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I agree with Sir John Curtice – politicalbetting.com

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  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,496

    Regardless of the Independent's headline, who is going to win?

    Badenoch is the clear favourite but personally I suspect there's still a racist tinge to the Toriy membership that will favour Jenrick.

    Based on the Tory member WhatsApp groups I am a part of, Badenoch to win roughly the same amount Truss defeated Sunak.
    I'll be happy with that outcome. They're both rubbish but I would like to be proven wrong in my assessment of the Tory membership.
    Right, so they effectively don't have a choice - if they don't vote for Badenoch, it's automatically a racist (and/or sexist?) decision.
    That'll be my take; other views are freely available.
    Right, so she's been top of the polling with members for years, but if they choose another candidate now, it will confirm them all as iredeemable racists. And sexists of course, despite their last decision having been to choose a female leader. Do you not sometimes have a moment of self reflection and thinking what an idiot you're being?
    If she's been top of the membership polling* for years and yet still loses what other explanation could there be?

    Anyway, why argue with me now? Once she wins I'll be happy to say, 'hurrah, I was wrong about the Tory membership being institutionally racist'. Genuinely happy.
    Because in a binary choice, with many factors, it is foolish to pick on a single difference between the candidates and highlight that in an attempt to prove that the voters are wicked. Labour have never had a leader who is female, and never had a leader who isn't white. Are the voters in Labour leadership elections racist and sexist?
    You've got this all the wrong way around.

    I suspect Badenoch will lose, despite being the favourite, because I suspect large sections of the Tory membership are deeply racist (not including, as far as I can tell, any PB tory members).

    That is what I suspect; I have no firm evidence, acquaintance with a few rural Tory members leads me to this suspicion. I could very well be wrong - I hope I am.

    But, on a betting site, I post it as a point for consideration for those thinking of betting on the contest.
    Kemi Badenoch had every opportunity in office to prove that she wasn't just a Sunak yes-person, and that she could act effectively in the very important role she had been given. She didn't.

    Post-defeat, she has had every opportunity to give the Tory Party a good idea of what direction she wants to take the party in policy-wise. She didn't, though she still does now. There's every opportunity for her even now to come up with a Kemifesto, and I hope she does.

    As things stand, she hasn't done any of it, so it will be entirely understandable, given another candidate who both resigned from the Sunak Government on policy, AND has a clear policy slate now, that the Tory members don't vote for her. And it will be bugger all to do with them being racist.
    Two problems with this. One, there aren't any reasons to think that Jenrick has a set of core principles, or actually any principles at all. Two, while he wants a smaller state his analysis of how to get there is wholly lacking in substance and hard choices.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,874
    FF43 said:

    Badenoch pamphlet ‘stigmatises’ autistic people, says top Tory

    The document said people with autism get “economic advantages and protections” but a spokesman denied any prejudice


    https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/badenoch-pamphlet-stigmitises-autistic-tory-3322013

    Badenoch's manifesto is here: The country's going to the dogs and it's all the fault of HR managers, lawyers, gays, people with no children, people who go to university, people who want to look after their mental health, regulation of any kind, risk management in banks.

    https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/66e290977b0f17041797e6ae/66fb3a4aa6d5bf17f7481ed1_Conservatism in Crisis.pdf

    Nevertheless Badenoch is better than Jenrick. Conservatives get that choice.
    People saying Badenoch is better than Jenrick on here are generally people who have not voted Tory in the last 2 general elections, that says something I think.
  • MustaphaMondeoMustaphaMondeo Posts: 181
    edited October 13

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Who the fuck flagged this perfectly measured and sensible post about Elon on the prior thread?


    “It is properly incredible

    The idea that the UK government excluded this genius from its “enterprise” conference because they don’t like his politics is the Purest Cringe

    Musk is a titanic genius - and will be seen as such for all his flaws. And who excluded him? Rachel fucking Reeves the lesbian Worzel Gummidge? Keir Starmer a pig-faced idiot of a man who sacrifices all morality for free Taylor Swift tickets?

    Its mortifying. Britain is governed by repulsive moral dwarves”

    Well done, whoever it was.
    This is same stupid attitude that says "good riddance" after high income people leave the country. It's completely backwards and self defeating. Having to agree with someone's politics in order to do business with them is a very short path to poverty.
    "There is no money left"

    Wrong, it's being hoarded by "high income people".
    They largely pay for the much adored "public services" so that people (probably including yourself) can retire and then consume far more in public services than you ever paid for in your whole lifetime of paying tax. Yes folks, that is the reality

    Moderately deluded. Do you think people make money in a vacuum?

    You need the whole economy to keep us limping along. That some cash ends up in clots around particular classes of individuals is inevitable.

    To hold those individuals up as glorious is kind of weird.

  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,808
    HYUFD said:

    FF43 said:

    Badenoch pamphlet ‘stigmatises’ autistic people, says top Tory

    The document said people with autism get “economic advantages and protections” but a spokesman denied any prejudice


    https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/badenoch-pamphlet-stigmitises-autistic-tory-3322013

    Badenoch's manifesto is here: The country's going to the dogs and it's all the fault of HR managers, lawyers, gays, people with no children, people who go to university, people who want to look after their mental health, regulation of any kind, risk management in banks.

    https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/66e290977b0f17041797e6ae/66fb3a4aa6d5bf17f7481ed1_Conservatism in Crisis.pdf

    Nevertheless Badenoch is better than Jenrick. Conservatives get that choice.
    People saying Badenoch is better than Jenrick on here are generally people who have not voted Tory in the last 2 general elections, that says something I think.
    Alien versus Predator.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,409
    algarkirk said:

    Regardless of the Independent's headline, who is going to win?

    Badenoch is the clear favourite but personally I suspect there's still a racist tinge to the Toriy membership that will favour Jenrick.

    Based on the Tory member WhatsApp groups I am a part of, Badenoch to win roughly the same amount Truss defeated Sunak.
    I'll be happy with that outcome. They're both rubbish but I would like to be proven wrong in my assessment of the Tory membership.
    Right, so they effectively don't have a choice - if they don't vote for Badenoch, it's automatically a racist (and/or sexist?) decision.
    That'll be my take; other views are freely available.
    Right, so she's been top of the polling with members for years, but if they choose another candidate now, it will confirm them all as iredeemable racists. And sexists of course, despite their last decision having been to choose a female leader. Do you not sometimes have a moment of self reflection and thinking what an idiot you're being?
    If she's been top of the membership polling* for years and yet still loses what other explanation could there be?

    Anyway, why argue with me now? Once she wins I'll be happy to say, 'hurrah, I was wrong about the Tory membership being institutionally racist'. Genuinely happy.
    Because in a binary choice, with many factors, it is foolish to pick on a single difference between the candidates and highlight that in an attempt to prove that the voters are wicked. Labour have never had a leader who is female, and never had a leader who isn't white. Are the voters in Labour leadership elections racist and sexist?
    You've got this all the wrong way around.

    I suspect Badenoch will lose, despite being the favourite, because I suspect large sections of the Tory membership are deeply racist (not including, as far as I can tell, any PB tory members).

    That is what I suspect; I have no firm evidence, acquaintance with a few rural Tory members leads me to this suspicion. I could very well be wrong - I hope I am.

    But, on a betting site, I post it as a point for consideration for those thinking of betting on the contest.
    Kemi Badenoch had every opportunity in office to prove that she wasn't just a Sunak yes-person, and that she could act effectively in the very important role she had been given. She didn't.

    Post-defeat, she has had every opportunity to give the Tory Party a good idea of what direction she wants to take the party in policy-wise. She didn't, though she still does now. There's every opportunity for her even now to come up with a Kemifesto, and I hope she does.

    As things stand, she hasn't done any of it, so it will be entirely understandable, given another candidate who both resigned from the Sunak Government on policy, AND has a clear policy slate now, that the Tory members don't vote for her. And it will be bugger all to do with them being racist.
    Two problems with this. One, there aren't any reasons to think that Jenrick has a set of core principles, or actually any principles at all. Two, while he wants a smaller state his analysis of how to get there is wholly lacking in substance and hard choices.
    But that's the point - he's not asking anyone to vote for his 'core principles' - he's setting out his policies very clearly and defending those policies during his interview rounds. Kemi *is* just asking everyone to vote for her on the sort of person she is, because she hasn't put any policies out there at all.

    As for the smaller state, I think none of the candidates have been very forthcoming on what spending they'd cut - I'm not sure I'd expect them to.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,208
    edited October 13
    IanB2 said:

    Regardless of the Independent's headline, who is going to win?

    Badenoch is the clear favourite but personally I suspect there's still a racist tinge to the Toriy membership that will favour Jenrick.

    Based on the Tory member WhatsApp groups I am a part of, Badenoch to win roughly the same amount Truss defeated Sunak.
    I'll be happy with that outcome. They're both rubbish but I would like to be proven wrong in my assessment of the Tory membership.
    I think it’s the worst choice that has ever faced the Tory party membership. If I had to choose, I guess I’d go with Badenoch too.
    A dodgy ***** is only going to become worse given a sniff of power, whereas someone immature might one day grow up and someone ineffectual might one day learn something.
    At what age could we expect an immature 44 year old to grow up?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,874

    Sir Keir Starmer has taken down portraits of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh that were on display in Downing Street
    https://x.com/DominicPenna/status/1845486129425817766
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,540
    "Why I believe the real Shakespeare was a woman" is what caught my eye from the header photo.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,615
    HYUFD said:


    Sir Keir Starmer has taken down portraits of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh that were on display in Downing Street
    https://x.com/DominicPenna/status/1845486129425817766

    Gladstone too. He's on a roll..
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,207
    FF43 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Regardless of the Independent's headline, who is going to win?

    Badenoch is the clear favourite but personally I suspect there's still a racist tinge to the Toriy membership that will favour Jenrick.

