I don't know the significance of an accordianist's statue in Tokyo.
I'm inclined to wonder whether a Cuban musician every toured Japan 70 years ago to kick it all off.
The statute is stylish, like Eric Morecambe in Blackpool, or various "sit next to this" type statues in London. The first one of these I knew was in Beeston, in Nottingham, back in the 1980s. It is still there.
It’s a monument in Busan (at one point the only bit of Korea still held by the democrats/Americans/west) to all the refugees from elsewhere in Korea, during the Korean War, who gathered on those steps hoping to see lost family members in the sea of forlorn faces below
It is really quite moving. Busan is a cool city. Much preferred it to Seoul
I do find it a bit distasteful when those who can no longer actively defend themselves are accused of things.
At a time of the police having been on a starvation diet of resources for a long time and whilst ASB and shoplifting are in large measures off the agenda, it does imo put a question mark over prioritisation.
In general I would prioritise the avoidance of more victims of crime being created, over investigating alleged perpetrators who - even of found guilty - cannot commit further crimes.
Nick Clegg's Lib Dems won more votes in 2010 than Rishi Sunak's Tories got in 2024.
The post Brexit Tories have become a strange clique. It's difficult to judge what they are anymore. Nowadays I picture them as the sort of people who would read and agree with the Daily Mail
Good morning
I doubt the conservative party really considers your views as you are not their target vote
As I said yesterday Kemi will seek to recover some votes from Reform and to attract the conservatives who either abstained or voted Labour at the GE
As has been said on Sky this morning Kemi is a straight talker and will upset her opponents, but straight talking is needed rather than gaining office by swearing no tax increases then imposing 40 billion of such increases as Reeves has just done
If you are agreeing with her then she is not doing her job
Straight talker? Do you agree with her that partygate was overblown and Boris was great?
I listened to her interview and she said FPN were wrong and were largely handed to staff and even some people walking in parks.
I did not hear her say Johnson was great, indeed she said she resigned over his stance on Pincher
Putting comments into context provides a different view
Bloody Times and their lies.
'Kemi Badenoch: Partygate was overblown and Boris Johnson was great'
I'm one of a vanishingly small number on PB (and probably in the wider public) who does think Partygate was overblown. I don't think that Johnson was partying in the drunken manner that some of the staff at No 10 did and I think that's why he 'lied' about it at the time. He thought that what they did was ok.
However his handling of the whole thing was rubbish and fitted his usual bluster. If he had accepted and set up an immediate enquiry he might have ridden it out, but he didn't.
I do not accept anyone else to agree with me on this.
Well, actually I do. I suspect Johnson's No 10 was somewhat disorganised, with a casual attitude to regulations, which 'didn't apply to them', a view encouraged by Johnson himself, from what he said, not necessarily as a result of what he did. IIRC he said something about end of week 'parties' and leaving do's in other establishments which were not borne out by the facts, and which caused a great deal of anger in places where the rules HAD been followed.
The Partygate thing shows how Badenoch’s strengths can also show up a bit of naïveté and weakness.
What she is saying is that if the Tories had not introduced such draconian restrictions then Boris could not have broken the restrictions and would not have undermined his premiership. There is I suppose an argument to be had there (though it conveniently ignores the fact that the anger wasn’t just at the breaking the letter of the restrictions but the spirit), but whether it’s a sensible argument to be advancing politically, I’m not sure.
What she’s banking on is that people like her having opinions, whether they disagree with her or not. It might work, but it’s a brave gamble given that the electorate just gave a huge majority to a party who deliberately steered clear of having many opinions at all.
Kemi sort of has a point about Partygate and it is similar to the one advanced by Nadine Dorries, which is that most of Number 10's wild partying that so sickened the public was by SpAds and the odd civil servant while Boris was at Chequers.
But it is politically naive to raise it now. Best to let sleeping Big Dogs lie (which is what actually got him into trouble).
I don't know the significance of an accordianist's statue in Tokyo.
I'm inclined to wonder whether a Cuban musician every toured Japan 70 years ago to kick it all off.
The statute is stylish, like Eric Morecambe in Blackpool, or various "sit next to this" type statues in London. The first one of these I knew was in Beeston, in Nottingham, back in the 1980s. It is still there.
It’s a monument in Busan (at one point the only bit of Korea still held by the democrats/Americans/west) to all the refugees from elsewhere in Korea, during the Korean War, who gathered on those steps hoping to see lost family members in the sea of forlorn faces below
It is really quite moving. Busan is a cool city. Much preferred it to Seoul
You should surely have a good chance at solving that quiz
You took the Train to Busan ?
Best seafood in Busan and friendly people.
Jeju would argue with that. The Last of the Sea Women on Netflix is a pretty good documentary on their traditional fishing (though the anti-nuke stuff at the end is bollocks).
First big split between the LDs and Labour since Corbyn. The LDs are now calling Reeves' placing a 20% inheritance tax on agricultural estates worth over £1 million a 'tractor tax.'
Could be important as some of the latest polls give a hung parliament with Labour needing LD support to stay in office.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ rural affairs spokesman, said: “This claim just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Rachel Reeves must be living in cloud cuckoo land. It just shows this Labour Government doesn’t understand rural communities. What we cannot afford is to drive farmers out of business and undermine the country’s food security.”
Don't worry. Given and sniff of power the highly principled Lib Dems would abandon the farmers at the drop of a hat.
Not sure what you base that on seeing as there is little evidence one way or the other because of FPTP. I'm nearly 70 and in my lifetime there have only been three incidents where that was relevant I believe. In 74 it didn't happen with the Tories so opposite to what you suggest, then there was the Lib Lab pact but no power and no request for power just the request for implementing so Liberal policies so not abandoning principles. So the only one you have is the coalition and which both sides compromised, which you have to do. I mean no agreement can be achieved if both sides demand everything they want. And boy have the LDs learnt from that.
So the claim you make is really not based on any evidence.
If true would be the closest EC margin since universal suffrage in the USA, even closer than the 2000 presidential election when Bush beat Gore 271 to 266.
Though Hayes in 1876 and Adams in 1824 won the EC by just one vote
He was released on the condition he completes a series of deadly games, where losing is punished by death but ultimate victory brings unimaginable wealth.
You should surely have a good chance at solving that quiz
You took the Train to Busan ?
Btw, did you go for the full makgeolli hangover ?
Didn’t like makgeolli so I swerved that…. But I liked soju all too much. They took me on a food tour of Busan last night, the fish market and everything. Some ace food and some not so ace, and LOTS of soju, that stuff slips down far too easily
Fuck me the hangover
A soju hangover is gentle in comparison. Magkeolli has a lot less alcohol, but drink enough, and it is virtually poisonous.
Jeez that sounds bad. Because a soju hangover is frigging horrible. Luckily I detested makgeolli
Also last night, and for the first time in my life, I felt great moral distress eating an exotic foodstuff. We were all drunk and the guide persuaded me to try “living octopus”
OMFG. I thought they were joking. they weren’t joking. Horrific: and not even “tasty”
Individuals who have bought farms as a tax shelter with the intention of holding until death are less fortunate.
Labour will be delighted that the main coverage of the budget is 2 very rich men who explicitly bought farmland as a tax dodge whining about their tax dodge being curtailed
James “Singapore” Dyson moaning about his tax dodge no longer being such a good tax dodge is particularly choice.
Meanwhile the state broadcaster is running PR for rentier William and his image-polishing Earthshot fluff (life missions of peace in the Middle East and ending homelessness not going so well).
"Grant" is an appropriate legal term for a lease. And everyone involved in comm prop deals always issues vomit inducing self congratulatory announcements afterwards. Is that really the best the Times can do ?
You wouldn't expect the not-my-prince of Wales or his predecessor to sully their hands with financial matters. All that distressing detail is handled by the writhing nest of vipers who do their bidding, squeeze their toothpaste etc.
I don't know the significance of an accordianist's statue in Tokyo.
I'm inclined to wonder whether a Cuban musician every toured Japan 70 years ago to kick it all off.
The statute is stylish, like Eric Morecambe in Blackpool, or various "sit next to this" type statues in London. The first one of these I knew was in Beeston, in Nottingham, back in the 1980s. It is still there.
It’s a monument in Busan (at one point the only bit of Korea still held by the democrats/Americans/west) to all the refugees from elsewhere in Korea, during the Korean War, who gathered on those steps hoping to see lost family members in the sea of forlorn faces below
It is really quite moving. Busan is a cool city. Much preferred it to Seoul
A lovely place.
It is where all our ship building industry moved too
I watched three tugs towing a huge bow section of a vessel across the South China sea to Busan
On the Kaba Blake conundrem, and the ludicrous decision to charge Blake, this line is all thats needed.
"Mr Kaba was shot in the head after he tried to ram his way out of a police vehicle stop in south London"
Don't use your 2 ton car as a weapon if you don't want to get shot in the head. Simple really.
BBC quote:
"Prosper Kaba [father] said that "the role of the police is not to kill", that their son should instead have stood trial and, if convicted, gone to prison for the criminal activity they now know he was involved in."
Nick Clegg's Lib Dems won more votes in 2010 than Rishi Sunak's Tories got in 2024.
The post Brexit Tories have become a strange clique. It's difficult to judge what they are anymore. Nowadays I picture them as the sort of people who would read and agree with the Daily Mail
Perhaps they should be renamed "the Daily Mail Party?"
The DMP has a certain ring....but not to be confused with the SNP the DUP the UUP the SWP or the PPP.
On the Kaba Blake conundrem, and the ludicrous decision to charge Blake, this line is all thats needed.
"Mr Kaba was shot in the head after he tried to ram his way out of a police vehicle stop in south London"
Don't use your 2 ton car as a weapon if you don't want to get shot in the head. Simple really.
BBC quote:
"Prosper Kaba [father] said that "the role of the police is not to kill", that their son should instead have stood trial and, if convicted, gone to prison for the criminal activity they now know he was involved in."
The reality is that both of these statements are true & Mr.Kaba would in fact have gone to trial had not tried to use his vehicle as a battering ram to escape the police & been shot as a result.
Nick Clegg's Lib Dems won more votes in 2010 than Rishi Sunak's Tories got in 2024.
