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Damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t – politicalbetting.com
Damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t – politicalbetting.com
I could almost have sympathy for Rachel Reeves. The much hyped October budget approaches and whatever she does she will have the sound of wailing and the gnashing of teeth. It has been her misfortune to hang her hat on the OBR and thereby leave a vacuum on what she will do.
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Edit: one better than that!
So far, I’ve had to physically block six cyclists who ran a red light and then tried to cut straight across the front of a wheelchair user which would have caused a crash.
WTF London cyclists? Do you have to be utter Tristram Hunts?
Robert Jenrick would be vulnerable as Tory leader because the country has had enough of “Tory boys”, Michael Gove has said.
Speaking on the BBC’s Today podcast, the former Cabinet minister said: “Robert’s strengths are diligence, rigour, hunger. He is someone who has focused on the big questions that have been the party’s internal conversation.
“I think one of his weaknesses is that he looks like a typical Tory politician. And, given the strength of feeling against Tory boys expressed at the last general election, that’s a challenge.”
Mr Gove, a former leadership contender, said he was “very fond” of Kemi Badenoch, Mr Jenrick’s opponent in the Tory leadership race, because of her “courage”.
He said: “Courage is her hallmark. One of the criticisms directed at her is that she’s too willing to get involved in a scrap. I think it’s a virtue.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/10/17/gove-would-vote-for-lesser-of-two-evils-harris-over-trump/
She wants to win and needs his help.
Shades of the moron who tried to knock me and a little old lady down, years back on Kew Bridge. Then waved his U lock at me, because I stopped his progress. Wonder if one of the mud larks has found the lock, yet.....
She has spent the last fortnight hiding from the media, such that Sophy Ridge carried an entire segment last night on her disappearing act.
And she was invisible as a minister – always absent when the going got tough.
She's hopeless.
If it doesn't upset enough people, then it will have shied away from the reality of the present situation. If it upsets the wrong people, then it will likely make things worse.
Let's just say that I don't think newspaper journalists, their editors, or their owners are the people Reeves should be worried about upsetting. An anguished howl of protest from Fleet Street is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for a successful budget.
Currently tempted to write ‘Bring back Dave’ on it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uty-EWzRMNU&t=1681s
Noticed that the cyclists who rock up in a big, expensive car, driving like thugs.... assemble their bike etc then tend to be utter thugs on the circuit.
Dave gave Salmond, the question, the timing, and the franchise he wanted and still crushed Scottish Nationalism.
Blooming unnerving when that happens.
I did wonder if it was someone who knew me...
A loophole is available - pop a leg over and scoot across.
All of this has been caused by the Ming vase strategy of the general election - safety first and be a grey canvas.
There is a lack of a political strategic message - what is Labour for apart from being not Tories? This is the vacuum mentioned above.
The issues around Sue Gray were around procedure and admin not political strategy.
The Budget is the opportunity to paint the canvas is bright colours.
If this is missed others will.
Last week, I nearly got wiped by a London cyclist, appearing at speed from behind a bus waiting to turn across a junction.
Or willl they hold off the biggest stories until after the funeral, out of respect for the family?
(My book disagrees on that though and, given I think they're both shit, I'm happy for Jenrick to win and make me some money. I do think Badenoch has more lolz potential, while Jenrick has more horror potential.)
I know it’s the Mail, but it does appear than abandoned rental bikes are posing a serious threat to the disabled travelling in buggies and wheelchairs in London.
Florin Lacatus, 58, a former builder, relies on a mobility scooter to take him the 400 yards from his flat in Wembley, north-west London, to his local Tesco.
‘I used to be so active – doing karate,’ he says, but he now has Parkinson’s disease and endured a stroke 18 months ago, meaning he can no longer walk. And if there’s one thing that’s increasingly causing him problems, it’s Lime bikes.
I ride a mountain bike, in London. Good for dealing with potholes, and it's got low enough gearing that stopping and starting is pretty easy. Stopping and starting at red lights and zebra crossings is part of the experience of urban cycling.