    Based on the Tory member WhatsApp groups I am a part of, Badenoch to win roughly the same amount Truss defeated Sunak.
    I'll be happy with that outcome. They're both rubbish but I would like to be proven wrong in my assessment of the Tory membership.
    I think it’s the worst choice that has ever faced the Tory party membership. If I had to choose, I guess I’d go with Badenoch too.
    A dodgy ***** is only going to become worse given a sniff of power, whereas someone immature might one day grow up and someone ineffectual might one day learn something.
    At what age could we expect an immature 44 year old to grow up?
    Two years in Cabinet, five in government.

    Seven years in Parliament, nine in front line politics.

    How much more experience should she need?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,615
    FF43 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Regardless of the Independent's headline, who is going to win?

    Badenoch is the clear favourite but personally I suspect there's still a racist tinge to the Toriy membership that will favour Jenrick.

    Based on the Tory member WhatsApp groups I am a part of, Badenoch to win roughly the same amount Truss defeated Sunak.
    I'll be happy with that outcome. They're both rubbish but I would like to be proven wrong in my assessment of the Tory membership.
    I think it’s the worst choice that has ever faced the Tory party membership. If I had to choose, I guess I’d go with Badenoch too.
    A dodgy ***** is only going to become worse given a sniff of power, whereas someone immature might one day grow up and someone ineffectual might one day learn something.
    At what age could we expect an immature 44 year old to grow up?
    Perhaps she identifies as a teenager?
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,722

    Badenoch pamphlet ‘stigmatises’ autistic people, says top Tory

    The document said people with autism get “economic advantages and protections” but a spokesman denied any prejudice


    https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/badenoch-pamphlet-stigmitises-autistic-tory-3322013

    Have you decided which of these two losers you're going to vote for TSE?
    Badenoch possibly, absolutely no chance I am voting for Jenrick.

    Actually I might vote Jenrick, in the four Tory leadership contests I have voted in I have only backed the winner once (Dave pbuh).

    Normally my vote is like getting an endorsement from Leon, it dooms the candidate.
    You should abstain. Both are unworthy of the Leadership.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,348
    MaxPB said:

    ydoethur said:

    MaxPB said:

    ydoethur said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Who the fuck flagged this perfectly measured and sensible post about Elon on the prior thread?


    “It is properly incredible

    The idea that the UK government excluded this genius from its “enterprise” conference because they don’t like his politics is the Purest Cringe

    Musk is a titanic genius - and will be seen as such for all his flaws. And who excluded him? Rachel fucking Reeves the lesbian Worzel Gummidge? Keir Starmer a pig-faced idiot of a man who sacrifices all morality for free Taylor Swift tickets?

    Its mortifying. Britain is governed by repulsive moral dwarves”

    Well done, whoever it was.
    This is same stupid attitude that says "good riddance" after high income people leave the country. It's completely backwards and self defeating. Having to agree with someone's politics in order to do business with them is a very short path to poverty.
    Completely agree, and I own a Tesla, but it doesn't stop me thinking he is a complete c***
    Yeah and it's fine to think that and actually it's also fine if you as a customer decide to not buy Tesla cars on that basis because you're a customer. It isn't right for the government to deprive the nation of potentially billions in new investment in high tech industries because a minister thinks that. In the same way that you are Tesla's customer, Tesla is in some ways the government's customer and in the immortal words of Michael Jordan "republicans buy sneakers too"
    I’m not sure Musk has billions now. He’s blown a lot of his wealth on Twitter.
    Lol, Elon Musk has net worth in the hundreds of billions. The money lost on twitter is chicken feed and he only has ~30% of the exposure on it.
    He *says* he has.

    Just as his mate Trump does…
    No, it's a matter of record due to his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX. His wealth is very transparent.
    The thing that I was really surprised at with the twitter purchase was the large number of people he convinced to help him buy it so that he didn't have to put up all the billions himself.

    That seems to be a big rich person perk, that they often have people falling over themselves to buy them stuff in order to keep in with them.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,228
    HYUFD said:


    Sir Keir Starmer has taken down portraits of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh that were on display in Downing Street
    https://x.com/DominicPenna/status/1845486129425817766

    He really is a fucking commie

    I despise him

    More to the point, so does most of Britain.
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 3,775

    FF43 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Regardless of the Independent's headline, who is going to win?

    Badenoch is the clear favourite but personally I suspect there's still a racist tinge to the Toriy membership that will favour Jenrick.

    Based on the Tory member WhatsApp groups I am a part of, Badenoch to win roughly the same amount Truss defeated Sunak.
    I'll be happy with that outcome. They're both rubbish but I would like to be proven wrong in my assessment of the Tory membership.
    I think it’s the worst choice that has ever faced the Tory party membership. If I had to choose, I guess I’d go with Badenoch too.
    A dodgy ***** is only going to become worse given a sniff of power, whereas someone immature might one day grow up and someone ineffectual might one day learn something.
    At what age could we expect an immature 44 year old to grow up?
    Two years in Cabinet, five in government.

    Seven years in Parliament, nine in front line politics.

    How much more experience should she need?
    Give it another 3-4 weeks. Then she will rip off the mask-of-meh like a poorly drawn Scooby Doo villain and we shall finally see the true political colossus which has hitherto been hidden from us.
  • The grifter will probably win.

    The endemically entitled conservative membership will recognise their own.


  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,615
    Andy_JS said:

    "Why I believe the real Shakespeare was a woman" is what caught my eye from the header photo.

    No wonder our national bard was so keen on cross dressing characters.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,540
    Most likely result is Badenoch wins by 55% to 45% imo.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 8,638
    edited October 13
    HYUFD said:


    Sir Keir Starmer has taken down portraits of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh that were on display in Downing Street
    https://x.com/DominicPenna/status/1845486129425817766

    And replaced them with a topless photograph of Freddie Ljungberg from a Calvin Klein advertisement and of Nicklas Bendtner scoring against Barcelona at the Camp Nou.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 8,638
    Andy_JS said:

    Most likely result is Badenoch wins by 55% to 45% imo.

    Nice tribute to Salmond
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,409

    Badenoch pamphlet ‘stigmatises’ autistic people, says top Tory

    The document said people with autism get “economic advantages and protections” but a spokesman denied any prejudice


    https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/badenoch-pamphlet-stigmitises-autistic-tory-3322013

    Have you decided which of these two losers you're going to vote for TSE?
    Badenoch possibly, absolutely no chance I am voting for Jenrick.

    Actually I might vote Jenrick, in the four Tory leadership contests I have voted in I have only backed the winner once (Dave pbuh).

    Normally my vote is like getting an endorsement from Leon, it dooms the candidate.
    You should abstain. Both are unworthy of the Leadership.
    Jimmy Dimly was hardly God's gift to politics. Every leader is unworthy till they get in. Maggie Thatcher was just a shrill Education Secretary. Someone recently recalled Jim Callaghan's Government dancing the can can (or similar) when Thatcher beat Heath because she didn't stand a chance. And we all know how that went.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,348

    FF43 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Regardless of the Independent's headline, who is going to win?

    Badenoch is the clear favourite but personally I suspect there's still a racist tinge to the Toriy membership that will favour Jenrick.

    Based on the Tory member WhatsApp groups I am a part of, Badenoch to win roughly the same amount Truss defeated Sunak.
    I'll be happy with that outcome. They're both rubbish but I would like to be proven wrong in my assessment of the Tory membership.
    I think it’s the worst choice that has ever faced the Tory party membership. If I had to choose, I guess I’d go with Badenoch too.
    A dodgy ***** is only going to become worse given a sniff of power, whereas someone immature might one day grow up and someone ineffectual might one day learn something.
    At what age could we expect an immature 44 year old to grow up?
    Two years in Cabinet, five in government.

    Seven years in Parliament, nine in front line politics.

    How much more experience should she need?
    I think recent PMs have risen too high too fast, and longer in a political apprenticeship would be good for them and for us.

    Thatcher became an MP in 1959, and people weren't convinced by her when she first became PM 20 years later.

    Blair was an MP for 14 years before becoming PM, and that was thought to be a rapid rise.

    Seven years in the Commons is not long relatively speaking.
  • Daveyboy1961Daveyboy1961 Posts: 3,883
    HYUFD said:


    Sir Keir Starmer has taken down portraits of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh that were on display in Downing Street
    https://x.com/DominicPenna/status/1845486129425817766

    ...and?...
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,409

    HYUFD said:


    Sir Keir Starmer has taken down portraits of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh that were on display in Downing Street
    https://x.com/DominicPenna/status/1845486129425817766

    ...and?...
    It's just an interesting insight into his character. I understand he dislikes portraits - and he seems to particularly dislike portraits of great British (and English) patriots. Also ditched Gladstone recently.

    Raleigh did introduce tabacco, so perhaps that's why.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,096

    Leon said:

    What I want to know is, when Rachel Reeves the “lesbian Worzel Gummidge” walks into a meeting of finance ministers, do they all start laughing immediately at her hair, her face, and her total lack of ideas? Or do they wait for about three minutes until they just can’t help it and they start laughing at her?

    It has to be one of those two

    I think all of that is a bit cruel about her appearance. I do think her voice is a bit irritating, mainly as I suspect that the estuarine English is almost certainly phoney. But then most aspects of Labour politicians, particularly Toolmakerson is pretty phoney. Slight problem is that the Tory Party continues to implode up its own backside
    Rachel Reeves was born and raised in South London. What is odd is she seems to have picked up a slight northern accent from somewhere.
    Yes, it is very strange. For me, as someone who has an amateur interest in accents it definitely sounds effected and put on. It definitely doesnt sound authentic
    My accent has confused people for years, it has been described from 'If Hugh Grant was from Yorkshire to if Brian Blessed went to Eton.'
    Vastly prefer the first option there.
  • HYUFD said:

    FF43 said:

    Badenoch pamphlet ‘stigmatises’ autistic people, says top Tory

    The document said people with autism get “economic advantages and protections” but a spokesman denied any prejudice


    https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/badenoch-pamphlet-stigmitises-autistic-tory-3322013

    Badenoch's manifesto is here: The country's going to the dogs and it's all the fault of HR managers, lawyers, gays, people with no children, people who go to university, people who want to look after their mental health, regulation of any kind, risk management in banks.

    https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/66e290977b0f17041797e6ae/66fb3a4aa6d5bf17f7481ed1_Conservatism in Crisis.pdf

    Nevertheless Badenoch is better than Jenrick. Conservatives get that choice.
    People saying Badenoch is better than Jenrick on here are generally people who have not voted Tory in the last 2 general elections, that says something I think.
    Badenoch is far better snd I have voted conservative in the last two elections
  • Peter_the_PunterPeter_the_Punter Posts: 14,321
    edited October 13

    Regardless of the Independent's headline, who is going to win?