The post Brexit Tories have become a strange clique. It's difficult to judge what they are anymore. Nowadays I picture them as the sort of people who would read and agree with the Daily Mail
We've not (or at least I haven't) seen any figures outlining 2024 voting by newspaper (or online newspaper) readership. It's easy to imagine Mail readers are all Conservatives, Express readers are all Reform etc and we all know the gag about Sun readers. Whatever the case, exhortations to vote Conservative clearly fell on deaf ears overall.
I looked back at the last opinion polls from late June and early July - the scale of the "miss" on the Labour vote is extraordinary. The very last polls picked up the Conservative recovery but the scale of the Labour "abstention" meant the vote shares of the other parties were underestimated slightly.
The other big miss was the turnout - the last We Think poll had 67% "Very Likely to Vote" but we know the final turnout was nowhere near that. The obvious conclusion is a number of those who were going to vote Labour (and might have done so had the election looked close) opted not to bother (perhaps the widely publicised MRP forecasts showing a big Labour landslide convinced them they didn't need to).
I'm sure that's right. The Labour abstention was caused by the knowledge that they were certain to win so voters had the luxury of getting rid of the Tories-most peoples first preference-by a variety of means. Labour /Lib Dem /Green or abstention.
The anger we have seen on here from the 'Right' since the election has been spectacular. It's like watching air coming out of a baloon. The realisation that their prejudices weren't shared by the majority they found incomprehensible particularily as their newspapers were telling them the opposite
Indeed and it was equally amusing to see some of the "Tories" who were veiled in their criticism of Sunak and Hunt pile in to Starmer and Reeves before Starmer's car was back from the Palace.
Clearing up the Conservative mess was never going to be easy (just as clearing up a Labour mess wasn't) and the new Government, in trying to look sober and sensible and serious, has done some silly things the consequences of which were entirely foreseeable. That said, no one else has come up with a popular alternative to cutting the borrowing and deficit as well as trying to start working on all the problems the Conservatives neglected (it's not they got it wrong which at least you could accept, they did nothing on a whole range of issues).
The "Party", such as it was and it wasn't much for a lot of people, is over.
btw, having resigned from the party so with no real dog in the fight I think it is excellent that Kemi is now leader of the Cons.
She is young, ambitious, smart, and will be able to say and do things that others can't say and will I'm sure grow into the role.
I don't think she will take the party back to a position whereby I could rejoin but we will see.
Plus she was absolutely spot on about Partygate in terms of the legislation but a bit rich for her to bemoan the fact that Boris was caught in a trap that he himself had set.
If you predict enough different outcomes you are bound to be nearly right with some of them
I see. So do you believe Nate has a bit of an ego then? I do.
I have found Silver a bit unconvincing since 2016.
He explained away the 2016 result as being that his model wasn’t wrong, it was just that it predicted Clinton had a circa 75% chance of winning and that actually the probabilities just went the other way on the day. That’s a reasonable argument to make, but since that time I feel he spends most of his energy hedging his bets and not really saying anything with any confidence. Yes, that’s slightly symptomatic of a 50/50 electorate, but really you’re trying to make hay as a forecaster, and perhaps you should have a few more concrete opinions and put your reputation on the line a little more.
You should surely have a good chance at solving that quiz
You took the Train to Busan ?
Best seafood in Busan and friendly people.
Jeju would argue with that. The Last of the Sea Women on Netflix is a pretty good documentary on their traditional fishing (though the anti-nuke stuff at the end is bollocks).
I spent four nights on Jeju. The seafood is good on Jeju but I think Busan is better
I actually met the haenyeo - the diving women. Indeed I fixed their leaky drainpipe, saving a 3000 year old tradition. Why? Because I was the only male for about fifty miles not aged 86 or over and stopped with years, so I was able to reach up
They were very grateful and directed us to their favourite restaurant where I ate conch soup - fished by them. Chewy but flavoursome
Individuals who have bought farms as a tax shelter with the intention of holding until death are less fortunate.
Labour will be delighted that the main coverage of the budget is 2 very rich men who explicitly bought farmland as a tax dodge whining about their tax dodge being curtailed
James “Singapore” Dyson moaning about his tax dodge no longer being such a good tax dodge is particularly choice.
If you predict enough different outcomes you are bound to be nearly right with some of them
I see. So do you believe Nate has a bit of an ego then? I do.
I have found Silver a bit unconvincing since 2016.
He explained away the 2016 result as being that his model wasn’t wrong, it was just that it predicted Clinton had a circa 75% chance of winning and that actually the probabilities just went the other way on the day. That’s a reasonable argument to make, but since that time I feel he spends most of his energy hedging his bets and not really saying anything with any confidence. Yes, that’s slightly symptomatic of a 50/50 electorate, but really you’re trying to make hay as a forecaster, and perhaps you should have a few more concrete opinions and put your reputation on the line a little more.
I don't know the significance of an accordianist's statue in Tokyo.
I'm inclined to wonder whether a Cuban musician every toured Japan 70 years ago to kick it all off.
The statute is stylish, like Eric Morecambe in Blackpool, or various "sit next to this" type statues in London. The first one of these I knew was in Beeston, in Nottingham, back in the 1980s. It is still there.
It’s a monument in Busan (at one point the only bit of Korea still held by the democrats/Americans/west) to all the refugees from elsewhere in Korea, during the Korean War, who gathered on those steps hoping to see lost family members in the sea of forlorn faces below
It is really quite moving. Busan is a cool city. Much preferred it to Seoul
The demographic crisis is way more pronounced there, though.
On the Kaba Blake conundrem, and the ludicrous decision to charge Blake, this line is all thats needed.
"Mr Kaba was shot in the head after he tried to ram his way out of a police vehicle stop in south London"
Don't use your 2 ton car as a weapon if you don't want to get shot in the head. Simple really.
BBC quote:
"Prosper Kaba [father] said that "the role of the police is not to kill", that their son should instead have stood trial and, if convicted, gone to prison for the criminal activity they now know he was involved in."
The reality is that both of these statements are true & Mr.Kaba would in fact have gone to trial had not tried to use his vehicle as a battering ram to escape the police & been shot as a result.
I was more interested in the "...criminal activity they now know he was involved in..." bit.
Individuals who have bought farms as a tax shelter with the intention of holding until death are less fortunate.
Labour will be delighted that the main coverage of the budget is 2 very rich men who explicitly bought farmland as a tax dodge whining about their tax dodge being curtailed
James “Singapore” Dyson moaning about his tax dodge no longer being such a good tax dodge is particularly choice.
My heart bleeds for him!
What time does the small violin sale start this morning?
Meanwhile the state broadcaster is running PR for rentier William and his image-polishing Earthshot fluff (life missions of peace in the Middle East and ending homelessness not going so well).
"Grant" is an appropriate legal term for a lease. And everyone involved in comm prop deals always issues vomit inducing self congratulatory announcements afterwards. Is that really the best the Times can do ?
You wouldn't expect the not-my-prince of Wales or his predecessor to sully their hands with financial matters. All that distressing detail is handled by the writhing nest of vipers who do their bidding, squeeze their toothpaste etc.
It seems to me to be a pure hit piece from the Times.
If they discovered that the Duchy of Cornwall were NOT charging an appropriate rent for the facility they would just pivot to "Why do the Royal family get Taxpayers' Money when they let this property for less than they could get for it?".
AFAICS the only thing this report tells us anything about is the newspaper concerned.
I don't know the significance of an accordianist's statue in Tokyo.
I'm inclined to wonder whether a Cuban musician every toured Japan 70 years ago to kick it all off.
The statute is stylish, like Eric Morecambe in Blackpool, or various "sit next to this" type statues in London. The first one of these I knew was in Beeston, in Nottingham, back in the 1980s. It is still there.
It’s a monument in Busan (at one point the only bit of Korea still held by the democrats/Americans/west) to all the refugees from elsewhere in Korea, during the Korean War, who gathered on those steps hoping to see lost family members in the sea of forlorn faces below
It is really quite moving. Busan is a cool city. Much preferred it to Seoul
The demographic crisis is way more pronounced there, though.
It is pronounced everywhere, ESPECIALLY on Jeju
I was so struck by the absence of children on Jeju, despite its large population (600,000) I did some Googling
“It was fed back to us... that if we hadn’t done it at that time then it’s likely there would have been a level of disorder,” says Mr Naseem. “Things were on a knife edge”.
That quote is in relation to a decision to open a homicide investigation - a decision which led in the end to Blake being charged with murder.
It is the stuff of a banana republic.
It is quit a starling admission, and one that will just cause many other problems further down the line.
Driving a 2 ton car towards you in an attempt to mow you down doesn't present a sufficient danger to justify being shot..
I'm sorry but could you read that sentence again and confirm that is what you think?
Whatever the rights and wrongs of this particular incident, that's not really an accurate description.
1. The car was still hemmed in, so wasn't about to mow down the shooting officer.
2. Firearms officers are expected to be in dangerous situations, and in almost every case, without shooting people.
First big split between the LDs and Labour since Corbyn. The LDs are now calling Reeves' placing a 20% inheritance tax on agricultural estates worth over £1 million a 'tractor tax.'
Could be important as some of the latest polls give a hung parliament with Labour needing LD support to stay in office.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ rural affairs spokesman, said: “This claim just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Rachel Reeves must be living in cloud cuckoo land. It just shows this Labour Government doesn’t understand rural communities. What we cannot afford is to drive farmers out of business and undermine the country’s food security.”
Don't worry. Given and sniff of power the highly principled Lib Dems would abandon the farmers at the drop of a hat.
Not sure they would
Tim Farron is furious and Lib Dems have many rural constituencies
Correct, if Starmer loses his majority at the next GE the LDs will demand their pound of flesh and force him and Reeves to restore agricultural property relief from IHT in full for farm estates (and restore winter fuel allowance for pensioners) before they even consider giving them confidence and supply.
After the 2010-2015 coalition the LDs aren't supporting anything in government that threatens LD seats and LD core voters.
