It's all a bit like Lenny Henry's joke about changing the name of Windscale to Sellafield and nuclear fallout to magic moon beams.
The name Conservative is perfectly acceptable if they adopt one nation conservatism narratives, rather than fash-lite nonsense.
Talking of which. I disagree with DavidL (it wasn't me who flagged him) on rescinding the tiresome tourist's red card. This place has been far more civilised since his early bath.
Boris was the most ‘one nation’ conservative there was. Big spending, irresponsible government.
Big spending on PPE contracts for friends and family is not one nation Conservatism.
Labour would have done the same if they'd be in power during the Covid crisis.
Seriously. They said as much at the time, when they were advocating for unknown companies to get contracts in parliament (and using it as a stick too bash the government with).
And as we've seen with the good Lord Alli's 'donations'; they're not beyond a little personal grift.
The alternative was not to get any PPE, or at least in nowhere near as quick time. Yes, it was immensely wasteful; but I cannot see a way, in those fevered months, we could have got the PPE without waste. There was just too much worldwide demand, and ordinary processes just would not work.
Labour may prove incompetent over the next five years but the PPE fast lanes were venal, unbridled corruption. They were indefensible at the time and they are now.
Experienced NHS procurement organisations were left of the list whilst brothers and sisters of Ministers with AliExpress accounts were handed millions of tax pounds.
That is the accusation. But I'd point out we needed an unprecedented amount of PPE, and some/many of those 'experienced NHS procurement organisations' were unable to procure it - they had failed, which was *why* we had to find other methods to get it.
Labour MPs stood up in parliament and asked, straight-faced, why certain companies were not being asked to supply PPE, as they apparently had loads available. These companies were not, shall we say, established suppliers. Or even, in some cases, very established at all. This was pointed out at the time on here.
You seem to think that, if Labour had been in charge, that those companies would have automagically got the PPE. I'm saying that's rubbish. There was always going to be a large amount of waste, but it was an emergency situation.
Wasn't that basically the reasoning of a court to some challenge to VIP procurement lanes or whatever? Basically that this was a critical and emergency situation, so it was lawful and reasonable to have expedited arrangements, even though it came with some risks?
Doesn't mean there was no fraud, or that a good enough job to recover some funds has not happened, but the context is pretty darn important.
I have no doubt fraud happened. The line is that the fraud came from ministers giving contracts to friends and family. Anyone with an an ounce of knowledge on procurement knows that can’t happen.
Well yes, any instances of friends and family benefiting is on another level entirely.
It's all a bit like Lenny Henry's joke about changing the name of Windscale to Sellafield and nuclear fallout to magic moon beams.
The name Conservative is perfectly acceptable if they adopt one nation conservatism narratives, rather than fash-lite nonsense.
Talking of which. I disagree with DavidL (it wasn't me who flagged him) on rescinding the tiresome tourist's red card. This place has been far more civilised since his early bath.
Boris was the most ‘one nation’ conservative there was. Big spending, irresponsible government.
Big spending on PPE contracts for friends and family is not one nation Conservatism.
Labour would have done the same if they'd be in power during the Covid crisis.
Seriously. They said as much at the time, when they were advocating for unknown companies to get contracts in parliament (and using it as a stick too bash the government with).
And as we've seen with the good Lord Alli's 'donations'; they're not beyond a little personal grift.
The alternative was not to get any PPE, or at least in nowhere near as quick time. Yes, it was immensely wasteful; but I cannot see a way, in those fevered months, we could have got the PPE without waste. There was just too much worldwide demand, and ordinary processes just would not work.
Labour may prove incompetent over the next five years but the PPE fast lanes were venal, unbridled corruption. They were indefensible at the time and they are now.
Experienced NHS procurement organisations were left of the list whilst brothers and sisters of Ministers with AliExpress accounts were handed millions of tax pounds.
That is the accusation. But I'd point out we needed an unprecedented amount of PPE, and some/many of those 'experienced NHS procurement organisations' were unable to procure it - they had failed, which was *why* we had to find other methods to get it.
Labour MPs stood up in parliament and asked, straight-faced, why certain companies were not being asked to supply PPE, as they apparently had loads available. These companies were not, shall we say, established suppliers. Or even, in some cases, very established at all. This was pointed out at the time on here.
You seem to think that, if Labour had been in charge, that those companies would have automagically got the PPE. I'm saying that's rubbish. There was always going to be a large amount of waste, but it was an emergency situation.
Wasn't that basically the reasoning of a court to some challenge to VIP procurement lanes or whatever? Basically that this was a critical and emergency situation, so it was lawful and reasonable to have expedited arrangements, even though it came with some risks?
Doesn't mean there was no fraud, or that a good enough job to recover some funds has not happened, but the context is pretty darn important.
One can well imagine the Cabinet meeting, with the Health Secretary saying everyone please go and ask everyone you know if there’s any way of getting PPE from anywhere.
Ministers were not involved in the awarding of contracts though, that was done by DoH civil servants.
None of the above means that the NAO shouldn’t be going after people who were paid for stuff that wasn’t delivered, but having a go at people who delivered what was promised for the price agreed isn’t going to wash in a court.
The new Tory leader is elected and immediately turn their sights on Reform. They denounce the hard right and set out a new big tent on the centre right of British politics. The nasty culture war rhetoric is gone. There is no more fuck business or ideological nonsense. No more drill baby drill or denial of facts for political purposes. No more favours for mates. Policy isn’t focused on Daily Mail headlines.
A pragmatic, entrepreneurial, evidence based, progressive right of centre with an eye on future emerges.
I would quite like it if that happens. But the Conservative Party has spent decades disappointing me and I see no reason why either candidate will change that.
Nonetheless the new Tory leader will be in a far better position than Hague was in 1997 when the Tories were 20%+ behind New Labour when he took over in the polls. Though Reform have also taken from Labour since the general election which helps
This Labour government are slow burners. But already we're getting a sense of a party in control. Sue Gray WFA and Taylor Swift have slowly disappeared into the ether. The wild anger of the Tories and their newspapers has dissipated and thanks to Rachel we're getting a welcome sense of direction after 9 years of turmoil.
All we need now is to see some positive moves to dismantle Brexit (short of rejoining) and the Labour/Lib Dem future looks bright
I sometimes wonder if you get paid to parody yourself.
When the Mail and the Telegraph start writing jibberish and the Express puts Vanessa Feltz on their front page introducing her new radio station you know the game's up....
I think the most interesting number at 11am will be the number of eligible voters, which will give us the first number of Conservative Members since Sept 2022, when it was ~172,000 who were eligible to vote for TRUSS - since when it has gone to hell in a handcart.
Interesting times ahead if the Lib Dems, Reform, or the Greens overtake them. I think Lib Dems will do so, and may have already done so, and Reform might.
How many members do you think the Conservative Party has?
I punt on 110k.
(I've had a superb header on this steeping for about a fortnight, but life etc ...")
The new Tory leader is elected and immediately turn their sights on Reform. They denounce the hard right and set out a new big tent on the centre right of British politics. The nasty culture war rhetoric is gone. There is no more fuck business or ideological nonsense. No more drill baby drill or denial of facts for political purposes. No more favours for mates. Policy isn’t focused on Daily Mail headlines.
A pragmatic, entrepreneurial, evidence based, progressive right of centre with an eye on future emerges.
And a squadron of pigs goes flying over Westminster......
The Pink Arrows fly past to mark historic occasion.
I love piggies.
I think Badenoch and her team will try to tack to centre and dump daft policies. She will dump Rwanda and ECHR obsession, that only came from Rwanda policy mistake anyway.
Is @Leon facing a life time ban rather than sin bin by the way?
The focus of PB over the next week or so will be on the US presidential election.
We are not going to let the dribblings of a soaked up racist popinjay distract PB from one of the biggest betting markets ever.
Oh come on, if you can't get drunk and stoned and complain about Britain not being white enough on pb.com, where the heck CAN you get drunk and stoned and complain about Britain not being white enough?
If you read the final straw post it really was quite disgusting.
Di you have a link? Because honestly as I recall it it was something to the effect of "I don't want white people to die out".
Is @Leon facing a life time ban rather than sin bin by the way?
The focus of PB over the next week or so will be on the US presidential election.
We are not going to let the dribblings of a soaked up racist popinjay distract PB from one of the biggest betting markets ever.
Oh come on, if you can't get drunk and stoned and complain about Britain not being white enough on pb.com, where the heck CAN you get drunk and stoned and complain about Britain not being white enough?
If you read the final straw post it really was quite disgusting.
Di you have a link? Because honestly as I recall it it was something to the effect of "I don't want white people to die out".
It was actually "I want more white British babies and fewer other kinds of people in Britain"
"I don't want white people to die out" is completely bonkers, and also sounds fairly racist to me in most plausible contexts.
Isn't "Tory" / "Tories" more of a nickname / term of abuse? The Conservatives don't use "Tory" in any official capacity and I suspect even of they change their name from "Conservatives" people will still use "Tory" as a term of abuse... Lets face it, the name has survived since 1832 lol...
