and potentially their bad job is motivated by a wish to do down the Government of the day or frustrate their plans, that situation is a sticky one to a far greater degree than a lousy cashier or a decorator who leave the pictures up and paints round them. I am not sure all cases of the sort are worthy of a trip to the gaol, but nor can they be tolerated.
Yeah, but most civil servants - by number - have very little to do with the actions of ministers. They are junior staff in Swansea dealing with driving license administration.
But they could be Home Office staff running the asylum and immigration system, where what appears to be willful dysfunction (see the waaaay higher success levels of UK applications than the rest of Europe) has fuelled the migrant crisis.
Not to defend the civil service but our laws and legal rulings are completely different to France so blaming our high asylum success rate to a lower European one on the civil service seems like a big stretch. It needs legal reform to lower that rate which the Tories had 14 years to push through.
As far as I am aware, we have not been outliers in application success like this in the past. I think you have a partial point - Theresa's stupid modern slavery legislation hasn't helped, but the Home Office is willfully uncooperative - whistleblowers have revealed evidence that supports this fact.
Being uncooperative would make no difference if the laws were properly tightened (including the ridiculously broad modern slavery definition that allowed Albanians to win asylum claims on the basis that they were being enslaved by other Albanians) then the judgements would follow. That's on the politicians not the blob.
The "Blob" is usually just an excuse for incompetence and laziness on the part of politicians.
The Thatcher Government faced both civil service intransigence and EEC legislation. Yet it managed enormous changes.
I think the real difference is that in the 1980s, there will still politicians of substance. The Thatcher cabinets from 1979 to 1986 were extraordinarily talented. And even the opposition benches contained many people who - even if I disagree with them - were clearly moral, hard working and dedicated.
Today, who would go into politics?
Why dont you try rcs. You seem very knowleagable and anyone who can parlay a degree in philosophy into a career in goldman sachs has a unique talent.
Michael Ancram, Marquess of Lothian, Conservative MP for Berwick & East Lothian 1974, Edinburgh South 1979-87, Devizes 1992-2010, and Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party 2001-05, has died age 79
I'm willing to believe that half a dozen MPs might, theoretically, belong in jail. Perhaps even a handful of individuals in the civil service, if only by the law of averages.
50k civil servants ? That's the idle dream of a would be authoritarian.
Hang on: there are 72 LibDem MPs.
If you look at the Liberals of the 1970s and work out what proportion of them should have been in prison, and then apply that proportion to current numbers, you probably get to 50+. And that's just from a single party.
Name names. (Now, not then.)
Errr:
I can think of three (or four if you push it) Liberal MPs from the 1970s against whom there were serious allegations of criminality.
Which is not bad, considering there were only about six or seven of them.
Perhaps we should stop complaining about our MPs then 'Among the 251 winning candidates this year having criminal cases against them, 170 (31 percent) face serious charges, including rape, murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, and crimes against women. This is also an increase from 159 (29 percent) MPs in 2019, 112 (21 percent) MPs in 2014, and 76 (14 percent) MPs in 2009, the analysis showed.
The analysis also highlights specific cases among the winning candidates. It revealed that 27 winning candidates have declared they have been convicted in criminal cases. Four declared cases related to murder under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and 27 declared cases related to attempt to murder under Section 307 of the IPC.'
Ministers are being asked to draw up billions of pounds in cuts to infrastructure projects over the next 18 months despite Rachel Reeves pledging to invest more to grow the economy, the Guardian has learned.
Members of the cabinet have been asked to model cuts to their investment plans of up to 10% of their annual capital spending as part of this month’s spending review, government sources said.
Fucking dumb.
Probably but it's pretty standard practice when the word from on high is costs have to be reduced. When I was in local Government, we would routinely model 10, 15 and even 25% reductions in budget to see where the axe could fall if necessary.
As an aside, apart from the crassness of Kemi Badenoch's comment about "locking up" 10% of civil servants (almost Trumpian in its stupidity), there's a wider question about the role of civil servants. Is it the role of the civil service to carry out Government policy without question, hesitation or deviation or is there a responsibility incumbent on the civil service to point out where following Government policy might be a) illegal or b) impractical?
The civil service would read the manifesto of any incoming Government and through channels establish priorities in terms of legislation but would also be bound to point out potential problems with any legislation.
I suspect Badenoch's frustration comes from having her plans and ideas questioned by senior civil servants, presumably on grounds of legality (Rwanda). Government can make the law but Government cannot break the law.
Comments
But - and it’s a gargantuan but - taking a nice suit from a named party donor is different to paying out billions to your patrons for “PPE” or accidentally taking donations via shell companies etc. The Tories are brazenly and openly corrupt. Labour are stupid. There is a difference. The Tory media desperately trying to make them equivalent is in itself very funny.
If only some larger countries would take the situation as seriously.
I can think of three (or four if you push it) Liberal MPs from the 1970s against whom there were serious allegations of criminality.
Which is not bad, considering there were only about six or seven of them.
I'll have to get around to watching it.
Been nostalgia rewatching The Prisoner.
The guy who played the mute butler, Angelo Muscat, has the saddest story, dying in poverty, aged 47.
Quote on IMDB:
I always feel lonely. I feel that people don't want to know me. Girls don't fancy me, I'm tiny and nearly bald but I'm only in my thirties. That's why I'm so grateful to Patrick McGoohan. He has given me responsibility for the first time in my life. I am playing an important part in a big series. I AM something, for the first time ever...
I don't think everything she says is bonkers though.
https://x.com/itvnewspolitics/status/1841166476029342014
Israel said it killed the commander of a Hezbollah-linked group in Syria, Al-Faqar Hanawi, in a strike on Beirut.
