Yes this gripping piece of analysis amused me too. Especially the fact that 'right' and 'left' are the wrong way round.
I didn't notice that, I was too absorbed in the new horizontal division being labelled '20th century' and the old vertical division labelled 21st Century.
Good afternoon, everybody.
I think it's labelled correctly. Vertical refers to the up/down division, which is the one on the left labelled "20th century".
Maybe - after I'd posted I wondered whether the diagrams are supposed to be presenting what I thought. I'd taken it to mean roughly half & half left/right in 20th century compared to many more left now
A good outcome. Clear victory for one candidate, creditable score for the other candidate, the party membership comes out looking good - knives were already sharpening to chuck the race card at members if Kemi had been rejected.
We will now see what she can do with the open goals that Starmer's shitfest Government is lining up for her.
Also quite a nice dividing line between Reform and the Tories, who can oppose each other (but hopefully mainly Labour) and keep very separate identities whilst having some important commonalities. Nigel will be pretty relieved.
More pertinently, how do we pronounce the first syllable of Kemi's surname? Bad or Bade? I presume the latter but I've not heard her name said yet. And when was the last time a party leader had a surname which was included in the name of a constituency? All I have so far is Lord Liverpool, which doesn't really count.
Badenoch, part of Kate Forbes' constituency, is pronounced
Bad (as in Bad Company) in och (as in och aye the noo).
However I believe her hubby being a bit of a banker prefers a hard ck at the end.
More pertinently, how do we pronounce the first syllable of Kemi's surname? Bad or Bade? I presume the latter but I've not heard her name said yet. And when was the last time a party leader had a surname which was included in the name of a constituency? All I have so far is Lord Liverpool, which doesn't really count.
Badenoch, part of Kate Forbes' constituency, is pronounced
Bad (as in Bad Company) in och (as in och aye the noo).
However I believe her hubby being a bit of a banker prefers a hard ck at the end.
Really? I would have thought it would end in och as in loch.
More pertinently, how do we pronounce the first syllable of Kemi's surname? Bad or Bade? I presume the latter but I've not heard her name said yet. And when was the last time a party leader had a surname which was included in the name of a constituency? All I have so far is Lord Liverpool, which doesn't really count.
Isn't it Baden as in Baden-Baden?
I hadn't even considered Bard.
So, to frame the dilemma in terms understood on PB.
Is it pronounced like Baden-Powell the Boy Scout, or Bard the Bowman?
Keir Starmer has distanced himself from the actor David Tennant after he said Kemi Badenoch should “shut up”.
Tennant told an awards ceremony last week he would like to live in a world where Badenoch, the equalities minister and likely Conservative leadership contender, “doesn’t exist any more”.
This US election has become even more bizarre, if possible, in shades of Starmer the Llama harmer the democrats have executed a republican squirrel !!!!
"If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it."
More pertinently, how do we pronounce the first syllable of Kemi's surname? Bad or Bade? I presume the latter but I've not heard her name said yet. And when was the last time a party leader had a surname which was included in the name of a constituency? All I have so far is Lord Liverpool, which doesn't really count.
More pertinently, how do we pronounce the first syllable of Kemi's surname? Bad or Bade? I presume the latter but I've not heard her name said yet. And when was the last time a party leader had a surname which was included in the name of a constituency? All I have so far is Lord Liverpool, which doesn't really count.
Badenoch, part of Kate Forbes' constituency, is pronounced
Bad (as in Bad Company) in och (as in och aye the noo).
However I believe her hubby being a bit of a banker prefers a hard ck at the end.
Well, Strachan was sometimes anglicised to Strahan so the southron would know how (sort of) to pronounce it. I know of at least one case of someone moving to London for professional reasons an d changing the orthography, admittedly c. 1850 or something like that.
I'm calling it - Kamala Harris has the Presidency.
I'm not betting on it any more, though .
I hope she has. Economically Trump would be a disaster.
Just like his first term?
First term was okay. However he goes further.
If he implements his proposed trade tariffs that would be a disaster. In my view.
Harris is a crap candidate but better than the alternative.
His first term is irrelevant. He was surrounded pretty much by various 'adults in the room'. This time he wont be. And he has clearly become more deranged with age and/or stress in the intervening years.
Trump 2.0 will be total disaster for america and the world.
More pertinently, how do we pronounce the first syllable of Kemi's surname? Bad or Bade? I presume the latter but I've not heard her name said yet. And when was the last time a party leader had a surname which was included in the name of a constituency? All I have so far is Lord Liverpool, which doesn't really count.
More pertinently, how do we pronounce the first syllable of Kemi's surname? Bad or Bade? I presume the latter but I've not heard her name said yet. And when was the last time a party leader had a surname which was included in the name of a constituency? All I have so far is Lord Liverpool, which doesn't really count.
More pertinently, how do we pronounce the first syllable of Kemi's surname? Bad or Bade? I presume the latter but I've not heard her name said yet. And when was the last time a party leader had a surname which was included in the name of a constituency? All I have so far is Lord Liverpool, which doesn't really count.
Bath? North?
Heath.
Douglas.
And Churchill (nobody disqualified Canadian constituencies, did they?).
I'm calling it - Kamala Harris has the Presidency.
I'm not betting on it any more, though .
I hope she has. Economically Trump would be a disaster.
Just like his first term?
First term was okay. However he goes further.
If he implements his proposed trade tariffs that would be a disaster. In my view.
Harris is a crap candidate but better than the alternative.
His first term is irrelevant. He was surrounded pretty much by various 'adults in the room'. This time he wont be. And he has clearly become more deranged with age and/or stress in the intervening years.