Remember while less than a third of Labour MPs represent rural seats over 60% of LD MPs now represent rural seats
At the risk of reading too much into things, I'd say the following:
1. Her piece is short. That, together with the rushed Iowa poll, suggests that the Trump campaign has been panicked by the Selzer poll and is obviously scrambling;
2. By implication, that suggests that neither campaign has a clue what is actually going on in the individual states. If the GOP did, then they would have been picking up the warning signals from days ago rather than coming as a shock;
3. It also implies the GOP doesn't think their original strategy was a losing one (if they did, Haley's piece would have been longer, more structured and would have come earlier, plus they would have been pivoted);
“It was fed back to us... that if we hadn’t done it at that time then it’s likely there would have been a level of disorder,” says Mr Naseem. “Things were on a knife edge”.
That quote is in relation to a decision to open a homicide investigation - a decision which led in the end to Blake being charged with murder.
It is the stuff of a banana republic.
It is quit a starling admission, and one that will just cause many other problems further down the line.
Driving a 2 ton car towards you in an attempt to mow you down doesn't present a sufficient danger to justify being shot..
I'm sorry but could you read that sentence again and confirm that is what you think?
Whatever the rights and wrongs of this particular incident, that's not really an accurate description.
1. The car was still hemmed in, so wasn't about to mow down the shooting officer.
2. Firearms officers are expected to be in dangerous situations, and in almost every case, without shooting people.
First big split between the LDs and Labour since Corbyn. The LDs are now calling Reeves' placing a 20% inheritance tax on agricultural estates worth over £1 million a 'tractor tax.'
Could be important as some of the latest polls give a hung parliament with Labour needing LD support to stay in office.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ rural affairs spokesman, said: “This claim just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Rachel Reeves must be living in cloud cuckoo land. It just shows this Labour Government doesn’t understand rural communities. What we cannot afford is to drive farmers out of business and undermine the country’s food security.”
I expect tractors will play a big part in the farmers demonstrations coming to Downing Street shortly
Nice blog here explaining how these changes are actually good for farmers (but bad for very wealthy people like Dyson who buy up thousands of acres to avoid inheritance tax).
Helpful. This issue will settle down soon once farmers have had time to see their accountants and solicitors. The HMRC will get little or nothing except (hopefully) from some non farmer biggies who have used the relief to avoid IHT.
In time there will be a bit of Trollopian litigation as family schemes go awry when wives scarper, the black sheep son starts a ponzi scheme etc; this will do no harm to lawyers both in family and chancery law, keeping Vholes and friends in business.
The three branches of "our" NHS: GPs, hospitals, and public health. The latter disgracefully palmed off onto local authorities by Lansley, before we sneer too much at our trans-Atlantic cousins.
The US has a massive obesity problem, and their public heath is almost non-existent except for those with the top insurance plans.
RFK has spoken eloquently about a healthcare industry that makes more money from people being sick, so that’s what they do, manage chronic sickness rather than try to make people well. He also wants to get the incessant pharma ads off TV, and look to European food standards rather than the garbage ultra-processed crap eaten by the majority of Americans.
So long as childhood vaccines continue to be regulated at the State rather than the Federal level, he’s actually got a lot of good ideas.
He wants fluoride removed from water - where all evidence says it's a good addition vastly reducing dental issues.
I used to house share with a guy who got very upset about proposed fluoride addition to the water. He was also a purchaser of 'crystals' that he put on top of the electricity meter to reduce our electricity bill
We didn't keep in touch.
Well, suitable aligned crystals of Neodymium might do that...but I suspect the electricity company would notice.
I ran it through an XRF scanner I had access to (just out of curiosity as to whether it was just lumps of glass as it appeared to be or something slightly more exotic). Big peaks for Si, O and not much for anything else!
The three branches of "our" NHS: GPs, hospitals, and public health. The latter disgracefully palmed off onto local authorities by Lansley, before we sneer too much at our trans-Atlantic cousins.
The US has a massive obesity problem, and their public heath is almost non-existent except for those with the top insurance plans.
RFK has spoken eloquently about a healthcare industry that makes more money from people being sick, so that’s what they do, manage chronic sickness rather than try to make people well. He also wants to get the incessant pharma ads off TV, and look to European food standards rather than the garbage ultra-processed crap eaten by the majority of Americans.
So long as childhood vaccines continue to be regulated at the State rather than the Federal level, he’s actually got a lot of good ideas.
He wants fluoride removed from water - where all evidence says it's a good addition vastly reducing dental issues.
It interests me how long it has taken for fluoridation to get not particularly far in the UK. I did a run round the question a month ago.
I'm surprised it wasn't universal here from the 1960s. In England it is only in place for 10% of the population, even now. *
First big split between the LDs and Labour since Corbyn. The LDs are now calling Reeves' placing a 20% inheritance tax on agricultural estates worth over £1 million a 'tractor tax.'
Could be important as some of the latest polls give a hung parliament with Labour needing LD support to stay in office.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ rural affairs spokesman, said: “This claim just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Rachel Reeves must be living in cloud cuckoo land. It just shows this Labour Government doesn’t understand rural communities. What we cannot afford is to drive farmers out of business and undermine the country’s food security.”
FWIW my food tour guide in Busan was a highly political American dude, with extended family back home, all politically engaged
He writes about politics. also he’s an anti-Woke Democrat, who can absolutely see the appeal of Trump - so reasonably neutral by polarized Yank standards
His opinion? Women are swinging quietly behind Harris, and she will win with a decent edge, albeit probably not enough to silence Trump’s whining
First big split between the LDs and Labour since Corbyn. The LDs are now calling Reeves' placing a 20% inheritance tax on agricultural estates worth over £1 million a 'tractor tax.'
Could be important as some of the latest polls give a hung parliament with Labour needing LD support to stay in office.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ rural affairs spokesman, said: “This claim just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Rachel Reeves must be living in cloud cuckoo land. It just shows this Labour Government doesn’t understand rural communities. What we cannot afford is to drive farmers out of business and undermine the country’s food security.”
Given that nobody has a clue what the outcome of a major election happening over the water tomorrow will be, I'm not sure that predicting a hung parliament in 2029 based on current polling is particularly compelling.
There is also some rethinking after Paul Johnson and James Murray debunked most of the false stories about the tax anyway. One of those rare moments on Question Time when you could almost hear the audience do a recalibration as the real figures were explained.
Nick Clegg's Lib Dems won more votes in 2010 than Rishi Sunak's Tories got in 2024.
The post Brexit Tories have become a strange clique. It's difficult to judge what they are anymore. Nowadays I picture them as the sort of people who would read and agree with the Daily Mail
We've not (or at least I haven't) seen any figures outlining 2024 voting by newspaper (or online newspaper) readership. It's easy to imagine Mail readers are all Conservatives, Express readers are all Reform etc and we all know the gag about Sun readers. Whatever the case, exhortations to vote Conservative clearly fell on deaf ears overall.
I looked back at the last opinion polls from late June and early July - the scale of the "miss" on the Labour vote is extraordinary. The very last polls picked up the Conservative recovery but the scale of the Labour "abstention" meant the vote shares of the other parties were underestimated slightly.
The other big miss was the turnout - the last We Think poll had 67% "Very Likely to Vote" but we know the final turnout was nowhere near that. The obvious conclusion is a number of those who were going to vote Labour (and might have done so had the election looked close) opted not to bother (perhaps the widely publicised MRP forecasts showing a big Labour landslide convinced them they didn't need to).
I'm sure that's right. The Labour abstention was caused by the knowledge that they were certain to win so voters had the luxury of getting rid of the Tories-most peoples first preference-by a variety of means. Labour /Lib Dem /Green or abstention.
The anger we have seen on here from the 'Right' since the election has been spectacular. It's like watching air coming out of a baloon. The realisation that their prejudices weren't shared by the majority they found incomprehensible particularily as their newspapers were telling them the opposite
Indeed and it was equally amusing to see some of the "Tories" who were veiled in their criticism of Sunak and Hunt pile in to Starmer and Reeves before Starmer's car was back from the Palace.
Clearing up the Conservative mess was never going to be easy (just as clearing up a Labour mess wasn't) and the new Government, in trying to look sober and sensible and serious, has done some silly things the consequences of which were entirely foreseeable. That said, no one else has come up with a popular alternative to cutting the borrowing and deficit as well as trying to start working on all the problems the Conservatives neglected (it's not they got it wrong which at least you could accept, they did nothing on a whole range of issues).
The "Party", such as it was and it wasn't much for a lot of people, is over.
While I appreciate that these sums involved are relatively small in national budgetary terms, I was rather surprised to hear Reeves say something to the effect that no allowance had been made by the previous Government for the monies which will need to be found for compensation for both the Infected Blood Scandal or the Post Office Horizon Scandal.
Meanwhile the state broadcaster is running PR for rentier William and his image-polishing Earthshot fluff (life missions of peace in the Middle East and ending homelessness not going so well).
"Grant" is an appropriate legal term for a lease. And everyone involved in comm prop deals always issues vomit inducing self congratulatory announcements afterwards. Is that really the best the Times can do ?
Exactly, landlord charges rent in central London tower block office space shock is hardly much of a story.
Republican Murdoch's paper though spinning it for all its worth
The three branches of "our" NHS: GPs, hospitals, and public health. The latter disgracefully palmed off onto local authorities by Lansley, before we sneer too much at our trans-Atlantic cousins.
The US has a massive obesity problem, and their public heath is almost non-existent except for those with the top insurance plans.
RFK has spoken eloquently about a healthcare industry that makes more money from people being sick, so that’s what they do, manage chronic sickness rather than try to make people well. He also wants to get the incessant pharma ads off TV, and look to European food standards rather than the garbage ultra-processed crap eaten by the majority of Americans.
So long as childhood vaccines continue to be regulated at the State rather than the Federal level, he’s actually got a lot of good ideas.
He wants fluoride removed from water - where all evidence says it's a good addition vastly reducing dental issues.
It interests me how long it has taken for fluoridation to get not particularly far in the UK. I did a run round the question a month ago.
I'm surprised it wasn't universal here from the 1960s. In England it is only in place for 10% of the population, even now. *
First big split between the LDs and Labour since Corbyn. The LDs are now calling Reeves' placing a 20% inheritance tax on agricultural estates worth over £1 million a 'tractor tax.'
Could be important as some of the latest polls give a hung parliament with Labour needing LD support to stay in office.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ rural affairs spokesman, said: “This claim just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Rachel Reeves must be living in cloud cuckoo land. It just shows this Labour Government doesn’t understand rural communities. What we cannot afford is to drive farmers out of business and undermine the country’s food security.”