If the Tories elect their second consecutive non white leader (and fourth woman leader) then they should rename themselves as the Progressives as a contrast to the pale, stale, and male Labour party.
Shame British National Party is already taken. The Freedom Party? Some brothers in arms on the continent.
The MEGA Party. Make England Great Again would be current and capture the mood of a changing world.
Supreme Make England Great Again, keeping that essential Tory cheesiness.
The Party needs to find a way to appeal to younger voters and not just pensioners so maybe they could go down the Education, Education, Education route.
Supreme Make England Great Helping Everyone Achieve Dream Starts
There are mock elections at schools up and down the country being won by the Greens on the single issue of university fees. Leaning into this could garner a lot of votes from that generation and their parents.
There needs to be a change of approach to tertiary education. Encourage more degree apprenticeships and self-study options such as the OU, that aren’t three years living away from home and resulting in £50k+ of debt aged 21 or 22.
I was out with an old friend last night, he informed us his 20 something daughter just joined the Tory party. Couldn't offer a rationale explanation for it but there you go, it takes all sorts.
Isn't "Tory" / "Tories" more of a nickname / term of abuse? The Conservatives don't use "Tory" in any official capacity and I suspect even of they change their name from "Conservatives" people will still use "Tory" as a term of abuse... Lets face it, the name has survived since 1832 lol...
If the Tories elect their second consecutive non white leader (and fourth woman leader) then they should rename themselves as the Progressives as a contrast to the pale, stale, and male Labour party.
Shame British National Party is already taken. The Freedom Party? Some brothers in arms on the continent.
The MEGA Party. Make England Great Again would be current and capture the mood of a changing world.
Supreme Make England Great Again, keeping that essential Tory cheesiness.
The Party needs to find a way to appeal to younger voters and not just pensioners so maybe they could go down the Education, Education, Education route.
Supreme Make England Great Helping Everyone Achieve Dream Starts
There are mock elections at schools up and down the country being won by the Greens on the single issue of university fees. Leaning into this could garner a lot of votes from that generation and their parents.
There needs to be a change of approach to tertiary education. Encourage more degree apprenticeships and self-study options such as the OU, that aren’t three years living away from home and resulting in £50k+ of debt aged 21 or 22.
We do that already as a popular option.
There are hundreds of thousands of students who live at home (quick lookup says around half a million), and the Open University has 200,000 students.
Isn't "Tory" / "Tories" more of a nickname / term of abuse? The Conservatives don't use "Tory" in any official capacity and I suspect even of they change their name from "Conservatives" people will still use "Tory" as a term of abuse... Lets face it, the name has survived since 1832 lol...
If the Tories elect their second consecutive non white leader (and fourth woman leader) then they should rename themselves as the Progressives as a contrast to the pale, stale, and male Labour party.
Shame British National Party is already taken. The Freedom Party? Some brothers in arms on the continent.
The MEGA Party. Make England Great Again would be current and capture the mood of a changing world.
Supreme Make England Great Again, keeping that essential Tory cheesiness.
The Party needs to find a way to appeal to younger voters and not just pensioners so maybe they could go down the Education, Education, Education route.
Supreme Make England Great Helping Everyone Achieve Dream Starts
There are mock elections at schools up and down the country being won by the Greens on the single issue of university fees. Leaning into this could garner a lot of votes from that generation and their parents.
And lead to several Universities going bust in pretty quick order. The crisis in funding of further and higher education is now more serious than the NHS.
Isn't "Tory" / "Tories" more of a nickname / term of abuse? The Conservatives don't use "Tory" in any official capacity and I suspect even of they change their name from "Conservatives" people will still use "Tory" as a term of abuse... Lets face it, the name has survived since 1832 lol...
If the Tories elect their second consecutive non white leader (and fourth woman leader) then they should rename themselves as the Progressives as a contrast to the pale, stale, and male Labour party.
Shame British National Party is already taken. The Freedom Party? Some brothers in arms on the continent.
The MEGA Party. Make England Great Again would be current and capture the mood of a changing world.
Supreme Make England Great Again, keeping that essential Tory cheesiness.
The Party needs to find a way to appeal to younger voters and not just pensioners so maybe they could go down the Education, Education, Education route.
Supreme Make England Great Helping Everyone Achieve Dream Starts
There are mock elections at schools up and down the country being won by the Greens on the single issue of university fees. Leaning into this could garner a lot of votes from that generation and their parents.
There needs to be a change of approach to tertiary education. Encourage more degree apprenticeships and self-study options such as the OU, that aren’t three years living away from home and resulting in £50k+ of debt aged 21 or 22.
I went well away from home to study, and it was very good for me. I was a middle-class youth from South Essex and I went to live in an industrial city in the North East. What's more I lived in lodgings and was 'done for' rather than a hall of residence. Highly recommend the experience.
Isn't "Tory" / "Tories" more of a nickname / term of abuse? The Conservatives don't use "Tory" in any official capacity and I suspect even of they change their name from "Conservatives" people will still use "Tory" as a term of abuse... Lets face it, the name has survived since 1832 lol...
If the Tories elect their second consecutive non white leader (and fourth woman leader) then they should rename themselves as the Progressives as a contrast to the pale, stale, and male Labour party.
Shame British National Party is already taken. The Freedom Party? Some brothers in arms on the continent.
The MEGA Party. Make England Great Again would be current and capture the mood of a changing world.
Supreme Make England Great Again, keeping that essential Tory cheesiness.
The Party needs to find a way to appeal to younger voters and not just pensioners so maybe they could go down the Education, Education, Education route.
Supreme Make England Great Helping Everyone Achieve Dream Starts
There are mock elections at schools up and down the country being won by the Greens on the single issue of university fees. Leaning into this could garner a lot of votes from that generation and their parents.
And lead to several Universities going bust in pretty quick order. The crisis in funding of further and higher education is now more serious than the NHS.
Isn't "Tory" / "Tories" more of a nickname / term of abuse? The Conservatives don't use "Tory" in any official capacity and I suspect even of they change their name from "Conservatives" people will still use "Tory" as a term of abuse... Lets face it, the name has survived since 1832 lol...
If the Tories elect their second consecutive non white leader (and fourth woman leader) then they should rename themselves as the Progressives as a contrast to the pale, stale, and male Labour party.
Shame British National Party is already taken. The Freedom Party? Some brothers in arms on the continent.
The MEGA Party. Make England Great Again would be current and capture the mood of a changing world.
Supreme Make England Great Again, keeping that essential Tory cheesiness.
The Party needs to find a way to appeal to younger voters and not just pensioners so maybe they could go down the Education, Education, Education route.
Supreme Make England Great Helping Everyone Achieve Dream Starts
There are mock elections at schools up and down the country being won by the Greens on the single issue of university fees. Leaning into this could garner a lot of votes from that generation and their parents.
And lead to several Universities going bust in pretty quick order. The crisis in funding of further and higher education is now more serious than the NHS.
The problem is the kind of person who takes on debt for university tends to be aspirational but not from a hugely rich background. They then end up working in cities with massive housing pressure, so most of their salary goes on student loan repayments and rent.
This is not how Conservative voters are formed, and is why Millenials remain so stubbornly left-wing.
The new Tory leader is elected and immediately turn their sights on Reform. They denounce the hard right and set out a new big tent on the centre right of British politics. The nasty culture war rhetoric is gone. There is no more fuck business or ideological nonsense. No more drill baby drill or denial of facts for political purposes. No more favours for mates. Policy isn’t focused on Daily Mail headlines.
A pragmatic, entrepreneurial, evidence based, progressive right of centre with an eye on future emerges.
Aww, I'd missed your friendly advice for righties posts. Ought to be saving these priceless pearls for your own side these days though really shouldn't you?
The new Tory leader is elected and immediately turn their sights on Reform. They denounce the hard right and set out a new big tent on the centre right of British politics. The nasty culture war rhetoric is gone. There is no more fuck business or ideological nonsense. No more drill baby drill or denial of facts for political purposes. No more favours for mates. Policy isn’t focused on Daily Mail headlines.
A pragmatic, entrepreneurial, evidence based, progressive right of centre with an eye on future emerges.
They need to deal with the Reform problem, but how would that approach do that? It seems opposite of Big Tent.
I imagine the rationale is to just accept, a fifth of the voters to their right can’t be reached, and focus on Lib Dem and Labour floaters.
The Tories need a broad church.
There's certainly a need for moderate opposition to bien pensant thinking on left-liberal social policies and shibboleths, which, whilst not on its own decisive, is definitely out of kilter to political reality in the country.
Most of the Moderate Tories either left or were chucked out under May, Johnson and Truss. The Tory party organisation is geriatric and still committed to unworkable and absurd policies and internal systems. If they do make moves to stop being Reform-Lite, it will still take a long time to be coherent, let alone positive.