Trump 2.0 will be total disaster for america and the world.
Three days...
I’m not the one bringing up his first time, driver is.
Frank Luntz: "It's now about turn out. And the group I'm wtching more than any other are young women. If they come out in greater numbers then that is great news for Harris."
Wending my way back to Devon after a week in Turkmenistan and then a week in Abu Dhabi.
Glad Kemi won. A lot of work to do to rise to the job. But I wish her the best in the role, for as long as she holds it. (Implying nothing other than she might upgrade her job to PM.)
Still startling that 40% of the party couldn't see Jenrick for the sleazeball slimebag he clearly is.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
Thanks for the link, an interesting read although I was slightly triggered by the capitalisation of Malaise.
Thing is, I think this is superficially very appealing (and I say that as a fairly hard leftist). But my only experience of the reality of this is in teaching, where one of the main sources of bureaucracy comes in through trying to prevent kids being abused, either at home or in school. Whilst the form-filling is time consuming and creates unproductive roles for administrators, I still think that is a better world than one in which child molesters are allowed to be with kids unsupervised.
To rephrase, how to do you remove the bureaucracy whilst keeping protections in place? Or do you accept less protection eg more kids being abused? Or is there another solution?
I realise I've just picked one aspect of bureaucracy, but there is also a wider question - which bits of paperwork for eg planning are the important ones? That's quite a hard, value-laden question to answer (not to say it shouldn't be asked, though).
That’s a false comparison though.
Let’s say you make a 70 page form into a 20 page form (the US takes things to an unhelpful extreme) that’s a serious reduction in time spent by the consumer.
If thoughtfully designed then it shouldnt result in a reduction in safeguarding in your example.
A simple example.
At the bank I work at, they have a legal obligation to monitor behaviour for insider trading. As part of this, the employees have to register all their personal bank accounts with the bank.
The new system remembers all your bank accounts from last year. So all you have to do it click “no change”, if you have nothing to add. The old system required you to type everything in, each time.
The bank kindly looking after my money has revamped the page for transferring funds between accounts, so now I have to specify where I am transferring to, as well as from. I only have two accounts! Until a few months back, the old system correctly defaulted to the other one.
Frank Luntz: "It's now about turn out. And the group I'm wtching more than any other are young women. If they come out in greater numbers then that is great news for Harris."
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
Thanks for the link, an interesting read although I was slightly triggered by the capitalisation of Malaise.
Thing is, I think this is superficially very appealing (and I say that as a fairly hard leftist). But my only experience of the reality of this is in teaching, where one of the main sources of bureaucracy comes in through trying to prevent kids being abused, either at home or in school. Whilst the form-filling is time consuming and creates unproductive roles for administrators, I still think that is a better world than one in which child molesters are allowed to be with kids unsupervised.
To rephrase, how to do you remove the bureaucracy whilst keeping protections in place? Or do you accept less protection eg more kids being abused? Or is there another solution?
I realise I've just picked one aspect of bureaucracy, but there is also a wider question - which bits of paperwork for eg planning are the important ones? That's quite a hard, value-laden question to answer (not to say it shouldn't be asked, though).
Re-reading your comment on planning
A friend had an old property that he didn’t need. He got the planning permission to turn it into 2 units and then gave it to a local charity for social housing.
The planning people made the charity redo all the expert reports - at a cost of thousands and a delay of months - because the LibDems on the council insisted that because they were addressed to my friend they were no longer valid and it wasn’t possible to assign the reports to the charity.
Is there a name for this council that actually allows councillors to get that close to the details?
Look, can all of you offering up ideas to streamline bureaucracy please submit them to the correct sub-committee instead? After giving them due consideration they may then be offered to full committee for proper consideration. If successful, you will be offered a chance to commission the right reports that may allow you to make a case.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
Thanks for the link, an interesting read although I was slightly triggered by the capitalisation of Malaise.
Thing is, I think this is superficially very appealing (and I say that as a fairly hard leftist). But my only experience of the reality of this is in teaching, where one of the main sources of bureaucracy comes in through trying to prevent kids being abused, either at home or in school. Whilst the form-filling is time consuming and creates unproductive roles for administrators, I still think that is a better world than one in which child molesters are allowed to be with kids unsupervised.
To rephrase, how to do you remove the bureaucracy whilst keeping protections in place? Or do you accept less protection eg more kids being abused? Or is there another solution?
I realise I've just picked one aspect of bureaucracy, but there is also a wider question - which bits of paperwork for eg planning are the important ones? That's quite a hard, value-laden question to answer (not to say it shouldn't be asked, though).
Re-reading your comment on planning
A friend had an old property that he didn’t need. He got the planning permission to turn it into 2 units and then gave it to a local charity for social housing.
The planning people made the charity redo all the expert reports - at a cost of thousands and a delay of months - because the LibDems on the council insisted that because they were addressed to my friend they were no longer valid and it wasn’t possible to assign the reports to the charity.
Is there a name for this council that actually allows councillors to get that close to the details?
The charity should not have done this. They should have gone to appeal for non-determination. There is a reluctance however in the quasi public sector not to up-set the public sector. No private sector applicant would have stood for this. They would not just have won but they would have had costs awarded as well.
This US election has become even more bizarre, if possible, in shades of Starmer the Llama harmer the democrats have executed a republican squirrel !!!!
May be, like Tennant, you “just wish [her] to shut up”?
Or dream of a world where you wake up and she “ doesn’t exist”?
(Snip)
The problem is that many anti-trans people don't want trans people to exist, deny they exist, and/or want to make it impossible for them to transition at any age.