Individuals who have bought farms as a tax shelter with the intention of holding until death are less fortunate.
Labour will be delighted that the main coverage of the budget is 2 very rich men who explicitly bought farmland as a tax dodge whining about their tax dodge being curtailed
James “Singapore” Dyson moaning about his tax dodge no longer being such a good tax dodge is particularly choice.
I imagine being hit with £100million of IHT does sting a little, but it’s people like Dyson who have bid up the value of UK agricultural land in order to buy it for the tax advantages & made UK farming uneconomic for ordinary farmers.
Nick Clegg's Lib Dems won more votes in 2010 than Rishi Sunak's Tories got in 2024.
The post Brexit Tories have become a strange clique. It's difficult to judge what they are anymore. Nowadays I picture them as the sort of people who would read and agree with the Daily Mail
Good morning
I doubt the conservative party really considers your views as you are not their target vote
As I said yesterday Kemi will seek to recover some votes from Reform and to attract the conservatives who either abstained or voted Labour at the GE
As has been said on Sky this morning Kemi is a straight talker and will upset her opponents, but straight talking is needed rather than gaining office by swearing no tax increases then imposing 40 billion of such increases as Reeves has just done
If you are agreeing with her then she is not doing her job
Straight talker? Do you agree with her that partygate was overblown and Boris was great?
I listened to her interview and she said FPN were wrong and were largely handed to staff and even some people walking in parks.
I did not hear her say Johnson was great, indeed she said she resigned over his stance on Pincher
Putting comments into context provides a different view
Bloody Times and their lies.
'Kemi Badenoch: Partygate was overblown and Boris Johnson was great'
I like this one: "Drug gangs ‘threaten to turn France into Mexicanised narco-state’"
And he main Times one I have seen this weekend is how OUTRAGEOUS it is that the Duchy of Cornwall are charging a rent to the NHS when the NHS use facilities that would normally have a rent charged for them. Apparently it's some sort of unethical Royal personal profiteering.
I wonder if this use of wax crayons will continue after Mr Murdoch joins the choir invisible.
Its clearly not an issue if the Royals earn money by renting out things. It IS an issue if the countries taxes are also being paid to people who don't actually need it. Let them live as normal folk do. Pay the King's expenses for his Royal engagements. Get a rich donor to pay for his suits (its all the rage now, I hear).
The royals get no taxpayer support other than for their security
At the risk of reading too much into things, I'd say the following:
1. Her piece is short. That, together with the rushed Iowa poll, suggests that the Trump campaign has been panicked by the Selzer poll and is obviously scrambling;
2. By implication, that suggests that neither campaign has a clue what is actually going on in the individual states. If the GOP did, then they would have been picking up the warning signals from days ago rather than coming as a shock;
3. It also implies the GOP doesn't think their original strategy was a losing one (if they did, Haley's piece would have been longer, more structured and would have come earlier, plus they would have been pivoted);
That reads very much like the pleas of a hostage. Very much going through the motions from Haley.
On your point 2, I don’t think in the fog of war most campaigns have much idea of what is going on. They probably have been picking up signals from the battle ground but likely discounting it because it doesn’t fit their sense of the vibe.
First big split between the LDs and Labour since Corbyn. The LDs are now calling Reeves' placing a 20% inheritance tax on agricultural estates worth over £1 million a 'tractor tax.'
Could be important as some of the latest polls give a hung parliament with Labour needing LD support to stay in office.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ rural affairs spokesman, said: “This claim just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Rachel Reeves must be living in cloud cuckoo land. It just shows this Labour Government doesn’t understand rural communities. What we cannot afford is to drive farmers out of business and undermine the country’s food security.”
I expect tractors will play a big part in the farmers demonstrations coming to Downing Street shortly
Nice blog here explaining how these changes are actually good for farmers (but bad for very wealthy people like Dyson who buy up thousands of acres to avoid inheritance tax).
Helpful. This issue will settle down soon once farmers have had time to see their accountants and solicitors. The HMRC will get little or nothing except (hopefully) from some non farmer biggies who have used the relief to avoid IHT.
In time there will be a bit of Trollopian litigation as family schemes go awry when wives scarper, the black sheep son starts a ponzi scheme etc; this will do no harm to lawyers both in family and chancery law, keeping Vholes and friends in business.
The result of this measure will be large amount of expensive paperwork to achieve the same result.
But some lawyers will make more money. That will help productivity.
Did it not occur to anyone that the issue is not owning land, but selling it? Not much of a tax shelter if you have to own 500 acres of Northumberland, forever…
First big split between the LDs and Labour since Corbyn. The LDs are now calling Reeves' placing a 20% inheritance tax on agricultural estates worth over £1 million a 'tractor tax.'
Could be important as some of the latest polls give a hung parliament with Labour needing LD support to stay in office.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ rural affairs spokesman, said: “This claim just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Rachel Reeves must be living in cloud cuckoo land. It just shows this Labour Government doesn’t understand rural communities. What we cannot afford is to drive farmers out of business and undermine the country’s food security.”
Don't worry. Given and sniff of power the highly principled Lib Dems would abandon the farmers at the drop of a hat.
Not sure they would
Tim Farron is furious and Lib Dems have many rural constituencies
Tim Farron was never that good at economics - he studied Politics.
The reality is that it looks bad, isn't actually that bad and can probably be mitigated for about £500 a year maximum via some extra life assurance..
As Rishi discovered, when you are trying to win a general election being brilliant at economics but crap at politics is not much help.
Economics may help you be an effective Chancellor, knowledge of history and politics is more useful as PM and a party leader
The most important quality of course being whether people would like to go to the pub to have a drink with you.
I think Kemi passes this test.
I'm not a fan of hers, but she gives the impression she'd be interesting. And that's good. Starmer... I'd be worried he was looking for any tiny mistake I made, and I'd end up being arrested for being a PB Tory in a public place. And the chat would be utterly dry. Now, the one who might be really fun down the pub is Davey. He looks like he has a little fun after a few pints. Or even after no pints.
First big split between the LDs and Labour since Corbyn. The LDs are now calling Reeves' placing a 20% inheritance tax on agricultural estates worth over £1 million a 'tractor tax.'
Could be important as some of the latest polls give a hung parliament with Labour needing LD support to stay in office.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ rural affairs spokesman, said: “This claim just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Rachel Reeves must be living in cloud cuckoo land. It just shows this Labour Government doesn’t understand rural communities. What we cannot afford is to drive farmers out of business and undermine the country’s food security.”
'Tractor tax' seems inept. Wouldn't 'field tax' be better?
After all, it might simply draw attention to the fact that tractors are very little taxed, compared to other items (VAT reclaimable, presumably, in most cases; no road tax; much reduced fuel tax).
Nick Clegg's Lib Dems won more votes in 2010 than Rishi Sunak's Tories got in 2024.
The post Brexit Tories have become a strange clique. It's difficult to judge what they are anymore. Nowadays I picture them as the sort of people who would read and agree with the Daily Mail
We've not (or at least I haven't) seen any figures outlining 2024 voting by newspaper (or online newspaper) readership. It's easy to imagine Mail readers are all Conservatives, Express readers are all Reform etc and we all know the gag about Sun readers. Whatever the case, exhortations to vote Conservative clearly fell on deaf ears overall.
I looked back at the last opinion polls from late June and early July - the scale of the "miss" on the Labour vote is extraordinary. The very last polls picked up the Conservative recovery but the scale of the Labour "abstention" meant the vote shares of the other parties were underestimated slightly.
The other big miss was the turnout - the last We Think poll had 67% "Very Likely to Vote" but we know the final turnout was nowhere near that. The obvious conclusion is a number of those who were going to vote Labour (and might have done so had the election looked close) opted not to bother (perhaps the widely publicised MRP forecasts showing a big Labour landslide convinced them they didn't need to).
I'm sure that's right. The Labour abstention was caused by the knowledge that they were certain to win so voters had the luxury of getting rid of the Tories-most peoples first preference-by a variety of means. Labour /Lib Dem /Green or abstention.
The anger we have seen on here from the 'Right' since the election has been spectacular. It's like watching air coming out of a baloon. The realisation that their prejudices weren't shared by the majority they found incomprehensible particularily as their newspapers were telling them the opposite
Indeed and it was equally amusing to see some of the "Tories" who were veiled in their criticism of Sunak and Hunt pile in to Starmer and Reeves before Starmer's car was back from the Palace.
Clearing up the Conservative mess was never going to be easy (just as clearing up a Labour mess wasn't) and the new Government, in trying to look sober and sensible and serious, has done some silly things the consequences of which were entirely foreseeable. That said, no one else has come up with a popular alternative to cutting the borrowing and deficit as well as trying to start working on all the problems the Conservatives neglected (it's not they got it wrong which at least you could accept, they did nothing on a whole range of issues).
The "Party", such as it was and it wasn't much for a lot of people, is over.
While I appreciate that these sums involved are relatively small in national budgetary terms, I was rather surprised to hear Reeves say something to the effect that no allowance had been made by the previous Government for the monies which will need to be found for compensation for both the Infected Blood Scandal or the Post Office Horizon Scandal.
Yep - mad isn’t it. Although I do seem to remember reading something about HMT trying to classify the Blood scandal compensation as “investment/capital” spending as opposed to day-to-day spending which seems a bit wild when you think about it.
First big split between the LDs and Labour since Corbyn. The LDs are now calling Reeves' placing a 20% inheritance tax on agricultural estates worth over £1 million a 'tractor tax.'
Could be important as some of the latest polls give a hung parliament with Labour needing LD support to stay in office.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ rural affairs spokesman, said: “This claim just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Rachel Reeves must be living in cloud cuckoo land. It just shows this Labour Government doesn’t understand rural communities. What we cannot afford is to drive farmers out of business and undermine the country’s food security.”
Don't worry. Given and sniff of power the highly principled Lib Dems would abandon the farmers at the drop of a hat.
Not sure they would
Tim Farron is furious and Lib Dems have many rural constituencies
This is actually my fear for my party: we have become so dependent on playing a strong FPTP game that local issues for constituents trump national priorities.