I suspect until the pollsters get their new methodologies in place we're going to see some outlier polls though whether it's Techne or BMG which is the outlier remains to be seen? The seemingly all-powerful Conservatives (no giggling in the cheap seats) did lose two local council by-election seats to the LDs on Thursday.
The result in Hampshire - probably the last County Council seat to face a by-election as it's barely six months to the full set of elections in May 2025 - was a swing from Conservative to LD of 26% from the 2021 numbers. Now, with all the usual caveats about local council by-elections, that suggests it could be a difficult evening for some Conservatives in parts of the south and south east next May but there's an eternity to go and it's entirely possible Jenrick or Badenoch, much as Hague did, will be able to get local momentum going for the party in the New Year.
One poll with a one point lead doesn't make an autumn nor does it mean anything much of anything in all honesty though I note the Conservative rise is mirrored by Reform easing back so we might see a rebalancing of this "bloc" of Conservative/Reform voters (or we may not especially if Reform, who also won a seat on Thursday from Labour capitalise on any Westminster by-election).
It’s hard to see the Conservatives not losing seats (and some councils), to the Lib Dems, in May 2025. They are performing better, relative to 2022-24, but not relative to 2021.
As against that, they should win some mayoralties, and hold counties comfortably, such as Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Lancashire, where the main opponent is Labour.
Labour will likely lose quite a few seats to Reform.
Isn't "Tory" / "Tories" more of a nickname / term of abuse? The Conservatives don't use "Tory" in any official capacity and I suspect even of they change their name from "Conservatives" people will still use "Tory" as a term of abuse... Lets face it, the name has survived since 1832 lol...
If the Tories elect their second consecutive non white leader (and fourth woman leader) then they should rename themselves as the Progressives as a contrast to the pale, stale, and male Labour party.
Shame British National Party is already taken. The Freedom Party? Some brothers in arms on the continent.
The MEGA Party. Make England Great Again would be current and capture the mood of a changing world.
Supreme Make England Great Again, keeping that essential Tory cheesiness.
The Party needs to find a way to appeal to younger voters and not just pensioners so maybe they could go down the Education, Education, Education route.
Supreme Make England Great Helping Everyone Achieve Dream Starts
There are mock elections at schools up and down the country being won by the Greens on the single issue of university fees. Leaning into this could garner a lot of votes from that generation and their parents.
There needs to be a change of approach to tertiary education. Encourage more degree apprenticeships and self-study options such as the OU, that aren’t three years living away from home and resulting in £50k+ of debt aged 21 or 22.
We do that already as a popular option.
There are hundreds of thousands of students who live at home (quick lookup says around half a million), and the Open University has 200,000 students.
I suspect that those numbers skew heavily to mature students rather than 18-year-olds. What’s needed is for schools to encourage such alternatives, government to incentivise companies to hire degree apprentice students, and for self-study options such as the OU to be significantly cheaper than a regular degree.
The new Tory leader is elected and immediately turn their sights on Reform. They denounce the hard right and set out a new big tent on the centre right of British politics. The nasty culture war rhetoric is gone. There is no more fuck business or ideological nonsense. No more drill baby drill or denial of facts for political purposes. No more favours for mates. Policy isn’t focused on Daily Mail headlines.
A pragmatic, entrepreneurial, evidence based, progressive right of centre with an eye on future emerges.
“Nasty culture war” = stand by idle whilst predatory adults push children down the route of chemical and surgical castration.
Trans derangement syndrome.
It’s only a derangement if it’s not actually happening. You might have missed the Cass report, the closure of a clinic in disgrace, the limiting of puberty blockers around the world.
This is your semi-regular reminder that I have committed to a syntactic analysis of the Cass Report before year end - indeed, I'll start it after Weds.
With regards to surgery, the UK doesn't do genital operations on children for trans purposes : in fact iirc it's illegal - I think Cyclefree pointed that out. The USA is very different and does, with numbers (I think - don't quote me!) in the thousands. A lot of the fervour of British people is based on the belief that Britain does what America does.
As for the limiting of puberty blockers around the world, the picture is surprisingly mixed, with the USA, Australia, Japan rejecting Cass, Ireland and NZ considering it, others ignoring it or were there already. To do a proper work up on each country is difficult: it involves contacting each national medical association and there's quite a few. I've done something similar before (on different things!) so that would take me about a year. There are workarounds of less rigour (getting conference programmes and counting the nationality delegates?) but even so
Isn't "Tory" / "Tories" more of a nickname / term of abuse? The Conservatives don't use "Tory" in any official capacity and I suspect even of they change their name from "Conservatives" people will still use "Tory" as a term of abuse... Lets face it, the name has survived since 1832 lol...
If the Tories elect their second consecutive non white leader (and fourth woman leader) then they should rename themselves as the Progressives as a contrast to the pale, stale, and male Labour party.
Shame British National Party is already taken. The Freedom Party? Some brothers in arms on the continent.
The MEGA Party. Make England Great Again would be current and capture the mood of a changing world.
Supreme Make England Great Again, keeping that essential Tory cheesiness.
The Party needs to find a way to appeal to younger voters and not just pensioners so maybe they could go down the Education, Education, Education route.
Supreme Make England Great Helping Everyone Achieve Dream Starts
There are mock elections at schools up and down the country being won by the Greens on the single issue of university fees. Leaning into this could garner a lot of votes from that generation and their parents.
There needs to be a change of approach to tertiary education. Encourage more degree apprenticeships and self-study options such as the OU, that aren’t three years living away from home and resulting in £50k+ of debt aged 21 or 22.
I went well away from home to study, and it was very good for me. I was a middle-class youth from South Essex and I went to live in an industrial city in the North East. What's more I lived in lodgings and was 'done for' rather than a hall of residence. Highly recommend the experience.
And Good Morning one and all.
Good morning OKC!
Yes there are advantages to studying away from home, but too many students are graduating with a lot of debt that will take decades to clear, and they’re marrying later and having fewer children as a result, not helped by out-of-control housing costs in many areas.
The new Tory leader is elected and immediately turn their sights on Reform. They denounce the hard right and set out a new big tent on the centre right of British politics. The nasty culture war rhetoric is gone. There is no more fuck business or ideological nonsense. No more drill baby drill or denial of facts for political purposes. No more favours for mates. Policy isn’t focused on Daily Mail headlines.
A pragmatic, entrepreneurial, evidence based, progressive right of centre with an eye on future emerges.
And a squadron of pigs goes flying over Westminster......
The Pink Arrows fly past to mark historic occasion.
I love piggies.
I think Badenoch and her team will try to tack to centre and dump daft policies. She will dump Rwanda and ECHR obsession, that only came from Rwanda policy mistake anyway.
At the moment we don't know and are projecting: she will no doubt reveal herself in due course, and as Varoufakis says, we will suffer what we must... 🙏
Result expected shortly after 11am, rumours that the turnout was above 70% and a decent margin of victory for the winner. Decent is okay, but decisive would have been better.
How do you know this?
I am cribbing mercilessly from the Guardian UK politics live blog and not citing my sources.
It's all a bit like Lenny Henry's joke about changing the name of Windscale to Sellafield and nuclear fallout to magic moon beams.
The name Conservative is perfectly acceptable if they adopt one nation conservatism narratives, rather than fash-lite nonsense.
Talking of which. I disagree with DavidL (it wasn't me who flagged him) on rescinding the tiresome tourist's red card. This place has been far more civilised since his early bath.
Boris was the most ‘one nation’ conservative there was. Big spending, irresponsible government.
Big spending on PPE contracts for friends and family is not one nation Conservatism.
Labour would have done the same if they'd be in power during the Covid crisis.
Seriously. They said as much at the time, when they were advocating for unknown companies to get contracts in parliament (and using it as a stick too bash the government with).
And as we've seen with the good Lord Alli's 'donations'; they're not beyond a little personal grift.
The alternative was not to get any PPE, or at least in nowhere near as quick time. Yes, it was immensely wasteful; but I cannot see a way, in those fevered months, we could have got the PPE without waste. There was just too much worldwide demand, and ordinary processes just would not work.
Hopefully the right lessons have been learned from the pandemic, and there’s now a large warehouse or ten somewhere containing things likely to be useful in various types of national emergency. With good rotation policies in place so the stuff is in serviceable condition on the day it’s suddenly required.
I'm not sure you can really stockpile enough to help in these sorts of emergencies. What you need is production capacity that can be switched from its normal work when required, and then the stockpile only needs to cover you for the period it takes to turn on/switch production. Maybe such production capacity is tasked to produce a sample amount for a stockpile on an annual basis, thereby proving it can switch, but any stockpile is going to be exhausted very quickly.
Yes you need both sufficient stockpiles and strategic manufacturing capacity.
IIRC the NHS was really impressed with Burberry gowns that appeared a couple of months into the pandemic, and one of my favourite stories of the pandemic was the Mercedes F1 engine factory that made CPAP machines.