Hence calling transmen "confused lesbians", or transwomen "men in skirts", and the attempts to stop trans people from using womens toilets.
The amount of money sloshing around in Abu Dhabi is astounding. Whilst Dubai LOOKS like some sci-fi metropolis, Abu Dhabi is making its moves on its sovreign wealth fund.
It is doing deals to acquire big projects and household names at the rate of $5 billion.
A DAY.
If you want to know where the world's future is heading...
May be, like Tennant, you “just wish [her] to shut up”?
Or dream of a world where you wake up and she “ doesn’t exist”?
(Snip)
The problem is that many anti-trans people don't want trans people to exist, deny they exist, and/or want to make it impossible for them to transition at any age.
Hence calling transmen "confused lesbians", or transwomen "men in skirts", and the attempts to stop trans people from using womens toilets.
In what way does that justify Tennant’s comments pr the reported reaction from the audience?
The amount of money sloshing around in Abu Dhabi is astounding. Whilst Dubai LOOKS like some sci-fi metropolis, Abu Dhabi is making its moves on its sovreign wealth fund.
It is doing deals to acquire big projects and household names at the rate of $5 billion.
A DAY.
If you want to know where the world's future is heading...
May be, like Tennant, you “just wish [her] to shut up”?
Or dream of a world where you wake up and she “ doesn’t exist”?
Perhaps you are a “rich, lefty, white male” as well?
I’ll stick with my own words thanks. I can see why you might want to appropriate other people’s for your efforts mind.
I thought Rowling’s comment was a mildly amusing bit of snark. While you may not have found it amusing, why do you think she has “curdled into a petty old boot”?
The amount of money sloshing around in Abu Dhabi is astounding. Whilst Dubai LOOKS like some sci-fi metropolis, Abu Dhabi is making its moves on its sovreign wealth fund.
It is doing deals to acquire big projects and household names at the rate of $5 billion.
A DAY.
If you want to know where the world's future is heading...
The amount of money sloshing around in Abu Dhabi is astounding. Whilst Dubai LOOKS like some sci-fi metropolis, Abu Dhabi is making its moves on its sovreign wealth fund.
It is doing deals to acquire big projects and household names at the rate of $5 billion.
A DAY.
If you want to know where the world's future is heading...
May be, like Tennant, you “just wish [her] to shut up”?
Or dream of a world where you wake up and she “ doesn’t exist”?
(Snip)
The problem is that many anti-trans people don't want trans people to exist, deny they exist, and/or want to make it impossible for them to transition at any age.
Hence calling transmen "confused lesbians", or transwomen "men in skirts", and the attempts to stop trans people from using womens toilets.
The amount of money sloshing around in Abu Dhabi is astounding. Whilst Dubai LOOKS like some sci-fi metropolis, Abu Dhabi is making its moves on its sovreign wealth fund.
It is doing deals to acquire big projects and household names at the rate of $5 billion.
A DAY.
If you want to know where the world's future is heading...
So…. What do we do?
Work with them.
I hope they're not as rude, disrespectful and as bad payers as the Saudis.
Possibly the most unpleasant clients I've ever had.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
Thanks for the link, an interesting read although I was slightly triggered by the capitalisation of Malaise.
Thing is, I think this is superficially very appealing (and I say that as a fairly hard leftist). But my only experience of the reality of this is in teaching, where one of the main sources of bureaucracy comes in through trying to prevent kids being abused, either at home or in school. Whilst the form-filling is time consuming and creates unproductive roles for administrators, I still think that is a better world than one in which child molesters are allowed to be with kids unsupervised.
To rephrase, how to do you remove the bureaucracy whilst keeping protections in place? Or do you accept less protection eg more kids being abused? Or is there another solution?
I realise I've just picked one aspect of bureaucracy, but there is also a wider question - which bits of paperwork for eg planning are the important ones? That's quite a hard, value-laden question to answer (not to say it shouldn't be asked, though).
Re-reading your comment on planning
A friend had an old property that he didn’t need. He got the planning permission to turn it into 2 units and then gave it to a local charity for social housing.
The planning people made the charity redo all the expert reports - at a cost of thousands and a delay of months - because the LibDems on the council insisted that because they were addressed to my friend they were no longer valid and it wasn’t possible to assign the reports to the charity.
Is there a name for this council that actually allows councillors to get that close to the details?
It was in Hampshire
There is more to this story. Normally Councillors do not get involved in planning issues. A Councillor would have to "call it in". It seems unlikely in the extreme that a Councillor of any party would call in a planning issue to delay things and increase costs to a charity. It just doesn't ring true.
May be, like Tennant, you “just wish [her] to shut up”?
Or dream of a world where you wake up and she “ doesn’t exist”?
Perhaps you are a “rich, lefty, white male” as well?
I’ll stick with my own words thanks. I can see why you might want to appropriate other people’s for your efforts mind.
I thought Rowling’s comment was a mildly amusing bit of snark. While you may not have found it amusing, why do you think she has “curdled into a petty old boot”?
It wouldn’t be because her views are at odds with those of SNP loyalists, would it, TUD?
"If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it."
If only that were true, it would make trusting people much easier!
Kemi Badenoch: I almost died wading through flash floods with high heels on Business Secretary was travelling back from constituency when her car was suddenly surrounded by water
That is KB / Telegraph for "there was a flood across the road and we (Ed: self + Hamish) were driving too fast to stop before we drove into it". Roughly !
TBF it sounds as if the experience was a bit traumatic.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
Thanks for the link, an interesting read although I was slightly triggered by the capitalisation of Malaise.
