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.”
Harris takes WI, MI, PA, NC and GA Trump takes NV and AZ.
Some further thoughts:
- the rust belt will end up not being particularly close. Harris takes each of WI, MI and PA by a few points and clear margins. - IA will stay with Trump, but only by 1-2 points. FL will also be closer than anticipated, with a similar margin. Conversely, TX will do its usual TX thing and be very comfortable GOP. - The closest states will be NV and GA. Both will come down to very small margins (potentially hundreds of votes) so we won’t know the winner for ages, but it won’t matter because neither will be tipping point. - Harris will have a clear lead in popular vote. 3-4 points. - GOP will win the Senate 51/2-49/8. Democrats will gain the House by a small margin. - Lots of commentators will tell us over the coming days that the result was obvious now that we have it.
(Please note that I called the Labour seat total within 3 seats in 2024, and the Tory seat total within 2. Does that mean anything? Nope. But if I get this one right too I will be making a big deal of it!)
I'll piggyback that. It's as close to my sense of things as anybody bar me could possibly get.
Well Trump getting the most votes while Harris wins the EC isn't that likely but a 2.5% chance seems reasonably likely.
My problem is that if Trump wins the popular vote he's going to be complaining forever that he only lost because of dodgy voting elsewhere where things are close.
So for may sanity I hope for a Harris win on both popular votes and in the Electoral College.
If the Selzer and Kansas polls are correct in the slightest, showing huge swings in deep red states, the Trump loss but PV win seems the least likely scenario.
They are small states. California and New York may look quite different. For one thing, women there are less likely to think there is an imminent risk to losing abortion rights.
They may be small states, but if that dynamic is happening in Iowa and Kansas, it’s also happening throughout that red swath of states in the middle and south of the USA.
Not in the south which is more anti abortion and evangelical and has more black men who Trump has made inroads with. Trump almost certainly wins Georgia for example this time and that is a bigger state with more voters than Iowa and Kansas combined
I don't know. The analysis of the early voting data in Georgia looks pretty positive for Harris.
In 2020 my American mother-in-law said that, if Trump lost in 2020 he would be finished, because Americans don't like a loser.
It's looked for a long time as though she was wrong, because Trump managed to persuade enough people that he didn't lose, and so he wasn't a loser. But, perhaps, there are just enough people who didn't buy that lie that he will be decisively defeated.
If Harris carries all the Biden states, and adds those that would be won on a 4.5% swing, then she'd win the Electoral College by 413 to 125.
If the majority of polls have been systematically wrong then I think it's possible we could be missing something dramatic like that. Lots of things are possible.
Given all the early votes why don’t they make more of a competition of the presidential race, and vote state by state (or at least in clusters).
It makes the election more like a league, or a boxing bout with rounds. It adds to the excitement (assuming it’s close) towards the end. It enables voters to calibrate how they will vote as things progress. After all that’s how the primaries work.
Well Trump getting the most votes while Harris wins the EC isn't that likely but a 2.5% chance seems reasonably likely.
My problem is that if Trump wins the popular vote he's going to be complaining forever that he only lost because of dodgy voting elsewhere where things are close.
So for may sanity I hope for a Harris win on both popular votes and in the Electoral College.
If the Selzer and Kansas polls are correct in the slightest, showing huge swings in deep red states, the Trump loss but PV win seems the least likely scenario.
They are small states. California and New York may look quite different. For one thing, women there are less likely to think there is an imminent risk to losing abortion rights.
They may be small states, but if that dynamic is happening in Iowa and Kansas, it’s also happening throughout that red swath of states in the middle and south of the USA.
Not in the south which is more anti abortion and evangelical and has more black men who Trump has made inroads with. Trump almost certainly wins Georgia for example this time and that is a bigger state with more voters than Iowa and Kansas combined
I don't know. The analysis of the early voting data in Georgia looks pretty positive for Harris.
In 2020 my American mother-in-law said that, if Trump lost in 2020 he would be finished, because Americans don't like a loser.
It's looked for a long time as though she was wrong, because Trump managed to persuade enough people that he didn't lose, and so he wasn't a loser. But, perhaps, there are just enough people who didn't buy that lie that he will be decisively defeated.
If Harris carries all the Biden states, and adds those that would be won on a 4.5% swing, then she'd win the Electoral College by 413 to 125.
If the majority of polls have been systematically wrong then I think it's possible we could be missing something dramatic like that. Lots of things are possible.
The odds for a polling miss such as we had in our GE in Harris' favour are simply astonishing. I'm on the following to cash in on a potential Harris landslide:
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”
You probably know this, but the octopus is a surprisingly intelligent creature. Intelligence has evolved precisely twice on earth as we understand it: once in vertebrates, and once in the family which encompasses octopus, cuttlefish and squid. Octopus intelligence is up at mammal level. As we understand it. Though it is a peculiar sort of intelligence, and (and I am paraphrasing the truth wildly here) to some extent operated by committee rather than being a dictatorship of one central brain. Each limb is sort of of independent.
Yes, I know, and I’ve seen THAT video too
It was made worse by the fact that an hour before I saw one brave little octopus making a run for it. He was out of his tank and haring off down the street, literally heading for the sea (as my guide pointed out). Sadly his chances of making it were about 0.00004%
And then i had that dish
Ugh. UGH. It was genuinely upsetting and I deeply regret it and I have vowed never to eat octopus again. Enough
Yes, I stopped eating octopus quite a few years back for much the same reason. They pull the same stunt in the Seoul food market tours, too. The drinking games are fun, though.
Yeah I had a laugh but woke up feeling shit - and guilty
I get increasingly uneasy about meat-eating in general. Trouble is I love it
But the least I can do is be choosier about what meat I eat and octopi just got struck from the menu
BTW if you liked Korea you MUST go to Japan. i have decided that Japan is the refined, purified version of Korea
If Korea is molasses, Japan is crystalline sugar; if Korea is opium, Japan is white heroin
Welcome back. I also removed Octopus from my eating choices a year ago - absolutely love it but they are clearly intelligent aliens so gave them up.
Would love a perfect lab grown pork/bacon as I love pigs and feel guilty about eating them as they are intelligent.
Not so fussed about cows and sheep - they are really stupid so deserve it. The brainy ones learned to make great milk and amazing wool - the meat ones, idiots.
I find dairy farming the saddest, as it’s a form of exhausting lifelong slavery at the end of which you go off for the chop and get turned into pet food. But I do like cheese.
Well Trump getting the most votes while Harris wins the EC isn't that likely but a 2.5% chance seems reasonably likely.
My problem is that if Trump wins the popular vote he's going to be complaining forever that he only lost because of dodgy voting elsewhere where things are close.
So for may sanity I hope for a Harris win on both popular votes and in the Electoral College.
If the Selzer and Kansas polls are correct in the slightest, showing huge swings in deep red states, the Trump loss but PV win seems the least likely scenario.
They are small states. California and New York may look quite different. For one thing, women there are less likely to think there is an imminent risk to losing abortion rights.
They may be small states, but if that dynamic is happening in Iowa and Kansas, it’s also happening throughout that red swath of states in the middle and south of the USA.
Not in the south which is more anti abortion and evangelical and has more black men who Trump has made inroads with. Trump almost certainly wins Georgia for example this time and that is a bigger state with more voters than Iowa and Kansas combined
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.”
It can't be beyond the wit of man to design a IHT system which allows a genuine farmer who has worked the land all their life to hand onto children to farm in their turn.
Maybe a 20 year rule? You have to have lived on and farmed the land for twenty years before handing on. Stops the City slickers buying land to hold for a couple of years for tax reasons?
I was talking over the weekend to a rural solicitor who deals in all this all day every day. Conclusions: a) It kicks in in 2026 so there is time to plan b) The 7 year rule still applies. There will be more use of this, with 97 year olds clinging on to ownership to the exclusion of the next 2 generations becoming less common c) The extra million (additional to each individual's usual IHT reliefs) applies to ownership; each owner gets the extra million. Ownership can be split vertically and horizontally across generations. d) As usual ignore everything farmers (and the compliant media) say and watch carefully what they do.
He expects to be busy. Rural accountants and lawyers will be doing OK. He expects the HMRC to get remarkably little from this source.
Good summary. The key thing here is the lead in time of nearly 18 months, lawyers and agents will be in high demand for the foreseeable.
From what I can see, if a married couple own the main farmhouse jointly, even if the land is held in one individiluals name, there would be full relief on £2 million available. If the *land* too was held by a married couple in two different names, then there would up to £3 million relief available, again 0% tax. Different generations can be added to ownership too.
The NFU in my area have already started planning meetings to discuss this with farmers. So I'd say the evidence is despite huffing and puffing, they know it's here to stay.
I expect this will be like the winter fuel allowance, I don't see the government budging. Clearly the lead in time has been given to allow businesses time to prepare.
Having said all this, land prices got to these levels by high volumes of outside investments, particularly in southern England, Highland estates, etc. Land price has had no correlation with land productively for quite some time.
There is a big disparity in per acre price/demand in most of the country, home counties land prices are similarly higher in the same way London house prices are. So a farmer in a boggy part of Argyll should have less of an issue with new IHT rules than a Kent arable farmer on a similar acreage
It will stay like the WFA cut as long as Labour has a majority government.
However as the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP oppose the WFA cut and oppose the removal of the IHT exemption for farms if they lose their majority next time both will go
I doubt that in 4 years time either the WFA, IHT exemption or VAT on private education will be things that any of those parties care about. There will be more recent issues with which to attract voters..
I could see the Tories proposing to raise the IHT agricultural threshold in 5 years time, but don't think they would abolish it completely. Surely one of Reeves key motivation for this was to control outside investors using land purchase as a tax avoidance scheme.
As a policy this won't be the biggest money spinner, there are methods round it available for most family farms who wish to keep farming, 7 year rule being the main one
The Tories, Reform and the Lib Dems will all have abolition of IHT as central planks of their May 2028 manifestos. If there is a change of government, as there will be that will be the end of this most iniquitous tax. The ad interim assessments will also be quashed. Reeves and Starmer will look back on this, not the WFA as their Titanic blunder.
Well Trump getting the most votes while Harris wins the EC isn't that likely but a 2.5% chance seems reasonably likely.
My problem is that if Trump wins the popular vote he's going to be complaining forever that he only lost because of dodgy voting elsewhere where things are close.
So for may sanity I hope for a Harris win on both popular votes and in the Electoral College.
If the Selzer and Kansas polls are correct in the slightest, showing huge swings in deep red states, the Trump loss but PV win seems the least likely scenario.
They are small states. California and New York may look quite different. For one thing, women there are less likely to think there is an imminent risk to losing abortion rights.
They may be small states, but if that dynamic is happening in Iowa and Kansas, it’s also happening throughout that red swath of states in the middle and south of the USA.
Not in the south which is more anti abortion and evangelical and has more black men who Trump has made inroads with. Trump almost certainly wins Georgia for example this time and that is a bigger state with more voters than Iowa and Kansas combined
I don't know. The analysis of the early voting data in Georgia looks pretty positive for Harris.
In 2020 my American mother-in-law said that, if Trump lost in 2020 he would be finished, because Americans don't like a loser.
It's looked for a long time as though she was wrong, because Trump managed to persuade enough people that he didn't lose, and so he wasn't a loser. But, perhaps, there are just enough people who didn't buy that lie that he will be decisively defeated.
If Harris carries all the Biden states, and adds those that would be won on a 4.5% swing, then she'd win the Electoral College by 413 to 125.
If the majority of polls have been systematically wrong then I think it's possible we could be missing something dramatic like that. Lots of things are possible.
The odds for a polling miss such as we had in our GE in Harris' favour are simply astonishing. I'm on the following to cash in on a potential Harris landslide:
£20 @ 22-1 180-209 £15 @ 60-1 179-
I'm doing a bit of that too. The outliers are great value imo.
Well Trump getting the most votes while Harris wins the EC isn't that likely but a 2.5% chance seems reasonably likely.