There has always been two facedness on planning, but then both main parties are equally guilty of that. But becoming the party of the pretty suburban and rural loci that form the Lib Dem parliamentary base is both highly tempting, and an electoral cul-de-sac as the Tories have found with their OAP strategy.
Honestly, I think some farmers will have some genuine issues with the APR changes but a lot of it is emotion first, reason second. The system has gone back to something that's still more generous than IHT before 1992, including under the entire Thatcher premiership.
Inflation means far more estates are over the IHT thereshold than in 1992
At the risk of reading too much into things, I'd say the following:
1. Her piece is short. That, together with the rushed Iowa poll, suggests that the Trump campaign has been panicked by the Selzer poll and is obviously scrambling;
2. By implication, that suggests that neither campaign has a clue what is actually going on in the individual states. If the GOP did, then they would have been picking up the warning signals from days ago rather than coming as a shock;
3. It also implies the GOP doesn't think their original strategy was a losing one (if they did, Haley's piece would have been longer, more structured and would have come earlier, plus they would have been pivoted);
The three branches of "our" NHS: GPs, hospitals, and public health. The latter disgracefully palmed off onto local authorities by Lansley, before we sneer too much at our trans-Atlantic cousins.
The US has a massive obesity problem, and their public heath is almost non-existent except for those with the top insurance plans.
RFK has spoken eloquently about a healthcare industry that makes more money from people being sick, so that’s what they do, manage chronic sickness rather than try to make people well. He also wants to get the incessant pharma ads off TV, and look to European food standards rather than the garbage ultra-processed crap eaten by the majority of Americans.
So long as childhood vaccines continue to be regulated at the State rather than the Federal level, he’s actually got a lot of good ideas.
He wants fluoride removed from water - where all evidence says it's a good addition vastly reducing dental issues.
I used to house share with a guy who got very upset about proposed fluoride addition to the water. He was also a purchaser of 'crystals' that he put on top of the electricity meter to reduce our electricity bill
We didn't keep in touch.
Well, suitable aligned crystals of Neodymium might do that...but I suspect the electricity company would notice.
I ran it through an XRF scanner I had access to (just out of curiosity as to whether it was just lumps of glass as it appeared to be or something slightly more exotic). Big peaks for Si, O and not much for anything else!
You'd think they'd at least have put some U in there...
[Which reminds me, must get a UV lamp and test my 1950s art glass]
First big split between the LDs and Labour since Corbyn. The LDs are now calling Reeves' placing a 20% inheritance tax on agricultural estates worth over £1 million a 'tractor tax.'
Could be important as some of the latest polls give a hung parliament with Labour needing LD support to stay in office.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ rural affairs spokesman, said: “This claim just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Rachel Reeves must be living in cloud cuckoo land. It just shows this Labour Government doesn’t understand rural communities. What we cannot afford is to drive farmers out of business and undermine the country’s food security.”
First big split between the LDs and Labour since Corbyn. The LDs are now calling Reeves' placing a 20% inheritance tax on agricultural estates worth over £1 million a 'tractor tax.'
Could be important as some of the latest polls give a hung parliament with Labour needing LD support to stay in office.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ rural affairs spokesman, said: “This claim just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Rachel Reeves must be living in cloud cuckoo land. It just shows this Labour Government doesn’t understand rural communities. What we cannot afford is to drive farmers out of business and undermine the country’s food security.”
First big split between the LDs and Labour since Corbyn. The LDs are now calling Reeves' placing a 20% inheritance tax on agricultural estates worth over £1 million a 'tractor tax.'
Could be important as some of the latest polls give a hung parliament with Labour needing LD support to stay in office.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ rural affairs spokesman, said: “This claim just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Rachel Reeves must be living in cloud cuckoo land. It just shows this Labour Government doesn’t understand rural communities. What we cannot afford is to drive farmers out of business and undermine the country’s food security.”
Don't worry. Given and sniff of power the highly principled Lib Dems would abandon the farmers at the drop of a hat.
Not sure they would
Tim Farron is furious and Lib Dems have many rural constituencies
Tim Farron was never that good at economics - he studied Politics.
The reality is that it looks bad, isn't actually that bad and can probably be mitigated for about £500 a year maximum via some extra life assurance..
As Rishi discovered, when you are trying to win a general election being brilliant at economics but crap at politics is not much help.
Economics may help you be an effective Chancellor, knowledge of history and politics is more useful as PM and a party leader
The most important quality of course being whether people would like to go to the pub to have a drink with you.
I think Kemi passes this test.
Not always, who on earth wanted to have a cosy pub drink with Starmer or Thatcher or Heath?
Fatch yes because you wanted a first hand view of the history she was making.
SKS gets a fat "F" for fail and no one in their right mind would want to go for a drink with him. Which will eventually tell against him when it's fifty-fifty on every other metric.
First big split between the LDs and Labour since Corbyn. The LDs are now calling Reeves' placing a 20% inheritance tax on agricultural estates worth over £1 million a 'tractor tax.'
Could be important as some of the latest polls give a hung parliament with Labour needing LD support to stay in office.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ rural affairs spokesman, said: “This claim just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Rachel Reeves must be living in cloud cuckoo land. It just shows this Labour Government doesn’t understand rural communities. What we cannot afford is to drive farmers out of business and undermine the country’s food security.”
Don't worry. Given and sniff of power the highly principled Lib Dems would abandon the farmers at the drop of a hat.
Not sure they would
Tim Farron is furious and Lib Dems have many rural constituencies
Tim Farron was never that good at economics - he studied Politics.
The reality is that it looks bad, isn't actually that bad and can probably be mitigated for about £500 a year maximum via some extra life assurance..
As Rishi discovered, when you are trying to win a general election being brilliant at economics but crap at politics is not much help.
Economics may help you be an effective Chancellor, knowledge of history and politics is more useful as PM and a party leader
The most important quality of course being whether people would like to go to the pub to have a drink with you.
I think Kemi passes this test.
Not for me - she seems like one of those bores who will go on and on with a big rant about political issues when you just want a drink and some chat. (Hmm... am I on the wrong site? )
I'd choose Sunak over her. But her over Starmer, probably.
Davey and Farage are probably the most pintable of the current set.
First big split between the LDs and Labour since Corbyn. The LDs are now calling Reeves' placing a 20% inheritance tax on agricultural estates worth over £1 million a 'tractor tax.'
Could be important as some of the latest polls give a hung parliament with Labour needing LD support to stay in office.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ rural affairs spokesman, said: “This claim just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Rachel Reeves must be living in cloud cuckoo land. It just shows this Labour Government doesn’t understand rural communities. What we cannot afford is to drive farmers out of business and undermine the country’s food security.”
'Tractor tax' seems inept. Wouldn't 'field tax' be better?
After all, it might simply draw attention to the fact that tractors are very little taxed, compared to other items (VAT reclaimable, presumably, in most cases; no road tax; much reduced fuel tax).
First big split between the LDs and Labour since Corbyn. The LDs are now calling Reeves' placing a 20% inheritance tax on agricultural estates worth over £1 million a 'tractor tax.'
Could be important as some of the latest polls give a hung parliament with Labour needing LD support to stay in office.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ rural affairs spokesman, said: “This claim just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Rachel Reeves must be living in cloud cuckoo land. It just shows this Labour Government doesn’t understand rural communities. What we cannot afford is to drive farmers out of business and undermine the country’s food security.”
Don't worry. Given and sniff of power the highly principled Lib Dems would abandon the farmers at the drop of a hat.
Not sure they would
Tim Farron is furious and Lib Dems have many rural constituencies
Tim Farron was never that good at economics - he studied Politics.
The reality is that it looks bad, isn't actually that bad and can probably be mitigated for about £500 a year maximum via some extra life assurance..
As Rishi discovered, when you are trying to win a general election being brilliant at economics but crap at politics is not much help.
Economics may help you be an effective Chancellor, knowledge of history and politics is more useful as PM and a party leader
The most important quality of course being whether people would like to go to the pub to have a drink with you.
I think Kemi passes this test.
Not always, who on earth wanted to have a cosy pub drink with Starmer or Thatcher or Heath?
Fatch yes because you wanted a first hand view of the history she was making.
SKS gets a fat "F" for fail and no one in their right mind would want to go for a drink with him. Which will eventually tell against him when it's fifty-fifty on every other metric.
I met Thatcher. Briefly. Once
Soon after she left office
And yes she shone with charisma - greatness personified - and you would absolutely go to the pub with her. And indeed buy the drinks. One of the iconic western politicians of her century
And she also had that piercing intelligence when younger as well. You can see it interviews
At the risk of reading too much into things, I'd say the following:
1. Her piece is short. That, together with the rushed Iowa poll, suggests that the Trump campaign has been panicked by the Selzer poll and is obviously scrambling;
2. By implication, that suggests that neither campaign has a clue what is actually going on in the individual states. If the GOP did, then they would have been picking up the warning signals from days ago rather than coming as a shock;
3. It also implies the GOP doesn't think their original strategy was a losing one (if they did, Haley's piece would have been longer, more structured and would have come earlier, plus they would have been pivoted);
That reads very much like the pleas of a hostage. Very much going through the motions from Haley.
On your point 2, I don’t think in the fog of war most campaigns have much idea of what is going on. They probably have been picking up signals from the battle ground but likely discounting it because it doesn’t fit their sense of the vibe.
Indeed, reads very much like the Trump camp rang and rang and rang again Haley and implored her to write something that would bring her largely educated and wealthy white female vote and Independent voter support back into the Trump camp.
Haley eventually grudgingly agreed and looks like something she rushed off in the bath.
First 2 lines hardly the most fulsome endorsement ever 'Millions of people love Donald Trump, and millions hate him. Each group will vote accordingly.'
Next few paras not much better
'But there are also millions whose views on Mr. Trump are mixed. They like much of what he did as president and agree with most of his policies. But they dislike his tone and can’t condone his excesses, such as his conduct on Jan. 6, 2021. This third group of Americans will determine whether the former president returns to the White House.
To that group, I’ll point out that Mr. Trump isn’t the only one on the ballot. This election isn’t a referendum on him. It’s a choice between him and Kamala Harris.