Thing is, I think this is superficially very appealing (and I say that as a fairly hard leftist). But my only experience of the reality of this is in teaching, where one of the main sources of bureaucracy comes in through trying to prevent kids being abused, either at home or in school. Whilst the form-filling is time consuming and creates unproductive roles for administrators, I still think that is a better world than one in which child molesters are allowed to be with kids unsupervised.
To rephrase, how to do you remove the bureaucracy whilst keeping protections in place? Or do you accept less protection eg more kids being abused? Or is there another solution?
I realise I've just picked one aspect of bureaucracy, but there is also a wider question - which bits of paperwork for eg planning are the important ones? That's quite a hard, value-laden question to answer (not to say it shouldn't be asked, though).
Re-reading your comment on planning
A friend had an old property that he didn’t need. He got the planning permission to turn it into 2 units and then gave it to a local charity for social housing.
The planning people made the charity redo all the expert reports - at a cost of thousands and a delay of months - because the LibDems on the council insisted that because they were addressed to my friend they were no longer valid and it wasn’t possible to assign the reports to the charity.
Is there a name for this council that actually allows councillors to get that close to the details?
It was in Hampshire
There is more to this story. Normally Councillors do not get involved in planning issues. A Councillor would have to "call it in". It seems unlikely in the extreme that a Councillor of any party would call in a planning issue to delay things and increase costs to a charity. It just doesn't ring true.
Personal animosity? I’ve met some councillors who make Edmund Dantes seem forgetful of slights. And over the most trivial things.
May be, like Tennant, you “just wish [her] to shut up”?
Or dream of a world where you wake up and she “ doesn’t exist”?
Perhaps you are a “rich, lefty, white male” as well?
I’ll stick with my own words thanks. I can see why you might want to appropriate other people’s for your efforts mind.
I thought Rowling’s comment was a mildly amusing bit of snark. While you may not have found it amusing, why do you think she has “curdled into a petty old boot”?
She spends plenty of time, despite her vast wealth and other concerns, making petty comments on twitter, that seems open to criticism.
Not that TUD needs much defending, but I think we can get a bit over defensive about a bit of hyperbolic meanness. Sure, we don't really want politicians and those in public life to abandon all civility, but whilst rude it was not even vulgar as comments go. Any amount of public(ish) comment is going to have the risk of some harsh opprobrium, and excise it completely and we lose some useful criticism along with it.
It reminds of a comment the other day about someone not wanting to Kemi lazy because it might smack of a stereotype about Africans (a stereotype I was not aware of), then using criticism which was in effect calling her lazy, so what difference would it make. I've done a similar thing in not calling someone I thought hysterical 'hysterical', because of the stereotype used negatively against women.
I take no pleasure from the fact that in THE PLOT, written 2 years ago I predicted every single event which has taken place in the Conservative Party - including the events of today. I desperately wanted to be wrong.
What a great day in the Premier League with Arsenal and City and Liverpool all losing during their games . . . Except Liverpool turned it around to win 2-1 while our title rivals both lost at full time.
Kemi Badenoch: I almost died wading through flash floods with high heels on Business Secretary was travelling back from constituency when her car was suddenly surrounded by water
That is KB / Telegraph for "there was a flood across the road and we (Ed: self + Hamish) were driving too fast to stop before we drove into it". Roughly !
TBF it sounds as if the experience was a bit traumatic.
There’s some underpasses under a tube line, not far from me. When West London gets a freak rainstorm, if they fill up (drain failure) it looks really innocuous.
Until someone drives in and discovers their car is afloat, but sinking.
I take no pleasure from the fact that in THE PLOT, written 2 years ago I predicted every single event which has taken place in the Conservative Party - including the events of today. I desperately wanted to be wrong.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
Thanks for the link, an interesting read although I was slightly triggered by the capitalisation of Malaise.
Thing is, I think this is superficially very appealing (and I say that as a fairly hard leftist). But my only experience of the reality of this is in teaching, where one of the main sources of bureaucracy comes in through trying to prevent kids being abused, either at home or in school. Whilst the form-filling is time consuming and creates unproductive roles for administrators, I still think that is a better world than one in which child molesters are allowed to be with kids unsupervised.
To rephrase, how to do you remove the bureaucracy whilst keeping protections in place? Or do you accept less protection eg more kids being abused? Or is there another solution?
I realise I've just picked one aspect of bureaucracy, but there is also a wider question - which bits of paperwork for eg planning are the important ones? That's quite a hard, value-laden question to answer (not to say it shouldn't be asked, though).
Re-reading your comment on planning
A friend had an old property that he didn’t need. He got the planning permission to turn it into 2 units and then gave it to a local charity for social housing.
The planning people made the charity redo all the expert reports - at a cost of thousands and a delay of months - because the LibDems on the council insisted that because they were addressed to my friend they were no longer valid and it wasn’t possible to assign the reports to the charity.
Is there a name for this council that actually allows councillors to get that close to the details?
The charity should not have done this. They should have gone to appeal for non-determination. There is a reluctance however in the quasi public sector not to up-set the public sector. No private sector applicant would have stood for this. They would not just have won but they would have had costs awarded as well.
Some public sector would have though, the NHS wouldn't mess about.
I take no pleasure from the fact that in THE PLOT, written 2 years ago I predicted every single event which has taken place in the Conservative Party - including the events of today. I desperately wanted to be wrong.
Every. Single. Event.
Why did Nadine organize for Labour to win the General Election?
The amount of money sloshing around in Abu Dhabi is astounding. Whilst Dubai LOOKS like some sci-fi metropolis, Abu Dhabi is making its moves on its sovreign wealth fund.