My problem is that if Trump wins the popular vote he's going to be complaining forever that he only lost because of dodgy voting elsewhere where things are close.
So for may sanity I hope for a Harris win on both popular votes and in the Electoral College.
If the Selzer and Kansas polls are correct in the slightest, showing huge swings in deep red states, the Trump loss but PV win seems the least likely scenario.
They are small states. California and New York may look quite different. For one thing, women there are less likely to think there is an imminent risk to losing abortion rights.
They may be small states, but if that dynamic is happening in Iowa and Kansas, it’s also happening throughout that red swath of states in the middle and south of the USA.
Not in the south which is more anti abortion and evangelical and has more black men who Trump has made inroads with. Trump almost certainly wins Georgia for example this time and that is a bigger state with more voters than Iowa and Kansas combined
I don't know. The analysis of the early voting data in Georgia looks pretty positive for Harris.
In 2020 my American mother-in-law said that, if Trump lost in 2020 he would be finished, because Americans don't like a loser.
It's looked for a long time as though she was wrong, because Trump managed to persuade enough people that he didn't lose, and so he wasn't a loser. But, perhaps, there are just enough people who didn't buy that lie that he will be decisively defeated.
If Harris carries all the Biden states, and adds those that would be won on a 4.5% swing, then she'd win the Electoral College by 413 to 125.
If the majority of polls have been systematically wrong then I think it's possible we could be missing something dramatic like that. Lots of things are possible.
Cor, you have really changed your tune (which is fair enough, bettors are allowed to change their mind. But that is quite a shift in outlook).
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?
Heath if the conversation was about sailing, perhaps.
Or how awful Thatcher was.
I would imagine he was quite engaging on his preferred topics. Granted some were more niche than others. Classical music, sailing and young men.
Despicable comment - why not just call him a paedo? FFS.
I didn't. I was very specific in my language. And he's dead so he can't sue. Although I doubt he would sue were he still alive.
Why post it? Have you a shred of evidence that he had an interest in 'young men"? Is PB not better than this? I thought you were? I met him once, as an old man. He came into the pub I was working in with his security people, sat and had a drink and a brief chat with the landlord.
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
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).
Leaving aside that the country gets more from the Crown Estate than the Royal Family do from taxes, which I think peripheral to the conversation about the principles, the issue I have is that the Times piece is not serious journalism; it is a parade of normal arrangements trying to troll up outrage.
Further they do not cover even their own story properly. For example they talk about how Prince William "has recently appointed his close friend William van Cutsem as a duchy adviser." They somehow forgot to mention that the guy is a Chartered Surveyor, so eminently suited to take up the role.
If they wanted to contribute to a useful debate, they could have done so. They overwhelmingly chose not so to do.
They even had the gall to link it to "Sunday Times Insight Team". Harold Evans will be spinning in his grave.
For me it's mainly a reminder of just how shitty our media is, pretty much from end to end.
I @viewcode am trotting off to town to bet in a few minutes. Can somebody confirm that the following Ladbrokes bets are for the senate seats, and not for some weird state-level assembly?
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.”
It can't be beyond the wit of man to design a IHT system which allows a genuine farmer who has worked the land all their life to hand onto children to farm in their turn.
Maybe a 20 year rule? You have to have lived on and farmed the land for twenty years before handing on. Stops the City slickers buying land to hold for a couple of years for tax reasons?
I was talking over the weekend to a rural solicitor who deals in all this all day every day. Conclusions: a) It kicks in in 2026 so there is time to plan b) The 7 year rule still applies. There will be more use of this, with 97 year olds clinging on to ownership to the exclusion of the next 2 generations becoming less common c) The extra million (additional to each individual's usual IHT reliefs) applies to ownership; each owner gets the extra million. Ownership can be split vertically and horizontally across generations. d) As usual ignore everything farmers (and the compliant media) say and watch carefully what they do.
He expects to be busy. Rural accountants and lawyers will be doing OK. He expects the HMRC to get remarkably little from this source.
Good summary. The key thing here is the lead in time of nearly 18 months, lawyers and agents will be in high demand for the foreseeable.
From what I can see, if a married couple own the main farmhouse jointly, even if the land is held in one individiluals name, there would be full relief on £2 million available. If the *land* too was held by a married couple in two different names, then there would up to £3 million relief available, again 0% tax. Different generations can be added to ownership too.
The NFU in my area have already started planning meetings to discuss this with farmers. So I'd say the evidence is despite huffing and puffing, they know it's here to stay.
I expect this will be like the winter fuel allowance, I don't see the government budging. Clearly the lead in time has been given to allow businesses time to prepare.
Having said all this, land prices got to these levels by high volumes of outside investments, particularly in southern England, Highland estates, etc. Land price has had no correlation with land productively for quite some time.
There is a big disparity in per acre price/demand in most of the country, home counties land prices are similarly higher in the same way London house prices are. So a farmer in a boggy part of Argyll should have less of an issue with new IHT rules than a Kent arable farmer on a similar acreage
It will stay like the WFA cut as long as Labour has a majority government.
However as the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP oppose the WFA cut and oppose the removal of the IHT exemption for farms if they lose their majority next time both will go
I doubt that in 4 years time either the WFA, IHT exemption or VAT on private education will be things that any of those parties care about. There will be more recent issues with which to attract voters..
If the Tories and LDs want to motivate pensioners, farmers and private school parents to turn out for them (who are more likely to vote for them than Labour) of course they will remain issues
Odd situation where RCP seems to be saying Harris has a better chance of winning than 538. RCP puts Trump just 0.3% ahead in PA and Harris is on 251 ECVs without it on their forecast.
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.”
It can't be beyond the wit of man to design a IHT system which allows a genuine farmer who has worked the land all their life to hand onto children to farm in their turn.
Maybe a 20 year rule? You have to have lived on and farmed the land for twenty years before handing on. Stops the City slickers buying land to hold for a couple of years for tax reasons?
I was talking over the weekend to a rural solicitor who deals in all this all day every day. Conclusions: a) It kicks in in 2026 so there is time to plan b) The 7 year rule still applies. There will be more use of this, with 97 year olds clinging on to ownership to the exclusion of the next 2 generations becoming less common c) The extra million (additional to each individual's usual IHT reliefs) applies to ownership; each owner gets the extra million. Ownership can be split vertically and horizontally across generations. d) As usual ignore everything farmers (and the compliant media) say and watch carefully what they do.
He expects to be busy. Rural accountants and lawyers will be doing OK. He expects the HMRC to get remarkably little from this source.
Good summary. The key thing here is the lead in time of nearly 18 months, lawyers and agents will be in high demand for the foreseeable.
From what I can see, if a married couple own the main farmhouse jointly, even if the land is held in one individiluals name, there would be full relief on £2 million available. If the *land* too was held by a married couple in two different names, then there would up to £3 million relief available, again 0% tax. Different generations can be added to ownership too.
The NFU in my area have already started planning meetings to discuss this with farmers. So I'd say the evidence is despite huffing and puffing, they know it's here to stay.
I expect this will be like the winter fuel allowance, I don't see the government budging. Clearly the lead in time has been given to allow businesses time to prepare.
Having said all this, land prices got to these levels by high volumes of outside investments, particularly in southern England, Highland estates, etc. Land price has had no correlation with land productively for quite some time.
There is a big disparity in per acre price/demand in most of the country, home counties land prices are similarly higher in the same way London house prices are. So a farmer in a boggy part of Argyll should have less of an issue with new IHT rules than a Kent arable farmer on a similar acreage
It will stay like the WFA cut as long as Labour has a majority government.
However as the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP oppose the WFA cut and oppose the removal of the IHT exemption for farms if they lose their majority next time both will go
Hardly. There are loads of examples from history of things that oppositions opposed at the time but left in place once they were next in government.
Popular things, those measures are largely unpopular except the private school fees VAT hit until state school parents see class sizes go up
The reason a lot of what Trump says doesn’t effect him is because many just think he’s not being serious .
This time with no guard rails is it worth taking a chance . Let’s hope enough voters take him seriously .
It's odd though that the people who actually worked with him at the most senior level thought that he was deadly serious, and had to keep taking action to thwart him doing some very rash things.
Quite why we have allowed media "sane washing" to get away with pretending Trump doesn't intend to do harm is one of those questions that needs an urgent answer.
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?
Heath if the conversation was about sailing, perhaps.
Or how awful Thatcher was.
I would imagine he was quite engaging on his preferred topics. Granted some were more niche than others. Classical music, sailing and young men.
Despicable comment - why not just call him a paedo? FFS.
I didn't. I was very specific in my language. And he's dead so he can't sue. Although I doubt he would sue were he still alive.
Why post it? Have you a shred of evidence that he had an interest in 'young men"? Is PB not better than this? I thought you were? I met him once, as an old man. He came into the pub I was working in with his security people, sat and had a drink and a brief chat with the landlord.
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
He certainly didn’t accuse Heath of being a pedo, he made remarks about his alleged homosexuality, which is hardly ground breaking (and also not illegal when Heath was PM)
40% Harris landslide (6 out of 7 swing states) 25% Narrow Harris (4 out of 7) 25% Narrow Trump (5 out of 7 for Trump) 10% Trump landslide (all 7 for Trump).
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”
You probably know this, but the octopus is a surprisingly intelligent creature. Intelligence has evolved precisely twice on earth as we understand it: once in vertebrates, and once in the family which encompasses octopus, cuttlefish and squid. Octopus intelligence is up at mammal level. As we understand it. Though it is a peculiar sort of intelligence, and (and I am paraphrasing the truth wildly here) to some extent operated by committee rather than being a dictatorship of one central brain. Each limb is sort of of independent.
Yes, I know, and I’ve seen THAT video too
It was made worse by the fact that an hour before I saw one brave little octopus making a run for it. He was out of his tank and haring off down the street, literally heading for the sea (as my guide pointed out). Sadly his chances of making it were about 0.00004%
And then i had that dish
Ugh. UGH. It was genuinely upsetting and I deeply regret it and I have vowed never to eat octopus again. Enough
Yes, I stopped eating octopus quite a few years back for much the same reason. They pull the same stunt in the Seoul food market tours, too. The drinking games are fun, though.
Yeah I had a laugh but woke up feeling shit - and guilty
I get increasingly uneasy about meat-eating in general. Trouble is I love it
But the least I can do is be choosier about what meat I eat and octopi just got struck from the menu
BTW if you liked Korea you MUST go to Japan. i have decided that Japan is the refined, purified version of Korea
If Korea is molasses, Japan is crystalline sugar; if Korea is opium, Japan is white heroin
Welcome back. I also removed Octopus from my eating choices a year ago - absolutely love it but they are clearly intelligent aliens so gave them up.
Would love a perfect lab grown pork/bacon as I love pigs and feel guilty about eating them as they are intelligent.
Not so fussed about cows and sheep - they are really stupid so deserve it. The brainy ones learned to make great milk and amazing wool - the meat ones, idiots.
I find dairy farming the saddest, as it’s a form of exhausting lifelong slavery at the end of which you go off for the chop and get turned into pet food. But I do like cheese.
I didn't realise being a farmer was that bad!!!
I am a fully committed meat eater, but I have qualms about the process. We are very insulated against how meat is produced. We pick up nice packets in the supermarket of if we are lucky from the butcher. We don't have to watch the killing of the animal, nor the blood draining out (and into my black pudding), nor the chopping up. At some level we know its happened.
The flip side is this. Animals in the wild are predated on and live lives of fear, disease, a need to find food etc. Farmed animals (in the UK at least) are superbly looked after and cared for. They need not fear a predator. If they are ill they are treated. When they are old they are given a humane death.
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).
Leaving aside that the country gets more from the Crown Estate than the Royal Family do from taxes, which I think peripheral to the conversation about the principles, the issue I have is that the Times piece is not serious journalism; it is a parade of normal arrangements trying to troll up outrage.