    Badenoch is the clear favourite but personally I suspect there's still a racist tinge to the Toriy membership that will favour Jenrick.

    Doesn't matter.

    Either way, Starmer continues to be a very lucky general.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398

    FPT
    maxh said:

    darkage said:

    This is an interesting header thanks @maxh. I agree with the basic ideas that are being set out.
    I think that in culture there was a wrong turn with masculinity about 5-10 years ago; men eagerly embraced many of the criticisms of them, but then got confused and lost confidence in themselves leading to self doubt and weakness. So instead of getting a kind of synthesis, instead we get an unwanted resurgence of the former situation, filling the vacuum.
    One thing I would question though is 'equal parenting' as something everyone should aspire to. I think you need to do what works best for you in your relationship and there is no perfect form of parenting.

    Thanks for the support and the challenge.

    I didn't have equal parenting in mind when I wrote that, but more that we continue a path away from the highly gendered family roles of a generation ago. I agree that every relationship needs to find a model of parenting that works for all concerned, without judgement unless the child is being harmed unduly by it.

    However I do think a further culture shift towards it being easier for Dads to be involved (eg taking more time off work early in a baby's life) would pay dividends for many Dads and many families. I was surprised as a father how many cultural stereotypes there still were about who was the primary caregiver and found I had to fight quite hard to eg get a health visitor to talk to me as well as my wife about my children.
    I agree with this - I would have found it very hard to get involved as a dad as primary caregiver at the NCT groups etc, after our son was born. The gender roles were still very traditional then and this is less than a decade ago; I imagine it is still the same in large parts of the country. But perhaps this is also evidence of the gap between how elites view the country and how the country actually is.

    There is also obsessive and competitive parenting, where both parents helicopter over their child. There are downsides to that.
  • BatteryCorrectHorseBatteryCorrectHorse Posts: 3,647
    edited October 13
    I would not like to predict the result of GE2029 - after all few thought SKS would win a majority in 2024, although I did :) - but I would be feeling pretty smug as Labour that the Tories knocked out their best candidate by accident.
  • Alphabet_SoupAlphabet_Soup Posts: 3,242
    algarkirk said:

    Leon said:

    On topic I disagree with the estimable Prof Curtice

    Things are so volatile we just don’t know. And nor does he

    Agree. Things are a bit of a muddle, and won't change a lot until a particular leadership character comes along. This change maker will be able to explain where we are, where they (and we) want to go, keep communicating the core message, narrate how we are going to get there, marginalise the extremes, and ruthlessly move in the new direction taking a plurality of people along.

    The past is some help in this. Avoid a poll tax, (or messing with WFA but that's obvious), avoid invading Iraq etc, avoid hubris, be utterly incorruptible, act like leadership is service and not a route to freebies, act like ordinary people are as important to you personally as Taylor Swift. Be a brilliant communicator.

    This vacancy should have been filled at least partially by Labour/Starmer. It looks like it may not be. Budget and its follow up may be the last chance?

    There's a tiny chance that one of Kemi and Jenrick has the stuff needed. But the evidence is thin.
    I harbour no doubt that quite a few contributors to this site would satisfy your criteria long before lunch and, like Harold MacMillan, spend the afternoon curled up with a Trollope. But why would any sensible, competent person aspire to government in this country when there's no reward in prospect but the certainly of failure, opprobrium and worse? We're obliged to choose between the few who linger, briefly, in the limelight on their way to oblivion.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,208
    HYUFD said:

    FF43 said:

    Badenoch pamphlet ‘stigmatises’ autistic people, says top Tory

    The document said people with autism get “economic advantages and protections” but a spokesman denied any prejudice


    https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/badenoch-pamphlet-stigmitises-autistic-tory-3322013

    Badenoch's manifesto is here: The country's going to the dogs and it's all the fault of HR managers, lawyers, gays, people with no children, people who go to university, people who want to look after their mental health, regulation of any kind, risk management in banks.

    https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/66e290977b0f17041797e6ae/66fb3a4aa6d5bf17f7481ed1_Conservatism in Crisis.pdf

    Nevertheless Badenoch is better than Jenrick. Conservatives get that choice.
    People saying Badenoch is better than Jenrick on here are generally people who have not voted Tory in the last 2 general elections, that says something I think.
    Fair challenge. Partisans should select leaders who reflect their own values. They don't get told what to do by non-partisans.

    If Conservatives think the candidate who is corrupt, incompetent, performatively cruel and has no moral principle beyond his own advancement best represents Conservative values, who am I to contradict them?
  • Alphabet_SoupAlphabet_Soup Posts: 3,242

    I would not like to predict the result of GE2024 - after all few thought SKS would win a majority in 2024, although I did :) - but I would be feeling pretty smug as Labour that the Tories knocked out their best candidate by accident.

    GE2024? Not another one...
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,808
    FF43 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Regardless of the Independent's headline, who is going to win?

    Badenoch is the clear favourite but personally I suspect there's still a racist tinge to the Toriy membership that will favour Jenrick.

    Based on the Tory member WhatsApp groups I am a part of, Badenoch to win roughly the same amount Truss defeated Sunak.
    I'll be happy with that outcome. They're both rubbish but I would like to be proven wrong in my assessment of the Tory membership.
    I think it’s the worst choice that has ever faced the Tory party membership. If I had to choose, I guess I’d go with Badenoch too.
    A dodgy ***** is only going to become worse given a sniff of power, whereas someone immature might one day grow up and someone ineffectual might one day learn something.
    At what age could we expect an immature 44 year old to grow up?
    Mum calls me "a 48 year-old man-child" all the time!

    EDIT: Did I just press "Send"??
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,794

    HYUFD said:


    Sir Keir Starmer has taken down portraits of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh that were on display in Downing Street
    https://x.com/DominicPenna/status/1845486129425817766

    ...and?...
    It's just an interesting insight into his character. I understand he dislikes portraits - and he seems to particularly dislike portraits of great British (and English) patriots. Also ditched Gladstone recently.

    Raleigh did introduce tabacco, so perhaps that's why.
    https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=505457414607207&vanity=100083236403617

    Just an all time classic.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,208

    FF43 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Regardless of the Independent's headline, who is going to win?

    Badenoch is the clear favourite but personally I suspect there's still a racist tinge to the Toriy membership that will favour Jenrick.

    Based on the Tory member WhatsApp groups I am a part of, Badenoch to win roughly the same amount Truss defeated Sunak.
    I'll be happy with that outcome. They're both rubbish but I would like to be proven wrong in my assessment of the Tory membership.
    I think it’s the worst choice that has ever faced the Tory party membership. If I had to choose, I guess I’d go with Badenoch too.
    A dodgy ***** is only going to become worse given a sniff of power, whereas someone immature might one day grow up and someone ineffectual might one day learn something.
    At what age could we expect an immature 44 year old to grow up?
    Mum calls me "a 48 year-old man-child" all the time!

    EDIT: Did I just press "Send"??
    I'm sure your mum loves you that way. Never change!
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,056

    Yes, I think Trump is probably more likely to win than not.

    The signs are all there. It's just this board really don't want him to, so we're scrabbling around for evidence to the contrary and trying to boost it to make ourselves feel better.

    Tell me about it. Honesty compels me to note that if we take the polls and only the polls he should be the most probable of the two, especially when we include direction of travel. When Dem moved from attacking him and boasting about themselves, to defending themselves from his attacks, they began to lose. Although to be fair, it still is too close to call.

    I genuinely don't know how to resolve this. I took my gambling money out of the bank yesterday and I don't know what to do. The workaround is to work out which *states* are value for Kamala and bet on those, but again, thin gruel, high risk, low reward, bad, bad.

    If the polls are too close to call I'll look at other factors (recruitment? Where Trump is giving speeches?). I'm a bit worried at him campaigning in Colorado: what does he know that I don't?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,228
    Roger said:

    I enjoyed the last thread on toxic masculinity. It’s a shame that one poster has to act out toxic masculinity on this thread.

    He's such a crude puerile bore I've pretty well given up reading PB. Whoever begged him to come back must have a hell of a dull existence
    Bit harsh on yourself there, Rog
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 5,281
    edited October 13
    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:


    Sir Keir Starmer has taken down portraits of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh that were on display in Downing Street
    https://x.com/DominicPenna/status/1845486129425817766

    He really is a fucking commie

    I despise him

    More to the point, so does most of Britain.
    You have hung the coat of your hatred this time not even on a badly assembled IKEA hangar rail but on a Poundland plant pot.

    "A spokeswoman for Sir Keir said: “The change of artwork is long planned, since before the election, and is timed to mark 125 years of the Government Art Collection”"
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,228

    Regardless of the Independent's headline, who is going to win?

    Badenoch is the clear favourite but personally I suspect there's still a racist tinge to the Toriy membership that will favour Jenrick.

    Doesn't matter.

