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After the crucial Osborne endorsement Badenoch continues to soar – politicalbetting.com

Shock: @George_Osborne for @KemiBadenoch pic.twitter.com/qQrrfBd88q
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Why Haiti is Dying & the DR is Booming
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpWb3MTV9bg
It was only 44 minutes on the difference between Yemen and Oman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbHG-NrmEZI A good question, it feels weird not to have heard of such a thing - as arbitrary as the requirements might be, I guess employers may have wide latitude, even in the public sector?
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
All I can say is I didn't vote for her and at most expect her to be a bit better than Truss, helped by the fact being in opposition she doesn't straight away get to implement any plans. Not that I have seen many plans from her, it is Jenrick with the policies on new homes, lower immigration, lower taxes etc.
Indeed the biggest winner from a Kemi win is probably Farage, an Electoral Calculus poll has a Badenoch led Tories just 1% ahead of Reform on 22% to 21%. So I expect champagne corks will pop at Reform Towers if she does win
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_hypopoll_20241017.html
It's just a silly route to go down, eventually everyone will need to get second degrees to distinguish themselves (when I was at University Canadian students claimed this was already the case for them). When I was at school there was a big push around different types of intelligence, and how not everyone had the kind of academic style intelligence and that was ok, but such policies argue pretty strongly it is not ok, when there is literally nothing else stopping someone from doing the job.
Maybe I should have done my masters on this topic.
So long as she is a big fan of loosening rules on house building and increasing housing numbers, building wind farms and resevoirs etc, and a fan of council unitarisation (but an end to bespoke, arbitrary regionalist devolution), then she could get my vote. If I had one.
Now it is virtually obligatory - my eldest and her friends are planning it. And they are weeks into their first year.
Wonder how long before a PhD is mandatory for a good job?
But (a) you incur far fewer casualties as the defender than the attacker, and (b) if someone is attacking you, you will defend yourself to the death. It's rather different when you are the aggressor.
I don't think that sort of challenge could fly unless you could link it to a protected characteristic under the Equality Act as indirect discrimination - but that'd be a push. There might be some communities which have lower degree-holding rates than the public at large (or as other equivalent groups taking other characteristics into account) but applying that discrepancy to the case in hand could be hard.
Otherwise, if employers want to put arbitrary conditions on applicants then they can.
#WorkingMan
Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, handed himself on Friday afternoon in to Folkestone police station where he was charged with failing to provide the PIN to his mobile phone under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act. He was bailed to appear in court next month, Kent police said. He was then remanded in custody under a high court direction, the force said.
In July Robinson allegedly refused to give police access to his mobile phone when he was stopped under the Terrorism Act at the Channel tunnel. He had been bailed subject to returning to Folkestone police station.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/oct/25/tommy-robinson-held-in-custody-ahead-of-far-right-march-in-london
Robinson now a UKIP backer too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INKivrKqRg8
She certainly has much to do, at the moment she is polling worse than Rishi is
https://conservativehome.com/2024/10/25/badenoch-maintains-her-lead-in-our-final-leadership-survey/
Not speaking for myself, obviously.
I have said before I’m not entirely convinced that the Tories build their voter coalition back by trying to be trendy Cameroon centrists again. At least not right now.
I am not quite sure where the Tories end up under Badenoch. That makes her an interesting prospect.
Though history would suggest bland white male lawyer is a winning combination.
Even the stupid now know that, if you are a ad guy, when you cross as border, you back your phone up to one cloud account. Then sync it with another.
So when the police/border types demand to look on your phone, they get a list of messages to your mum about which flowers to get her for Mother’s Day.
Then, when you are across, you resync with your Evul Backup.
The clever versions of this are very devious. There’s a hacked version of Android, that opens different profiles with different passcodes. For example.
Missing a trick, UK could rescind his citizenship then Eire could have investigated whether he'd made a fraudulent application for Irish citizenship.
Badenoch was a Leaver, so will not win back LDs and opposes withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights, so will not win back Reform voters and is fanatically anti woke so will not win back voters from Labour or most young people either.