Further they do not cover even their own story properly. For example they talk about how Prince William "has recently appointed his close friend William van Cutsem as a duchy adviser." They somehow forgot to mention that the guy is a Chartered Surveyor, so eminently suited to take up the role.
If they wanted to contribute to a useful debate, they could have done so. They overwhelmingly chose not so to do.
They even had the gall to link it to "Sunday Times Insight Team". Harold Evans will be spinning in his grave.
For me it's mainly a reminder of just how shitty our media is, pretty much from end to end.
Which is fair. I am someone who would abolish the monarchy today, if I could. They can live on as normal folk and pay the same taxes we all do.
Again, I genuinely hope I’m wrong. Women, the Abortion issue, younger voters, seniors, a better GOTV operation. They could conceivably all combine to give Harris the win. But at the moment, looking at the fundamentals, I just can’t see anything but a Trump victory. Sorry.
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?
Heath if the conversation was about sailing, perhaps.
Or how awful Thatcher was.
I would imagine he was quite engaging on his preferred topics. Granted some were more niche than others. Classical music, sailing and young men.
Despicable comment - why not just call him a paedo? FFS.
I didn't. I was very specific in my language. And he's dead so he can't sue. Although I doubt he would sue were he still alive.
Why post it? Have you a shred of evidence that he had an interest in 'young men"? Is PB not better than this? I thought you were? I met him once, as an old man. He came into the pub I was working in with his security people, sat and had a drink and a brief chat with the landlord.
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
He certainly didn’t accuse Heath of being a pedo, he made remarks about his alleged homosexuality, which is hardly ground breaking (and also not illegal when Heath was PM)
Is there any evidence he was homosexual? I rather suspect he was more asexual than anything else.
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”
You probably know this, but the octopus is a surprisingly intelligent creature. Intelligence has evolved precisely twice on earth as we understand it: once in vertebrates, and once in the family which encompasses octopus, cuttlefish and squid. Octopus intelligence is up at mammal level. As we understand it. Though it is a peculiar sort of intelligence, and (and I am paraphrasing the truth wildly here) to some extent operated by committee rather than being a dictatorship of one central brain. Each limb is sort of of independent.
Yes, I know, and I’ve seen THAT video too
It was made worse by the fact that an hour before I saw one brave little octopus making a run for it. He was out of his tank and haring off down the street, literally heading for the sea (as my guide pointed out). Sadly his chances of making it were about 0.00004%
And then i had that dish
Ugh. UGH. It was genuinely upsetting and I deeply regret it and I have vowed never to eat octopus again. Enough
Yes, I stopped eating octopus quite a few years back for much the same reason. They pull the same stunt in the Seoul food market tours, too. The drinking games are fun, though.
Yeah I had a laugh but woke up feeling shit - and guilty
I get increasingly uneasy about meat-eating in general. Trouble is I love it
But the least I can do is be choosier about what meat I eat and octopi just got struck from the menu
BTW if you liked Korea you MUST go to Japan. i have decided that Japan is the refined, purified version of Korea
If Korea is molasses, Japan is crystalline sugar; if Korea is opium, Japan is white heroin
Welcome back. I also removed Octopus from my eating choices a year ago - absolutely love it but they are clearly intelligent aliens so gave them up.
Would love a perfect lab grown pork/bacon as I love pigs and feel guilty about eating them as they are intelligent.
Not so fussed about cows and sheep - they are really stupid so deserve it. The brainy ones learned to make great milk and amazing wool - the meat ones, idiots.
I find dairy farming the saddest, as it’s a form of exhausting lifelong slavery at the end of which you go off for the chop and get turned into pet food. But I do like cheese.
I would very much be a vegetarian if it wasn’t for the fact that animals taste far too good.
The only animal I feel guilt about is the Octopus as it is a very smart creature but it just tastes so bloody good.
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”
You probably know this, but the octopus is a surprisingly intelligent creature. Intelligence has evolved precisely twice on earth as we understand it: once in vertebrates, and once in the family which encompasses octopus, cuttlefish and squid. Octopus intelligence is up at mammal level. As we understand it. Though it is a peculiar sort of intelligence, and (and I am paraphrasing the truth wildly here) to some extent operated by committee rather than being a dictatorship of one central brain. Each limb is sort of of independent.
Yes, I know, and I’ve seen THAT video too
It was made worse by the fact that an hour before I saw one brave little octopus making a run for it. He was out of his tank and haring off down the street, literally heading for the sea (as my guide pointed out). Sadly his chances of making it were about 0.00004%
And then i had that dish
Ugh. UGH. It was genuinely upsetting and I deeply regret it and I have vowed never to eat octopus again. Enough
Yes, I stopped eating octopus quite a few years back for much the same reason. They pull the same stunt in the Seoul food market tours, too. The drinking games are fun, though.
Yeah I had a laugh but woke up feeling shit - and guilty
I get increasingly uneasy about meat-eating in general. Trouble is I love it
But the least I can do is be choosier about what meat I eat and octopi just got struck from the menu
BTW if you liked Korea you MUST go to Japan. i have decided that Japan is the refined, purified version of Korea
If Korea is molasses, Japan is crystalline sugar; if Korea is opium, Japan is white heroin
Welcome back. I also removed Octopus from my eating choices a year ago - absolutely love it but they are clearly intelligent aliens so gave them up.
Would love a perfect lab grown pork/bacon as I love pigs and feel guilty about eating them as they are intelligent.
Not so fussed about cows and sheep - they are really stupid so deserve it. The brainy ones learned to make great milk and amazing wool - the meat ones, idiots.
I find dairy farming the saddest, as it’s a form of exhausting lifelong slavery at the end of which you go off for the chop and get turned into pet food. But I do like cheese.
I didn't realise being a farmer was that bad!!!
I am a fully committed meat eater, but I have qualms about the process. We are very insulated against how meat is produced. We pick up nice packets in the supermarket of if we are lucky from the butcher. We don't have to watch the killing of the animal, nor the blood draining out (and into my black pudding), nor the chopping up. At some level we know its happened.
The flip side is this. Animals in the wild are predated on and live lives of fear, disease, a need to find food etc. Farmed animals (in the UK at least) are superbly looked after and cared for. They need not fear a predator. If they are ill they are treated. When they are old they are given a humane death.
I've had to do the plucking and drawing of the Christmas turkey, and gut and clean fish and cephalopods, before cooking them. At least I can claim that.
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?
Heath if the conversation was about sailing, perhaps.
Or how awful Thatcher was.
I would imagine he was quite engaging on his preferred topics. Granted some were more niche than others. Classical music, sailing and young men.
Despicable comment - why not just call him a paedo? FFS.
I didn't. I was very specific in my language. And he's dead so he can't sue. Although I doubt he would sue were he still alive.
Why post it? Have you a shred of evidence that he had an interest in 'young men"? Is PB not better than this? I thought you were? I met him once, as an old man. He came into the pub I was working in with his security people, sat and had a drink and a brief chat with the landlord.
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
He certainly didn’t accuse Heath of being a pedo, he made remarks about his alleged homosexuality, which is hardly ground breaking (and also not illegal when Heath was PM)
Is there any evidence he was homosexual? I rather suspect he was more asexual than anything else.
There is quite a lot more if you Google . It was probably unwise to make my original comment. However if we weren't too prim to discuss these issues perhaps Greville Janner would have ended his days, where he belonged, in jail.
I apologise for the personal offence I caused you.
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?
Heath if the conversation was about sailing, perhaps.
Or how awful Thatcher was.
I would imagine he was quite engaging on his preferred topics. Granted some were more niche than others. Classical music, sailing and young men.
Despicable comment - why not just call him a paedo? FFS.
I didn't. I was very specific in my language. And he's dead so he can't sue. Although I doubt he would sue were he still alive.
Why post it? Have you a shred of evidence that he had an interest in 'young men"? Is PB not better than this? I thought you were? I met him once, as an old man. He came into the pub I was working in with his security people, sat and had a drink and a brief chat with the landlord.
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
He certainly didn’t accuse Heath of being a pedo, he made remarks about his alleged homosexuality, which is hardly ground breaking (and also not illegal when Heath was PM)
Is there any evidence he was homosexual? I rather suspect he was more asexual than anything else.
There is quite a lot more if you Google . It was probably unwise to make my original comment. However if we weren't too prim to discuss these issues perhaps Greville Janner would have ended his days, where he belonged, in jail.
I apologise for the personal offence I caused you.
Its not a personal offence - its just needless. Its like posting about Trump wearing nappies.
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”
You probably know this, but the octopus is a surprisingly intelligent creature. Intelligence has evolved precisely twice on earth as we understand it: once in vertebrates, and once in the family which encompasses octopus, cuttlefish and squid. Octopus intelligence is up at mammal level. As we understand it. Though it is a peculiar sort of intelligence, and (and I am paraphrasing the truth wildly here) to some extent operated by committee rather than being a dictatorship of one central brain. Each limb is sort of of independent.
Yes, I know, and I’ve seen THAT video too
It was made worse by the fact that an hour before I saw one brave little octopus making a run for it. He was out of his tank and haring off down the street, literally heading for the sea (as my guide pointed out). Sadly his chances of making it were about 0.00004%
And then i had that dish
Ugh. UGH. It was genuinely upsetting and I deeply regret it and I have vowed never to eat octopus again. Enough
Yes, I stopped eating octopus quite a few years back for much the same reason. They pull the same stunt in the Seoul food market tours, too. The drinking games are fun, though.
Yeah I had a laugh but woke up feeling shit - and guilty
I get increasingly uneasy about meat-eating in general. Trouble is I love it
But the least I can do is be choosier about what meat I eat and octopi just got struck from the menu
BTW if you liked Korea you MUST go to Japan. i have decided that Japan is the refined, purified version of Korea
If Korea is molasses, Japan is crystalline sugar; if Korea is opium, Japan is white heroin
Welcome back. I also removed Octopus from my eating choices a year ago - absolutely love it but they are clearly intelligent aliens so gave them up.
Would love a perfect lab grown pork/bacon as I love pigs and feel guilty about eating them as they are intelligent.
Not so fussed about cows and sheep - they are really stupid so deserve it. The brainy ones learned to make great milk and amazing wool - the meat ones, idiots.
I find dairy farming the saddest, as it’s a form of exhausting lifelong slavery at the end of which you go off for the chop and get turned into pet food. But I do like cheese.
I didn't realise being a farmer was that bad!!!
I am a fully committed meat eater, but I have qualms about the process. We are very insulated against how meat is produced. We pick up nice packets in the supermarket of if we are lucky from the butcher. We don't have to watch the killing of the animal, nor the blood draining out (and into my black pudding), nor the chopping up. At some level we know its happened.
The flip side is this. Animals in the wild are predated on and live lives of fear, disease, a need to find food etc. Farmed animals (in the UK at least) are superbly looked after and cared for. They need not fear a predator. If they are ill they are treated. When they are old they are given a humane death.
I've had to do the plucking and drawing of the Christmas turkey, and gut and clean fish and cephalopods, before cooking them. At least I can claim that.
Come back to me when you chased it down and lopped its head off too...
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?
Heath if the conversation was about sailing, perhaps.
Or how awful Thatcher was.
I would imagine he was quite engaging on his preferred topics. Granted some were more niche than others. Classical music, sailing and young men.
Despicable comment - why not just call him a paedo? FFS.
I didn't. I was very specific in my language. And he's dead so he can't sue. Although I doubt he would sue were he still alive.
Why post it? Have you a shred of evidence that he had an interest in 'young men"? Is PB not better than this? I thought you were? I met him once, as an old man. He came into the pub I was working in with his security people, sat and had a drink and a brief chat with the landlord.
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
He certainly didn’t accuse Heath of being a pedo, he made remarks about his alleged homosexuality, which is hardly ground breaking (and also not illegal when Heath was PM)
Is there any evidence he was homosexual? I rather suspect he was more asexual than anything else.