Parked bikes in the way? Flip them into next week.
Stupid barriers? An array of angle grinders.
Speeding cyclists? Flamethrower.
Every complaint should be a parking ticket, which is what, £150 in London at the moment, with 50% given to the reporter, and a website to encourage reports and incentivise local CCTV operators too. The bikes have movement sensors, so it will be obvious if someone just moves it to take a photo.
Crazy that it's only Edinburgh and London with a ban (Glasgow soon).
Badenoch seems to me to be a low hope candidate with not a totally deterministic outcome. Someone who might 'surprise on the upside'.
Cleverly within 18 months.
"I don’t like Jenrick's politics, so I am going to dress up my dislike of him as sage, dispassionate psephological commentary."
Swap another 2 by 2026, and make it an 8 in 10 job !
'Tory Boy' sums him up well, and Gove should know one when he sees one.
[Tory Boys do not win in the Red Wall]
BREAKING: The former chief marketer for NBC apologizes to the American people for giving us Donald Trump by helping to sell “The Apprentice” myth to the American people.
This is humiliating for MAGA…
“I want to apologize to America. I helped create a monster,” writes John D. Miller in a piece entitled “We Created a Monster: Trump Was a TV Fantasy Invented for 'The Apprentice'” for U.S. News & World Report.
“For nearly 25 years, I led marketing at NBC and NBCUniversal,” Miller explains. “I led the team that marketed ‘The Apprentice,’ the reality show that made Donald Trump a household name outside of New York City, where he was better known for overextending his empire and appearing in celebrity gossip columns.”
He goes on to state that his team “created the narrative that Trump was a super-successful businessman who lived like royalty” which was a “substantial exaggeration” that “created a false narrative by making him seem more successful than he was.”
Miller points out that Trump had to declare bankruptcy four times before the show premiered and at least twice over the course of its 14 seasons.
“The imposing board room where he famously fired contestants was a set, because his real boardroom was too old and shabby for TV,” writers Miller.
In a section that is certain to bruise Trump’s ego, Miller states that he was the “perfect choice” for the show because “more successful CEOs were too busy to get involved in reality TV and didn’t want to hire random game show winners onto their executive teams.”
Meanwhile, Trump “had no such concerns” and “plenty of time for filming.”
“I never imagined that the picture we painted of Trump as a successful businessman would help catapult him to the White House,” writes Miller, likening all of their advertising around the show to “fake news” because it was so “highly exaggerated.”
“I discovered in my interactions with him over the years that he is manipulative, yet extraordinarily easy to manipulate,” he goes on. “He has an unfillable compliment hole. No amount is too much. Flatter him and he is compliant. World leaders, including apparently Russian strongman Vladimir Putin and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, have discovered that too.”
Not surprisingly, Trump was full of bad suggestions for the show. He wanted to make “a team of Black players compete against white players.” Miller tried to convince him against it by appealing to Trump’s greed and telling him that it would alienate sponsors.
“While we were successful in marketing ‘The Apprentice,’ we also did irreparable harm by creating the false image of Trump as a successful leader. I deeply regret that,” writers Miller. “And I regret that it has taken me so long to go public.”
https://x.com/OccupyDemocrats/status/1846939723379450122
I agree the budget is probably the last chance for Labour to define the start of its term. A successful budget would make everything up until then fade into the background.
For the good of the country I am hoping (but not expecting) that they have been spending the last hundred days perfectly preparing the thread that they are going to use to thread the impossibly fine needle they have been handed by the Tories.
We'll soon see.
Following those two, the admittedly rather more beautiful and more empathic Ms. Mordant will sweep in on a chariot.
Doesn't seem too hard if this is correct, equalize CGT, remove the cap on NI and secure ear defenders.
Priorities...
Energy : Modernise the grid, insulate old housing stock, encourage smart usage and invest in renewables and energy storage
Health: Get waiting lists down (just pour money in), encourage healthier lifestyles and invest in earlier diagnostics and better treatments. It's in a mess because the coalition govt austerity ran up waiting lists resulting in patients being in worse health when they finally got treated.