I don’t agree with Mr. Trump 100% of the time. But I do agree with him most of the time, and I disagree with Ms. Harris nearly all the time. That makes this an easy call. Here are the facts most relevant to me.'
Of course if Trump and Vance lose Haley can say 'I told you so' and run again for the GOP nomination in 2028, whereas if Trump wins Vance is odds on to be GOP nominee next time. So not in her interests for Trump to do too well tomorrow, even if for party unity she has to be seen to give him token support
First big split between the LDs and Labour since Corbyn. The LDs are now calling Reeves' placing a 20% inheritance tax on agricultural estates worth over £1 million a 'tractor tax.'
Could be important as some of the latest polls give a hung parliament with Labour needing LD support to stay in office.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ rural affairs spokesman, said: “This claim just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Rachel Reeves must be living in cloud cuckoo land. It just shows this Labour Government doesn’t understand rural communities. What we cannot afford is to drive farmers out of business and undermine the country’s food security.”
Don't worry. Given and sniff of power the highly principled Lib Dems would abandon the farmers at the drop of a hat.
Not sure they would
Tim Farron is furious and Lib Dems have many rural constituencies
This is actually my fear for my party: we have become so dependent on playing a strong FPTP game that local issues for constituents trump national priorities.
There has always been two facedness on planning, but then both main parties are equally guilty of that. But becoming the party of the pretty suburban and rural loci that form the Lib Dem parliamentary base is both highly tempting, and an electoral cul-de-sac as the Tories have found with their OAP strategy.
Honestly, I think some farmers will have some genuine issues with the APR changes but a lot of it is emotion first, reason second. The system has gone back to something that's still more generous than IHT before 1992, including under the entire Thatcher premiership.
Inflation means far more estates are over the IHT thereshold than in 1992
The IHT threshold in 1992 was £150k. The current threshold of £325k almost exactly tracks inflation since then.
Not sure whether there was a different agricultural land threshold in ’92?
On the Kaba Blake conundrem, and the ludicrous decision to charge Blake, this line is all thats needed.
"Mr Kaba was shot in the head after he tried to ram his way out of a police vehicle stop in south London"
Don't use your 2 ton car as a weapon if you don't want to get shot in the head. Simple really.
BBC quote:
"Prosper Kaba [father] said that "the role of the police is not to kill", that their son should instead have stood trial and, if convicted, gone to prison for the criminal activity they now know he was involved in."
I would expect the police to think about what they might have been able to do differently to make an arrest and avoid lethal force, were they to face a similar situation in the future.
For example, if they'd been able to lever his fuel cap open and drop a grenade in the fuel tank, is it possible they could have arrested him as he escaped from the burning wreckage of the car?
First big split between the LDs and Labour since Corbyn. The LDs are now calling Reeves' placing a 20% inheritance tax on agricultural estates worth over £1 million a 'tractor tax.'
Could be important as some of the latest polls give a hung parliament with Labour needing LD support to stay in office.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ rural affairs spokesman, said: “This claim just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Rachel Reeves must be living in cloud cuckoo land. It just shows this Labour Government doesn’t understand rural communities. What we cannot afford is to drive farmers out of business and undermine the country’s food security.”
'Tractor tax' seems inept. Wouldn't 'field tax' be better?
After all, it might simply draw attention to the fact that tractors are very little taxed, compared to other items (VAT reclaimable, presumably, in most cases; no road tax; much reduced fuel tax).
It alliterates.
It does. But 'bedroom tax' didn't and that was effective - it's the concept more than the name, I think.
First big split between the LDs and Labour since Corbyn. The LDs are now calling Reeves' placing a 20% inheritance tax on agricultural estates worth over £1 million a 'tractor tax.'
Could be important as some of the latest polls give a hung parliament with Labour needing LD support to stay in office.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ rural affairs spokesman, said: “This claim just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Rachel Reeves must be living in cloud cuckoo land. It just shows this Labour Government doesn’t understand rural communities. What we cannot afford is to drive farmers out of business and undermine the country’s food security.”
At the risk of reading too much into things, I'd say the following:
1. Her piece is short. That, together with the rushed Iowa poll, suggests that the Trump campaign has been panicked by the Selzer poll and is obviously scrambling;
2. By implication, that suggests that neither campaign has a clue what is actually going on in the individual states. If the GOP did, then they would have been picking up the warning signals from days ago rather than coming as a shock;
3. It also implies the GOP doesn't think their original strategy was a losing one (if they did, Haley's piece would have been longer, more structured and would have come earlier, plus they would have been pivoted);
One of the reasons I think it’s advantage Harris going into the final straight is because I am far from convinced the Trump campaign has had the organisation and sharpness/clarity that is needed in a super-close race.
Harris has a huge GOTV organisation and has been very clearly trying to push the buttons of certain voters, to bring them to the polls or to persuade them to go with Harris in the face of other pressures. The Trump campaign is much more chaotic (some of that is simply who Trump is, of course). It doesn’t mean that they don’t also have strong organisation behind them, but I am not convinced they are working to seal the deal effectively at all.
Lots of new polling is due out later inciuding unusually Survation for Pennsylvania.
TIPP most accurate national vote pollster in 2020, so like Silver it looks dead even with them too. Yet Nate gives Harris a sliver of an edge in the EC
At the risk of reading too much into things, I'd say the following:
1. Her piece is short. That, together with the rushed Iowa poll, suggests that the Trump campaign has been panicked by the Selzer poll and is obviously scrambling;
2. By implication, that suggests that neither campaign has a clue what is actually going on in the individual states. If the GOP did, then they would have been picking up the warning signals from days ago rather than coming as a shock;
3. It also implies the GOP doesn't think their original strategy was a losing one (if they did, Haley's piece would have been longer, more structured and would have come earlier, plus they would have been pivoted);
That reads very much like the pleas of a hostage. Very much going through the motions from Haley.
On your point 2, I don’t think in the fog of war most campaigns have much idea of what is going on. They probably have been picking up signals from the battle ground but likely discounting it because it doesn’t fit their sense of the vibe.
Funny to see Trump having to ask for Haley's support, offering power over large areas of policy to RFK and so on. I reckon that for Trump to be doing that he must be very badly rattled indeed.
First big split between the LDs and Labour since Corbyn. The LDs are now calling Reeves' placing a 20% inheritance tax on agricultural estates worth over £1 million a 'tractor tax.'
Could be important as some of the latest polls give a hung parliament with Labour needing LD support to stay in office.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ rural affairs spokesman, said: “This claim just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Rachel Reeves must be living in cloud cuckoo land. It just shows this Labour Government doesn’t understand rural communities. What we cannot afford is to drive farmers out of business and undermine the country’s food security.”
Don't worry. Given and sniff of power the highly principled Lib Dems would abandon the farmers at the drop of a hat.
Not sure they would
Tim Farron is furious and Lib Dems have many rural constituencies
This is actually my fear for my party: we have become so dependent on playing a strong FPTP game that local issues for constituents trump national priorities.
There has always been two facedness on planning, but then both main parties are equally guilty of that. But becoming the party of the pretty suburban and rural loci that form the Lib Dem parliamentary base is both highly tempting, and an electoral cul-de-sac as the Tories have found with their OAP strategy.
Honestly, I think some farmers will have some genuine issues with the APR changes but a lot of it is emotion first, reason second. The system has gone back to something that's still more generous than IHT before 1992, including under the entire Thatcher premiership.
Inflation means far more estates are over the IHT thereshold than in 1992
The IHT threshold in 1992 was £150k. The current threshold of £325k almost exactly tracks inflation since then.
Not sure whether there was a different agricultural land threshold in ’92?
Agricultural Propety Relief in its current form was introduced way back in 1984
First big split between the LDs and Labour since Corbyn. The LDs are now calling Reeves' placing a 20% inheritance tax on agricultural estates worth over £1 million a 'tractor tax.'
Could be important as some of the latest polls give a hung parliament with Labour needing LD support to stay in office.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ rural affairs spokesman, said: “This claim just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Rachel Reeves must be living in cloud cuckoo land. It just shows this Labour Government doesn’t understand rural communities. What we cannot afford is to drive farmers out of business and undermine the country’s food security.”
First big split between the LDs and Labour since Corbyn. The LDs are now calling Reeves' placing a 20% inheritance tax on agricultural estates worth over £1 million a 'tractor tax.'
Could be important as some of the latest polls give a hung parliament with Labour needing LD support to stay in office.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ rural affairs spokesman, said: “This claim just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Rachel Reeves must be living in cloud cuckoo land. It just shows this Labour Government doesn’t understand rural communities. What we cannot afford is to drive farmers out of business and undermine the country’s food security.”
Don't worry. Given and sniff of power the highly principled Lib Dems would abandon the farmers at the drop of a hat.
Not sure they would
Tim Farron is furious and Lib Dems have many rural constituencies
This is actually my fear for my party: we have become so dependent on playing a strong FPTP game that local issues for constituents trump national priorities.
There has always been two facedness on planning, but then both main parties are equally guilty of that. But becoming the party of the pretty suburban and rural loci that form the Lib Dem parliamentary base is both highly tempting, and an electoral cul-de-sac as the Tories have found with their OAP strategy.
Honestly, I think some farmers will have some genuine issues with the APR changes but a lot of it is emotion first, reason second. The system has gone back to something that's still more generous than IHT before 1992, including under the entire Thatcher premiership.
Inflation means far more estates are over the IHT thereshold than in 1992
The IHT threshold in 1992 was £150k. The current threshold of £325k almost exactly tracks inflation since then.
Not sure whether there was a different agricultural land threshold in ’92?
But asset price inflation, especially property, has been much faster than RPI or CPI over the same period, especially at the top end. So HYUFD is right.
At the risk of reading too much into things, I'd say the following:
1. Her piece is short. That, together with the rushed Iowa poll, suggests that the Trump campaign has been panicked by the Selzer poll and is obviously scrambling;
2. By implication, that suggests that neither campaign has a clue what is actually going on in the individual states. If the GOP did, then they would have been picking up the warning signals from days ago rather than coming as a shock;
3. It also implies the GOP doesn't think their original strategy was a losing one (if they did, Haley's piece would have been longer, more structured and would have come earlier, plus they would have been pivoted);
That reads very much like the pleas of a hostage. Very much going through the motions from Haley.