A closeted gay who became asexual, is my guess, from all the various evidence adduced in various biographies
And who can blame him for being closeted? He was a Tory MP and for most of his adult life homosexuality was criminal and, earlier on, severely punished
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”
You probably know this, but the octopus is a surprisingly intelligent creature. Intelligence has evolved precisely twice on earth as we understand it: once in vertebrates, and once in the family which encompasses octopus, cuttlefish and squid. Octopus intelligence is up at mammal level. As we understand it. Though it is a peculiar sort of intelligence, and (and I am paraphrasing the truth wildly here) to some extent operated by committee rather than being a dictatorship of one central brain. Each limb is sort of of independent.
Yes, I know, and I’ve seen THAT video too
It was made worse by the fact that an hour before I saw one brave little octopus making a run for it. He was out of his tank and haring off down the street, literally heading for the sea (as my guide pointed out). Sadly his chances of making it were about 0.00004%
And then i had that dish
Ugh. UGH. It was genuinely upsetting and I deeply regret it and I have vowed never to eat octopus again. Enough
Yes, I stopped eating octopus quite a few years back for much the same reason. They pull the same stunt in the Seoul food market tours, too. The drinking games are fun, though.
Yeah I had a laugh but woke up feeling shit - and guilty
I get increasingly uneasy about meat-eating in general. Trouble is I love it
But the least I can do is be choosier about what meat I eat and octopi just got struck from the menu
BTW if you liked Korea you MUST go to Japan. i have decided that Japan is the refined, purified version of Korea
If Korea is molasses, Japan is crystalline sugar; if Korea is opium, Japan is white heroin
Welcome back. I also removed Octopus from my eating choices a year ago - absolutely love it but they are clearly intelligent aliens so gave them up.
Would love a perfect lab grown pork/bacon as I love pigs and feel guilty about eating them as they are intelligent.
Not so fussed about cows and sheep - they are really stupid so deserve it. The brainy ones learned to make great milk and amazing wool - the meat ones, idiots.
I find dairy farming the saddest, as it’s a form of exhausting lifelong slavery at the end of which you go off for the chop and get turned into pet food. But I do like cheese.
I didn't realise being a farmer was that bad!!!
I am a fully committed meat eater, but I have qualms about the process. We are very insulated against how meat is produced. We pick up nice packets in the supermarket of if we are lucky from the butcher. We don't have to watch the killing of the animal, nor the blood draining out (and into my black pudding), nor the chopping up. At some level we know its happened.
The flip side is this. Animals in the wild are predated on and live lives of fear, disease, a need to find food etc. Farmed animals (in the UK at least) are superbly looked after and cared for. They need not fear a predator. If they are ill they are treated. When they are old they are given a humane death.
I've had to do the plucking and drawing of the Christmas turkey, and gut and clean fish and cephalopods, before cooking them. At least I can claim that.
Come back to me when you chased it down and lopped its head off too...
Done that once or twice, sea-fishing in my younger days.
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?
Heath if the conversation was about sailing, perhaps.
Or how awful Thatcher was.
I would imagine he was quite engaging on his preferred topics. Granted some were more niche than others. Classical music, sailing and young men.
Despicable comment - why not just call him a paedo? FFS.
I didn't. I was very specific in my language. And he's dead so he can't sue. Although I doubt he would sue were he still alive.
Why post it? Have you a shred of evidence that he had an interest in 'young men"? Is PB not better than this? I thought you were? I met him once, as an old man. He came into the pub I was working in with his security people, sat and had a drink and a brief chat with the landlord.
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
He certainly didn’t accuse Heath of being a pedo, he made remarks about his alleged homosexuality, which is hardly ground breaking (and also not illegal when Heath was PM)
Is there any evidence he was homosexual? I rather suspect he was more asexual than anything else.
There is quite a lot more if you Google . It was probably unwise to make my original comment. However if we weren't too prim to discuss these issues perhaps Greville Janner would have ended his days, where he belonged, in jail.
I apologise for the personal offence I caused you.
Its not a personal offence - its just needless. Its like posting about Trump wearing nappies.
Guilty as charged, particularly in the Trump diapers issue. I think I am perfectly entitled to amuse myself with that. If you disagree, feel free to flag.
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?
Heath if the conversation was about sailing, perhaps.
Or how awful Thatcher was.
I would imagine he was quite engaging on his preferred topics. Granted some were more niche than others. Classical music, sailing and young men.
Despicable comment - why not just call him a paedo? FFS.
I didn't. I was very specific in my language. And he's dead so he can't sue. Although I doubt he would sue were he still alive.
Why post it? Have you a shred of evidence that he had an interest in 'young men"? Is PB not better than this? I thought you were? I met him once, as an old man. He came into the pub I was working in with his security people, sat and had a drink and a brief chat with the landlord.
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
He certainly didn’t accuse Heath of being a pedo, he made remarks about his alleged homosexuality, which is hardly ground breaking (and also not illegal when Heath was PM)
Is there any evidence he was homosexual? I rather suspect he was more asexual than anything else.
There is quite a lot more if you Google . It was probably unwise to make my original comment. However if we weren't too prim to discuss these issues perhaps Greville Janner would have ended his days, where he belonged, in jail.
I apologise for the personal offence I caused you.
Hang on - wasn't Janner accused by 'Nick' (AKA Carl Beech) the notorious liar and fantasist?
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?
Heath if the conversation was about sailing, perhaps.
Or how awful Thatcher was.
I would imagine he was quite engaging on his preferred topics. Granted some were more niche than others. Classical music, sailing and young men.
Despicable comment - why not just call him a paedo? FFS.
I didn't. I was very specific in my language. And he's dead so he can't sue. Although I doubt he would sue were he still alive.
Why post it? Have you a shred of evidence that he had an interest in 'young men"? Is PB not better than this? I thought you were? I met him once, as an old man. He came into the pub I was working in with his security people, sat and had a drink and a brief chat with the landlord.
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
He certainly didn’t accuse Heath of being a pedo, he made remarks about his alleged homosexuality, which is hardly ground breaking (and also not illegal when Heath was PM)
Is there any evidence he was homosexual? I rather suspect he was more asexual than anything else.
There is quite a lot more if you Google . It was probably unwise to make my original comment. However if we weren't too prim to discuss these issues perhaps Greville Janner would have ended his days, where he belonged, in jail.
I apologise for the personal offence I caused you.
Its not a personal offence - its just needless. Its like posting about Trump wearing nappies.
Not sure why discussing whether Trump wears nappies or not would be distasteful or needless. The health and fitness of an aged candidate is surely a legitimate topic of discussion, particularly when he refuses to release his medical records.
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?
Heath if the conversation was about sailing, perhaps.
Or how awful Thatcher was.
I would imagine he was quite engaging on his preferred topics. Granted some were more niche than others. Classical music, sailing and young men.
Despicable comment - why not just call him a paedo? FFS.
I didn't. I was very specific in my language. And he's dead so he can't sue. Although I doubt he would sue were he still alive.
Why post it? Have you a shred of evidence that he had an interest in 'young men"? Is PB not better than this? I thought you were? I met him once, as an old man. He came into the pub I was working in with his security people, sat and had a drink and a brief chat with the landlord.
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
He certainly didn’t accuse Heath of being a pedo, he made remarks about his alleged homosexuality, which is hardly ground breaking (and also not illegal when Heath was PM)
Is there any evidence he was homosexual? I rather suspect he was more asexual than anything else.
There is quite a lot more if you Google . It was probably unwise to make my original comment. However if we weren't too prim to discuss these issues perhaps Greville Janner would have ended his days, where he belonged, in jail.
I apologise for the personal offence I caused you.
Its not a personal offence - its just needless. Its like posting about Trump wearing nappies.
Guilty as charged, particularly in the Trump diapers issue. I think I am perfectly entitled to amuse myself with that. If you disagree, feel free to flag.
Costco doing a really good deal at moment on Nappies.
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?
Heath if the conversation was about sailing, perhaps.
Or how awful Thatcher was.
I would imagine he was quite engaging on his preferred topics. Granted some were more niche than others. Classical music, sailing and young men.
Despicable comment - why not just call him a paedo? FFS.
I didn't. I was very specific in my language. And he's dead so he can't sue. Although I doubt he would sue were he still alive.
Why post it? Have you a shred of evidence that he had an interest in 'young men"? Is PB not better than this? I thought you were? I met him once, as an old man. He came into the pub I was working in with his security people, sat and had a drink and a brief chat with the landlord.
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
He certainly didn’t accuse Heath of being a pedo, he made remarks about his alleged homosexuality, which is hardly ground breaking (and also not illegal when Heath was PM)
Is there any evidence he was homosexual? I rather suspect he was more asexual than anything else.
There is quite a lot more if you Google . It was probably unwise to make my original comment. However if we weren't too prim to discuss these issues perhaps Greville Janner would have ended his days, where he belonged, in jail.
I apologise for the personal offence I caused you.
Hang on - wasn't Janner accused by 'Nick' (AKA Carl Beech) the notorious liar and fantasist?
The fact that Beech was a bullshitter doesn't mean everything he said wasn't true. The Janner allegations have been confirmed post mortem.
Further proof that the Scots shouldn't be allowed to be independent.
Scots are Trump’s biggest supporters in western Europe
The Republican presidential candidate is surprisingly popular in a nation usually considered to be more left-wing
Scots like Donald Trump more than other western Europeans do, a survey has revealed.
A quarter of adults living north of the border hope the controversial Republican nominee wins Tuesday’s US presidential election.
That is much higher than the meagre support of just 16 per cent in the UK as a whole and compared with just 17 per cent in Spain, 15 per cent in France, 14 per cent in Germany, 13 per cent in Sweden and 7 per cent in Denmark.
Scottish supporters even outnumber Italians, where there is a hard-right coalition government and 24 per cent of the population back Trump for the presidency.
They've been reading PB and know little about him other than that he's described as an Ayrshire Hotelier?
Nah, that's the ScoTories for you.
No, that doesn't wash. The Tory voters were only 12.7% of the populuation at the last count!
Unless, of course, there's been an epidemic of Toryism post-election in Scotland?
Should, of course, add Reform, many of whose voters (edit) were ScoTories until quite recently. Which brings us up to something like a quarter pro-golf club proprietors? See the inestimable Prof C's comments:
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?
Heath if the conversation was about sailing, perhaps.
Or how awful Thatcher was.
I would imagine he was quite engaging on his preferred topics. Granted some were more niche than others. Classical music, sailing and young men.
Despicable comment - why not just call him a paedo? FFS.
I didn't. I was very specific in my language. And he's dead so he can't sue. Although I doubt he would sue were he still alive.
Why post it? Have you a shred of evidence that he had an interest in 'young men"? Is PB not better than this? I thought you were? I met him once, as an old man. He came into the pub I was working in with his security people, sat and had a drink and a brief chat with the landlord.
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
He certainly didn’t accuse Heath of being a pedo, he made remarks about his alleged homosexuality, which is hardly ground breaking (and also not illegal when Heath was PM)
Is there any evidence he was homosexual? I rather suspect he was more asexual than anything else.
There is quite a lot more if you Google . It was probably unwise to make my original comment. However if we weren't too prim to discuss these issues perhaps Greville Janner would have ended his days, where he belonged, in jail.
I apologise for the personal offence I caused you.
Its not a personal offence - its just needless. Its like posting about Trump wearing nappies.
Guilty as charged, particularly in the Trump diapers issue. I think I am perfectly entitled to amuse myself with that. If you disagree, feel free to flag.
Costco doing a really good deal at moment on Nappies.
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?
Heath if the conversation was about sailing, perhaps.
Or how awful Thatcher was.
I would imagine he was quite engaging on his preferred topics. Granted some were more niche than others. Classical music, sailing and young men.
Despicable comment - why not just call him a paedo? FFS.
I didn't. I was very specific in my language. And he's dead so he can't sue. Although I doubt he would sue were he still alive.
Why post it? Have you a shred of evidence that he had an interest in 'young men"? Is PB not better than this? I thought you were? I met him once, as an old man. He came into the pub I was working in with his security people, sat and had a drink and a brief chat with the landlord.