Immigration: Speed up processing, get them integrated into society or returned if ineligible.
Politics: Regain control of the messaging and project a bit of hope
Autucorrect, ofcourse, wasn't in thr mood to allow to me to say the correct spelling, Mordaunt.
Somewhere in Essex, Alan Sugar changes the subject ....
https://www.transport.gov.scot/news/pavement-parking-ban/
https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-raked-in-427-million-on-the-apprentice-nyt-2020-9
As you say, ear defenders at the ready.
I wonder if these also play a part in what happens.
She needs to do something which affects everyone but is more stealth than explicit. I expect for that reason a lot of freezing thresholds which most people will have difficulty equating to actual deprivation.
A budget with an ever expanding imagined black hole.
A budget where the pre-announced key changes have managed to grow this imagined black hole, rather than help to close it.
A budget where numerous last minute decisions are being made.
Really inspires confidence. Reeves and Starmer are both dreadful communicators. It's going to be a shambles that will fall apart within hours.
Lab's version of this dilemma is that no one voted for them to become poorer; they voted for them to make someone else become poorer and they (Lab) simply can't square this circle.
My worst experience though was parked up in a layby behind an HGV, driver walked past on his way back from the toilet, got in the cab and then a couple of minutes later, presumably after stowing his jazz mag, the reversing lights came on, I leant on my horn immediately but still got shunted 2 metres backwards.
That one (Tradeston Bridge) is about 6.5m wide, with a 1m suspension structure in the middle and inward leaning parapets at handlebar height, and was done using (by the look of it) "shared space" ideas in 2009. It recognises that people and cycles move in curves, not right angles, which is good.
That does not look that resilient if cycling and mobility traffic increases substantially (say 5-10x from current levels), though for Glasgow that may take some time. But nor does it seem to follow the usual British "build to the lowest standard possible for the least money possible" practice. The one that's going in in Ladybay in Nottingham suffers to an extent from that.
https://www.google.com/maps/@55.8556439,-4.2639716,3a,75y,359.79h,68.76t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipN7HaiXx7gvRBHSjymQ7JMLrLOWFO5Yim2ueaGT!2e10!3e11!6shttps://lh5.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipN7HaiXx7gvRBHSjymQ7JMLrLOWFO5Yim2ueaGT=w96-h64-k-no-pi-0.87945133-ya76.11607-ro-1.2237121-fo100!7i5760!8i2880?coh=205409&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTAxNC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw==
What do you think of more recent ones?
It also reminds me of the "Art of the Deal" book's author , and his guillt in creating the first part of Trump's image, earlier on in the '80s. What both those accounts do.build together to illustrate, though, is the extraordinary power of the media in America between the 1980's and 2000's the promote the most cartoonish, ruthless and bullying ideas of business. It's still going on with these series, as well as in the U.K.
But as this morning's thread pointed out, The X Factor gave us One Direction.
Swing state map: Polls move in Trump’s direction, but the race remains tight
https://www.npr.org/2024/10/15/nx-s1-5153420/swing-state-map-donald-trump-kamala-harris-polls
My nap is that pensions pots will be brought into IHT in some form, as if I have it right, when the pensioner pops their clogs the remaining investments are untaxed money.
(Though is there something about CGT on asset sales within pension schemes?)
My wife has just exchanged her stunning silver with a red soft top Mercedes cabriolet with a private plate that spells her name in full, for something very much more demure and less offensive to cyclists after she was threatened with f-bombs, c- bombs and a 28" Campagnolo front wheel thrust into her face through the open window of her car for having the temerity to warn them of her presence as they rode two abreast on a moderately narrow road.
The angry one was clearly not a Conservative voter!
The most interesting thing from that study was that cyclists are much more likely to obey rules when there is cycling infrastructure available - a sort of quid pro quo, perhaps.
Keir Starmer in Rising Damp
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Gy3yI1_ZG_g