It is doing deals to acquire big projects and household names at the rate of $5 billion.
A DAY.
If you want to know where the world's future is heading...
So…. What do we do?
Work with them.
I hope they're not as rude, disrespectful and as bad payers as the Saudis.
Possibly the most unpleasant clients I've ever had.
I’ve dealt with Kuwaitis. Some of whom…. Let’s just say that on the Parisian Waiter Scale of rudeness - 14/10
I take no pleasure from the fact that in THE PLOT, written 2 years ago I predicted every single event which has taken place in the Conservative Party - including the events of today. I desperately wanted to be wrong.
Every. Single. Event.
Why did Nadine organize for Labour to win the General Election?
The obvious answer would seem to be cos BoZo wouldn't shag her, which makes her something of a unicorn...
The amount of money sloshing around in Abu Dhabi is astounding. Whilst Dubai LOOKS like some sci-fi metropolis, Abu Dhabi is making its moves on its sovreign wealth fund.
It is doing deals to acquire big projects and household names at the rate of $5 billion.
A DAY.
If you want to know where the world's future is heading...
So…. What do we do?
Work with them.
I hope they're not as rude, disrespectful and as bad payers as the Saudis.
Possibly the most unpleasant clients I've ever had.
I once had the misfortune to have to teach some Saudi students. Far more interested in the females in the class than anything else. And even when the females made it abundantly clear they were not interested, the Saudis found something else extra-curricular to take up their time.
The amount of money sloshing around in Abu Dhabi is astounding. Whilst Dubai LOOKS like some sci-fi metropolis, Abu Dhabi is making its moves on its sovreign wealth fund.
It is doing deals to acquire big projects and household names at the rate of $5 billion.
A DAY.
If you want to know where the world's future is heading...
So…. What do we do?
Work with them.
I hope they're not as rude, disrespectful and as bad payers as the Saudis.
Possibly the most unpleasant clients I've ever had.
I once had the misfortune to have to teach some Saudi students. Far more interested in the females in the class than anything else. And even when the females made it abundantly clear they were not interested, the Saudis found something else extra-curricular to take up their time.
The amount of money sloshing around in Abu Dhabi is astounding. Whilst Dubai LOOKS like some sci-fi metropolis, Abu Dhabi is making its moves on its sovreign wealth fund.
It is doing deals to acquire big projects and household names at the rate of $5 billion.
A DAY.
If you want to know where the world's future is heading...
So…. What do we do?
Work with them.
I hope they're not as rude, disrespectful and as bad payers as the Saudis.
Possibly the most unpleasant clients I've ever had.
I’ve dealt with Kuwaitis. Some of whom…. Let’s just say that on the Parisian Waiter Scale of rudeness - 14/10
AIUI deck crew in superyachts require about a 50% premium to work for Gulf nationals to put up with the attitude and substantial risk of mistreatment.
May be, like Tennant, you “just wish [her] to shut up”?
Or dream of a world where you wake up and she “ doesn’t exist”?
Perhaps you are a “rich, lefty, white male” as well?
I’ll stick with my own words thanks. I can see why you might want to appropriate other people’s for your efforts mind.
Weren’t you telling people that if they agree with someone, they take moral responsibility for the rest of that persons views?
When was that then, chief? Lotta words being put in folk’s mouths going on.
I seem to recall you giving some stick to Trump supporters - on the basis of if you support him, you support the whole package…
You seem to recall do you? I know it’s difficult to keep tabs on your vast repertoire of anecdotage but you’re usually better quoting someone if you’re attempting to make some killer point.
In any case I’m quite happy to deplore and despise Trump supporters on the basis that they support Trump.
The amount of money sloshing around in Abu Dhabi is astounding. Whilst Dubai LOOKS like some sci-fi metropolis, Abu Dhabi is making its moves on its sovreign wealth fund.
It is doing deals to acquire big projects and household names at the rate of $5 billion.
A DAY.
If you want to know where the world's future is heading...
So…. What do we do?
Work with them.
I hope they're not as rude, disrespectful and as bad payers as the Saudis.
Possibly the most unpleasant clients I've ever had.
I once had the misfortune to have to teach some Saudi students. Far more interested in the females in the class than anything else. And even when the females made it abundantly clear they were not interested, the Saudis found something else extra-curricular to take up their time.
The amount of money sloshing around in Abu Dhabi is astounding. Whilst Dubai LOOKS like some sci-fi metropolis, Abu Dhabi is making its moves on its sovreign wealth fund.
It is doing deals to acquire big projects and household names at the rate of $5 billion.
A DAY.
If you want to know where the world's future is heading...
So…. What do we do?
Work with them.
I hope they're not as rude, disrespectful and as bad payers as the Saudis.
Possibly the most unpleasant clients I've ever had.
I’ve dealt with Kuwaitis. Some of whom…. Let’s just say that on the Parisian Waiter Scale of rudeness - 14/10
AIUI deck crew in superyachts require about a 50% premium to work for Gulf nationals to put up with the attitude and substantial risk of mistreatment.
On the flip side, some of the Omani families have the most beautiful manners you encounter.
And not just to people who they regard as social equals.
Kemi Badenoch: I almost died wading through flash floods with high heels on Business Secretary was travelling back from constituency when her car was suddenly surrounded by water
That is KB / Telegraph for "there was a flood across the road and we (Ed: self + Hamish) were driving too fast to stop before we drove into it". Roughly !
TBF it sounds as if the experience was a bit traumatic.