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
He certainly didn’t accuse Heath of being a pedo, he made remarks about his alleged homosexuality, which is hardly ground breaking (and also not illegal when Heath was PM)
Is there any evidence he was homosexual? I rather suspect he was more asexual than anything else.
There is quite a lot more if you Google . It was probably unwise to make my original comment. However if we weren't too prim to discuss these issues perhaps Greville Janner would have ended his days, where he belonged, in jail.
I apologise for the personal offence I caused you.
Its not a personal offence - its just needless. Its like posting about Trump wearing nappies.
Guilty as charged, particularly in the Trump diapers issue. I think I am perfectly entitled to amuse myself with that. If you disagree, feel free to flag.
Costco doing a really good deal at moment on Nappies.
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?
Heath if the conversation was about sailing, perhaps.
Or how awful Thatcher was.
I would imagine he was quite engaging on his preferred topics. Granted some were more niche than others. Classical music, sailing and young men.
Despicable comment - why not just call him a paedo? FFS.
I didn't. I was very specific in my language. And he's dead so he can't sue. Although I doubt he would sue were he still alive.
Why post it? Have you a shred of evidence that he had an interest in 'young men"? Is PB not better than this? I thought you were? I met him once, as an old man. He came into the pub I was working in with his security people, sat and had a drink and a brief chat with the landlord.
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
He certainly didn’t accuse Heath of being a pedo, he made remarks about his alleged homosexuality, which is hardly ground breaking (and also not illegal when Heath was PM)
Is there any evidence he was homosexual? I rather suspect he was more asexual than anything else.
There is quite a lot more if you Google . It was probably unwise to make my original comment. However if we weren't too prim to discuss these issues perhaps Greville Janner would have ended his days, where he belonged, in jail.
I apologise for the personal offence I caused you.
Its not a personal offence - its just needless. Its like posting about Trump wearing nappies.
Guilty as charged, particularly in the Trump diapers issue. I think I am perfectly entitled to amuse myself with that. If you disagree, feel free to flag.
Costco doing a really good deal at moment on Nappies.
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?
Heath if the conversation was about sailing, perhaps.
Or how awful Thatcher was.
I would imagine he was quite engaging on his preferred topics. Granted some were more niche than others. Classical music, sailing and young men.
Despicable comment - why not just call him a paedo? FFS.
I didn't. I was very specific in my language. And he's dead so he can't sue. Although I doubt he would sue were he still alive.
Why post it? Have you a shred of evidence that he had an interest in 'young men"? Is PB not better than this? I thought you were? I met him once, as an old man. He came into the pub I was working in with his security people, sat and had a drink and a brief chat with the landlord.
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
He certainly didn’t accuse Heath of being a pedo, he made remarks about his alleged homosexuality, which is hardly ground breaking (and also not illegal when Heath was PM)
Is there any evidence he was homosexual? I rather suspect he was more asexual than anything else.
There is quite a lot more if you Google . It was probably unwise to make my original comment. However if we weren't too prim to discuss these issues perhaps Greville Janner would have ended his days, where he belonged, in jail.
I apologise for the personal offence I caused you.
Its not a personal offence - its just needless. Its like posting about Trump wearing nappies.
Not sure why discussing whether Trump wears nappies or not would be distasteful or needless. The health and fitness of an aged candidate is surely a legitimate topic of discussion, particularly when he refuses to release his medical records.
Yes, it’s absolutely fair in regards to someone seeking election to the most powerful political position on the planet. A man who can literally end the world by pressing a button
It’s AVOIDING these questions that led to the Democrats screwing up with Biden and ending up with a deeply substandard untested candidate like Harris who may well lose to Trump (I don’t think she will but it is certainly possible)
Surely everyone has learned from that disastrous sequence of events? It is legitimate to question the mental and physical health of any candidate, especially men over 75 trying to be POTUS
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?
Heath if the conversation was about sailing, perhaps.
Or how awful Thatcher was.
I would imagine he was quite engaging on his preferred topics. Granted some were more niche than others. Classical music, sailing and young men.
Despicable comment - why not just call him a paedo? FFS.
I didn't. I was very specific in my language. And he's dead so he can't sue. Although I doubt he would sue were he still alive.
Why post it? Have you a shred of evidence that he had an interest in 'young men"? Is PB not better than this? I thought you were? I met him once, as an old man. He came into the pub I was working in with his security people, sat and had a drink and a brief chat with the landlord.
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
He certainly didn’t accuse Heath of being a pedo, he made remarks about his alleged homosexuality, which is hardly ground breaking (and also not illegal when Heath was PM)
Is there any evidence he was homosexual? I rather suspect he was more asexual than anything else.
There is quite a lot more if you Google . It was probably unwise to make my original comment. However if we weren't too prim to discuss these issues perhaps Greville Janner would have ended his days, where he belonged, in jail.
I apologise for the personal offence I caused you.
Hang on - wasn't Janner accused by 'Nick' (AKA Carl Beech) the notorious liar and fantasist?
The fact that Beech was a bullshitter doesn't mean everything he said wasn't true. The Janner allegations have been confirmed post mortem.
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?
Heath if the conversation was about sailing, perhaps.
Or how awful Thatcher was.
I would imagine he was quite engaging on his preferred topics. Granted some were more niche than others. Classical music, sailing and young men.
Despicable comment - why not just call him a paedo? FFS.
I didn't. I was very specific in my language. And he's dead so he can't sue. Although I doubt he would sue were he still alive.
Why post it? Have you a shred of evidence that he had an interest in 'young men"? Is PB not better than this? I thought you were? I met him once, as an old man. He came into the pub I was working in with his security people, sat and had a drink and a brief chat with the landlord.
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
He certainly didn’t accuse Heath of being a pedo, he made remarks about his alleged homosexuality, which is hardly ground breaking (and also not illegal when Heath was PM)
Is there any evidence he was homosexual? I rather suspect he was more asexual than anything else.
There is quite a lot more if you Google . It was probably unwise to make my original comment. However if we weren't too prim to discuss these issues perhaps Greville Janner would have ended his days, where he belonged, in jail.
I apologise for the personal offence I caused you.
Its not a personal offence - its just needless. Its like posting about Trump wearing nappies.
Guilty as charged, particularly in the Trump diapers issue. I think I am perfectly entitled to amuse myself with that. If you disagree, feel free to flag.
Costco doing a really good deal at moment on Nappies.
Do they have the MAGA logo on them?
No I do not believe so. They have a lot of X's on them. I have no idea what that means.
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”
You probably know this, but the octopus is a surprisingly intelligent creature. Intelligence has evolved precisely twice on earth as we understand it: once in vertebrates, and once in the family which encompasses octopus, cuttlefish and squid. Octopus intelligence is up at mammal level. As we understand it. Though it is a peculiar sort of intelligence, and (and I am paraphrasing the truth wildly here) to some extent operated by committee rather than being a dictatorship of one central brain. Each limb is sort of of independent.
Yes, I know, and I’ve seen THAT video too
It was made worse by the fact that an hour before I saw one brave little octopus making a run for it. He was out of his tank and haring off down the street, literally heading for the sea (as my guide pointed out). Sadly his chances of making it were about 0.00004%
And then i had that dish
Ugh. UGH. It was genuinely upsetting and I deeply regret it and I have vowed never to eat octopus again. Enough
Yes, I stopped eating octopus quite a few years back for much the same reason. They pull the same stunt in the Seoul food market tours, too. The drinking games are fun, though.
Yeah I had a laugh but woke up feeling shit - and guilty
I get increasingly uneasy about meat-eating in general. Trouble is I love it
But the least I can do is be choosier about what meat I eat and octopi just got struck from the menu
BTW if you liked Korea you MUST go to Japan. i have decided that Japan is the refined, purified version of Korea
If Korea is molasses, Japan is crystalline sugar; if Korea is opium, Japan is white heroin
Welcome back. I also removed Octopus from my eating choices a year ago - absolutely love it but they are clearly intelligent aliens so gave them up.
Would love a perfect lab grown pork/bacon as I love pigs and feel guilty about eating them as they are intelligent.
Not so fussed about cows and sheep - they are really stupid so deserve it. The brainy ones learned to make great milk and amazing wool - the meat ones, idiots.
I find dairy farming the saddest, as it’s a form of exhausting lifelong slavery at the end of which you go off for the chop and get turned into pet food. But I do like cheese.
I didn't realise being a farmer was that bad!!!
I am a fully committed meat eater, but I have qualms about the process. We are very insulated against how meat is produced. We pick up nice packets in the supermarket of if we are lucky from the butcher. We don't have to watch the killing of the animal, nor the blood draining out (and into my black pudding), nor the chopping up. At some level we know its happened.
The flip side is this. Animals in the wild are predated on and live lives of fear, disease, a need to find food etc. Farmed animals (in the UK at least) are superbly looked after and cared for. They need not fear a predator. If they are ill they are treated. When they are old they are given a humane death.
I've had to do the plucking and drawing of the Christmas turkey, and gut and clean fish and cephalopods, before cooking them. At least I can claim that.
Last night I breasted two brace of pheasants and had one for supper. They really are magnificent creatures if you look at the plumage and not worthy of being so unceremoniously dissected but what can you do. I can't think of better-sourced woke food than pheasants.
NEW: An internal memo from co-campaign manager Susie Wiles, outlines post-election plans, w/ phrases "should we be victorious," "regardless of the outcome of the election" & "God willing" — acknowledging that Trump could lose the election.
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”
You probably know this, but the octopus is a surprisingly intelligent creature. Intelligence has evolved precisely twice on earth as we understand it: once in vertebrates, and once in the family which encompasses octopus, cuttlefish and squid. Octopus intelligence is up at mammal level. As we understand it. Though it is a peculiar sort of intelligence, and (and I am paraphrasing the truth wildly here) to some extent operated by committee rather than being a dictatorship of one central brain. Each limb is sort of of independent.
Yes, I know, and I’ve seen THAT video too
It was made worse by the fact that an hour before I saw one brave little octopus making a run for it. He was out of his tank and haring off down the street, literally heading for the sea (as my guide pointed out). Sadly his chances of making it were about 0.00004%
And then i had that dish
Ugh. UGH. It was genuinely upsetting and I deeply regret it and I have vowed never to eat octopus again. Enough
Yes, I stopped eating octopus quite a few years back for much the same reason. They pull the same stunt in the Seoul food market tours, too. The drinking games are fun, though.
Yeah I had a laugh but woke up feeling shit - and guilty
I get increasingly uneasy about meat-eating in general. Trouble is I love it
But the least I can do is be choosier about what meat I eat and octopi just got struck from the menu
BTW if you liked Korea you MUST go to Japan. i have decided that Japan is the refined, purified version of Korea
If Korea is molasses, Japan is crystalline sugar; if Korea is opium, Japan is white heroin
Welcome back. I also removed Octopus from my eating choices a year ago - absolutely love it but they are clearly intelligent aliens so gave them up.
Would love a perfect lab grown pork/bacon as I love pigs and feel guilty about eating them as they are intelligent.
Not so fussed about cows and sheep - they are really stupid so deserve it. The brainy ones learned to make great milk and amazing wool - the meat ones, idiots.
I find dairy farming the saddest, as it’s a form of exhausting lifelong slavery at the end of which you go off for the chop and get turned into pet food. But I do like cheese.
I didn't realise being a farmer was that bad!!!
I am a fully committed meat eater, but I have qualms about the process. We are very insulated against how meat is produced. We pick up nice packets in the supermarket of if we are lucky from the butcher. We don't have to watch the killing of the animal, nor the blood draining out (and into my black pudding), nor the chopping up. At some level we know its happened.
The flip side is this. Animals in the wild are predated on and live lives of fear, disease, a need to find food etc. Farmed animals (in the UK at least) are superbly looked after and cared for. They need not fear a predator. If they are ill they are treated. When they are old they are given a humane death.
I've had to do the plucking and drawing of the Christmas turkey, and gut and clean fish and cephalopods, before cooking them. At least I can claim that.