And people banging on about the Dyson ventilators - the main reason those weren’t proceeded with, was the turn away from full ventilation…
Something that will bite us next time is the reliance on a patchwork of disposable PPE. If a vaguely airborne pathogen happens - won’t help. Plus the supply chain will collapse again. This is because disposable PPE has a shelf life. The French tried using stuff past the date and found it fell apart…
Reusable PPE can be far more comfortable (built in air conditioning, face dam 3D printed to fit etc) and can be designed to integrate, as required, into a full suit.
Isn't "Tory" / "Tories" more of a nickname / term of abuse? The Conservatives don't use "Tory" in any official capacity and I suspect even of they change their name from "Conservatives" people will still use "Tory" as a term of abuse... Lets face it, the name has survived since 1832 lol...
If the Tories elect their second consecutive non white leader (and fourth woman leader) then they should rename themselves as the Progressives as a contrast to the pale, stale, and male Labour party.
Shame British National Party is already taken. The Freedom Party? Some brothers in arms on the continent.
The MEGA Party. Make England Great Again would be current and capture the mood of a changing world.
Supreme Make England Great Again, keeping that essential Tory cheesiness.
The Party needs to find a way to appeal to younger voters and not just pensioners so maybe they could go down the Education, Education, Education route.
Supreme Make England Great Helping Everyone Achieve Dream Starts
There are mock elections at schools up and down the country being won by the Greens on the single issue of university fees. Leaning into this could garner a lot of votes from that generation and their parents.
There needs to be a change of approach to tertiary education. Encourage more degree apprenticeships and self-study options such as the OU, that aren’t three years living away from home and resulting in £50k+ of debt aged 21 or 22.
We do that already as a popular option.
There are hundreds of thousands of students who live at home (quick lookup says around half a million), and the Open University has 200,000 students.
I suspect that those numbers skew heavily to mature students rather than 18-year-olds. What’s needed is for schools to encourage such alternatives, government to incentivise companies to hire degree apprentice students, and for self-study options such as the OU to be significantly cheaper than a regular degree.
The Open University has not yet brought back in person examinations or face to face tutorials following COVID. Is tertiary education with no in person teaching or assessment competitive with a traditional university?
From a neutral's point of view I want whichever candidate is less likely to allow the conservatives to go full british trump with the conspiracy theories and glib easy answers to any problem and of course the lying.
I would say that is Kemi.
I’ve thought Kemi is the closest leadership candidate we have had for a generation that is small c conservative. She just needs to focus away from culture wars, though important, onto the things that resonate with voters.
She won’t be able to.
That’s the rub. She needs a good deputy and chairman she will listen to.
Could Jeremy Hunt be persuaded to help unite the various factions?
The new Tory leader is elected and immediately turn their sights on Reform. They denounce the hard right and set out a new big tent on the centre right of British politics. The nasty culture war rhetoric is gone. There is no more fuck business or ideological nonsense. No more drill baby drill or denial of facts for political purposes. No more favours for mates. Policy isn’t focused on Daily Mail headlines.
A pragmatic, entrepreneurial, evidence based, progressive right of centre with an eye on future emerges.
Aww, I'd missed your friendly advice for righties posts. Ought to be saving these priceless pearls for your own side these days though really shouldn't you?
It says something about the state of politics at the moment that advice from supporters of other parties about how you might win their votes is somehow abhorrent.
“Tory” is not and has never been the party’s name. It was an insult by the whigs that stuck
It’s also like people have no memory. The brand felt like it was in the toilet in 1997 but by 2019 (and fleetingly in 2017) was actually quite popular, having certainly not been truly hated since before 2005, and with Cameron gobbling up the LibDems a real help.
I was out with an old friend last night, he informed us his 20 something daughter just joined the Tory party. Couldn't offer a rationale explanation for it but there you go, it takes all sorts.
The new Tory leader is elected and immediately turn their sights on Reform. They denounce the hard right and set out a new big tent on the centre right of British politics. The nasty culture war rhetoric is gone. There is no more fuck business or ideological nonsense. No more drill baby drill or denial of facts for political purposes. No more favours for mates. Policy isn’t focused on Daily Mail headlines.
A pragmatic, entrepreneurial, evidence based, progressive right of centre with an eye on future emerges.
Aww, I'd missed your friendly advice for righties posts. Ought to be saving these priceless pearls for your own side these days though really shouldn't you?
It says something about the state of politics at the moment that advice from supporters of other parties about how you might win their votes is somehow abhorrent.
Meh, he was telling me off for advice yesterday when I'm actual party member (although admittedly not voter)
I was out with an old friend last night, he informed us his 20 something daughter just joined the Tory party. Couldn't offer a rationale explanation for it but there you go, it takes all sorts.
Well the market says Kemi. Soon find out. Exciting, as these things always are. I'm green on both, which is nice.
One thing that's struck me about the commentary on this one is how little focus there's been on the demographics of the electorate. Eg who is winning women under 30? Are there any women under 30? Who has the edge with the all important retirees vote. Did they come out in big numbers? etc - nobody seemed to bother with any of that.
Is @Leon facing a life time ban rather than sin bin by the way?
The focus of PB over the next week or so will be on the US presidential election.
We are not going to let the dribblings of a soaked up racist popinjay distract PB from one of the biggest betting markets ever.
Oh come on, if you can't get drunk and stoned and complain about Britain not being white enough on pb.com, where the heck CAN you get drunk and stoned and complain about Britain not being white enough?
If you read the final straw post it really was quite disgusting.
Di you have a link? Because honestly as I recall it it was something to the effect of "I don't want white people to die out".
It was actually "I want more white British babies and fewer other kinds of people in Britain"
"I don't want white people to die out" is completely bonkers, and also sounds fairly racist to me in most plausible contexts.
The later is problematic - though not specifically racist.
The former is 14 words, with less stylisation.
On the later, I recall an entertaining article in the Guardian about how black peoples in the U.K., instead of staying in their place in the cities, were “fleeing” into the countryside. Where they tended to intermarry…. Which was bad.
Given the fact that this is the Conservative Party we are talking about, can't we just assume that somebody with leaked info is betting? Not in a sarky way but guys, c'mon, they do have form on this... 😃
Isn't "Tory" / "Tories" more of a nickname / term of abuse? The Conservatives don't use "Tory" in any official capacity and I suspect even of they change their name from "Conservatives" people will still use "Tory" as a term of abuse... Lets face it, the name has survived since 1832 lol...
If the Tories elect their second consecutive non white leader (and fourth woman leader) then they should rename themselves as the Progressives as a contrast to the pale, stale, and male Labour party.
Shame British National Party is already taken. The Freedom Party? Some brothers in arms on the continent.
The MEGA Party. Make England Great Again would be current and capture the mood of a changing world.
Supreme Make England Great Again, keeping that essential Tory cheesiness.
The Party needs to find a way to appeal to younger voters and not just pensioners so maybe they could go down the Education, Education, Education route.
Supreme Make England Great Helping Everyone Achieve Dream Starts
There are mock elections at schools up and down the country being won by the Greens on the single issue of university fees. Leaning into this could garner a lot of votes from that generation and their parents.
And lead to several Universities going bust in pretty quick order. The crisis in funding of further and higher education is now more serious than the NHS.
I disagree, on the basis that higher education is less important than universal healthcare.
The new Tory leader is elected and immediately turn their sights on Reform. They denounce the hard right and set out a new big tent on the centre right of British politics. The nasty culture war rhetoric is gone. There is no more fuck business or ideological nonsense. No more drill baby drill or denial of facts for political purposes. No more favours for mates. Policy isn’t focused on Daily Mail headlines.
A pragmatic, entrepreneurial, evidence based, progressive right of centre with an eye on future emerges.
And a squadron of pigs goes flying over Westminster......
The Pink Arrows fly past to mark historic occasion.
I love piggies.
I think Badenoch and her team will try to tack to centre and dump daft policies. She will dump Rwanda and ECHR obsession, that only came from Rwanda policy mistake anyway.
At the moment we don't know and are projecting: she will no doubt reveal herself in due course, and as Varoufakis says, we will suffer what we must... 🙏
Dump Rwanda policy. Economically talk about waste, lack of UK productivity and lack of UK growth under Starmer’s Labour.
And look at the hay Badeoch anti-woke agenda is having down ballot in the US election.
I was out with an old friend last night, he informed us his 20 something daughter just joined the Tory party. Couldn't offer a rationale explanation for it but there you go, it takes all sorts.
A tory supporting boyfriend?
Based on the jokes in Hancock, 50 years ago the answer would have been “to find an other half”.
It's all a bit like Lenny Henry's joke about changing the name of Windscale to Sellafield and nuclear fallout to magic moon beams.
The name Conservative is perfectly acceptable if they adopt one nation conservatism narratives, rather than fash-lite nonsense.
Talking of which. I disagree with DavidL (it wasn't me who flagged him) on rescinding the tiresome tourist's red card. This place has been far more civilised since his early bath.
Boris was the most ‘one nation’ conservative there was. Big spending, irresponsible government.