There’s some underpasses under a tube line, not far from me. When West London gets a freak rainstorm, if they fill up (drain failure) it looks really innocuous.
Until someone drives in and discovers their car is afloat, but sinking.
Can be 6-8 feet deep in the middle….
There are three fords near me (well, four, but one is a double). It's common to find cars and vans stuck in them after heavy rain. I've a few photos of the unfortunate vehicles.
It's doubly confusing, as two of the three have very easy diversions, and the fourth does not really go anywhere...
Kemi Badenoch: I almost died wading through flash floods with high heels on Business Secretary was travelling back from constituency when her car was suddenly surrounded by water
That is KB / Telegraph for "there was a flood across the road and we (Ed: self + Hamish) were driving too fast to stop before we drove into it". Roughly !
TBF it sounds as if the experience was a bit traumatic.
There’s some underpasses under a tube line, not far from me. When West London gets a freak rainstorm, if they fill up (drain failure) it looks really innocuous.
Until someone drives in and discovers their car is afloat, but sinking.
Can be 6-8 feet deep in the middle….
Yes .... but ... there's the whole thing about driving to the conditions and the basic principle of being able to stop in the distance you can see.
May be, like Tennant, you “just wish [her] to shut up”?
Or dream of a world where you wake up and she “ doesn’t exist”?
(Snip)
The problem is that many anti-trans people don't want trans people to exist, deny they exist, and/or want to make it impossible for them to transition at any age.
Hence calling transmen "confused lesbians", or transwomen "men in skirts", and the attempts to stop trans people from using womens toilets.
That is definitely not Rowling's position. On her blog: "Again and again I’ve been told to ‘just meet some trans people.’ I have: in addition to a few younger people, who were all adorable, I happen to know a self-described transsexual woman who’s older than I am and wonderful. Although she’s open about her past as a gay man, I’ve always found it hard to think of her as anything other than a woman, and I believe (and certainly hope) she’s completely happy to have transitioned. Being older, though, she went through a long and rigorous process of evaluation, psychotherapy and staged transformation. The current explosion of trans activism is urging a removal of almost all the robust systems through which candidates for sex reassignment were once required to pass. A man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law." That's the issue. The vast majority of people are not anti-trans. They are supportive or just not interested. The problem lies with the very small minority of trans activists who are trying to coerce the rest of us to not only accept self identification (fair enough) but use the law to enforce the right of Self ID trans to have access to women's spaces.
I'm supportive of animal rights but not animal rights activists. I'm supportive of protection of the environment and action on climate change, but not of the extreme activists. The activists do more harm than good to their cause. Including trans activists. And yes I know about the suffragettes. I don't think the extremists helped their cause.
Kemi Badenoch: I almost died wading through flash floods with high heels on Business Secretary was travelling back from constituency when her car was suddenly surrounded by water
That is KB / Telegraph for "there was a flood across the road and we (Ed: self + Hamish) were driving too fast to stop before we drove into it". Roughly !
TBF it sounds as if the experience was a bit traumatic.
There’s some underpasses under a tube line, not far from me. When West London gets a freak rainstorm, if they fill up (drain failure) it looks really innocuous.
Until someone drives in and discovers their car is afloat, but sinking.
Can be 6-8 feet deep in the middle….
Yes .... but ... there's the whole thing about driving to the conditions and the basic principle of being able to stop in the distance you can see.
Though there are always grey edges,
True. Ish.
The ones I’m talking about, there’s video of people driving into them at about 10mph. The problem is, that even at that speed, they were in deep enough to lose traction before realising it wasn’t a puddle.
I’m paranoid. Which is why I got to watch someone drowning a golf buggy at Vaux-le-Vicomte…
Kemi Badenoch: I almost died wading through flash floods with high heels on Business Secretary was travelling back from constituency when her car was suddenly surrounded by water
That is KB / Telegraph for "there was a flood across the road and we (Ed: self + Hamish) were driving too fast to stop before we drove into it". Roughly !
TBF it sounds as if the experience was a bit traumatic.
There’s some underpasses under a tube line, not far from me. When West London gets a freak rainstorm, if they fill up (drain failure) it looks really innocuous.
Until someone drives in and discovers their car is afloat, but sinking.
Can be 6-8 feet deep in the middle….
There are three fords near me (well, four, but one is a double). It's common to find cars and vans stuck in them after heavy rain. I've a few photos of the unfortunate vehicles.
It's doubly confusing, as two of the three have very easy diversions, and the fourth does not really go anywhere...
What a great day in the Premier League with Arsenal and City and Liverpool all losing during their games . . . Except Liverpool turned it around to win 2-1 while our title rivals both lost at full time.
Forest hot on your heels. The league has a late 1970s feel!
May be, like Tennant, you “just wish [her] to shut up”?
Or dream of a world where you wake up and she “ doesn’t exist”?
(Snip)
The problem is that many anti-trans people don't want trans people to exist, deny they exist, and/or want to make it impossible for them to transition at any age.
Hence calling transmen "confused lesbians", or transwomen "men in skirts", and the attempts to stop trans people from using womens toilets.
That is definitely not Rowling's position. On her blog: "Again and again I’ve been told to ‘just meet some trans people.’ I have: in addition to a few younger people, who were all adorable, I happen to know a self-described transsexual woman who’s older than I am and wonderful. Although she’s open about her past as a gay man, I’ve always found it hard to think of her as anything other than a woman, and I believe (and certainly hope) she’s completely happy to have transitioned. Being older, though, she went through a long and rigorous process of evaluation, psychotherapy and staged transformation. The current explosion of trans activism is urging a removal of almost all the robust systems through which candidates for sex reassignment were once required to pass. A man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law." That's the issue. The vast majority of people are not anti-trans. They are supportive or just not interested. The problem lies with the very small minority of trans activists who are trying to coerce the rest of us to not only accept self identification (fair enough) but use the law to enforce the right of Self ID trans to have access to women's spaces.