    Either way, Starmer continues to be a very lucky general.
    He's dropped 49 points of popularity in 60 days, going from +11 in mid August to -38 in mid October, an utterly unprecedented fall for any winning prime minister. He is now held in contempt by any sane individual

    You have an unusual definition of "lucky"

  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,056
    edited October 13
    FF43 said:

    Badenoch pamphlet ‘stigmatises’ autistic people, says top Tory

    The document said people with autism get “economic advantages and protections” but a spokesman denied any prejudice


    https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/badenoch-pamphlet-stigmitises-autistic-tory-3322013

    Badenoch's manifesto is here: The country's going to the dogs and it's all the fault of HR managers, lawyers, gays, people with no children, people who go to university, people who want to look after their mental health, regulation of any kind, risk management in banks.

    https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/66e290977b0f17041797e6ae/66fb3a4aa6d5bf17f7481ed1_Conservatism in Crisis.pdf

    Nevertheless Badenoch is better than Jenrick. Conservatives get that choice.
    She stole my Blob article! Bad Kemi!

    (seriously: cross ref thei https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/66e290977b0f17041797e6ae/66fb3a4aa6d5bf17f7481ed1_Conservatism in Crisis.pdf to this https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/09/28/the-blob/ )
  • kamskikamski Posts: 5,189
    Scott_xP said:

    @implausibleblog

    Laura Kuenssberg, "You alongside Ken Clarke during the Brexit referendum campaign.. At the time you wrote a letter saying that leaving the EU would lead us into a dystopia.. Do you still agree with the letter?"

    Robert Jenrick, "I don't remember that letter"

    tbf Jenrick as leader of the opposition is a step closer to a dystopia
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,274

    HYUFD said:


    Sir Keir Starmer has taken down portraits of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh that were on display in Downing Street
    https://x.com/DominicPenna/status/1845486129425817766

    ...and?...
    I’m much more interested in what he replaced them with .
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,615
    nico679 said:

    HYUFD said:


    Sir Keir Starmer has taken down portraits of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh that were on display in Downing Street
    https://x.com/DominicPenna/status/1845486129425817766

    ...and?...
    I’m much more interested in what he replaced them with .
    Ooh, I really hope for some Soviet Realism. It would make Tories heads explode.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,228
    Pro_Rata said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:


    Sir Keir Starmer has taken down portraits of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh that were on display in Downing Street
    https://x.com/DominicPenna/status/1845486129425817766

    He really is a fucking commie

    I despise him

    More to the point, so does most of Britain.
    You have hung the coat of your hatred this time not even on a badly assembled IKEA hangar rail but on a Poundland plant pot.

    "A spokeswoman for Sir Keir said: “The change of artwork is long planned, since before the election, and is timed to mark 125 years of the Government Art Collection”"
    You do realise I sometimes just post total shit for the enjoyable fuck of it?

    It's a known thing on t'internet, and I speak as someone who recently and personally encountered Tim Berners Lee's computer where he invented the World Wide Web
  • maxhmaxh Posts: 1,224
    edited October 13

    algarkirk said:

    Regardless of the Independent's headline, who is going to win?

    Badenoch is the clear favourite but personally I suspect there's still a racist tinge to the Toriy membership that will favour Jenrick.

    Based on the Tory member WhatsApp groups I am a part of, Badenoch to win roughly the same amount Truss defeated Sunak.
    I'll be happy with that outcome. They're both rubbish but I would like to be proven wrong in my assessment of the Tory membership.
    Right, so they effectively don't have a choice - if they don't vote for Badenoch, it's automatically a racist (and/or sexist?) decision.
    That'll be my take; other views are freely available.
    Right, so she's been top of the polling with members for years, but if they choose another candidate now, it will confirm them all as iredeemable racists. And sexists of course, despite their last decision having been to choose a female leader. Do you not sometimes have a moment of self reflection and thinking what an idiot you're being?
    If she's been top of the membership polling* for years and yet still loses what other explanation could there be?

    Anyway, why argue with me now? Once she wins I'll be happy to say, 'hurrah, I was wrong about the Tory membership being institutionally racist'. Genuinely happy.
    Because in a binary choice, with many factors, it is foolish to pick on a single difference between the candidates and highlight that in an attempt to prove that the voters are wicked. Labour have never had a leader who is female, and never had a leader who isn't white. Are the voters in Labour leadership elections racist and sexist?
    You've got this all the wrong way around.

    I suspect Badenoch will lose, despite being the favourite, because I suspect large sections of the Tory membership are deeply racist (not including, as far as I can tell, any PB tory members).

    That is what I suspect; I have no firm evidence, acquaintance with a few rural Tory members leads me to this suspicion. I could very well be wrong - I hope I am.

    But, on a betting site, I post it as a point for consideration for those thinking of betting on the contest.
    Kemi Badenoch had every opportunity in office to prove that she wasn't just a Sunak yes-person, and that she could act effectively in the very important role she had been given. She didn't.

    Post-defeat, she has had every opportunity to give the Tory Party a good idea of what direction she wants to take the party in policy-wise. She didn't, though she still does now. There's every opportunity for her even now to come up with a Kemifesto, and I hope she does.

    As things stand, she hasn't done any of it, so it will be entirely understandable, given another candidate who both resigned from the Sunak Government on policy, AND has a clear policy slate now, that the Tory members don't vote for her. And it will be bugger all to do with them being racist.
    Two problems with this. One, there aren't any reasons to think that Jenrick has a set of core principles, or actually any principles at all. Two, while he wants a smaller state his analysis of how to get there is wholly lacking in substance and hard choices.
    But that's the point - he's not asking anyone to vote for his 'core principles' - he's setting out his policies very clearly and defending those policies during his interview rounds. Kemi *is* just asking everyone to vote for her on the sort of person she is, because she hasn't put any policies out there at all.

    As for the smaller state, I think none of the candidates have been very forthcoming on what spending they'd cut - I'm not sure I'd expect them to.
    I'm with LuckyGuy on this - someone might well suspect the Tory membership to be institutionally racist and sexist in its choice of leader and that person might well be right, but the membership choosing Jenrick over Badenoch isn't evidence for this.

    Evidence would be them never having selected a female leader, or a leader who is not white. On that score the Tories do rather better than Labour.
  • KnightOutKnightOut Posts: 142
    The first task for the new Tory leader is to find out from every MP how they voted in each round of the leadership ballot, under the threat of removing the whip.

    Only then will have proper transparency, and can begin to work out exactly what happened with a view to preventing it from happening again.

    A party seen as one full of traitorous game-playing, and double/triple-crossing shenangians that manage to fuck up badly is not a party ready to govern a country or even be a cohesive opposition.

  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,228
    COOKING TIP


    When microwaving baked potatoes OVERcook them so they gain this weird delicious crispiness, even crunchiness, then soften this dried snappabiltiy with fats - oil, butter, the flavoured oils from a fried steak. Then they become utterly delicious and better than baked spuds from the oven

    The average single baked spud needs maybe 17 minutes at full power
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,615
    maxh said:

    algarkirk said:

    Regardless of the Independent's headline, who is going to win?

    Badenoch is the clear favourite but personally I suspect there's still a racist tinge to the Toriy membership that will favour Jenrick.

    Based on the Tory member WhatsApp groups I am a part of, Badenoch to win roughly the same amount Truss defeated Sunak.
    I'll be happy with that outcome. They're both rubbish but I would like to be proven wrong in my assessment of the Tory membership.
    Right, so they effectively don't have a choice - if they don't vote for Badenoch, it's automatically a racist (and/or sexist?) decision.
    That'll be my take; other views are freely available.
    Right, so she's been top of the polling with members for years, but if they choose another candidate now, it will confirm them all as iredeemable racists. And sexists of course, despite their last decision having been to choose a female leader. Do you not sometimes have a moment of self reflection and thinking what an idiot you're being?
    If she's been top of the membership polling* for years and yet still loses what other explanation could there be?

    Anyway, why argue with me now? Once she wins I'll be happy to say, 'hurrah, I was wrong about the Tory membership being institutionally racist'. Genuinely happy.
    Because in a binary choice, with many factors, it is foolish to pick on a single difference between the candidates and highlight that in an attempt to prove that the voters are wicked. Labour have never had a leader who is female, and never had a leader who isn't white. Are the voters in Labour leadership elections racist and sexist?
    You've got this all the wrong way around.

    I suspect Badenoch will lose, despite being the favourite, because I suspect large sections of the Tory membership are deeply racist (not including, as far as I can tell, any PB tory members).

    That is what I suspect; I have no firm evidence, acquaintance with a few rural Tory members leads me to this suspicion. I could very well be wrong - I hope I am.

    But, on a betting site, I post it as a point for consideration for those thinking of betting on the contest.
    Kemi Badenoch had every opportunity in office to prove that she wasn't just a Sunak yes-person, and that she could act effectively in the very important role she had been given. She didn't.

    Post-defeat, she has had every opportunity to give the Tory Party a good idea of what direction she wants to take the party in policy-wise. She didn't, though she still does now. There's every opportunity for her even now to come up with a Kemifesto, and I hope she does.

    As things stand, she hasn't done any of it, so it will be entirely understandable, given another candidate who both resigned from the Sunak Government on policy, AND has a clear policy slate now, that the Tory members don't vote for her. And it will be bugger all to do with them being racist.
    Two problems with this. One, there aren't any reasons to think that Jenrick has a set of core principles, or actually any principles at all. Two, while he wants a smaller state his analysis of how to get there is wholly lacking in substance and hard choices.
    But that's the point - he's not asking anyone to vote for his 'core principles' - he's setting out his policies very clearly and defending those policies during his interview rounds. Kemi *is* just asking everyone to vote for her on the sort of person she is, because she hasn't put any policies out there at all.

    As for the smaller state, I think none of the candidates have been very forthcoming on what spending they'd cut - I'm not sure I'd expect them to.
    I'm with LuckyGuy on this - someone might well suspect the Tory membership to be institutionally racist and sexist in its choice of leader and that person might well be right, but the membership choosing Jenrick over Badenoch isn't evidence for this.