Last night I breasted two brace of pheasants and had one for supper. They really are magnificent creatures if you look at the plumage and not worthy of being so unceremoniously dissected but what can you do. I can't think of better-sourced woke food than pheasants.
Careful - that will trigger someone to talk about battery raising of pheasants then released to be slaughtered in thousands and thrown into pits for burial and no one actually eats the pheasant from shoots. Or something like that...
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?
Heath if the conversation was about sailing, perhaps.
Or how awful Thatcher was.
I would imagine he was quite engaging on his preferred topics. Granted some were more niche than others. Classical music, sailing and young men.
Despicable comment - why not just call him a paedo? FFS.
I didn't. I was very specific in my language. And he's dead so he can't sue. Although I doubt he would sue were he still alive.
Why post it? Have you a shred of evidence that he had an interest in 'young men"? Is PB not better than this? I thought you were? I met him once, as an old man. He came into the pub I was working in with his security people, sat and had a drink and a brief chat with the landlord.
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
He certainly didn’t accuse Heath of being a pedo, he made remarks about his alleged homosexuality, which is hardly ground breaking (and also not illegal when Heath was PM)
Is there any evidence he was homosexual? I rather suspect he was more asexual than anything else.
There is quite a lot more if you Google . It was probably unwise to make my original comment. However if we weren't too prim to discuss these issues perhaps Greville Janner would have ended his days, where he belonged, in jail.
I apologise for the personal offence I caused you.
Hang on - wasn't Janner accused by 'Nick' (AKA Carl Beech) the notorious liar and fantasist?
The fact that Beech was a bullshitter doesn't mean everything he said wasn't true. The Janner allegations have been confirmed post mortem.
Confirmed by who?
Find it yourself. I'm not your secretary.
Try this, although there are more formal details available.
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”
You probably know this, but the octopus is a surprisingly intelligent creature. Intelligence has evolved precisely twice on earth as we understand it: once in vertebrates, and once in the family which encompasses octopus, cuttlefish and squid. Octopus intelligence is up at mammal level. As we understand it. Though it is a peculiar sort of intelligence, and (and I am paraphrasing the truth wildly here) to some extent operated by committee rather than being a dictatorship of one central brain. Each limb is sort of of independent.
Yes, I know, and I’ve seen THAT video too
It was made worse by the fact that an hour before I saw one brave little octopus making a run for it. He was out of his tank and haring off down the street, literally heading for the sea (as my guide pointed out). Sadly his chances of making it were about 0.00004%
And then i had that dish
Ugh. UGH. It was genuinely upsetting and I deeply regret it and I have vowed never to eat octopus again. Enough
Yes, I stopped eating octopus quite a few years back for much the same reason. They pull the same stunt in the Seoul food market tours, too. The drinking games are fun, though.
Yeah I had a laugh but woke up feeling shit - and guilty
I get increasingly uneasy about meat-eating in general. Trouble is I love it
But the least I can do is be choosier about what meat I eat and octopi just got struck from the menu
BTW if you liked Korea you MUST go to Japan. i have decided that Japan is the refined, purified version of Korea
If Korea is molasses, Japan is crystalline sugar; if Korea is opium, Japan is white heroin
Welcome back. I also removed Octopus from my eating choices a year ago - absolutely love it but they are clearly intelligent aliens so gave them up.
Would love a perfect lab grown pork/bacon as I love pigs and feel guilty about eating them as they are intelligent.
Not so fussed about cows and sheep - they are really stupid so deserve it. The brainy ones learned to make great milk and amazing wool - the meat ones, idiots.
I find dairy farming the saddest, as it’s a form of exhausting lifelong slavery at the end of which you go off for the chop and get turned into pet food. But I do like cheese.
I didn't realise being a farmer was that bad!!!
I am a fully committed meat eater, but I have qualms about the process. We are very insulated against how meat is produced. We pick up nice packets in the supermarket of if we are lucky from the butcher. We don't have to watch the killing of the animal, nor the blood draining out (and into my black pudding), nor the chopping up. At some level we know its happened.
The flip side is this. Animals in the wild are predated on and live lives of fear, disease, a need to find food etc. Farmed animals (in the UK at least) are superbly looked after and cared for. They need not fear a predator. If they are ill they are treated. When they are old they are given a humane death.
I've had to do the plucking and drawing of the Christmas turkey, and gut and clean fish and cephalopods, before cooking them. At least I can claim that.
Last night I breasted two brace of pheasants and had one for supper. They really are magnificent creatures if you look at the plumage and not worthy of being so unceremoniously dissected but what can you do. I can't think of better-sourced woke food than pheasants.
Careful - that will trigger someone to talk about battery raising of pheasants then released to be slaughtered in thousands and thrown into pits for burial and no one actually eats the pheasant from shoots. Or something like that...
Yus I realised I was in danger of unleashing the beast.
Trump appears stronger now than 2020, but weaker than 2016
Meanwhile
Harris appears to be stronger than Clinton, but weaker than Biden in 2020
So it feels like it could be close. It’s a question of what we cannot see, giving one or two the edge.
My hunch is that some of the fascist stuff, pushed some polite Trump support under the radar. But then again the legendary GOTV for Kamala might edge 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
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?
Heath if the conversation was about sailing, perhaps.
Or how awful Thatcher was.
I would imagine he was quite engaging on his preferred topics. Granted some were more niche than others. Classical music, sailing and young men.
Despicable comment - why not just call him a paedo? FFS.
I didn't. I was very specific in my language. And he's dead so he can't sue. Although I doubt he would sue were he still alive.
Why post it? Have you a shred of evidence that he had an interest in 'young men"? Is PB not better than this? I thought you were? I met him once, as an old man. He came into the pub I was working in with his security people, sat and had a drink and a brief chat with the landlord.
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
He certainly didn’t accuse Heath of being a pedo, he made remarks about his alleged homosexuality, which is hardly ground breaking (and also not illegal when Heath was PM)
Is there any evidence he was homosexual? I rather suspect he was more asexual than anything else.
There is quite a lot more if you Google . It was probably unwise to make my original comment. However if we weren't too prim to discuss these issues perhaps Greville Janner would have ended his days, where he belonged, in jail.
I apologise for the personal offence I caused you.
Its not a personal offence - its just needless. Its like posting about Trump wearing nappies.
Not sure why discussing whether Trump wears nappies or not would be distasteful or needless. The health and fitness of an aged candidate is surely a legitimate topic of discussion, particularly when he refuses to release his medical records.
Yes, it’s absolutely fair in regards to someone seeking election to the most powerful political position on the planet. A man who can literally end the world by pressing a button
It’s AVOIDING these questions that led to the Democrats screwing up with Biden and ending up with a deeply substandard untested candidate like Harris who may well lose to Trump (I don’t think she will but it is certainly possible)
Surely everyone has learned from that disastrous sequence of events? It is legitimate to question the mental and physical health of any candidate, especially men over 75 trying to be POTUS
Is it discussing his health or is it a ten year olds poo humour? I think the latter. See also the music hall song about a certain German war time leader and his incomplete set of genitals.
Further proof that the Scots shouldn't be allowed to be independent.
Scots are Trump’s biggest supporters in western Europe
The Republican presidential candidate is surprisingly popular in a nation usually considered to be more left-wing
Scots like Donald Trump more than other western Europeans do, a survey has revealed.
A quarter of adults living north of the border hope the controversial Republican nominee wins Tuesday’s US presidential election.
That is much higher than the meagre support of just 16 per cent in the UK as a whole and compared with just 17 per cent in Spain, 15 per cent in France, 14 per cent in Germany, 13 per cent in Sweden and 7 per cent in Denmark.
Scottish supporters even outnumber Italians, where there is a hard-right coalition government and 24 per cent of the population back Trump for the presidency.
They've been reading PB and know little about him other than that he's described as an Ayrshire Hotelier?
Nah, that's the ScoTories for you.
No, that doesn't wash. The Tory voters were only 12.7% of the populuation at the last count!
Unless, of course, there's been an epidemic of Toryism post-election in Scotland?
Should, of course, add Reform, many of whose voters (edit) were ScoTories until quite recently. Which brings us up to something like a quarter pro-golf club proprietors? See the inestimable Prof C's comments:
Trump appears stronger now than 2020, but weaker than 2016
Meanwhile
Harris appears to be stronger than Clinton, but weaker than Biden in 2020
So it feels like it could be close. It’s a question of what we cannot see, giving one or two the edge.
My hunch is that some of the fascist stuff, pushed some polite Trump support under the radar. But then again the legendary GOTV for Kamala might edge it.
Trump appears stronger now than 2020, but weaker than 2016
Meanwhile
Harris appears to be stronger than Clinton, but weaker than Biden in 2020
So it feels like it could be close. It’s a question of what we cannot see, giving one or two the edge.
My hunch is that some of the fascist stuff, pushed some polite Trump support under the radar. But then again the legendary GOTV for Kamala might edge 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
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?
Heath if the conversation was about sailing, perhaps.
Or how awful Thatcher was.
I would imagine he was quite engaging on his preferred topics. Granted some were more niche than others. Classical music, sailing and young men.
Despicable comment - why not just call him a paedo? FFS.
I didn't. I was very specific in my language. And he's dead so he can't sue. Although I doubt he would sue were he still alive.
Why post it? Have you a shred of evidence that he had an interest in 'young men"? Is PB not better than this? I thought you were? I met him once, as an old man. He came into the pub I was working in with his security people, sat and had a drink and a brief chat with the landlord.
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
He certainly didn’t accuse Heath of being a pedo, he made remarks about his alleged homosexuality, which is hardly ground breaking (and also not illegal when Heath was PM)
Is there any evidence he was homosexual? I rather suspect he was more asexual than anything else.
There is quite a lot more if you Google . It was probably unwise to make my original comment. However if we weren't too prim to discuss these issues perhaps Greville Janner would have ended his days, where he belonged, in jail.
I apologise for the personal offence I caused you.
Its not a personal offence - its just needless. Its like posting about Trump wearing nappies.
Not sure why discussing whether Trump wears nappies or not would be distasteful or needless. The health and fitness of an aged candidate is surely a legitimate topic of discussion, particularly when he refuses to release his medical records.
Yes, it’s absolutely fair in regards to someone seeking election to the most powerful political position on the planet. A man who can literally end the world by pressing a button
It’s AVOIDING these questions that led to the Democrats screwing up with Biden and ending up with a deeply substandard untested candidate like Harris who may well lose to Trump (I don’t think she will but it is certainly possible)
Surely everyone has learned from that disastrous sequence of events? It is legitimate to question the mental and physical health of any candidate, especially men over 75 trying to be POTUS
Is it discussing his health or is it a ten year olds poo humour? I think the latter. See also the music hall song about a certain German war time leader and his incomplete set of genitals.
Blimey, I am not the only purveyor of toilet humour on PB. Are you picking on me because I am not of the same tribe as you?
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?
Heath if the conversation was about sailing, perhaps.
Or how awful Thatcher was.
I would imagine he was quite engaging on his preferred topics. Granted some were more niche than others. Classical music, sailing and young men.
Despicable comment - why not just call him a paedo? FFS.
I didn't. I was very specific in my language. And he's dead so he can't sue. Although I doubt he would sue were he still alive.
Why post it? Have you a shred of evidence that he had an interest in 'young men"? Is PB not better than this? I thought you were? I met him once, as an old man. He came into the pub I was working in with his security people, sat and had a drink and a brief chat with the landlord.
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
He certainly didn’t accuse Heath of being a pedo, he made remarks about his alleged homosexuality, which is hardly ground breaking (and also not illegal when Heath was PM)
Is there any evidence he was homosexual? I rather suspect he was more asexual than anything else.
There is quite a lot more if you Google . It was probably unwise to make my original comment. However if we weren't too prim to discuss these issues perhaps Greville Janner would have ended his days, where he belonged, in jail.
I apologise for the personal offence I caused you.