I'm supportive of animal rights but not animal rights activists. I'm supportive of protection of the environment and action on climate change, but not of the extreme activists. The activists do more harm than good to their cause. Including trans activists. And yes I know about the suffragettes. I don't think the extremists helped their cause.
The way she went after that Algerian Boxer recently was nasty and weird
Kemi Badenoch: I almost died wading through flash floods with high heels on Business Secretary was travelling back from constituency when her car was suddenly surrounded by water
That is KB / Telegraph for "there was a flood across the road and we (Ed: self + Hamish) were driving too fast to stop before we drove into it". Roughly !
TBF it sounds as if the experience was a bit traumatic.
There’s some underpasses under a tube line, not far from me. When West London gets a freak rainstorm, if they fill up (drain failure) it looks really innocuous.
Until someone drives in and discovers their car is afloat, but sinking.
Can be 6-8 feet deep in the middle….
Yes .... but ... there's the whole thing about driving to the conditions and the basic principle of being able to stop in the distance you can see.
Though there are always grey edges,
True. Ish.
The ones I’m talking about, there’s video of people driving into them at about 10mph. The problem is, that even at that speed, they were in deep enough to lose traction before realising it wasn’t a puddle.
I’m paranoid. Which is why I got to watch someone drowning a golf buggy at Vaux-le-Vicomte…
Without wanting to dump on your 10mph-ers, driving into any piece of water without having a damn good idea how deep it is is an activity for fools or desperados.
I think Badenoch will survive, she is the only Conservative leader this century to have won most votes from Tory MPs and Tory members other than Cameron and Johnson.
Given how awful and unpopular this Labour government already is she will also find it much easier to capitalise on that and gain poll leads than Hague did in 1997. I think she will at least keep 2024 Tories and hope Reform eats further into working class Labour votes without getting too close to her. However Jenrick would have been better to appeal to Reform voters, Tugendhat to LD voters and Cleverly to Labour voters so I don't expect to see a surge in Tory support in polls this month
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
Thanks for the link, an interesting read although I was slightly triggered by the capitalisation of Malaise.
Thing is, I think this is superficially very appealing (and I say that as a fairly hard leftist). But my only experience of the reality of this is in teaching, where one of the main sources of bureaucracy comes in through trying to prevent kids being abused, either at home or in school. Whilst the form-filling is time consuming and creates unproductive roles for administrators, I still think that is a better world than one in which child molesters are allowed to be with kids unsupervised.
To rephrase, how to do you remove the bureaucracy whilst keeping protections in place? Or do you accept less protection eg more kids being abused? Or is there another solution?
I realise I've just picked one aspect of bureaucracy, but there is also a wider question - which bits of paperwork for eg planning are the important ones? That's quite a hard, value-laden question to answer (not to say it shouldn't be asked, though).
Re-reading your comment on planning
A friend had an old property that he didn’t need. He got the planning permission to turn it into 2 units and then gave it to a local charity for social housing.
The planning people made the charity redo all the expert reports - at a cost of thousands and a delay of months - because the LibDems on the council insisted that because they were addressed to my friend they were no longer valid and it wasn’t possible to assign the reports to the charity.
Is there a name for this council that actually allows councillors to get that close to the details?
It was in Hampshire
There is more to this story. Normally Councillors do not get involved in planning issues. A Councillor would have to "call it in". It seems unlikely in the extreme that a Councillor of any party would call in a planning issue to delay things and increase costs to a charity. It just doesn't ring true.
Personal animosity? I’ve met some councillors who make Edmund Dantes seem forgetful of slights. And over the most trivial things.
The Council Law Officer would intervene if it were blatant on a planning issue.
I presume the racist tweet by Lab MP bet has been settled?
ICYMI Dawn Butler has deleted a retweet calling Kemi "the blackface of white supremacy"
I'm pretty sure that counts as racist tweeting
Took about six hours
Called it.
I'd have assumed it would take minutes - hours is more baffling, as it means she took her time to think about things and probably thought it was a banger of a tweet to highlight by retweeting. And apparently did it before the announcement.
Comments
We will now see what she can do with the open goals that Starmer's shitfest Government is lining up for her.
Also quite a nice dividing line between Reform and the Tories, who can oppose each other (but hopefully mainly Labour) and keep very separate identities whilst having some important commonalities. Nigel will be pretty relieved.
"I had a wee red balloon." Mammy bear.
https://youtu.be/i5hA_WigcTk?si=mUiY1i9_5QnMj-Pw
Bad (as in Bad Company)
in
och (as in och aye the noo).
However I believe her hubby being a bit of a banker prefers a hard ck at the end.
@Swifties4Kamala has launched its first-ever targeted fandom mail program to turn out low propensity Swiftie voters across Pennsylvania.
Potential voters across PA have started receiving these in their mailboxes over the past few weeks.
https://x.com/Annie_Wu_22/status/1852728693765894604
Is it pronounced like Baden-Powell the Boy Scout, or Bard the Bowman?
Myself, I say it goes like Scone.
“But she *is* a shrill, dominnering witch!!!”
Keir Starmer has distanced himself from the actor David Tennant after he said Kemi Badenoch should “shut up”.
Tennant told an awards ceremony last week he would like to live in a world where Badenoch, the equalities minister and likely Conservative leadership contender, “doesn’t exist any more”.