On your point 2, I don’t think in the fog of war most campaigns have much idea of what is going on. They probably have been picking up signals from the battle ground but likely discounting it because it doesn’t fit their sense of the vibe.
Indeed, reads very much like the Trump camp rang and rang and rang again Haley and implored her to write something that would bring her largely educated and wealthy white female vote and Independent voter support back into the Trump camp.
Haley eventually grudgingly agreed and looks like something she rushed off in the bath.
First 2 lines hardly the most fulsome endorsement ever 'Millions of people love Donald Trump, and millions hate him. Each group will vote accordingly.'
Next few paras not much better
'But there are also millions whose views on Mr. Trump are mixed. They like much of what he did as president and agree with most of his policies. But they dislike his tone and can’t condone his excesses, such as his conduct on Jan. 6, 2021. This third group of Americans will determine whether the former president returns to the White House.
To that group, I’ll point out that Mr. Trump isn’t the only one on the ballot. This election isn’t a referendum on him. It’s a choice between him and Kamala Harris.
I don’t agree with Mr. Trump 100% of the time. But I do agree with him most of the time, and I disagree with Ms. Harris nearly all the time. That makes this an easy call. Here are the facts most relevant to me.'
Of course if Trump and Vance lose Haley can say 'I told you so' and run again for the GOP nomination in 2028, whereas if Trump wins Vance is odds on to be GOP nominee next time. So not in her interests for Trump to do too well tomorrow, even if for party unity she has to be seen to give him token support
I suspect many of those she is asking to vote for Trump will have already voted early to get the deed done and moved on.
First big split between the LDs and Labour since Corbyn. The LDs are now calling Reeves' placing a 20% inheritance tax on agricultural estates worth over £1 million a 'tractor tax.'
Could be important as some of the latest polls give a hung parliament with Labour needing LD support to stay in office.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ rural affairs spokesman, said: “This claim just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Rachel Reeves must be living in cloud cuckoo land. It just shows this Labour Government doesn’t understand rural communities. What we cannot afford is to drive farmers out of business and undermine the country’s food security.”
At the risk of reading too much into things, I'd say the following:
1. Her piece is short. That, together with the rushed Iowa poll, suggests that the Trump campaign has been panicked by the Selzer poll and is obviously scrambling;
2. By implication, that suggests that neither campaign has a clue what is actually going on in the individual states. If the GOP did, then they would have been picking up the warning signals from days ago rather than coming as a shock;
3. It also implies the GOP doesn't think their original strategy was a losing one (if they did, Haley's piece would have been longer, more structured and would have come earlier, plus they would have been pivoted);
That reads very much like the pleas of a hostage. Very much going through the motions from Haley.
On your point 2, I don’t think in the fog of war most campaigns have much idea of what is going on. They probably have been picking up signals from the battle ground but likely discounting it because it doesn’t fit their sense of the vibe.
Funny to see Trump having to ask for Haley's support, offering power over large areas of policy to RFK and so on. I reckon that for Trump to be doing that he must be very badly rattled indeed.
At the risk of reading too much into things, I'd say the following:
1. Her piece is short. That, together with the rushed Iowa poll, suggests that the Trump campaign has been panicked by the Selzer poll and is obviously scrambling;
2. By implication, that suggests that neither campaign has a clue what is actually going on in the individual states. If the GOP did, then they would have been picking up the warning signals from days ago rather than coming as a shock;
3. It also implies the GOP doesn't think their original strategy was a losing one (if they did, Haley's piece would have been longer, more structured and would have come earlier, plus they would have been pivoted);
That reads very much like the pleas of a hostage. Very much going through the motions from Haley.
On your point 2, I don’t think in the fog of war most campaigns have much idea of what is going on. They probably have been picking up signals from the battle ground but likely discounting it because it doesn’t fit their sense of the vibe.
Indeed, reads very much like the Trump camp rang and rang and rang again Haley and implored her to write something that would bring her largely educated and wealthy white female vote and Independent voter support back into the Trump camp.
Haley eventually grudgingly agreed and looks like something she rushed off in the bath.
First 2 lines hardly the most fulsome endorsement ever 'Millions of people love Donald Trump, and millions hate him. Each group will vote accordingly.'
Next few paras not much better
'But there are also millions whose views on Mr. Trump are mixed. They like much of what he did as president and agree with most of his policies. But they dislike his tone and can’t condone his excesses, such as his conduct on Jan. 6, 2021. This third group of Americans will determine whether the former president returns to the White House.
To that group, I’ll point out that Mr. Trump isn’t the only one on the ballot. This election isn’t a referendum on him. It’s a choice between him and Kamala Harris.
I don’t agree with Mr. Trump 100% of the time. But I do agree with him most of the time, and I disagree with Ms. Harris nearly all the time. That makes this an easy call. Here are the facts most relevant to me.'
Of course if Trump and Vance lose Haley can say 'I told you so' and run again for the GOP nomination in 2028, whereas if Trump wins Vance is odds on to be GOP nominee next time. So not in her interests for Trump to do too well tomorrow, even if for party unity she has to be seen to give him token support
I suspect many of those she is asking to vote for Trump will have already voted early to get the deed done and moved on.
To a Harris Presidency.
I mean, asking the day before FFS...
I expect they asked weeks ago, she just decided to leave writing it until the day before precisely for the reasons you set out
Lots of new polling is due out later inciuding unusually Survation for Pennsylvania.
TIPP most accurate national vote pollster in 2020, so like Silver it looks dead even with them too. Yet Nate gives Harris a sliver of an edge in the EC
The most accurate pollster in the last election is often not the most accurate pollster in the current election, though.
At the risk of reading too much into things, I'd say the following:
1. Her piece is short. That, together with the rushed Iowa poll, suggests that the Trump campaign has been panicked by the Selzer poll and is obviously scrambling;
2. By implication, that suggests that neither campaign has a clue what is actually going on in the individual states. If the GOP did, then they would have been picking up the warning signals from days ago rather than coming as a shock;
3. It also implies the GOP doesn't think their original strategy was a losing one (if they did, Haley's piece would have been longer, more structured and would have come earlier, plus they would have been pivoted);
That reads very much like the pleas of a hostage. Very much going through the motions from Haley.
On your point 2, I don’t think in the fog of war most campaigns have much idea of what is going on. They probably have been picking up signals from the battle ground but likely discounting it because it doesn’t fit their sense of the vibe.
Funny to see Trump having to ask for Haley's support, offering power over large areas of policy to RFK and so on. I reckon that for Trump to be doing that he must be very badly rattled indeed.
That’s overdoing it
This is clearly an extremely tight election - painfully so - ergo every single vote counts. Trump squeezing every teat for a drop of electoral milk does not mean he is badly rattled it means he is sane and understands this is going to the wire
First big split between the LDs and Labour since Corbyn. The LDs are now calling Reeves' placing a 20% inheritance tax on agricultural estates worth over £1 million a 'tractor tax.'
Could be important as some of the latest polls give a hung parliament with Labour needing LD support to stay in office.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ rural affairs spokesman, said: “This claim just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Rachel Reeves must be living in cloud cuckoo land. It just shows this Labour Government doesn’t understand rural communities. What we cannot afford is to drive farmers out of business and undermine the country’s food security.”
'Tractor tax' seems inept. Wouldn't 'field tax' be better?
After all, it might simply draw attention to the fact that tractors are very little taxed, compared to other items (VAT reclaimable, presumably, in most cases; no road tax; much reduced fuel tax).
It alliterates.
This only happened because of Clarkson. If he would have kept that big foghorn of a mouth shut ........
On the Kaba Blake conundrem, and the ludicrous decision to charge Blake, this line is all thats needed.
"Mr Kaba was shot in the head after he tried to ram his way out of a police vehicle stop in south London"
Don't use your 2 ton car as a weapon if you don't want to get shot in the head. Simple really.
BBC quote:
"Prosper Kaba [father] said that "the role of the police is not to kill", that their son should instead have stood trial and, if convicted, gone to prison for the criminal activity they now know he was involved in."
I would expect the police to think about what they might have been able to do differently to make an arrest and avoid lethal force, were they to face a similar situation in the future.
For example, if they'd been able to lever his fuel cap open and drop a grenade in the fuel tank, is it possible they could have arrested him as he escaped from the burning wreckage of the car?
Or used a Boys 0.55inch anti-tank rifle to smash the engine block of the car.
This has the minor problem of (1) killing the driver, since the bits of engine block form excellent shrapnel, (2) a 0.55 armour piercing round will not politely stop, but will go through a house or two…
Yes, blowing up the car with a bomb or shooting it with a cannon would be a much better idea.
First big split between the LDs and Labour since Corbyn. The LDs are now calling Reeves' placing a 20% inheritance tax on agricultural estates worth over £1 million a 'tractor tax.'
Could be important as some of the latest polls give a hung parliament with Labour needing LD support to stay in office.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ rural affairs spokesman, said: “This claim just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Rachel Reeves must be living in cloud cuckoo land. It just shows this Labour Government doesn’t understand rural communities. What we cannot afford is to drive farmers out of business and undermine the country’s food security.”
Don't worry. Given and sniff of power the highly principled Lib Dems would abandon the farmers at the drop of a hat.
Not sure they would
Tim Farron is furious and Lib Dems have many rural constituencies
Tim Farron was never that good at economics - he studied Politics.
The reality is that it looks bad, isn't actually that bad and can probably be mitigated for about £500 a year maximum via some extra life assurance..
As Rishi discovered, when you are trying to win a general election being brilliant at economics but crap at politics is not much help.
Economics may help you be an effective Chancellor, knowledge of history and politics is more useful as PM and a party leader
The most important quality of course being whether people would like to go to the pub to have a drink with you.
I think Kemi passes this test.
I'm not a fan of hers, but she gives the impression she'd be interesting. And that's good. Starmer... I'd be worried he was looking for any tiny mistake I made, and I'd end up being arrested for being a PB Tory in a public place. And the chat would be utterly dry. Now, the one who might be really fun down the pub is Davey. He looks like he has a little fun after a few pints. Or even after no pints.
Fun to accompany at the haunted house at my local fairground until Mogg, Farage and Corbyn come out of the shadows.