Hang on - wasn't Janner accused by 'Nick' (AKA Carl Beech) the notorious liar and fantasist?
The fact that Beech was a bullshitter doesn't mean everything he said wasn't true. The Janner allegations have been confirmed post mortem.
Confirmed by who?
Find it yourself. I'm not your secretary.
Try this, although there are more formal details available.
Lots of allegations that didn't get the trial that was probably warranted. I find it interesting though that many wanted to claim against the estate post death. What were they after at that point? There is a danger when a public name is touted by the authorities that slime comes out of the woodwork looking to profit.
I don't know if Janner was guilty and neither do you. He may have been.
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?
Heath if the conversation was about sailing, perhaps.
Or how awful Thatcher was.
I would imagine he was quite engaging on his preferred topics. Granted some were more niche than others. Classical music, sailing and young men.
Despicable comment - why not just call him a paedo? FFS.
I didn't. I was very specific in my language. And he's dead so he can't sue. Although I doubt he would sue were he still alive.
Why post it? Have you a shred of evidence that he had an interest in 'young men"? Is PB not better than this? I thought you were? I met him once, as an old man. He came into the pub I was working in with his security people, sat and had a drink and a brief chat with the landlord.
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
He certainly didn’t accuse Heath of being a pedo, he made remarks about his alleged homosexuality, which is hardly ground breaking (and also not illegal when Heath was PM)
Is there any evidence he was homosexual? I rather suspect he was more asexual than anything else.
There is quite a lot more if you Google . It was probably unwise to make my original comment. However if we weren't too prim to discuss these issues perhaps Greville Janner would have ended his days, where he belonged, in jail.
I apologise for the personal offence I caused you.
Its not a personal offence - its just needless. Its like posting about Trump wearing nappies.
Not sure why discussing whether Trump wears nappies or not would be distasteful or needless. The health and fitness of an aged candidate is surely a legitimate topic of discussion, particularly when he refuses to release his medical records.
Yes, it’s absolutely fair in regards to someone seeking election to the most powerful political position on the planet. A man who can literally end the world by pressing a button
It’s AVOIDING these questions that led to the Democrats screwing up with Biden and ending up with a deeply substandard untested candidate like Harris who may well lose to Trump (I don’t think she will but it is certainly possible)
Surely everyone has learned from that disastrous sequence of events? It is legitimate to question the mental and physical health of any candidate, especially men over 75 trying to be POTUS
Is it discussing his health or is it a ten year olds poo humour? I think the latter. See also the music hall song about a certain German war time leader and his incomplete set of genitals.
Blimey, I am not the only purveyor of toilet humour on PB. Are you picking on me because I am not of the same tribe as you?
No - what tribe am I? Last time I looked I don't have a tribe. I voted Lib Dem in July if it helps?
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?
Heath if the conversation was about sailing, perhaps.
Or how awful Thatcher was.
I would imagine he was quite engaging on his preferred topics. Granted some were more niche than others. Classical music, sailing and young men.
Despicable comment - why not just call him a paedo? FFS.
I didn't. I was very specific in my language. And he's dead so he can't sue. Although I doubt he would sue were he still alive.
Why post it? Have you a shred of evidence that he had an interest in 'young men"? Is PB not better than this? I thought you were? I met him once, as an old man. He came into the pub I was working in with his security people, sat and had a drink and a brief chat with the landlord.
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
He certainly didn’t accuse Heath of being a pedo, he made remarks about his alleged homosexuality, which is hardly ground breaking (and also not illegal when Heath was PM)
Is there any evidence he was homosexual? I rather suspect he was more asexual than anything else.
There is quite a lot more if you Google . It was probably unwise to make my original comment. However if we weren't too prim to discuss these issues perhaps Greville Janner would have ended his days, where he belonged, in jail.
I apologise for the personal offence I caused you.
Hang on - wasn't Janner accused by 'Nick' (AKA Carl Beech) the notorious liar and fantasist?
The fact that Beech was a bullshitter doesn't mean everything he said wasn't true. The Janner allegations have been confirmed post mortem.
Confirmed by who?
Find it yourself. I'm not your secretary.
Try this, although there are more formal details available.
Lots of allegations that didn't get the trial that was probably warranted. I find it interesting though that many wanted to claim against the estate post death. What were they after at that point? There is a danger when a public name is touted by the authorities that slime comes out of the woodwork looking to profit.
I don't know if Janner was guilty and neither do you. He may have been.
I'll call it now, Janner was guilty as hell. So was Jimmy Savile, so was...
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?
Heath if the conversation was about sailing, perhaps.
Or how awful Thatcher was.
I would imagine he was quite engaging on his preferred topics. Granted some were more niche than others. Classical music, sailing and young men.
Despicable comment - why not just call him a paedo? FFS.
I didn't. I was very specific in my language. And he's dead so he can't sue. Although I doubt he would sue were he still alive.
Why post it? Have you a shred of evidence that he had an interest in 'young men"? Is PB not better than this? I thought you were? I met him once, as an old man. He came into the pub I was working in with his security people, sat and had a drink and a brief chat with the landlord.
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
He certainly didn’t accuse Heath of being a pedo, he made remarks about his alleged homosexuality, which is hardly ground breaking (and also not illegal when Heath was PM)
Is there any evidence he was homosexual? I rather suspect he was more asexual than anything else.
There is quite a lot more if you Google . It was probably unwise to make my original comment. However if we weren't too prim to discuss these issues perhaps Greville Janner would have ended his days, where he belonged, in jail.
I apologise for the personal offence I caused you.
Its not a personal offence - its just needless. Its like posting about Trump wearing nappies.
Not sure why discussing whether Trump wears nappies or not would be distasteful or needless. The health and fitness of an aged candidate is surely a legitimate topic of discussion, particularly when he refuses to release his medical records.
Yes, it’s absolutely fair in regards to someone seeking election to the most powerful political position on the planet. A man who can literally end the world by pressing a button
It’s AVOIDING these questions that led to the Democrats screwing up with Biden and ending up with a deeply substandard untested candidate like Harris who may well lose to Trump (I don’t think she will but it is certainly possible)
Surely everyone has learned from that disastrous sequence of events? It is legitimate to question the mental and physical health of any candidate, especially men over 75 trying to be POTUS
Is it discussing his health or is it a ten year olds poo humour? I think the latter. See also the music hall song about a certain German war time leader and his incomplete set of genitals.
What about poor old Goebbels ? Not so much as incomplete and non existant.
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?
Heath if the conversation was about sailing, perhaps.
Or how awful Thatcher was.
I would imagine he was quite engaging on his preferred topics. Granted some were more niche than others. Classical music, sailing and young men.
Despicable comment - why not just call him a paedo? FFS.
I didn't. I was very specific in my language. And he's dead so he can't sue. Although I doubt he would sue were he still alive.
Why post it? Have you a shred of evidence that he had an interest in 'young men"? Is PB not better than this? I thought you were? I met him once, as an old man. He came into the pub I was working in with his security people, sat and had a drink and a brief chat with the landlord.
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
He certainly didn’t accuse Heath of being a pedo, he made remarks about his alleged homosexuality, which is hardly ground breaking (and also not illegal when Heath was PM)
Is there any evidence he was homosexual? I rather suspect he was more asexual than anything else.
There is quite a lot more if you Google . It was probably unwise to make my original comment. However if we weren't too prim to discuss these issues perhaps Greville Janner would have ended his days, where he belonged, in jail.
I apologise for the personal offence I caused you.
Its not a personal offence - its just needless. Its like posting about Trump wearing nappies.
Not sure why discussing whether Trump wears nappies or not would be distasteful or needless. The health and fitness of an aged candidate is surely a legitimate topic of discussion, particularly when he refuses to release his medical records.
Yes, it’s absolutely fair in regards to someone seeking election to the most powerful political position on the planet. A man who can literally end the world by pressing a button
It’s AVOIDING these questions that led to the Democrats screwing up with Biden and ending up with a deeply substandard untested candidate like Harris who may well lose to Trump (I don’t think she will but it is certainly possible)
Surely everyone has learned from that disastrous sequence of events? It is legitimate to question the mental and physical health of any candidate, especially men over 75 trying to be POTUS
Is it discussing his health or is it a ten year olds poo humour? I think the latter. See also the music hall song about a certain German war time leader and his incomplete set of genitals.
Blimey, I am not the only purveyor of toilet humour on PB. Are you picking on me because I am not of the same tribe as you?
No - what tribe am I? Last time I looked I don't have a tribe. I voted Lib Dem in July if it helps?
Just wait until you hear about Jeremy Thorpe and Cyril Smith.
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”
You probably know this, but the octopus is a surprisingly intelligent creature. Intelligence has evolved precisely twice on earth as we understand it: once in vertebrates, and once in the family which encompasses octopus, cuttlefish and squid. Octopus intelligence is up at mammal level. As we understand it. Though it is a peculiar sort of intelligence, and (and I am paraphrasing the truth wildly here) to some extent operated by committee rather than being a dictatorship of one central brain. Each limb is sort of of independent.
Yes, I know, and I’ve seen THAT video too
It was made worse by the fact that an hour before I saw one brave little octopus making a run for it. He was out of his tank and haring off down the street, literally heading for the sea (as my guide pointed out). Sadly his chances of making it were about 0.00004%
And then i had that dish
Ugh. UGH. It was genuinely upsetting and I deeply regret it and I have vowed never to eat octopus again. Enough
Yes, I stopped eating octopus quite a few years back for much the same reason. They pull the same stunt in the Seoul food market tours, too. The drinking games are fun, though.
Yeah I had a laugh but woke up feeling shit - and guilty
I get increasingly uneasy about meat-eating in general. Trouble is I love it
But the least I can do is be choosier about what meat I eat and octopi just got struck from the menu
BTW if you liked Korea you MUST go to Japan. i have decided that Japan is the refined, purified version of Korea
If Korea is molasses, Japan is crystalline sugar; if Korea is opium, Japan is white heroin
Welcome back. I also removed Octopus from my eating choices a year ago - absolutely love it but they are clearly intelligent aliens so gave them up.
Would love a perfect lab grown pork/bacon as I love pigs and feel guilty about eating them as they are intelligent.
Not so fussed about cows and sheep - they are really stupid so deserve it. The brainy ones learned to make great milk and amazing wool - the meat ones, idiots.
I find dairy farming the saddest, as it’s a form of exhausting lifelong slavery at the end of which you go off for the chop and get turned into pet food. But I do like cheese.
I didn't realise being a farmer was that bad!!!
I am a fully committed meat eater, but I have qualms about the process. We are very insulated against how meat is produced. We pick up nice packets in the supermarket of if we are lucky from the butcher. We don't have to watch the killing of the animal, nor the blood draining out (and into my black pudding), nor the chopping up. At some level we know its happened.
The flip side is this. Animals in the wild are predated on and live lives of fear, disease, a need to find food etc. Farmed animals (in the UK at least) are superbly looked after and cared for. They need not fear a predator. If they are ill they are treated. When they are old they are given a humane death.
I've had to do the plucking and drawing of the Christmas turkey, and gut and clean fish and cephalopods, before cooking them. At least I can claim that.
Last night I breasted two brace of pheasants and had one for supper. They really are magnificent creatures if you look at the plumage and not worthy of being so unceremoniously dissected but what can you do. I can't think of better-sourced woke food than pheasants.
Pheasants are a non-native menace, so shoot away - but only provided you don't introduce any more.
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”
You probably know this, but the octopus is a surprisingly intelligent creature. Intelligence has evolved precisely twice on earth as we understand it: once in vertebrates, and once in the family which encompasses octopus, cuttlefish and squid. Octopus intelligence is up at mammal level. As we understand it. Though it is a peculiar sort of intelligence, and (and I am paraphrasing the truth wildly here) to some extent operated by committee rather than being a dictatorship of one central brain. Each limb is sort of of independent.