Big spending on PPE contracts for friends and family is not one nation Conservatism.
Labour would have done the same if they'd be in power during the Covid crisis.
Seriously. They said as much at the time, when they were advocating for unknown companies to get contracts in parliament (and using it as a stick too bash the government with).
And as we've seen with the good Lord Alli's 'donations'; they're not beyond a little personal grift.
The alternative was not to get any PPE, or at least in nowhere near as quick time. Yes, it was immensely wasteful; but I cannot see a way, in those fevered months, we could have got the PPE without waste. There was just too much worldwide demand, and ordinary processes just would not work.
Labour may prove incompetent over the next five years but the PPE fast lanes were venal, unbridled corruption. They were indefensible at the time and they are now.
Experienced NHS procurement organisations were left of the list whilst brothers and sisters of Ministers with AliExpress accounts were handed millions of tax pounds.
Isn't "Tory" / "Tories" more of a nickname / term of abuse? The Conservatives don't use "Tory" in any official capacity and I suspect even of they change their name from "Conservatives" people will still use "Tory" as a term of abuse... Lets face it, the name has survived since 1832 lol...
If the Tories elect their second consecutive non white leader (and fourth woman leader) then they should rename themselves as the Progressives as a contrast to the pale, stale, and male Labour party.
Shame British National Party is already taken. The Freedom Party? Some brothers in arms on the continent.
The MEGA Party. Make England Great Again would be current and capture the mood of a changing world.
Supreme Make England Great Again, keeping that essential Tory cheesiness.
The Party needs to find a way to appeal to younger voters and not just pensioners so maybe they could go down the Education, Education, Education route.
Supreme Make England Great Helping Everyone Achieve Dream Starts
There are mock elections at schools up and down the country being won by the Greens on the single issue of university fees. Leaning into this could garner a lot of votes from that generation and their parents.
There needs to be a change of approach to tertiary education. Encourage more degree apprenticeships and self-study options such as the OU, that aren’t three years living away from home and resulting in £50k+ of debt aged 21 or 22.
I went well away from home to study, and it was very good for me. I was a middle-class youth from South Essex and I went to live in an industrial city in the North East. What's more I lived in lodgings and was 'done for' rather than a hall of residence. Highly recommend the experience.
And Good Morning one and all.
Yes, in many, probably most cases, the finishing school side of university is the most valuable part, outside of trade school degrees like medicine.
Well the market says Kemi. Soon find out. Exciting, as these things always are. I'm green on both, which is nice.
One thing that's struck me about the commentary on this one is how little focus there's been on the demographics of the electorate. Eg who is winning women under 30? Are there any women under 30? Who has the edge with the all important retirees vote. Did they come out in big numbers? etc - nobody seemed to bother with any of that.
It's been absolutely useless tbh. As has the polling.
Isn't "Tory" / "Tories" more of a nickname / term of abuse? The Conservatives don't use "Tory" in any official capacity and I suspect even of they change their name from "Conservatives" people will still use "Tory" as a term of abuse... Lets face it, the name has survived since 1832 lol...
If the Tories elect their second consecutive non white leader (and fourth woman leader) then they should rename themselves as the Progressives as a contrast to the pale, stale, and male Labour party.
Shame British National Party is already taken. The Freedom Party? Some brothers in arms on the continent.
The MEGA Party. Make England Great Again would be current and capture the mood of a changing world.
Supreme Make England Great Again, keeping that essential Tory cheesiness.
The Party needs to find a way to appeal to younger voters and not just pensioners so maybe they could go down the Education, Education, Education route.
Supreme Make England Great Helping Everyone Achieve Dream Starts
There are mock elections at schools up and down the country being won by the Greens on the single issue of university fees. Leaning into this could garner a lot of votes from that generation and their parents.
There needs to be a change of approach to tertiary education. Encourage more degree apprenticeships and self-study options such as the OU, that aren’t three years living away from home and resulting in £50k+ of debt aged 21 or 22.
I went well away from home to study, and it was very good for me. I was a middle-class youth from South Essex and I went to live in an industrial city in the North East. What's more I lived in lodgings and was 'done for' rather than a hall of residence. Highly recommend the experience.
And Good Morning one and all.
Good morning OKC!
Yes there are advantages to studying away from home, but too many students are graduating with a lot of debt that will take decades to clear, and they’re marrying later and having fewer children as a result, not helped by out-of-control housing costs in many areas.
Agree with you about the debt, and the situation is getting worse. Interestingly, admittedly several years ago now Mrs C and I went with our just-setting-up-home teacher grandson, and his fiancee, to buy some furniture. The idea was that we would give them a substantial deposit and they'd deal with the rest on HP. The sales staff, and apparently the HP lenders were interested in what the young couple earned, and what other outgoings they had, but not their student debts. Which, as they were both graduates and grandson had done teacher-training were, and I think still are, considerable.
Well the market says Kemi. Soon find out. Exciting, as these things always are. I'm green on both, which is nice.
One thing that's struck me about the commentary on this one is how little focus there's been on the demographics of the electorate. Eg who is winning women under 30? Are there any women under 30? Who has the edge with the all important retirees vote. Did they come out in big numbers? etc - nobody seemed to bother with any of that.
Sophie on Sky says she is not "putting my money on this one, I'm really not".
I was out with an old friend last night, he informed us his 20 something daughter just joined the Tory party. Couldn't offer a rationale explanation for it but there you go, it takes all sorts.
A tory supporting boyfriend?
Heaven forbid she has her own views.
Apparently local Con clubs aren’t dating agencies for middle-class teens and twenties any more.
Isn't "Tory" / "Tories" more of a nickname / term of abuse? The Conservatives don't use "Tory" in any official capacity and I suspect even of they change their name from "Conservatives" people will still use "Tory" as a term of abuse... Lets face it, the name has survived since 1832 lol...
If the Tories elect their second consecutive non white leader (and fourth woman leader) then they should rename themselves as the Progressives as a contrast to the pale, stale, and male Labour party.
Shame British National Party is already taken. The Freedom Party? Some brothers in arms on the continent.
The MEGA Party. Make England Great Again would be current and capture the mood of a changing world.
Supreme Make England Great Again, keeping that essential Tory cheesiness.
The Party needs to find a way to appeal to younger voters and not just pensioners so maybe they could go down the Education, Education, Education route.
Supreme Make England Great Helping Everyone Achieve Dream Starts
There are mock elections at schools up and down the country being won by the Greens on the single issue of university fees. Leaning into this could garner a lot of votes from that generation and their parents.
There needs to be a change of approach to tertiary education. Encourage more degree apprenticeships and self-study options such as the OU, that aren’t three years living away from home and resulting in £50k+ of debt aged 21 or 22.
I went well away from home to study, and it was very good for me. I was a middle-class youth from South Essex and I went to live in an industrial city in the North East. What's more I lived in lodgings and was 'done for' rather than a hall of residence. Highly recommend the experience.
And Good Morning one and all.
Good morning OKC!
Yes there are advantages to studying away from home, but too many students are graduating with a lot of debt that will take decades to clear, and they’re marrying later and having fewer children as a result, not helped by out-of-control housing costs in many areas.
Agree with you about the debt, and the situation is getting worse. Interestingly, admittedly several years ago now Mrs C and I went with our just-setting-up-home teacher grandson, and his fiancee, to buy some furniture. The idea was that we would give them a substantial deposit and they'd deal with the rest on HP. The sales staff, and apparently the HP lenders were interested in what the young couple earned, and what other outgoings they had, but not their student debts. Which, as they were both graduates and grandson had done teacher-training were, and I think still are, considerable.
HP providers might not care too much about student debt, but mortgage providers definitely look into it. Good on you for helping your grandkids get set up though.
I was out with an old friend last night, he informed us his 20 something daughter just joined the Tory party. Couldn't offer a rationale explanation for it but there you go, it takes all sorts.
OT. Interesting winner of Cannes Palm d'Or 'Anora' now on cinema release. Despite a score of 99% on Rotten Toms I could see little to admire. Daringly pornographic for a mainstream film I suppose but following last years 'Anatomy of a Fall' and the brilliant 'Zone of Interest' this shouldn't be in the same league.
Isn't "Tory" / "Tories" more of a nickname / term of abuse? The Conservatives don't use "Tory" in any official capacity and I suspect even of they change their name from "Conservatives" people will still use "Tory" as a term of abuse... Lets face it, the name has survived since 1832 lol...
If the Tories elect their second consecutive non white leader (and fourth woman leader) then they should rename themselves as the Progressives as a contrast to the pale, stale, and male Labour party.
Shame British National Party is already taken. The Freedom Party? Some brothers in arms on the continent.
The MEGA Party. Make England Great Again would be current and capture the mood of a changing world.
Supreme Make England Great Again, keeping that essential Tory cheesiness.
The Party needs to find a way to appeal to younger voters and not just pensioners so maybe they could go down the Education, Education, Education route.