If there is a masterplan at play, it seems to be to keep herself to the right of Jenrick at all times - I don't know why. Perhaps she wants to be 'the one that got away' so the party longs for her and when Jenrick trips up, she gets it. Seems weird though - this should be her time - it's the right time. All she needed was some good policies, some good arguments, then sell them.
That’s very sad about Angelo Muscat. He also looked a lot older than that. It’s also sad he never lived to see how adored the series was, and still is, and he was.
I remember many years ago a guy wrote three articles about the Butler for the Prisoner fanzine. ‘Bossing the Butler’, ‘Serving the Butler’ and ‘Clocking the Butler’, the last of which detailed the time of every appearance the character made in every episode broken down scene by scene.
Ministers are being asked to draw up billions of pounds in cuts to infrastructure projects over the next 18 months despite Rachel Reeves pledging to invest more to grow the economy, the Guardian has learned.
Members of the cabinet have been asked to model cuts to their investment plans of up to 10% of their annual capital spending as part of this month’s spending review, government sources said.
Kemi: not good, quite disliked even by people who agree with her, bit of a bully
Jenrick: two faced, quite ruthless, v ambitious, could easily revert to Cameronism
Tugendhat: bland, pointless, meh
Cleverly: nicest of them all, but no plan
That's not great, is it? And this is a person with sympathy for the Tories. On this basis I think they should choose Jenrick. They could do worse than two faced and ruthless with ambition, ie any of the other three
Its feeling like yet another government of managed decline.
If not now, then she's unlikely to suddenly discover such ability in the future ?
Record 46% of newly-elected Lok Sabha MPs facing criminal cases: Study
https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2024/Jun/06/record-46-of-newly-elected-lok-sabha-mps-facing-criminal-cases-study#:~:text=Among the 251 winning candidates this
SKS TSE FFS
But who's paying any attention to the Tories anyway? They may as well elect a piece of Stilton as leader, frankly.
My God, they are going to be the most disastrous and unpopular government since.... I was gonna say Truss but I think even worse than THAT. This will be unparallelled
https://x.com/mikeysmith/status/1841197674827300967
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/10/01/sadiq-khan-free-tickets-madonna-bruce-springsteen/
Israel's gas platforms in the Mediterranean Sea have reportedly been destroyed
https://x.com/PressTV/status/1841163714373840999
Iranian strikes on key highway infrastructure in “Israel”
https://x.com/WarMonitors/status/1841194911342690586
#NotesForVotes
PM @Keir_Starmer to deliver a statement from @10DowningStreet in around 10mins time.
Keep it @SkyNews for the latest #MiddleEast @SamCoatesSky
The Thatcher Government faced both civil service intransigence and EEC legislation. Yet it managed enormous changes.
I think the real difference is that in the 1980s, there will still politicians of substance. The Thatcher cabinets from 1979 to 1986 were extraordinarily talented. And even the opposition benches contained many people who - even if I disagree with them - were clearly moral, hard working and dedicated.
Today, who would go into politics?
I don't want to be all Sergeant Major Skeptical-Knickers, but I might wait for further confirmation from other sources, if that's OK
...Treasury officials say delaying or stopping (capital infrastructure) projects that have not yet begun is easier than changing welfare schemes that are already in place, or making large-scale redundancies. ..
At least, unlike Badenoch, he’s being outspoken about topics that are big issues to chunks of the electorate.
I think it’s very questionable that he has the character to appeal to the electorate at large but I will say again that the Tories do face an immediate threat on their right flank and they could do worse than try to shore that up in the next year or so.
Hey ho.
Why would I go into politics?
Maybe that says more about the current world. But they could have at least made a point of it being 'meh'.
And we all know the game at B-day minus 4 weeks. It always goes like this. But if this is the actual outcome, then yes. Bugger benefit of the doubt.
They should choose between Cleverly and Jenrick, and with reluctance I would go for Jenrick. He has tons of baggage, looks like a Tory villain, but he is also smart and articulate - good on TV - and might make Starmer look dim, fat and slow
And if he is willing to go right to win the election, then great, I don't care if he believes it, he just has to be so ruthless he will do it
Jenrick is a Tory SKS. He plans to win the leadership from the right then move the party to the centre in a determined attempt to become PM.
As a Labour supporter I'd have preferred Badenoch. If they get a final 2 of Jenrick and Cleverly, that's them making the best of a bad job. Either of those might do ok as LOTO.
LOL.
Aren't you a little jealous that our Russian friends take such an interest in me?
Michael Ancram, Marquess of Lothian, Conservative MP for Berwick & East Lothian 1974, Edinburgh South 1979-87, Devizes 1992-2010, and Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party 2001-05, has died age 79
The analysis also highlights specific cases among the winning candidates. It revealed that 27 winning candidates have declared they have been convicted in criminal cases. Four declared cases related to murder under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and 27 declared cases related to attempt to murder under Section 307 of the IPC.'
As an aside, apart from the crassness of Kemi Badenoch's comment about "locking up" 10% of civil servants (almost Trumpian in its stupidity), there's a wider question about the role of civil servants. Is it the role of the civil service to carry out Government policy without question, hesitation or deviation or is there a responsibility incumbent on the civil service to point out where following Government policy might be a) illegal or b) impractical?
The civil service would read the manifesto of any incoming Government and through channels establish priorities in terms of legislation but would also be bound to point out potential problems with any legislation.
I suspect Badenoch's frustration comes from having her plans and ideas questioned by senior civil servants, presumably on grounds of legality (Rwanda). Government can make the law but Government cannot break the law.