So who apart from wealthy metropolitan Tories like Maude and Gove and Osborne wanting a fashionable leader of their party to talk about at Kensington dinner parties does she actually appeal to?
Which candidate would come closest to being able to do that? I have no idea, but is leaving the ECHR really the only thing Reform voters care about? The Tories cannot do anything about immigration for now anyway, so I'd have thought they could afford to be less specific on that subject so long as they appear better than Labour.
If Ukraine can be supplied with greater quantities of ranged ammunition - they've been asking for funding for their domestic drone industry for example - then they can reverse the imbalance in ranged weapons to their advantage. They can destroy Russian munitions before they reach the battlefield, destroy more Russian artillery pieces, and inflict casualties on Russian infantry at a greater distance - reducing their own casualty rate at the same time.
That's the route to victory that also reduces the damage to the current generation of young Ukrainians.
Any damage they can be done to Russian war industry by making India and other countries a better offer to persuade them to prevent supply of components to Russia would also greatly help.
I’m not saying I definitely will, mind. Just that she has the potential to bring me back. A lot will depend on how Labour are doing though.
I can say with absolute certainty that I could not vote for Robert Jenrick.
SKS is currently shitting the bed to such a degree that any halfway competent Conservative leader can expect to make gains. SKS is a poor man’s Harold Wilson.
We’ll see if Badenoch is halfway competent. If she isn’t she can be replaced.
"Abuser in 'UK's largest catfishing case' jailed for life over girl's manslaughter"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cx245q4nyyet
In reality neither are the answer and will be gone within 3 years. The battle is Nigel v Bozo and either could be PM by 2028.
They don't actually use it for anything.
Ukrainian artillery shell hunger may not be over; but if it is not, then Russia is also famished.
I think it’s entirely possible that Badenoch could actually surprise on the downside - which would be some feat given how utterly useless she was as a government minister.
"The implosion of centrism has left Labour in unmapped territory
The world the party expected to join when it came to power no longer exists."
https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2024/10/implosion-centrism-leaves-labour-unmapped-territory
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
I said: I've discovered what happened. The person selling the land for which we have controlled the easiest entrance, demanded that the developer complete the thing pre-budget day, or it was off.
Clearly he thinks his CGT liability may suddenly jump on budget day.
It also shows how quickly big developers can react when forced to do so. This has been quietly ticking along for 3-4 years, and the developer has now committed to the transaction before having planning permission in place. Getting the PP is 90%+ likelihood; it's just how whatever is coming in will affect things.
That's one sort of shenigans I think she is tying to short circuit.
And would Liz Truss have been elected?
I'm not even giving the Tories advice on which of the two duds to pick.
If Harris is elected, and S Korea changes its policy because of fat Kim's involvement, next spring could look very different.
If Trump is elected, it will be grim for them.
Europe and the UK are going to really need to step up in the event the Americans leave the party.
Well @HYUFD you were right (also for @JohnO and @Cicero information and anyone else who commented) there was not some scandal or anything like that. It was a normal by election, which makes the result even more extraordinary with big swings from Labour and the Tories. I was given a list of reasons, but frankly they were nothing out of the ordinary. A ward that the LDs haven't fought for many years, but which will have been canvassed and leafleted heavily for the GE and having won it the momentum rolls on in what was their most difficult ward.
Interestingly I was told that the LDs are now the only party there that has the resources to really fight a full blown campaign. In my day it was only the Tories that could do that. We had some wards with no members and no supporters and had to target ruthlessly.
This does bode well for the County elections in Surrey for the LDs. I anticipate big gains for the LDs in parliamentary seats they won.
This however is counter to what happened to @JohnO in Hersham. I know nothing about that by election, but John did win it back from the LDs and the LDs had won the constituency. Do you want to comment John? Would be interested in your views.
D4 damager, power to the people
Back once again for the renegade master
D4 damager, with the ill behavior, with the ill behavior, with the ill behavior, with the ill behavior....