Supreme Make England Great Helping Everyone Achieve Dream Starts
There are mock elections at schools up and down the country being won by the Greens on the single issue of university fees. Leaning into this could garner a lot of votes from that generation and their parents.
There needs to be a change of approach to tertiary education. Encourage more degree apprenticeships and self-study options such as the OU, that aren’t three years living away from home and resulting in £50k+ of debt aged 21 or 22.
I went well away from home to study, and it was very good for me. I was a middle-class youth from South Essex and I went to live in an industrial city in the North East. What's more I lived in lodgings and was 'done for' rather than a hall of residence. Highly recommend the experience.
And Good Morning one and all.
Good morning OKC!
Yes there are advantages to studying away from home, but too many students are graduating with a lot of debt that will take decades to clear, and they’re marrying later and having fewer children as a result, not helped by out-of-control housing costs in many areas.
Agree with you about the debt, and the situation is getting worse. Interestingly, admittedly several years ago now Mrs C and I went with our just-setting-up-home teacher grandson, and his fiancee, to buy some furniture. The idea was that we would give them a substantial deposit and they'd deal with the rest on HP. The sales staff, and apparently the HP lenders were interested in what the young couple earned, and what other outgoings they had, but not their student debts. Which, as they were both graduates and grandson had done teacher-training were, and I think still are, considerable.
HP providers might not care too much about student debt, but mortgage providers definitely look into it. Good on you for helping your grandkids get set up though.
Reflecting on this a bit I do wonder whether they'll have their student debt paid off before or after their (now) two year old starts on his!
I was out with an old friend last night, he informed us his 20 something daughter just joined the Tory party. Couldn't offer a rationale explanation for it but there you go, it takes all sorts.
A tory supporting boyfriend?
Heaven forbid she has her own views.
Apparently local Con clubs aren’t dating agencies for middle-class teens and twenties any more.
Perhaps this should be a major priority for the new leader? “Join us, we’re better than tinder and the beer is cheap” is a good sell for an 18 year old.
I was out with an old friend last night, he informed us his 20 something daughter just joined the Tory party. Couldn't offer a rationale explanation for it but there you go, it takes all sorts.
A tory supporting boyfriend?
Heaven forbid she has her own views.
Apparently local Con clubs aren’t dating agencies for middle-class teens and twenties any more.
Todays youngsters are small c conservative, far more than so the middle aged generations anyway. There are paths for a successful Conservative party to appear in the next 3-10 years but I doubt any of them particularly involve Badenoch or Jenrick.
Isn't "Tory" / "Tories" more of a nickname / term of abuse? The Conservatives don't use "Tory" in any official capacity and I suspect even of they change their name from "Conservatives" people will still use "Tory" as a term of abuse... Lets face it, the name has survived since 1832 lol...
If the Tories elect their second consecutive non white leader (and fourth woman leader) then they should rename themselves as the Progressives as a contrast to the pale, stale, and male Labour party.
Shame British National Party is already taken. The Freedom Party? Some brothers in arms on the continent.
The MEGA Party. Make England Great Again would be current and capture the mood of a changing world.
Supreme Make England Great Again, keeping that essential Tory cheesiness.
The Party needs to find a way to appeal to younger voters and not just pensioners so maybe they could go down the Education, Education, Education route.
Supreme Make England Great Helping Everyone Achieve Dream Starts
There are mock elections at schools up and down the country being won by the Greens on the single issue of university fees. Leaning into this could garner a lot of votes from that generation and their parents.
There needs to be a change of approach to tertiary education. Encourage more degree apprenticeships and self-study options such as the OU, that aren’t three years living away from home and resulting in £50k+ of debt aged 21 or 22.
I went well away from home to study, and it was very good for me. I was a middle-class youth from South Essex and I went to live in an industrial city in the North East. What's more I lived in lodgings and was 'done for' rather than a hall of residence. Highly recommend the experience.
And Good Morning one and all.
Good morning OKC!
Yes there are advantages to studying away from home, but too many students are graduating with a lot of debt that will take decades to clear, and they’re marrying later and having fewer children as a result, not helped by out-of-control housing costs in many areas.
Agree with you about the debt, and the situation is getting worse. Interestingly, admittedly several years ago now Mrs C and I went with our just-setting-up-home teacher grandson, and his fiancee, to buy some furniture. The idea was that we would give them a substantial deposit and they'd deal with the rest on HP. The sales staff, and apparently the HP lenders were interested in what the young couple earned, and what other outgoings they had, but not their student debts. Which, as they were both graduates and grandson had done teacher-training were, and I think still are, considerable.
HP providers might not care too much about student debt, but mortgage providers definitely look into it. Good on you for helping your grandkids get set up though.
Reflecting on this a bit I do wonder whether they'll have their student debt paid off before or after their (now) two year old starts on his!
On the new system, they aren’t really mean to and the state hopes they won’t. It’s a graduate tax designed to get around having to charge those of us who graduated before them.
(there are a handful listed on another page, but very few).
Originally - at merger - it was Social and Liberal Democrats as a mix of both parties identities, but rather a mouthful so shortened to Liberal Democrats after a couple of years. As well as SLD being pronounced Salad, which was not a particularly good brand image!
I was out with an old friend last night, he informed us his 20 something daughter just joined the Tory party. Couldn't offer a rationale explanation for it but there you go, it takes all sorts.
A tory supporting boyfriend?
Heaven forbid she has her own views.
Apparently local Con clubs aren’t dating agencies for middle-class teens and twenties any more.
Perhaps this should be a major priority for the new leader? “Join us, we’re better than tinder and the beer is cheap” is a good sell for an 18 year old.
I was out with an old friend last night, he informed us his 20 something daughter just joined the Tory party. Couldn't offer a rationale explanation for it but there you go, it takes all sorts.
A tory supporting boyfriend?
Heaven forbid she has her own views.
Apparently local Con clubs aren’t dating agencies for middle-class teens and twenties any more.
That was the Young Conservatives. Con clubs are drinking dens for people who can't get to Wetherspoons.
You can have all your Presidential elections, John Curtice exit polls, referendums, parliamentary votes but for sheer excitement nothing beats the announcement of a new Tory party leader.
Isn't "Tory" / "Tories" more of a nickname / term of abuse? The Conservatives don't use "Tory" in any official capacity and I suspect even of they change their name from "Conservatives" people will still use "Tory" as a term of abuse... Lets face it, the name has survived since 1832 lol...
If the Tories elect their second consecutive non white leader (and fourth woman leader) then they should rename themselves as the Progressives as a contrast to the pale, stale, and male Labour party.
Shame British National Party is already taken. The Freedom Party? Some brothers in arms on the continent.
The MEGA Party. Make England Great Again would be current and capture the mood of a changing world.
Supreme Make England Great Again, keeping that essential Tory cheesiness.
The Party needs to find a way to appeal to younger voters and not just pensioners so maybe they could go down the Education, Education, Education route.
Supreme Make England Great Helping Everyone Achieve Dream Starts
There are mock elections at schools up and down the country being won by the Greens on the single issue of university fees. Leaning into this could garner a lot of votes from that generation and their parents.
There needs to be a change of approach to tertiary education. Encourage more degree apprenticeships and self-study options such as the OU, that aren’t three years living away from home and resulting in £50k+ of debt aged 21 or 22.
We do that already as a popular option.
There are hundreds of thousands of students who live at home (quick lookup says around half a million), and the Open University has 200,000 students.
I suspect that those numbers skew heavily to mature students rather than 18-year-olds. What’s needed is for schools to encourage such alternatives, government to incentivise companies to hire degree apprentice students, and for self-study options such as the OU to be significantly cheaper than a regular degree.
I think the OU may skew that way. I expect that more general students do not skew very heavily.
Absolutely agree on industry and Govt and Universities needing to push the alternatives - especially as its nothing new.
Back in the 1980s I did a thin sandwich course, and my Company (Plessey) had an arrangement with the local University for specialist training courses and a sponsorship agreement. A number of our graduate software / hardware engineers had come up through the factory floor, starting at 16 or 18 and working into the Design Areas by the time they were 30.
It feels like there was a massive vibe shift against Kamala based on literally nothing and now there's a massive vibe shift in favor of Kamala based on literally nothing
Nothing happened at any point to justify any of this
(there are a handful listed on another page, but very few).
Originally - at merger - it was Social and Liberal Democrats as a mix of both parties identities, but rather a mouthful so shortened to Liberal Democrats after a couple of years
The old Spitting Image joke. “We’ll take the word ‘liberal’ from the Liberal Party and the word ‘party’ from the Social Democratic Party”.
You can have all your Presidential elections, John Curtice exit polls, referendums, parliamentary votes but for sheer excitement nothing beats the announcement of a new Tory party leader.
Isn't "Tory" / "Tories" more of a nickname / term of abuse? The Conservatives don't use "Tory" in any official capacity and I suspect even of they change their name from "Conservatives" people will still use "Tory" as a term of abuse... Lets face it, the name has survived since 1832 lol...