I'm not betting on it any more, though
Ali Fortescue
@AliFortescue
·
4h
A reminder of my favourite Kemi doorstep
https://x.com/AliFortescue/status/1852682163822449106
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn8XYHQuLCo
As usual with Ash, I agree with about 80% of his comments, and think he misses mentioning a couple of things which need remarking on.
https://x.com/modern_elysian/status/1852738059592257776?s=61
If he implements his proposed trade tariffs that would be a disaster. In my view.
Harris is a crap candidate but better than the alternative.
North?
Turns out that I was right all along.
Trump 2.0 will be total disaster for america and the world.
Three days...
Douglas.
And Churchill (nobody disqualified Canadian constituencies, did they?).
Come on ladies. Save American democracy!!
Or dream of a world where you wake up and she “ doesn’t exist”?
Perhaps you are a “rich, lefty, white male” as well?
Glad Kemi won. A lot of work to do to rise to the job. But I wish her the best in the role, for as long as she holds it. (Implying nothing other than she might upgrade her job to PM.)
Still startling that 40% of the party couldn't see Jenrick for the sleazeball slimebag he clearly is.
The squirrel I mean.
Hence calling transmen "confused lesbians", or transwomen "men in skirts", and the attempts to stop trans people from using womens toilets.
I can see why you might want to appropriate other people’s for your efforts mind.
It is doing deals to acquire big projects and household names at the rate of $5 billion.
A DAY.
If you want to know where the world's future is heading...
Back in the day, the West Ham and the Spurs games were always ones we looked forard to.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz7wvpyewxlo
Possibly the most unpleasant clients I've ever had.
Just so long as we don’t use those wimpy, low yield, vegan nuclear weapons.
Proper bombs. For a proper war.
Well this clarifies things.
https://x.com/robertshrimsley/status/1852754120035189009
Cf Telegrunt:
Kemi Badenoch: I almost died wading through flash floods with high heels on
Business Secretary was travelling back from constituency when her car was suddenly surrounded by water
That is KB / Telegraph for "there was a flood across the road and we (Ed: self + Hamish) were driving too fast to stop before we drove into it". Roughly !
TBF it sounds as if the experience was a bit traumatic.
https://archive.ph/ozTlO
(ducks)
Commentator - I can’t see which one is in front. It’s either Oxford or Cambridge.
Not that TUD needs much defending, but I think we can get a bit over defensive about a bit of hyperbolic meanness. Sure, we don't really want politicians and those in public life to abandon all civility, but whilst rude it was not even vulgar as comments go. Any amount of public(ish) comment is going to have the risk of some harsh opprobrium, and excise it completely and we lose some useful criticism along with it.
It reminds of a comment the other day about someone not wanting to Kemi lazy because it might smack of a stereotype about Africans (a stereotype I was not aware of), then using criticism which was in effect calling her lazy, so what difference would it make. I've done a similar thing in not calling someone I thought hysterical 'hysterical', because of the stereotype used negatively against women.
I take no pleasure from the fact that in THE PLOT, written 2 years ago I predicted every single event which has taken place in the Conservative Party - including the events of today. I desperately wanted to be wrong.
Every. Single. Event.
Lotta words being put in folk’s mouths going on.
Until someone drives in and discovers their car is afloat, but sinking.
Can be 6-8 feet deep in the middle….
This is a masterful @TimAlberta piece from behind the orange curtain of Trump's snake-pit of a campaign.
The blamestorming begins:
https://x.com/TheRickWilson/status/1852745506759295036
In any case I’m quite happy to deplore and despise Trump supporters on the basis that they support Trump.
And not just to people who they regard as social equals.
It's doubly confusing, as two of the three have very easy diversions, and the fourth does not really go anywhere...
Though there are always grey edges,
On her blog:
"Again and again I’ve been told to ‘just meet some trans people.’ I have: in addition to a few younger people, who were all adorable, I happen to know a self-described transsexual woman who’s older than I am and wonderful. Although she’s open about her past as a gay man, I’ve always found it hard to think of her as anything other than a woman, and I believe (and certainly hope) she’s completely happy to have transitioned. Being older, though, she went through a long and rigorous process of evaluation, psychotherapy and staged transformation. The current explosion of trans activism is urging a removal of almost all the robust systems through which candidates for sex reassignment were once required to pass. A man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law."
That's the issue. The vast majority of people are not anti-trans. They are supportive or just not interested. The problem lies with the very small minority of trans activists who are trying to coerce the rest of us to not only accept self identification (fair enough) but use the law to enforce the right of Self ID trans to have access to women's spaces.
I'm supportive of animal rights but not animal rights activists.
I'm supportive of protection of the environment and action on climate change, but not of the extreme activists.
The activists do more harm than good to their cause. Including trans activists.
And yes I know about the suffragettes. I don't think the extremists helped their cause.
The ones I’m talking about, there’s video of people driving into them at about 10mph. The problem is, that even at that speed, they were in deep enough to lose traction before realising it wasn’t a puddle.
I’m paranoid. Which is why I got to watch someone drowning a golf buggy at Vaux-le-Vicomte…
I'm pretty sure that counts as racist tweeting
Took about six hours
Given how awful and unpopular this Labour government already is she will also find it much easier to capitalise on that and gain poll leads than Hague did in 1997. I think she will at least keep 2024 Tories and hope Reform eats further into working class Labour votes without getting too close to her. However Jenrick would have been better to appeal to Reform voters, Tugendhat to LD voters and Cleverly to Labour voters so I don't expect to see a surge in Tory support in polls this month