    Evidence would be them never having selected a female leader, or a leader who is not white. On that score the Tories do rather better than Labour.
    The members didn't select Sunak. He was the only candidate post Trussocalypse.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,056

    Badenoch pamphlet ‘stigmatises’ autistic people, says top Tory

    The document said people with autism get “economic advantages and protections” but a spokesman denied any prejudice


    https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/badenoch-pamphlet-stigmitises-autistic-tory-3322013

    I've said before, the most patriotic thing the Conservatives can do is become utterly unelectable for a while, because it gives the government both the chance and responsibility to administer necessary but unpleasant medicine. They may not do it, let alone well, but it creates a window of opportunity.

    So thanks, Kemi.

    Themi.
    Thanks, ants. Thants.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,540
    Leon said:

    COOKING TIP


    When microwaving baked potatoes OVERcook them so they gain this weird delicious crispiness, even crunchiness, then soften this dried snappabiltiy with fats - oil, butter, the flavoured oils from a fried steak. Then they become utterly delicious and better than baked spuds from the oven

    The average single baked spud needs maybe 17 minutes at full power

    Nothing tastier than a crunchy potato.
  • maxhmaxh Posts: 1,224
    Leon said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:


    Sir Keir Starmer has taken down portraits of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh that were on display in Downing Street
    https://x.com/DominicPenna/status/1845486129425817766

    He really is a fucking commie

    I despise him

    More to the point, so does most of Britain.
    You have hung the coat of your hatred this time not even on a badly assembled IKEA hangar rail but on a Poundland plant pot.

    "A spokeswoman for Sir Keir said: “The change of artwork is long planned, since before the election, and is timed to mark 125 years of the Government Art Collection”"
    You do realise I sometimes just post total shit for the enjoyable fuck of it?

    It's a known thing on t'internet, and I speak as someone who recently and personally encountered Tim Berners Lee's computer where he invented the World Wide Web
    Nah that's a crap excuse. You're shitposting tonight and it's boring. Your posts often add a lot to this board but that's no excuse for this crap.
  • KnightOutKnightOut Posts: 142

    Badenoch pamphlet ‘stigmatises’ autistic people, says top Tory

    The document said people with autism get “economic advantages and protections” but a spokesman denied any prejudice


    https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/badenoch-pamphlet-stigmitises-autistic-tory-3322013

    Have you decided which of these two losers you're going to vote for TSE?
    Badenoch possibly, absolutely no chance I am voting for Jenrick.

    Actually I might vote Jenrick, in the four Tory leadership contests I have voted in I have only backed the winner once (Dave pbuh).

    Normally my vote is like getting an endorsement from Leon, it dooms the candidate.
    You should abstain. Both are unworthy of the Leadership.


    When it was Boris vs Hunt (and I was still a member) I spoiled my ballot paper by writing in 'former Leeds and Scotland frontman Arthur Graham'.
  • Leon said:

    Regardless of the Independent's headline, who is going to win?

    Badenoch is the clear favourite but personally I suspect there's still a racist tinge to the Toriy membership that will favour Jenrick.

    Doesn't matter.

    Either way, Starmer continues to be a very lucky general.
    He's dropped 49 points of popularity in 60 days, going from +11 in mid August to -38 in mid October, an utterly unprecedented fall for any winning prime minister. He is now held in contempt by any sane individual

    You have an unusual definition of "lucky"

    The election is four years away. That's lucky.

    The Conservatives are making another bad choice. That's very lucky.
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 5,281
    Leon said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:


    Sir Keir Starmer has taken down portraits of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh that were on display in Downing Street
    https://x.com/DominicPenna/status/1845486129425817766

    He really is a fucking commie

    I despise him

    More to the point, so does most of Britain.
    You have hung the coat of your hatred this time not even on a badly assembled IKEA hangar rail but on a Poundland plant pot.

    "A spokeswoman for Sir Keir said: “The change of artwork is long planned, since before the election, and is timed to mark 125 years of the Government Art Collection”"
    You do realise I sometimes just post total shit for the enjoyable fuck of it?

    It's a known thing on t'internet, and I speak as someone who recently and personally encountered Tim Berners Lee's computer where he invented the World Wide Web
    And I suppose you need to keep your hand in for the Knappers' editorial policy too?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,228
    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    COOKING TIP


    When microwaving baked potatoes OVERcook them so they gain this weird delicious crispiness, even crunchiness, then soften this dried snappabiltiy with fats - oil, butter, the flavoured oils from a fried steak. Then they become utterly delicious and better than baked spuds from the oven

    The average single baked spud needs maybe 17 minutes at full power

    Nothing tastier than a crunchy potato.
    Honestly, they're great. But you have to be watchful, it takes about a minute for them to go from wonderfully crunchy to inedible cinders, but if you hit the sweet spot, MMMMMM

    I believe, and I am wary of exaggeration, that my microwaved baked potato discovery is on a par with Elon Musk's Giant Chopsticks Capturing The World's Hugest Missile achievement earlier today, tho I accept that the several PB-ers with Musk Derangement Syndrome will clearly see my triumph as the greater, and I am thankful for their approbation
  • FF43 said:

    FPT:

    Ed Miliband to roll out pylons despite official report showing burying cables can be cheaper
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/12/ed-milliband-pylons-report-underground-cables-cheaper/ (£££)

    The issue seems to be that burying cables may be cheaper but is also slower.

    "Ed Miliband’s reckless 2030 decarbonisation target", I love this government so much, it's just beautiful to watch it in action.
    I’m saying it again and again, but miliband will be the ruin of this government if he doesn’t end up changing his plans. Energy will be ruinously expansive for consumers and industry without huge public subsidy, and that assumes that he dkesnt take seriously to end natural gas usage by 2030. Add on top of price it will be unstable and liable to routine brownout.

    Of course a pragmatist will be “well we didn’t get there but a bit more renewables wont do any harm”, but he wants the energy revolution. He’s not interested in pragmatism.
    Brownouts? We’ve gone past peak risk for that already, surely? We have had a chronic lack of generating capacity thanks to post financial crash decisions. Now that so much more renewable capacity is coming on stream, with battery storage to back it up, we’ll be ok.

    I think I have got to a point now where if the Telegraph are running a story on something I largely ignore it. Their “journalism” increasingly consists of unhinged barely factual smears desperately trying to find any issue they can to persuade the Tory members that they are absolutely right to be ramping hard right candidates as their way back to government.
    I think this is the report being discussed:

    https://www.nationalgrideso.com/document/304496/download

    Key curious thing.

    The conventional (AC pylons) solution is cheaper if we do it to a 2030 deadline, rather than holding it back to 2034. Which is what makes the underground setup look competitive, and is pretty much the opposite of the Telegraph spin.

    (There are other limits on the DC underground setup- harder to upgrade, supply challenges and the AC/DC converters being not nice things to be by.)

    I'm going with "cherry-picking statistics like a drunk bloke using a lamppost".


    It doesn't pass the sniff test. If underground cables were cheaper they would do it that way every time and pylons wouldn't be considered. This "data" comes from a lobby group whose argument really is our view is more important than your electricity but lack the confidence that their argument will prevail. Hence the spurious cost benefit case picked up by the Telegraph and the Conservatives who will latch onto anything anti-government regardless of whether it's true or not.
    If we want to get building again this is exactly the kind of nonsense we need to overrule. Build pylons wherever they are needed and overrule local planning where needed. Same with my favourite subject, telecoms.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,228

    Leon said:

    Regardless of the Independent's headline, who is going to win?

    Badenoch is the clear favourite but personally I suspect there's still a racist tinge to the Toriy membership that will favour Jenrick.

    Doesn't matter.

    Either way, Starmer continues to be a very lucky general.
    He's dropped 49 points of popularity in 60 days, going from +11 in mid August to -38 in mid October, an utterly unprecedented fall for any winning prime minister. He is now held in contempt by any sane individual

    You have an unusual definition of "lucky"

    The election is four years away. That's lucky.

    The Conservatives are making another bad choice. That's very lucky.
    You have no idea, and - to be fair - neither do I

    Things are so strange, it is quite plausible that Nigel Farage becomes PM in 2028
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,977
    Leon said:

    it is quite plausible that Nigel Farage becomes PM in 2028

    No, it isn't
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,777
    Leon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    COOKING TIP


    When microwaving baked potatoes OVERcook them so they gain this weird delicious crispiness, even crunchiness, then soften this dried snappabiltiy with fats - oil, butter, the flavoured oils from a fried steak. Then they become utterly delicious and better than baked spuds from the oven

    The average single baked spud needs maybe 17 minutes at full power

    Nothing tastier than a crunchy potato.
    Honestly, they're great. But you have to be watchful, it takes about a minute for them to go from wonderfully crunchy to inedible cinders, but if you hit the sweet spot, MMMMMM

    I believe, and I am wary of exaggeration, that my microwaved baked potato discovery is on a par with Elon Musk's Giant Chopsticks Capturing The World's Hugest Missile achievement earlier today, tho I accept that the several PB-ers with Musk Derangement Syndrome will clearly see my triumph as the greater, and I am thankful for their approbation
    You need to get an air fryer.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,228
    maxh said:

    Leon said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:


    Sir Keir Starmer has taken down portraits of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh that were on display in Downing Street
    https://x.com/DominicPenna/status/1845486129425817766

    He really is a fucking commie

    I despise him

    More to the point, so does most of Britain.
    You have hung the coat of your hatred this time not even on a badly assembled IKEA hangar rail but on a Poundland plant pot.

    "A spokeswoman for Sir Keir said: “The change of artwork is long planned, since before the election, and is timed to mark 125 years of the Government Art Collection”"
    You do realise I sometimes just post total shit for the enjoyable fuck of it?