If the Tories elect their second consecutive non white leader (and fourth woman leader) then they should rename themselves as the Progressives as a contrast to the pale, stale, and male Labour party.
Shame British National Party is already taken. The Freedom Party? Some brothers in arms on the continent.
The MEGA Party. Make England Great Again would be current and capture the mood of a changing world.
Supreme Make England Great Again, keeping that essential Tory cheesiness.
The Party needs to find a way to appeal to younger voters and not just pensioners so maybe they could go down the Education, Education, Education route.
Supreme Make England Great Helping Everyone Achieve Dream Starts
There are mock elections at schools up and down the country being won by the Greens on the single issue of university fees. Leaning into this could garner a lot of votes from that generation and their parents.
There needs to be a change of approach to tertiary education. Encourage more degree apprenticeships and self-study options such as the OU, that aren’t three years living away from home and resulting in £50k+ of debt aged 21 or 22.
We do that already as a popular option.
There are hundreds of thousands of students who live at home (quick lookup says around half a million), and the Open University has 200,000 students.
I suspect that those numbers skew heavily to mature students rather than 18-year-olds. What’s needed is for schools to encourage such alternatives, government to incentivise companies to hire degree apprentice students, and for self-study options such as the OU to be significantly cheaper than a regular degree.
I think the OU may skew that way. I expect that more general students do not skew very heavily.
Absolutely agree on industry and Govt and Universities needing to push the alternatives - especially as its nothing new.
Back in the 1980s I did a thin sandwich course, and my Company (Plessey) had an arrangement with the local University for specialist training courses and a sponsorship agreement. A number of our graduate software / hardware engineers had come up through the factory floor, starting at 16 or 18 and working into the Design Areas by the time they were 30.
Our elder son did an Electronic Technician apprenticeship, then at 24 or so decided to 'top up' with a degree. So he did. Then had a very successful career in the motor-racing world.
It feels like there was a massive vibe shift against Kamala based on literally nothing and now there's a massive vibe shift in favor of Kamala based on literally nothing
Nothing happened at any point to justify any of this
I hadn’t. Vibes still seem to be heavily with Trump at the moment.
Heavily? Not really. But it's just super close, slne good signs for him in a few places, and if they haven't accounted for underestimating him before then he'll win.
Plus he won't accept defeat so has a non zero chance of winning through other means.
It feels like there was a massive vibe shift against Kamala based on literally nothing and now there's a massive vibe shift in favor of Kamala based on literally nothing
Nothing happened at any point to justify any of this
You can have all your Presidential elections, John Curtice exit polls, referendums, parliamentary votes but for sheer excitement nothing beats the announcement of a new Tory party leader.
And the good news is, it’s an annual event.
A buy annual event, indeed, given the candidates have to pay for it.
It feels like there was a massive vibe shift against Kamala based on literally nothing and now there's a massive vibe shift in favor of Kamala based on literally nothing
Nothing happened at any point to justify any of this
Once again, don't assume the Supreme Court will come to Trump's rescue.
"Supreme court rejects Republican argument on Pennsylvania ballot counting: AP
The supreme court on Friday rejected an emergency appeal from Republicans that could have led to thousands of provisional ballots not being counted in Pennsylvania, the Associated Press reports.
The justices left in place a state supreme court ruling that elections officials must count provisional ballots cast by voters whose mail-in ballots were rejected."
I think people misunderstand who the "conservative" judges on the Supreme Court are. Several are idealogical about the constitution laid down by the forefathers above all else, rather than simply being a Trump / GOP stooge. That means your "progressive" causes are always going to run into difficulties, but not a slam dunk every whinge from the right gets waved through.
IMO that's not quite right.
The loyalty of the "originalist" (ie Federalist Society) judges, which is different from "conservative" (who would be eg the commentator Judge Luttig) is not to "the Constitution laid down", but to one particular approach to the Constitution laid down, which involves imposing their own set of dogmas on it, to give the answers that they want.
They are willing to ignore bits of the Constitution, tweak other bits, import unjustified assumptions, ignore the context of when it was written (eg debates at the time it was written), do violence to decades or centuries of jurisprudence and legal scholarship, and so on - in pursuit of a pretence that they are the only respectable interpreters. If they need to tweak their situational ethics to give a different answer later because it is now convenient, they do so.
For example, in the case of giving Trump Presidential Immunity so he is above the law, they ignored that the Constitution has a basic principle of no one being above the law, and the debates around that particular point at the time it was written, which provides elucidation.
At a village idiot level, Aileen Cannon is a Junior hick-from-the-sticks Judge who declared 70 years of legal precedent around Special Prosecutors invalid, when she ruled in her Courthouse that there was no basis for special prosecutors, based on one of the Supreme Court Justices (Roberts?) including an off-the-wall statement in a one-judge opinion hinting at the possibility..
A good analogy is to the values that various Evangelical groups impose on the text of the Bible so that it says what they want it to say eg at the extreme Young Earth Creationists, who start with the imposed assumption "Genesis is Literal History", rather than starting off with a more respectful question "What is Genesis?". An example of shades of grey is the debate around "innerrancy" vs "authority" of the text, the latter being less literalist.
The so-called Originalists are like this - rather than approaching the text of the Constitution with respect for the document itself, and the Jurisprudence around it, they sit over it rather than under it and treat it as grist for their mill.
I suspect that both the Constitution and the Bible, and the traditions around them, are resilient to these attempts, and in the end both groups of "Originalists" will be blown up by the documents they are trying to manipulate.
Isn't "Tory" / "Tories" more of a nickname / term of abuse? The Conservatives don't use "Tory" in any official capacity and I suspect even of they change their name from "Conservatives" people will still use "Tory" as a term of abuse... Lets face it, the name has survived since 1832 lol...
If the Tories elect their second consecutive non white leader (and fourth woman leader) then they should rename themselves as the Progressives as a contrast to the pale, stale, and male Labour party.
Shame British National Party is already taken. The Freedom Party? Some brothers in arms on the continent.
The MEGA Party. Make England Great Again would be current and capture the mood of a changing world.
Supreme Make England Great Again, keeping that essential Tory cheesiness.
The Party needs to find a way to appeal to younger voters and not just pensioners so maybe they could go down the Education, Education, Education route.
Supreme Make England Great Helping Everyone Achieve Dream Starts
There are mock elections at schools up and down the country being won by the Greens on the single issue of university fees. Leaning into this could garner a lot of votes from that generation and their parents.
There needs to be a change of approach to tertiary education. Encourage more degree apprenticeships and self-study options such as the OU, that aren’t three years living away from home and resulting in £50k+ of debt aged 21 or 22.
We do that already as a popular option.
There are hundreds of thousands of students who live at home (quick lookup says around half a million), and the Open University has 200,000 students.
I suspect that those numbers skew heavily to mature students rather than 18-year-olds. What’s needed is for schools to encourage such alternatives, government to incentivise companies to hire degree apprentice students, and for self-study options such as the OU to be significantly cheaper than a regular degree.
I think the OU may skew that way. I expect that more general students do not skew very heavily.
Absolutely agree on industry and Govt and Universities needing to push the alternatives - especially as its nothing new.
Back in the 1980s I did a thin sandwich course, and my Company (Plessey) had an arrangement with the local University for specialist training courses and a sponsorship agreement. A number of our graduate software / hardware engineers had come up through the factory floor, starting at 16 or 18 and working into the Design Areas by the time they were 30.
Cool story. Yes we need to see much more of that sort of thing, especially for STEM subjects. Let industry work with universities to tailor courses towards useful skills in their degrees.
You can have all your Presidential elections, John Curtice exit polls, referendums, parliamentary votes but for sheer excitement nothing beats the announcement of a new Tory party leader.
And the good news is, it’s an annual event.
A buy annual event, indeed, given the candidates have to pay for it.
121 Tory MPs and 55 months until the election, so sadly they can’t all have a go, but if they pair up as leaders and deputies they can.
OT. Interesting winner of Cannes Palm d'Or 'Anora' now on cinema release. Despite a score of 99% on Rotten Toms I could see little to admire. Daringly pornographic for a mainstream film I suppose but following last years 'Anatomy of a Fall' and the brilliant 'Zone of Interest' this shouldn't be in the same league.
It's a Sean Baker movie. The guy is known for making movies about sex workers (Tangerine is one of my favourite films), so showing up to a Sean Baker movie you should know what to expect.
I didn't think it was pornographic at all, it was a film about how working class people are exploited by the ultra rich. We see that in the cleaners hoovering up around the oligarch's son, the henchmen sent after him, and so on. Echoes of Fitzgerald - "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy... they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made." That was the point Anora was getting across.
Without spoilering the ending for people who haven't seen it, it was clearly a commentary on how being a sex worker makes it impossible to experience intimacy in a non-transactional way.