In 1912, Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson won an easy victory, thanks to the split within the Republican Party between incumbent POTUS William Howard Taft and his predecesor (and former sponsor) Progressive ("Bull Moose") challenger Theodore Roosevelt.
BUT four year later, the GOP was (mostly) reunited, and Wilson was dealing with not just with socio-economic challenges at home, but with World War I in Europe and Revolution in Mexico. Domestically both Wilson and his Republican challenger in 1916, NY Gov. Charles Evans Hughes were both small-p progressives; internationally CEH was more supportive (sorta) of the Entente versus the Central Powers, while WW's campaign slogan was, "he kept us out of war".
The 2016 election result was quite close: Wilson 277 electoral votes & 9.3m popular votes (49.2%) versus 254 ev & 8.5m pv (46.1%) with remaining pv going to Socialist (3.2%), Prohibition (1.2%) and others (0.2%).
On Election Night, most of the Eastern USA went to bed thinking that Charles Evans Hughes has won the election. Including Charles Evans Hughes. Story goes, that a reporter called at his residence early the morning after and asked to speak to CEH. The President is sleeping, said the butler; well, replied the journo, when he wakes up, tell him he's NOT the President".
Why? Because of late returns from the West . . . in particular California
Key state proved to be California, with 17 evs and which Wilson won by margin of +3,373 out of 1m votes cast for President.
Upon which hangs yet ANOTHER famous story. Which concerns Hughes and CA Gov Hiram Johnson. Who was a progressive Republican reformer who in 1912 was Theodore Roosevelt's VP running mate on the "Bull Moose" ticket. Like TR, Johnson had returned to the GOP fold, but he was far less gung-ho that TR; he was also famously irrascible and easily offended, both politically & personally.
So when Hughes was campaigning in California that Autumn, and by chance he and Johnson were at the same hotel, perhaps NOT wise for the GOP nominee to NOT take step to meet with the CA Gov. Which HJ interpreted (perhaps unfairly) as a deliberate snub. Hence neither he nor his considerable political organization in the Great Bear Republic went what you'd call all-out for the top of the Republican ticket . . .
https://news.sky.com/story/judge-gives-go-ahead-for-couples-legal-challenge-to-universal-winter-fuel-payment-cut-13241054
I don't give a flying fig whether she's black or not. We are well beyond that in the Tory party and, like MLK, now judge on character not skin.
But for bad?
Could the next GE2029 be one of the most astonishing ever, where one landslide overturns another?
https://x.com/Acyn/status/1849592057977024944
I've no skin in the Conservative leadership election game - from a betting perspective, the fall and rise of Kemi Badenoch has been fascinating - three weeks ago, after the Conference, it seemed she might lose out and it would be Jenrick vs Cleverly and the third ballot didn't end that speculation but she has consistently added support in every round from 22 in round one to 42.
I've no clue what kind of leader she will be or how she will fare. We now have a multipolar political environment - the Labour-Conservative duopoly still won 533 seats last time but if Reform, the LDs and Greens can each build local constituency bases in their strongholds it becomes harder for either Labour and the Conservatives.
We haven't seen much evidence of strong Reform organisation outside a few areas - that may change in the coming months but it will have to if the Party is to break out of a few areas.
https://x.com/DecodingFoxNews/status/1849544759762620726
Is Texas on ? (Prob not, but there's a chance...)
The chair of the conservative House Freedom Caucus says the North Carolina legislature should consider allocating the state’s presidential electors to Donald Trump even before votes are counted in the swing state.
Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) said Thursday that such a step by North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature “makes a lot of sense” given the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene in the western part of the state. Counties in that region are expected to vote heavily for Trump...
“You statistically can go and say, ‘Look, you got disenfranchised in 25 counties. You know what that vote probably would have been,’” Harris said during an exchange with a speaker at the dinner. “Which would be — if I were in the legislature — enough to go, ‘Yeah we have to convene the legislature. We can’t disenfranchise the voters.’”
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/25/trump-freedom-caucus-north-carolina-electors-00185520?is_magic_link=true&template_id=OTJIR2CRKUD6&template_variant_id=OTVCVBJYNAEW6