    It's a known thing on t'internet, and I speak as someone who recently and personally encountered Tim Berners Lee's computer where he invented the World Wide Web
    Nah that's a crap excuse. You're shitposting tonight and it's boring. Your posts often add a lot to this board but that's no excuse for this crap.
    Sorry I ignored your header
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    FF43 said:

    Badenoch pamphlet ‘stigmatises’ autistic people, says top Tory

    The document said people with autism get “economic advantages and protections” but a spokesman denied any prejudice


    https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/badenoch-pamphlet-stigmitises-autistic-tory-3322013

    Badenoch's manifesto is here: The country's going to the dogs and it's all the fault of HR managers, lawyers, gays, people with no children, people who go to university, people who want to look after their mental health, regulation of any kind, risk management in banks.

    https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/66e290977b0f17041797e6ae/66fb3a4aa6d5bf17f7481ed1_Conservatism in Crisis.pdf

    Nevertheless Badenoch is better than Jenrick. Conservatives get that choice.
    It is a bit rambling and repetitive but it is a pretty clear diagnosis of the problems that she thinks need addressing and credit should be given for this.

    However what is unclear is whether she realises there is no 'incremental' way of dealing with them, there has to be a disruptive big bang - the civil service frozen out, swathes of legislation wiped out in the first 100 days, so many things done at once that the administrative state has no hope of keeping up. Unless you do this, you will be back in to the 'do nothing business as usual' option and in the same predicament as Sunak/Starmer when in power.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    nico679 said:

    HYUFD said:


    Sir Keir Starmer has taken down portraits of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh that were on display in Downing Street
    https://x.com/DominicPenna/status/1845486129425817766

    ...and?...
    I’m much more interested in what he replaced them with .
    Denis Bergkampt and Robin Van Persie?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,874
    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:


    Sir Keir Starmer has taken down portraits of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh that were on display in Downing Street
    https://x.com/DominicPenna/status/1845486129425817766

    He really is a fucking commie

    I despise him

    More to the point, so does most of Britain.
    I suspect he removed the portraits of Thatcher and Gladstone as he couldn't bear them looking down on him and feeling what a minnow he was in comparison.

    He removed Elizabeth I and Raleigh as that was the woke thing for him to do
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,228
    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    COOKING TIP


    When microwaving baked potatoes OVERcook them so they gain this weird delicious crispiness, even crunchiness, then soften this dried snappabiltiy with fats - oil, butter, the flavoured oils from a fried steak. Then they become utterly delicious and better than baked spuds from the oven

    The average single baked spud needs maybe 17 minutes at full power

    Nothing tastier than a crunchy potato.
    Honestly, they're great. But you have to be watchful, it takes about a minute for them to go from wonderfully crunchy to inedible cinders, but if you hit the sweet spot, MMMMMM

    I believe, and I am wary of exaggeration, that my microwaved baked potato discovery is on a par with Elon Musk's Giant Chopsticks Capturing The World's Hugest Missile achievement earlier today, tho I accept that the several PB-ers with Musk Derangement Syndrome will clearly see my triumph as the greater, and I am thankful for their approbation
    You need to get an air fryer.
    I almost certainly do, but I don't have room in a small 1 bed flat

    A flat which BTW I love, for my sins, BECAUSE it is so small. Lock up and leave!

    I fly to Asia tomorrow

  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559

    Badenoch pamphlet ‘stigmatises’ autistic people, says top Tory

    The document said people with autism get “economic advantages and protections” but a spokesman denied any prejudice


    https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/badenoch-pamphlet-stigmitises-autistic-tory-3322013

    Good grief.

    Though am amused, that at first glance the webaddress appears to say Bad'enoch's latest hateful dipshitery stimitizes an "autistic Tory" - so who(m) might that be?
  • maxhmaxh Posts: 1,224
    edited October 13
    Leon said:

    maxh said:

    Leon said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:


    Sir Keir Starmer has taken down portraits of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh that were on display in Downing Street
    https://x.com/DominicPenna/status/1845486129425817766

    He really is a fucking commie

    I despise him

    More to the point, so does most of Britain.
    You have hung the coat of your hatred this time not even on a badly assembled IKEA hangar rail but on a Poundland plant pot.

    "A spokeswoman for Sir Keir said: “The change of artwork is long planned, since before the election, and is timed to mark 125 years of the Government Art Collection”"
    You do realise I sometimes just post total shit for the enjoyable fuck of it?

    It's a known thing on t'internet, and I speak as someone who recently and personally encountered Tim Berners Lee's computer where he invented the World Wide Web
    Nah that's a crap excuse. You're shitposting tonight and it's boring. Your posts often add a lot to this board but that's no excuse for this crap.
    Sorry I ignored your header
    You see through me like I'm a pane of glass. I am going to bed in a grump.

    ETA: I shall forgive you in the morning , though, as long as you're good from now on.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    maxh said:

    Leon said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:


    Sir Keir Starmer has taken down portraits of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh that were on display in Downing Street
    https://x.com/DominicPenna/status/1845486129425817766

    He really is a fucking commie

    I despise him

    More to the point, so does most of Britain.
    You have hung the coat of your hatred this time not even on a badly assembled IKEA hangar rail but on a Poundland plant pot.

    "A spokeswoman for Sir Keir said: “The change of artwork is long planned, since before the election, and is timed to mark 125 years of the Government Art Collection”"
    You do realise I sometimes just post total shit for the enjoyable fuck of it?

    It's a known thing on t'internet, and I speak as someone who recently and personally encountered Tim Berners Lee's computer where he invented the World Wide Web
    Your posts often add a lot to this board.
    Citation needed.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559

    Leon said:

    Regardless of the Independent's headline, who is going to win?

    Badenoch is the clear favourite but personally I suspect there's still a racist tinge to the Toriy membership that will favour Jenrick.

    Doesn't matter.

    Either way, Starmer continues to be a very lucky general.
    He's dropped 49 points of popularity in 60 days, going from +11 in mid August to -38 in mid October, an utterly unprecedented fall for any winning prime minister. He is now held in contempt by any sane individual

    You have an unusual definition of "lucky"

    The election is four years away. That's lucky.

    The Conservatives are making another bad choice. That's very lucky.
    With plenty of time still left on the clock, to make yet ANOTHER bad choice . . . as at the dawn of the current millennium . . .
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,651
    Leon said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:


    Sir Keir Starmer has taken down portraits of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh that were on display in Downing Street
    https://x.com/DominicPenna/status/1845486129425817766

    He really is a fucking commie

    I despise him

    More to the point, so does most of Britain.
    You have hung the coat of your hatred this time not even on a badly assembled IKEA hangar rail but on a Poundland plant pot.

    "A spokeswoman for Sir Keir said: “The change of artwork is long planned, since before the election, and is timed to mark 125 years of the Government Art Collection”"
    You do realise I sometimes just post total shit for the enjoyable fuck of it?

    It's a known thing on t'internet, and I speak as someone who recently and personally encountered Tim Berners Lee's computer where he invented the World Wide Web
    Yes, we're all well aware you post total shit.
  • HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:


    Sir Keir Starmer has taken down portraits of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh that were on display in Downing Street
    https://x.com/DominicPenna/status/1845486129425817766

    He really is a fucking commie

    I despise him

    More to the point, so does most of Britain.
    I suspect he removed the portraits of Thatcher and Gladstone as he couldn't bear them looking down on him and feeling what a minnow he was in comparison.

    He removed Elizabeth I and Raleigh as that was the woke thing for him to do
    Mrs Thatcher is responsible for many of the problems we now face.
  • StereodogStereodog Posts: 692
    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    COOKING TIP


    When microwaving baked potatoes OVERcook them so they gain this weird delicious crispiness, even crunchiness, then soften this dried snappabiltiy with fats - oil, butter, the flavoured oils from a fried steak. Then they become utterly delicious and better than baked spuds from the oven

    The average single baked spud needs maybe 17 minutes at full power

    Nothing tastier than a crunchy potato.
    Honestly, they're great. But you have to be watchful, it takes about a minute for them to go from wonderfully crunchy to inedible cinders, but if you hit the sweet spot, MMMMMM

    I believe, and I am wary of exaggeration, that my microwaved baked potato discovery is on a par with Elon Musk's Giant Chopsticks Capturing The World's Hugest Missile achievement earlier today, tho I accept that the several PB-ers with Musk Derangement Syndrome will clearly see my triumph as the greater, and I am thankful for their approbation
    You need to get an air fryer.
    I almost certainly do, but I don't have room in a small 1 bed flat

    A flat which BTW I love, for my sins, BECAUSE it is so small. Lock up and leave!

    I fly to Asia tomorrow

    I have a small flat too but the air fryer is a must. I barely turn my oven on anymore. It really doesn't take all that much worktop space and more than justifies it.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,687
    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    COOKING TIP


    When microwaving baked potatoes OVERcook them so they gain this weird delicious crispiness, even crunchiness, then soften this dried snappabiltiy with fats - oil, butter, the flavoured oils from a fried steak. Then they become utterly delicious and better than baked spuds from the oven

    The average single baked spud needs maybe 17 minutes at full power

    Nothing tastier than a crunchy potato.
    Honestly, they're great. But you have to be watchful, it takes about a minute for them to go from wonderfully crunchy to inedible cinders, but if you hit the sweet spot, MMMMMM

    I believe, and I am wary of exaggeration, that my microwaved baked potato discovery is on a par with Elon Musk's Giant Chopsticks Capturing The World's Hugest Missile achievement earlier today, tho I accept that the several PB-ers with Musk Derangement Syndrome will clearly see my triumph as the greater, and I am thankful for their approbation
    You need to get an air fryer.
    I almost certainly do, but I don't have room in a small 1 bed flat

    A flat which BTW I love, for my sins, BECAUSE it is so small. Lock up and leave!

    I fly to Asia tomorrow

    The flight of the snowbirds seems to come earlier each year.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,228
    maxh said:

    Leon said:

    maxh said:

    Leon said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:


    Sir Keir Starmer has taken down portraits of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh that were on display in Downing Street
    https://x.com/DominicPenna/status/1845486129425817766

    He really is a fucking commie

    I despise him

    More to the point, so does most of Britain.
    You have hung the coat of your hatred this time not even on a badly assembled IKEA hangar rail but on a Poundland plant pot.