Isn't "Tory" / "Tories" more of a nickname / term of abuse? The Conservatives don't use "Tory" in any official capacity and I suspect even of they change their name from "Conservatives" people will still use "Tory" as a term of abuse... Lets face it, the name has survived since 1832 lol...
If the Tories elect their second consecutive non white leader (and fourth woman leader) then they should rename themselves as the Progressives as a contrast to the pale, stale, and male Labour party.
Shame British National Party is already taken. The Freedom Party? Some brothers in arms on the continent.
The MEGA Party. Make England Great Again would be current and capture the mood of a changing world.
Supreme Make England Great Again, keeping that essential Tory cheesiness.
The Party needs to find a way to appeal to younger voters and not just pensioners so maybe they could go down the Education, Education, Education route.
Supreme Make England Great Helping Everyone Achieve Dream Starts
There are mock elections at schools up and down the country being won by the Greens on the single issue of university fees. Leaning into this could garner a lot of votes from that generation and their parents.
There needs to be a change of approach to tertiary education. Encourage more degree apprenticeships and self-study options such as the OU, that aren’t three years living away from home and resulting in £50k+ of debt aged 21 or 22.
We do that already as a popular option.
There are hundreds of thousands of students who live at home (quick lookup says around half a million), and the Open University has 200,000 students.
I suspect that those numbers skew heavily to mature students rather than 18-year-olds. What’s needed is for schools to encourage such alternatives, government to incentivise companies to hire degree apprentice students, and for self-study options such as the OU to be significantly cheaper than a regular degree.
I think the OU may skew that way. I expect that more general students do not skew very heavily.
Absolutely agree on industry and Govt and Universities needing to push the alternatives - especially as its nothing new.
Back in the 1980s I did a thin sandwich course, and my Company (Plessey) had an arrangement with the local University for specialist training courses and a sponsorship agreement. A number of our graduate software / hardware engineers had come up through the factory floor, starting at 16 or 18 and working into the Design Areas by the time they were 30.
Cool story. Yes we need to see much more of that sort of thing, especially for STEM subjects. Let industry work with universities to tailor courses towards useful skills in their degrees.
The irony is that the taxes to pay for it are already raised. Is the Apprenticeship Levy now not up to several billion a year?
Comments
So risk mitigation really
Ministers were not involved in the awarding of contracts though, that was done by DoH civil servants.
None of the above means that the NAO shouldn’t be going after people who were paid for stuff that wasn’t delivered, but having a go at people who delivered what was promised for the price agreed isn’t going to wash in a court.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2yx1xxpk5o
Anything in the 30s, or sub 35?
I fear neither will happen, but we need to be prepared if there's a stunningly poor showing.
I think the most interesting number at 11am will be the number of eligible voters, which will give us the first number of Conservative Members since Sept 2022, when it was ~172,000 who were eligible to vote for TRUSS - since when it has gone to hell in a handcart.
Interesting times ahead if the Lib Dems, Reform, or the Greens overtake them. I think Lib Dems will do so, and may have already done so, and Reform might.
How many members do you think the Conservative Party has?
I punt on 110k.
(I've had a superb header on this steeping for about a fortnight, but life etc ...")
I love piggies.
I think Badenoch and her team will try to tack to centre and dump daft policies. She will dump Rwanda and ECHR obsession, that only came from Rwanda policy mistake anyway.
"I don't want white people to die out" is completely bonkers, and also sounds fairly racist to me in most plausible contexts.
There are hundreds of thousands of students who live at home (quick lookup says around half a million), and the Open University has 200,000 students.
Highly recommend the experience.
And Good Morning one and all.
This is not how Conservative voters are formed, and is why Millenials remain so stubbornly left-wing.
With regards to surgery, the UK doesn't do genital operations on children for trans purposes : in fact iirc it's illegal - I think Cyclefree pointed that out. The USA is very different and does, with numbers (I think - don't quote me!) in the thousands. A lot of the fervour of British people is based on the belief that Britain does what America does.
As for the limiting of puberty blockers around the world, the picture is surprisingly mixed, with the USA, Australia, Japan rejecting Cass, Ireland and NZ considering it, others ignoring it or were there already. To do a proper work up on each country is difficult: it involves contacting each national medical association and there's quite a few. I've done something similar before (on different things!) so that would take me about a year. There are workarounds of less rigour (getting conference programmes and counting the nationality delegates?) but even so
Yes there are advantages to studying away from home, but too many students are graduating with a lot of debt that will take decades to clear, and they’re marrying later and having fewer children as a result, not helped by out-of-control housing costs in many areas.
Something that will bite us next time is the reliance on a patchwork of disposable PPE. If a vaguely airborne pathogen happens - won’t help. Plus the supply chain will collapse again. This is because disposable PPE has a shelf life. The French tried using stuff past the date and found it fell apart…
Reusable PPE can be far more comfortable (built in air conditioning, face dam 3D printed to fit etc) and can be designed to integrate, as required, into a full suit.
Things change.
One thing that's struck me about the commentary on this one is how little focus there's been on the demographics of the electorate. Eg who is winning women under 30? Are there any women under 30? Who has the edge with the all important retirees vote. Did they come out in big numbers? etc - nobody seemed to bother with any of that.
The former is 14 words, with less stylisation.
On the later, I recall an entertaining article in the Guardian about how black peoples in the U.K., instead of staying in their place in the cities, were “fleeing” into the countryside. Where they tended to intermarry…. Which was bad.
Kemi 1.06
Bob J 10
And look at the hay Badeoch anti-woke agenda is having down ballot in the US election.
Do you have a link?
The sales staff, and apparently the HP lenders were interested in what the young couple earned, and what other outgoings they had, but not their student debts. Which, as they were both graduates and grandson had done teacher-training were, and I think still are, considerable.
Could do either way she reckons.
Absolutely agree on industry and Govt and Universities needing to push the alternatives - especially as its nothing new.
Back in the 1980s I did a thin sandwich course, and my Company (Plessey) had an arrangement with the local University for specialist training courses and a sponsorship agreement. A number of our graduate software / hardware engineers had come up through the factory floor, starting at 16 or 18 and working into the Design Areas by the time they were 30.
It feels like there was a massive vibe shift against Kamala based on literally nothing and now there's a massive vibe shift in favor of Kamala based on literally nothing
Nothing happened at any point to justify any of this
https://x.com/swannmarcus89/status/1852580114078265384?s=46
I hadn’t. Vibes still seem to be heavily with Trump at the moment.
Then had a very successful career in the motor-racing world.
Plus he won't accept defeat so has a non zero chance of winning through other means.
The loyalty of the "originalist" (ie Federalist Society) judges, which is different from "conservative" (who would be eg the commentator Judge Luttig) is not to "the Constitution laid down", but to one particular approach to the Constitution laid down, which involves imposing their own set of dogmas on it, to give the answers that they want.
They are willing to ignore bits of the Constitution, tweak other bits, import unjustified assumptions, ignore the context of when it was written (eg debates at the time it was written), do violence to decades or centuries of jurisprudence and legal scholarship, and so on - in pursuit of a pretence that they are the only respectable interpreters. If they need to tweak their situational ethics to give a different answer later because it is now convenient, they do so.
For example, in the case of giving Trump Presidential Immunity so he is above the law, they ignored that the Constitution has a basic principle of no one being above the law, and the debates around that particular point at the time it was written, which provides elucidation.
At a village idiot level, Aileen Cannon is a Junior hick-from-the-sticks Judge who declared 70 years of legal precedent around Special Prosecutors invalid, when she ruled in her Courthouse that there was no basis for special prosecutors, based on one of the Supreme Court Justices (Roberts?) including an off-the-wall statement in a one-judge opinion hinting at the possibility..
A good analogy is to the values that various Evangelical groups impose on the text of the Bible so that it says what they want it to say eg at the extreme Young Earth Creationists, who start with the imposed assumption "Genesis is Literal History", rather than starting off with a more respectful question "What is Genesis?". An example of shades of grey is the debate around "innerrancy" vs "authority" of the text, the latter being less literalist.
The so-called Originalists are like this - rather than approaching the text of the Constitution with respect for the document itself, and the Jurisprudence around it, they sit over it rather than under it and treat it as grist for their mill.
I suspect that both the Constitution and the Bible, and the traditions around them, are resilient to these attempts, and in the end both groups of "Originalists" will be blown up by the documents they are trying to manipulate.
I didn't think it was pornographic at all, it was a film about how working class people are exploited by the ultra rich. We see that in the cleaners hoovering up around the oligarch's son, the henchmen sent after him, and so on. Echoes of Fitzgerald - "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy... they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made." That was the point Anora was getting across.
Without spoilering the ending for people who haven't seen it, it was clearly a commentary on how being a sex worker makes it impossible to experience intimacy in a non-transactional way.
A deserved winner, IMHO, but YMMV.
That is what he has done. If in five years he’s achieved some improvement he will be rewarded. If he isn’t, he will be out.
But I still maintain that the odds are very much in Labour’s favour in 2029.
(Is that one of our rare hypothecated taxes?)
Who is he?