Comments
It’s a monument in Busan (at one point the only bit of Korea still held by the democrats/Americans/west) to all the refugees from elsewhere in Korea, during the Korean War, who gathered on those steps hoping to see lost family members in the sea of forlorn faces below
It is really quite moving. Busan is a cool city. Much preferred it to Seoul
In general I would prioritise the avoidance of more victims of crime being created, over investigating alleged perpetrators who - even of found guilty - cannot commit further crimes.
But it's a balance, as ever.
If you predict enough different outcomes you are bound to be nearly right with some of them
IIRC he said something about end of week 'parties' and leaving do's in other establishments which were not borne out by the facts, and which caused a great deal of anger in places where the rules HAD been followed.
But it is politically naive to raise it now. Best to let sleeping Big Dogs lie (which is what actually got him into trouble).
The Last of the Sea Women on Netflix is a pretty good documentary on their traditional fishing (though the anti-nuke stuff at the end is bollocks).
So the claim you make is really not based on any evidence.
Though Hayes in 1876 and Adams in 1824 won the EC by just one vote
I was worried the EC was going to be close. 😬
Also last night, and for the first time in my life, I felt great moral distress eating an exotic foodstuff. We were all drunk and the guide persuaded me to try “living octopus”
OMFG. I thought they were joking. they weren’t joking. Horrific: and not even “tasty”
I watched three tugs towing a huge bow section of a vessel across the South China sea to Busan
"Prosper Kaba [father] said that "the role of the police is not to kill", that their son should instead have stood trial and, if convicted, gone to prison for the criminal activity they now know he was involved in."
All's right with the world!!
Clearing up the Conservative mess was never going to be easy (just as clearing up a Labour mess wasn't) and the new Government, in trying to look sober and sensible and serious, has done some silly things the consequences of which were entirely foreseeable. That said, no one else has come up with a popular alternative to cutting the borrowing and deficit as well as trying to start working on all the problems the Conservatives neglected (it's not they got it wrong which at least you could accept, they did nothing on a whole range of issues).
The "Party", such as it was and it wasn't much for a lot of people, is over.
She is young, ambitious, smart, and will be able to say and do things that others can't say and will I'm sure grow into the role.
I don't think she will take the party back to a position whereby I could rejoin but we will see.
Plus she was absolutely spot on about Partygate in terms of the legislation but a bit rich for her to bemoan the fact that Boris was caught in a trap that he himself had set.
He explained away the 2016 result as being that his model wasn’t wrong, it was just that it predicted Clinton had a circa 75% chance of winning and that actually the probabilities just went the other way on the day. That’s a reasonable argument to make, but since that time I feel he spends most of his energy hedging his bets and not really saying anything with any confidence. Yes, that’s slightly symptomatic of a 50/50 electorate, but really you’re trying to make hay as a forecaster, and perhaps you should have a few more concrete opinions and put your reputation on the line a little more.
I actually met the haenyeo - the diving women. Indeed I fixed their leaky drainpipe, saving a 3000 year old tradition. Why? Because I was the only male for about fifty miles not aged 86 or over and stopped with years, so I was able to reach up
They were very grateful and directed us to their favourite restaurant where I ate conch soup - fished by them. Chewy but flavoursome
If they discovered that the Duchy of Cornwall were NOT charging an appropriate rent for the facility they would just pivot to "Why do the Royal family get Taxpayers' Money when they let this property for less than they could get for it?".
AFAICS the only thing this report tells us anything about is the newspaper concerned.
It is pronounced everywhere, ESPECIALLY on Jeju
I was so struck by the absence of children on Jeju, despite its large population (600,000) I did some Googling
The median age of Jeju is 58
FIFTY FUCKING EIGHT
After the 2010-2015 coalition the LDs aren't supporting anything in government that threatens LD seats and LD core voters.
Remember while less than a third of Labour MPs represent rural seats over 60% of LD MPs now represent rural seats
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trump-isnt-perfect-but-hes-the-better-choice-says-nikki-haley-presidential-election-b343f6ab?st=P6xESJ&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
At the risk of reading too much into things, I'd say the following:
1. Her piece is short. That, together with the rushed Iowa poll, suggests that the Trump campaign has been panicked by the Selzer poll and is obviously scrambling;
2. By implication, that suggests that neither campaign has a clue what is actually going on in the individual states. If the GOP did, then they would have been picking up the warning signals from days ago rather than coming as a shock;
3. It also implies the GOP doesn't think their original strategy was a losing one (if they did, Haley's piece would have been longer, more structured and would have come earlier, plus they would have been pivoted);
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ave0C2XDuqA
In time there will be a bit of Trollopian litigation as family schemes go awry when wives scarper, the black sheep son starts a ponzi scheme etc; this will do no harm to lawyers both in family and chancery law, keeping Vholes and friends in business.
I'm surprised it wasn't universal here from the 1960s. In England it is only in place for 10% of the population, even now. *
https://post.parliament.uk/water-fluoridation-and-dental-health/
* There are certain places where natural geology makes a difference, but we are still nowhere near having it in place.
Economics may help you be an effective Chancellor, knowledge of history and politics is more useful as PM and a party leader
He writes about politics. also he’s an anti-Woke Democrat, who can absolutely see the appeal of Trump - so reasonably neutral by polarized Yank standards
His opinion? Women are swinging quietly behind Harris, and she will win with a decent edge, albeit probably not enough to silence Trump’s whining
I don’t think he was wishcasting
Republican Murdoch's paper though spinning it for all its worth
I think Kemi passes this test.
I imagine being hit with £100million of IHT does sting a little, but it’s people like Dyson who have bid up the value of UK agricultural land in order to buy it for the tax advantages & made UK farming uneconomic for ordinary farmers.
On your point 2, I don’t think in the fog of war most campaigns have much idea of what is going on. They probably have been picking up signals from the battle ground but likely discounting it because it doesn’t fit their sense of the vibe.
But some lawyers will make more money. That will help productivity.
Did it not occur to anyone that the issue is not owning land, but selling it? Not much of a tax shelter if you have to own 500 acres of Northumberland, forever…
Starmer... I'd be worried he was looking for any tiny mistake I made, and I'd end up being arrested for being a PB Tory in a public place. And the chat would be utterly dry.
Now, the one who might be really fun down the pub is Davey. He looks like he has a little fun after a few pints. Or even after no pints.
After all, it might simply draw attention to the fact that tractors are very little taxed, compared to other items (VAT reclaimable, presumably, in most cases; no road tax; much reduced fuel tax).
[Which reminds me, must get a UV lamp and test my 1950s art glass]
(Teresa May could also have done with learning this lesson before she announced a highly unpopular tax in the middle of an election campaign.)
SKS gets a fat "F" for fail and no one in their right mind would want to go for a drink with him. Which will eventually tell against him when it's fifty-fifty on every other metric.
I'd choose Sunak over her. But her over Starmer, probably.
Davey and Farage are probably the most pintable of the current set.
Soon after she left office
And yes she shone with charisma - greatness personified - and you would absolutely go to the pub with her. And indeed buy the drinks. One of the iconic western politicians of her century
And she also had that piercing intelligence when younger as well. You can see it interviews
Starmer, to be polite, does not have any of this
Haley eventually grudgingly agreed and looks like something she rushed off in the bath.
First 2 lines hardly the most fulsome endorsement ever 'Millions of people love Donald Trump, and millions hate him. Each group will vote accordingly.'
Next few paras not much better
'But there are also millions whose views on Mr. Trump are mixed. They like much of what he did as president and agree with most of his policies. But they dislike his tone and can’t condone his excesses, such as his conduct on Jan. 6, 2021. This third group of Americans will determine whether the former president returns to the White House.
To that group, I’ll point out that Mr. Trump isn’t the only one on the ballot. This election isn’t a referendum on him. It’s a choice between him and Kamala Harris.
I don’t agree with Mr. Trump 100% of the time. But I do agree with him most of the time, and I disagree with Ms. Harris nearly all the time. That makes this an easy call. Here are the facts most relevant to me.'
Of course if Trump and Vance lose Haley can say 'I told you so' and run again for the GOP nomination in 2028, whereas if Trump wins Vance is odds on to be GOP nominee next time. So not in her interests for Trump to do too well tomorrow, even if for party unity she has to be seen to give him token support
Not sure whether there was a different agricultural land threshold in ’92?
For example, if they'd been able to lever his fuel cap open and drop a grenade in the fuel tank, is it possible they could have arrested him as he escaped from the burning wreckage of the car?
Harris 48 ( - )
Trump 48 ( -1 )
Lots of new polling is due out later inciuding unusually Survation for Pennsylvania.
Harris has a huge GOTV organisation and has been very clearly trying to push the buttons of certain voters, to bring them to the polls or to persuade them to go with Harris in the face of other pressures. The Trump campaign is much more chaotic (some of that is simply who Trump is, of course). It doesn’t mean that they don’t also have strong organisation behind them, but I am not convinced they are working to seal the deal effectively at all.
Kamala Harris to win
or Donald Trump to win
To a Harris Presidency.
I mean, asking the day before FFS...
https://diversity-inclusion-speakers.com/speaker/sal-naseem/
Jacket-over-Tshirt wanker, amongst other things.
FAU , Wisconsin , Pennsylvania and Michigan
Survation , Pennsylvania
Marist , National
Emerson , Pennsylvania
ECU , Georgia
And possibles so far
Reuters/Ipsos , National
Quinnipiac, National
YouGov/Economist , National
Others may well also drop some last minute polling so lots for political poll junkies to get their teeth into !
This is clearly an extremely tight election - painfully so - ergo every single vote counts. Trump squeezing every teat for a drop of electoral milk does not mean he is badly rattled it means he is sane and understands this is going to the wire
Ditto Harris
This has the minor problem of (1) killing the driver, since the bits of engine block form excellent shrapnel, (2) a 0.55 armour piercing round will not politely stop, but will go through a house or two…
Yes, blowing up the car with a bomb or shooting it with a cannon would be a much better idea.
In fact, why not use a tactical nuclear weapon?
Like this - https://youtu.be/eiM-RzPHyGs?t=222&si=FbmOd6br85BAyzt_
Harris to win by 52:48, in the popular vote, and taking the electoral college in a similarly knife edge way
https://x.com/ask_aubry/status/1817691774686486902