    "A spokeswoman for Sir Keir said: “The change of artwork is long planned, since before the election, and is timed to mark 125 years of the Government Art Collection”"
    You do realise I sometimes just post total shit for the enjoyable fuck of it?

    It's a known thing on t'internet, and I speak as someone who recently and personally encountered Tim Berners Lee's computer where he invented the World Wide Web
    Nah that's a crap excuse. You're shitposting tonight and it's boring. Your posts often add a lot to this board but that's no excuse for this crap.
    Sorry I ignored your header
    You see through me like I'm a pane of glass. I am going to bed in a grump.
    You usually write really well! I just had issues to get off my chest and didn't have time to dawdle

    Schlaft gut
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,983
    Are any PB Tories actually supporting Badenoch? I’ve not yet seen anyone declaring she has their vote. There are several Bobby J supporters here. Is this a useful tip for the actual vote?

    In Jenrick and Badenoch I think I’m starting to deduce the distinction between different flavours of populist right wing Conservative, and how their support differs. Badenoch is all vibes. Jenrick seems to have much more appeal to the proper ideological rightwingers, the heirs to Redwood and Lilley.

    However, I’m not sure we have a true bellwether Tory member here. I used to think BigG was that median grassroots member but the Overton window has now left him behind. HYUFD is too engaged, too active, too ideological to count. Other right wingers on here are not necessarily Tory members. What is the average common or garden Conservative Party activist thinking? Who here can speak for them?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,228
    Stereodog said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    COOKING TIP


    When microwaving baked potatoes OVERcook them so they gain this weird delicious crispiness, even crunchiness, then soften this dried snappabiltiy with fats - oil, butter, the flavoured oils from a fried steak. Then they become utterly delicious and better than baked spuds from the oven

    The average single baked spud needs maybe 17 minutes at full power

    Nothing tastier than a crunchy potato.
    Honestly, they're great. But you have to be watchful, it takes about a minute for them to go from wonderfully crunchy to inedible cinders, but if you hit the sweet spot, MMMMMM

    I believe, and I am wary of exaggeration, that my microwaved baked potato discovery is on a par with Elon Musk's Giant Chopsticks Capturing The World's Hugest Missile achievement earlier today, tho I accept that the several PB-ers with Musk Derangement Syndrome will clearly see my triumph as the greater, and I am thankful for their approbation
    You need to get an air fryer.
    I almost certainly do, but I don't have room in a small 1 bed flat

    A flat which BTW I love, for my sins, BECAUSE it is so small. Lock up and leave!

    I fly to Asia tomorrow

    I have a small flat too but the air fryer is a must. I barely turn my oven on anymore. It really doesn't take all that much worktop space and more than justifies it.
    Really? It's that good? Why??

    Genuine question. I probably have room for one more device in my small but lovable kitchen

    An air fryer is that much of a boon?

    PB has already persuaded me to get a smartwatch, and that was a great decision, so an air fryer as well?
  • TimS said:

    Are any PB Tories actually supporting Badenoch? I’ve not yet seen anyone declaring she has their vote. There are several Bobby J supporters here. Is this a useful tip for the actual vote?

    In Jenrick and Badenoch I think I’m starting to deduce the distinction between different flavours of populist right wing Conservative, and how their support differs. Badenoch is all vibes. Jenrick seems to have much more appeal to the proper ideological rightwingers, the heirs to Redwood and Lilley.

    However, I’m not sure we have a true bellwether Tory member here. I used to think BigG was that median grassroots member but the Overton window has now left him behind. HYUFD is too engaged, too active, too ideological to count. Other right wingers on here are not necessarily Tory members. What is the average common or garden Conservative Party activist thinking? Who here can speak for them?

    I would join the Tory Party and vote for Jenrick as revenge for Corbyn in 2015 (yes I know I supported him).
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,687
    Leon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    COOKING TIP


    When microwaving baked potatoes OVERcook them so they gain this weird delicious crispiness, even crunchiness, then soften this dried snappabiltiy with fats - oil, butter, the flavoured oils from a fried steak. Then they become utterly delicious and better than baked spuds from the oven

    The average single baked spud needs maybe 17 minutes at full power

    Nothing tastier than a crunchy potato.
    Honestly, they're great. But you have to be watchful, it takes about a minute for them to go from wonderfully crunchy to inedible cinders, but if you hit the sweet spot, MMMMMM

    I believe, and I am wary of exaggeration, that my microwaved baked potato discovery is on a par with Elon Musk's Giant Chopsticks Capturing The World's Hugest Missile achievement earlier today, tho I accept that the several PB-ers with Musk Derangement Syndrome will clearly see my triumph as the greater, and I am thankful for their approbation
    If South African Rocket Man would just stick to rockets the world would be a better place.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,983

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:


    Sir Keir Starmer has taken down portraits of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh that were on display in Downing Street
    https://x.com/DominicPenna/status/1845486129425817766

    He really is a fucking commie

    I despise him

    More to the point, so does most of Britain.
    I suspect he removed the portraits of Thatcher and Gladstone as he couldn't bear them looking down on him and feeling what a minnow he was in comparison.

    He removed Elizabeth I and Raleigh as that was the woke thing for him to do
    Mrs Thatcher is responsible for many of the problems we now face.
    Gladstone does have those eyes that follow you around the room, judgingly, in all portraits I’ve seen of him. So I can understand.

    In fact Thatcher and Gladstone are probably the two scariest PMs, in the headteacher sense of the word.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,859
    FF43 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Regardless of the Independent's headline, who is going to win?

    Badenoch is the clear favourite but personally I suspect there's still a racist tinge to the Toriy membership that will favour Jenrick.

    Based on the Tory member WhatsApp groups I am a part of, Badenoch to win roughly the same amount Truss defeated Sunak.
    I'll be happy with that outcome. They're both rubbish but I would like to be proven wrong in my assessment of the Tory membership.
    I think it’s the worst choice that has ever faced the Tory party membership. If I had to choose, I guess I’d go with Badenoch too.
    A dodgy ***** is only going to become worse given a sniff of power, whereas someone immature might one day grow up and someone ineffectual might one day learn something.
    At what age could we expect an immature 44 year old to grow up?
    Sometimes, getting a top job is all that it takes.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,983
    Leon said:

    Stereodog said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    COOKING TIP


    When microwaving baked potatoes OVERcook them so they gain this weird delicious crispiness, even crunchiness, then soften this dried snappabiltiy with fats - oil, butter, the flavoured oils from a fried steak. Then they become utterly delicious and better than baked spuds from the oven

    The average single baked spud needs maybe 17 minutes at full power

    Nothing tastier than a crunchy potato.
    Honestly, they're great. But you have to be watchful, it takes about a minute for them to go from wonderfully crunchy to inedible cinders, but if you hit the sweet spot, MMMMMM

    I believe, and I am wary of exaggeration, that my microwaved baked potato discovery is on a par with Elon Musk's Giant Chopsticks Capturing The World's Hugest Missile achievement earlier today, tho I accept that the several PB-ers with Musk Derangement Syndrome will clearly see my triumph as the greater, and I am thankful for their approbation
    You need to get an air fryer.
    I almost certainly do, but I don't have room in a small 1 bed flat

    A flat which BTW I love, for my sins, BECAUSE it is so small. Lock up and leave!

    I fly to Asia tomorrow

    I have a small flat too but the air fryer is a must. I barely turn my oven on anymore. It really doesn't take all that much worktop space and more than justifies it.
    Really? It's that good? Why??

    Genuine question. I probably have room for one more device in my small but lovable kitchen

    An air fryer is that much of a boon?

    PB has already persuaded me to get a smartwatch, and that was a great decision, so an air fryer as well?
    I just bought a basket press, so I can crush my own grapes. Definitely not enough space on the kitchen work surface for that.

    I’ve resisted an air fryer because they are unattractively rounded in shape and look naff, like a 90s CD player, but they do seem to be very useful machines.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,651
    Image of the evening is Leon all alone in his one bed flat with his microwaved baked potato.

    Living the dream!
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,228
    TimS said:

    Leon said:

    Stereodog said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    COOKING TIP


    When microwaving baked potatoes OVERcook them so they gain this weird delicious crispiness, even crunchiness, then soften this dried snappabiltiy with fats - oil, butter, the flavoured oils from a fried steak. Then they become utterly delicious and better than baked spuds from the oven

    The average single baked spud needs maybe 17 minutes at full power

    Nothing tastier than a crunchy potato.
    Honestly, they're great. But you have to be watchful, it takes about a minute for them to go from wonderfully crunchy to inedible cinders, but if you hit the sweet spot, MMMMMM

    I believe, and I am wary of exaggeration, that my microwaved baked potato discovery is on a par with Elon Musk's Giant Chopsticks Capturing The World's Hugest Missile achievement earlier today, tho I accept that the several PB-ers with Musk Derangement Syndrome will clearly see my triumph as the greater, and I am thankful for their approbation
    You need to get an air fryer.
    I almost certainly do, but I don't have room in a small 1 bed flat

    A flat which BTW I love, for my sins, BECAUSE it is so small. Lock up and leave!

    I fly to Asia tomorrow

    I have a small flat too but the air fryer is a must. I barely turn my oven on anymore. It really doesn't take all that much worktop space and more than justifies it.
    Really? It's that good? Why??

    Genuine question. I probably have room for one more device in my small but lovable kitchen

    An air fryer is that much of a boon?

    PB has already persuaded me to get a smartwatch, and that was a great decision, so an air fryer as well?
    I just bought a basket press, so I can crush my own grapes. Definitely not enough space on the kitchen work surface for that.

    I’ve resisted an air fryer because they are unattractively rounded in shape and look naff, like a 90s CD player, but they do seem to be very useful machines.
    Yes exactly, they are so ugly. They look like rice cookers, which are pointless

    But I am willing to be persuaded by the Gathered Genius of PB. Which has somewhat changed my life - for the better - with the Garmin Venu 3
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,651
    TimS said:

    Are any PB Tories actually supporting Badenoch? I’ve not yet seen anyone declaring she has their vote. There are several Bobby J supporters here. Is this a useful tip for the actual vote?

    In Jenrick and Badenoch I think I’m starting to deduce the distinction between different flavours of populist right wing Conservative, and how their support differs. Badenoch is all vibes. Jenrick seems to have much more appeal to the proper ideological rightwingers, the heirs to Redwood and Lilley.

    However, I’m not sure we have a true bellwether Tory member here. I used to think BigG was that median grassroots member but the Overton window has now left him behind. HYUFD is too engaged, too active, too ideological to count. Other right wingers on here are not necessarily Tory members. What is the average common or garden Conservative Party activist thinking? Who here can speak for them?

    TSE said he was minded to vote for Badenoch, on the basis she is not Jenrick.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,874
    edited October 13

    TimS said:

    Are any PB Tories actually supporting Badenoch? I’ve not yet seen anyone declaring she has their vote. There are several Bobby J supporters here. Is this a useful tip for the actual vote?

    In Jenrick and Badenoch I think I’m starting to deduce the distinction between different flavours of populist right wing Conservative, and how their support differs. Badenoch is all vibes. Jenrick seems to have much more appeal to the proper ideological rightwingers, the heirs to Redwood and Lilley.

    However, I’m not sure we have a true bellwether Tory member here. I used to think BigG was that median grassroots member but the Overton window has now left him behind. HYUFD is too engaged, too active, too ideological to count. Other right wingers on here are not necessarily Tory members. What is the average common or garden Conservative Party activist thinking? Who here can speak for them?

    I would join the Tory Party and vote for Jenrick as revenge for Corbyn in 2015 (yes I know I supported him).
    Jenrick isn't Corbyn, more Andy Burnham, a moderate showing some leg to the party members.

    Kemi is far more Corbyn than Jenrick
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 63,009
    edited October 13
    TimS said:

    Are any PB Tories actually supporting Badenoch? I’ve not yet seen anyone declaring she has their vote. There are several Bobby J supporters here. Is this a useful tip for the actual vote?

    In Jenrick and Badenoch I think I’m starting to deduce the distinction between different flavours of populist right wing Conservative, and how their support differs. Badenoch is all vibes. Jenrick seems to have much more appeal to the proper ideological rightwingers, the heirs to Redwood and Lilley.

    However, I’m not sure we have a true bellwether Tory member here. I used to think BigG was that median grassroots member but the Overton window has now left him behind. HYUFD is too engaged, too active, too ideological to count. Other right wingers on here are not necessarily Tory members. What is the average common or garden Conservative Party activist thinking? Who here can speak for them?

    I am not a member anymore and would have rejoined if Cleverly had won

    I simply do not like Jenrick and frankly know little about Badenoch but if I had a vote it would be Badenoch as the better of the two

    Maybe neither will lead into GE29, but as the Observer warns labour today not to assume this is another free gift and the outcome of the leadership and success or failure will only become apparent in time

    It is even possible with Labour in free fall and now level with the conservatives both could continue to decline as Reform takes advantage

    This is not what I want, but it is not out of the question and for that reason I hope whoever wins will take the fight to Reform

    I would just add I still receive surveys from Conhome and have not had anything to date
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,191
    TimS said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:


    Sir Keir Starmer has taken down portraits of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh that were on display in Downing Street
    https://x.com/DominicPenna/status/1845486129425817766

    He really is a fucking commie

    I despise him

    More to the point, so does most of Britain.
    I suspect he removed the portraits of Thatcher and Gladstone as he couldn't bear them looking down on him and feeling what a minnow he was in comparison.

    He removed Elizabeth I and Raleigh as that was the woke thing for him to do
    Mrs Thatcher is responsible for many of the problems we now face.
    Gladstone does have those eyes that follow you around the room, judgingly, in all portraits I’ve seen of him. So I can understand.

    In fact Thatcher and Gladstone are probably the two scariest PMs, in the headteacher sense of the word.
    The Thatcher portrait should have been hung in the toilet at No 10. Where it would do good service.

    The whole world knows that nothing makes a lefty shit quicker than the sight of Maggie…
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,022
    Leon said:

    Who the fuck flagged this perfectly measured and sensible post about Elon on the prior thread?


    “It is properly incredible

    The idea that the UK government excluded this genius from its “enterprise” conference because they don’t like his politics is the Purest Cringe

    Musk is a titanic genius - and will be seen as such for all his flaws. And who excluded him? Rachel fucking Reeves the lesbian Worzel Gummidge? Keir Starmer a pig-faced idiot of a man who sacrifices all morality for free Taylor Swift tickets?

    Its mortifying. Britain is governed by repulsive moral dwarves”

    I suspect someone objected to your using ‘lesbian’ as an insult.
    Most of us are accustomed to your 70s schoolboy knockabout, but clearly not everyone.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,874

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:


    Sir Keir Starmer has taken down portraits of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh that were on display in Downing Street
    https://x.com/DominicPenna/status/1845486129425817766

    He really is a fucking commie

    I despise him

    More to the point, so does most of Britain.
    I suspect he removed the portraits of Thatcher and Gladstone as he couldn't bear them looking down on him and feeling what a minnow he was in comparison.

    He removed Elizabeth I and Raleigh as that was the woke thing for him to do
    Mrs Thatcher is responsible for many of the problems we now face.
    Given the union dominated, high tax economic basketcase were were in 1979 and the still free Falklands she isn't
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,767
    Leon said:

    COOKING TIP


    When microwaving baked potatoes OVERcook them so they gain this weird delicious crispiness, even crunchiness, then soften this dried snappabiltiy with fats - oil, butter, the flavoured oils from a fried steak. Then they become utterly delicious and better than baked spuds from the oven

    The average single baked spud needs maybe 17 minutes at full power

    A combination microwave and regular oven will generally have a preset proramme for cooking baked potatoes combining the two cooking methods so they cook quickly but also have a lovely toasted jacket. On ours you just have to enter the weight of potatoes you are cooking.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,540
    edited October 13
    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:


    Sir Keir Starmer has taken down portraits of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh that were on display in Downing Street
    https://x.com/DominicPenna/status/1845486129425817766

    He really is a fucking commie

    I despise him

    More to the point, so does most of Britain.
    Pity you voted for him personally a few weeks ago. 😊
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,348
    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    it is quite plausible that Nigel Farage becomes PM in 2028

    No, it isn't
    If no single party gets more than 30% of the vote then all sorts of weird things can happen with seats under FPTP.
  • Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:


    Sir Keir Starmer has taken down portraits of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh that were on display in Downing Street
    https://x.com/DominicPenna/status/1845486129425817766

    He really is a fucking commie

    I despise him

    More to the point, so does most of Britain.
    Pity you voted for him personally a few weeks ago. 😊
    Oh well, maybe he will surprise on the upside
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,228

    Image of the evening is Leon all alone in his one bed flat with his microwaved baked potato.

    Living the dream!

    You have to travel the world, constantly and for decades, meeting people of all kinds and all over, to see where I am coming from. eg in the last six weeks I have been to Vancouver, the Rockies, Whistler, the Okanagan Valley, all over British Columbia, then back in Europe: Montenegro's coast, the biggest canyon in Europe (Montenegro), Durmitor national park (Montenegro), the biggest lake in the Balkans (Skadar) then back to Tivat, then on to Kosovo, the neglected capital, Pristine, the interior, also Albania, and Tirana the capital, and then the Dinaric Alps, and then across those Alps, then nervous Serbian villages in the still war-torn Kosovan interior, then towns on the dodgy Serb-Kosovan border, then off to Geneva, and the Villa Diodati. and bourgeoius Switzerland, and then CERN on the Franco-Swiss border, and intense vibes of scientific Noom, and all this in SIX WEEKS.....

    ... and then you understand why being alone in my one bed flat over-baking a potato, after meeting an old friend in Richmond for a pint, can feel like bliss
  • Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    it is quite plausible that Nigel Farage becomes PM in 2028

    No, it isn't
    You would just need the state of the parties to be what they were in June 2019 for that.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,541

    Image of the evening is Leon all alone in his one bed flat with his microwaved baked potato.

    Living the dream!

    He's not all alone.

    He has his watch.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,348
    Leon said:

    Stereodog said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    COOKING TIP


    When microwaving baked potatoes OVERcook them so they gain this weird delicious crispiness, even crunchiness, then soften this dried snappabiltiy with fats - oil, butter, the flavoured oils from a fried steak. Then they become utterly delicious and better than baked spuds from the oven

    The average single baked spud needs maybe 17 minutes at full power

    Nothing tastier than a crunchy potato.
    Honestly, they're great. But you have to be watchful, it takes about a minute for them to go from wonderfully crunchy to inedible cinders, but if you hit the sweet spot, MMMMMM

    I believe, and I am wary of exaggeration, that my microwaved baked potato discovery is on a par with Elon Musk's Giant Chopsticks Capturing The World's Hugest Missile achievement earlier today, tho I accept that the several PB-ers with Musk Derangement Syndrome will clearly see my triumph as the greater, and I am thankful for their approbation
    You need to get an air fryer.
    I almost certainly do, but I don't have room in a small 1 bed flat

    A flat which BTW I love, for my sins, BECAUSE it is so small. Lock up and leave!

    I fly to Asia tomorrow

    I have a small flat too but the air fryer is a must. I barely turn my oven on anymore. It really doesn't take all that much worktop space and more than justifies it.
    Really? It's that good? Why??

    Genuine question. I probably have room for one more device in my small but lovable kitchen

    An air fryer is that much of a boon?

    PB has already persuaded me to get a smartwatch, and that was a great decision, so an air fryer as well?
    My mother-in-law likes hers. You can cook a chicken in it and it's as good as roasted in the oven, but in one-third the time. Sausages have also cooked very well.

    Sweet potato was a bit of a failure, as was the attempt at poached eggs, but, yes, my initial scepticism was misplaced.
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