Yes, I know, and I’ve seen THAT video too
It was made worse by the fact that an hour before I saw one brave little octopus making a run for it. He was out of his tank and haring off down the street, literally heading for the sea (as my guide pointed out). Sadly his chances of making it were about 0.00004%
And then i had that dish
Ugh. UGH. It was genuinely upsetting and I deeply regret it and I have vowed never to eat octopus again. Enough
Yes, I stopped eating octopus quite a few years back for much the same reason. They pull the same stunt in the Seoul food market tours, too. The drinking games are fun, though.
Yeah I had a laugh but woke up feeling shit - and guilty
I get increasingly uneasy about meat-eating in general. Trouble is I love it
But the least I can do is be choosier about what meat I eat and octopi just got struck from the menu
BTW if you liked Korea you MUST go to Japan. i have decided that Japan is the refined, purified version of Korea
If Korea is molasses, Japan is crystalline sugar; if Korea is opium, Japan is white heroin
Welcome back. I also removed Octopus from my eating choices a year ago - absolutely love it but they are clearly intelligent aliens so gave them up.
Would love a perfect lab grown pork/bacon as I love pigs and feel guilty about eating them as they are intelligent.
Not so fussed about cows and sheep - they are really stupid so deserve it. The brainy ones learned to make great milk and amazing wool - the meat ones, idiots.
I find dairy farming the saddest, as it’s a form of exhausting lifelong slavery at the end of which you go off for the chop and get turned into pet food. But I do like cheese.
I didn't realise being a farmer was that bad!!!
I am a fully committed meat eater, but I have qualms about the process. We are very insulated against how meat is produced. We pick up nice packets in the supermarket of if we are lucky from the butcher. We don't have to watch the killing of the animal, nor the blood draining out (and into my black pudding), nor the chopping up. At some level we know its happened.
The flip side is this. Animals in the wild are predated on and live lives of fear, disease, a need to find food etc. Farmed animals (in the UK at least) are superbly looked after and cared for. They need not fear a predator. If they are ill they are treated. When they are old they are given a humane death.
I've had to do the plucking and drawing of the Christmas turkey, and gut and clean fish and cephalopods, before cooking them. At least I can claim that.
Last night I breasted two brace of pheasants and had one for supper. They really are magnificent creatures if you look at the plumage and not worthy of being so unceremoniously dissected but what can you do. I can't think of better-sourced woke food than pheasants.
Careful - that will trigger someone to talk about battery raising of pheasants then released to be slaughtered in thousands and thrown into pits for burial and no one actually eats the pheasant from shoots. Or something like that...
Yus I realised I was in danger of unleashing the beast.
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?
Heath if the conversation was about sailing, perhaps.
Or how awful Thatcher was.
I would imagine he was quite engaging on his preferred topics. Granted some were more niche than others. Classical music, sailing and young men.
Despicable comment - why not just call him a paedo? FFS.
I didn't. I was very specific in my language. And he's dead so he can't sue. Although I doubt he would sue were he still alive.
Why post it? Have you a shred of evidence that he had an interest in 'young men"? Is PB not better than this? I thought you were? I met him once, as an old man. He came into the pub I was working in with his security people, sat and had a drink and a brief chat with the landlord.
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
He certainly didn’t accuse Heath of being a pedo, he made remarks about his alleged homosexuality, which is hardly ground breaking (and also not illegal when Heath was PM)
Is there any evidence he was homosexual? I rather suspect he was more asexual than anything else.
There is quite a lot more if you Google . It was probably unwise to make my original comment. However if we weren't too prim to discuss these issues perhaps Greville Janner would have ended his days, where he belonged, in jail.
I apologise for the personal offence I caused you.
Its not a personal offence - its just needless. Its like posting about Trump wearing nappies.
Not sure why discussing whether Trump wears nappies or not would be distasteful or needless. The health and fitness of an aged candidate is surely a legitimate topic of discussion, particularly when he refuses to release his medical records.
Yes, it’s absolutely fair in regards to someone seeking election to the most powerful political position on the planet. A man who can literally end the world by pressing a button
It’s AVOIDING these questions that led to the Democrats screwing up with Biden and ending up with a deeply substandard untested candidate like Harris who may well lose to Trump (I don’t think she will but it is certainly possible)
Surely everyone has learned from that disastrous sequence of events? It is legitimate to question the mental and physical health of any candidate, especially men over 75 trying to be POTUS
Is it discussing his health or is it a ten year olds poo humour? I think the latter. See also the music hall song about a certain German
war time leader and his incomplete set of genitals.
Blimey, I am not the only purveyor of toilet humour on PB. Are you picking on me because I am not of the same tribe as you?
No - what tribe am I? Last time I looked I don't have a tribe. I voted Lib Dem in July if it helps?
Just wait until you hear about Jeremy Thorpe and Cyril Smith.
Well Trump getting the most votes while Harris wins the EC isn't that likely but a 2.5% chance seems reasonably likely.
My problem is that if Trump wins the popular vote he's going to be complaining forever that he only lost because of dodgy voting elsewhere where things are close.
So for may sanity I hope for a Harris win on both popular votes and in the Electoral College.
If the Selzer and Kansas polls are correct in the slightest, showing huge swings in deep red states, the Trump loss but PV win seems the least likely scenario.
They are small states. California and New York may look quite different. For one thing, women there are less likely to think there is an imminent risk to losing abortion rights.
They may be small states, but if that dynamic is happening in Iowa and Kansas, it’s also happening throughout that red swath of states in the middle and south of the USA.
Not in the south which is more anti abortion and evangelical and has more black men who Trump has made inroads with. Trump almost certainly wins Georgia for example this time and that is a bigger state with more voters than Iowa and Kansas combined
I don't know. The analysis of the early voting data in Georgia looks pretty positive for Harris.
In 2020 my American mother-in-law said that, if Trump lost in 2020 he would be finished, because Americans don't like a loser.
It's looked for a long time as though she was wrong, because Trump managed to persuade enough people that he didn't lose, and so he wasn't a loser. But, perhaps, there are just enough people who didn't buy that lie that he will be decisively defeated.
If Harris carries all the Biden states, and adds those that would be won on a 4.5% swing, then she'd win the Electoral College by 413 to 125.
If the majority of polls have been systematically wrong then I think it's possible we could be missing something dramatic like that. Lots of things are possible.
Cor, you have really changed your tune (which is fair enough, bettors are allowed to change their mind. But that is quite a shift in outlook).
It's not a prediction!
There's increasing evidence that the polls are less reliable than normal, and so there's a lack of evidence on which to base a prediction. This increases the range of plausible outcomes.
Statements such as, x almost certainly wins y, are very likely to provoke me into expostulating the contrary opinion.
There are still lots of reasons why it wouldn't surprise me if Trump won the seven swing states comfortably enough. Then, NH, MN, VA, ME and NM aren't impossible. 347-191.
We'd all say it was obvious after Kabul, inflation, immigration, Ukraine, an incumbent President being forced to withdraw, the weaknesses of Harris as a candidate, sanewashing of Trump, etc.
The Selzer Iowa poll was a political shockwave. What if I told you there was a poll in neighboring Kansas that shows the same dynamic as Iowa? It's the Kansas Speaks poll which had Trump only +5 in a state he won +14 in 2020
Here's the kicker for the Kansas Speaks poll. Harris' surprising strength comes from older people with a large gender gap. The same dynamic as Selzer's poll
There’s a real scenario here where older women deliver for Harris
Hold on, that poll looks like one where the samples are completely skewed. I would almost - b ut not quite - say it looks like it has been manipulated to push an agenda.
Look at the lead and then compare with the cross-tabs:
To get to a +5% lead, you therefore have to assume that 85% of the electorate is female and only 15% male.
What it looks like they have done is massively weighted the 65+ vote towards female (you would have to say close to 100%), which would explain Harris' lead.
One other thing that has not been picked up in that poll:
Look at the 18-34 age - it is the age category with the biggest Trump lead of all the 4 age categories (48.2% vs 30.7%).
Is that a sign that Trump is gaining a lot more younger voters?
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?
Heath if the conversation was about sailing, perhaps.
Or how awful Thatcher was.
I would imagine he was quite engaging on his preferred topics. Granted some were more niche than others. Classical music, sailing and young men.
Despicable comment - why not just call him a paedo? FFS.
I didn't. I was very specific in my language. And he's dead so he can't sue. Although I doubt he would sue were he still alive.
Why post it? Have you a shred of evidence that he had an interest in 'young men"? Is PB not better than this? I thought you were? I met him once, as an old man. He came into the pub I was working in with his security people, sat and had a drink and a brief chat with the landlord.
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
He certainly didn’t accuse Heath of being a pedo, he made remarks about his alleged homosexuality, which is hardly ground breaking (and also not illegal when Heath was PM)
Is there any evidence he was homosexual? I rather suspect he was more asexual than anything else.
There is quite a lot more if you Google . It was probably unwise to make my original comment. However if we weren't too prim to discuss these issues perhaps Greville Janner would have ended his days, where he belonged, in jail.
I apologise for the personal offence I caused you.
Its not a personal offence - its just needless. Its like posting about Trump wearing nappies.
Not sure why discussing whether Trump wears nappies or not would be distasteful or needless. The health and fitness of an aged candidate is surely a legitimate topic of discussion, particularly when he refuses to release his medical records.
Yes, it’s absolutely fair in regards to someone seeking election to the most powerful political position on the planet. A man who can literally end the world by pressing a button
It’s AVOIDING these questions that led to the Democrats screwing up with Biden and ending up with a deeply substandard untested candidate like Harris who may well lose to Trump (I don’t think she will but it is certainly possible)
Surely everyone has learned from that disastrous sequence of events? It is legitimate to question the mental and physical health of any candidate, especially men over 75 trying to be POTUS
Is it discussing his health or is it a ten year olds poo humour? I think the latter. See also the music hall song about a certain German war time leader and his incomplete set of genitals.
I think it can be taken several ways.
Trump lied and deceived and dissimulated about his medical records, and made dishonest claims (for which some would come up with off-the-wall justifications) about his health. "But he exaggerates everything" does not wash when it has been the normal practice for Presidential Candidates to release their medical records.
Given Trump's manner and behaviour, I'm inclined to support taking the gloves off, including ridicule.
It generated reactions from him, and from his supporters, which could be seen as justifying ridicule as a political strategy. Supporters turned up at his rallies with diapers outside their trousers (OK pants), like fat, late middle-aged Trumpist Supermen. When he was shot at, they turned up in their phalanxes with cotton wool on their ears, like so many half finished statues escaped from the quarry at Easter Island.
Is it OK to do that if it causes your opponents to make themselves look as stupid on video as they are in reality?
Well Trump getting the most votes while Harris wins the EC isn't that likely but a 2.5% chance seems reasonably likely.
My problem is that if Trump wins the popular vote he's going to be complaining forever that he only lost because of dodgy voting elsewhere where things are close.
So for may sanity I hope for a Harris win on both popular votes and in the Electoral College.
If the Selzer and Kansas polls are correct in the slightest, showing huge swings in deep red states, the Trump loss but PV win seems the least likely scenario.
They are small states. California and New York may look quite different. For one thing, women there are less likely to think there is an imminent risk to losing abortion rights.
They may be small states, but if that dynamic is happening in Iowa and Kansas, it’s also happening throughout that red swath of states in the middle and south of the USA.
Not in the south which is more anti abortion and evangelical and has more black men who Trump has made inroads with. Trump almost certainly wins Georgia for example this time and that is a bigger state with more voters than Iowa and Kansas combined
I don't know. The analysis of the early voting data in Georgia looks pretty positive for Harris.
In 2020 my American mother-in-law said that, if Trump lost in 2020 he would be finished, because Americans don't like a loser.
It's looked for a long time as though she was wrong, because Trump managed to persuade enough people that he didn't lose, and so he wasn't a loser. But, perhaps, there are just enough people who didn't buy that lie that he will be decisively defeated.
If Harris carries all the Biden states, and adds those that would be won on a 4.5% swing, then she'd win the Electoral College by 413 to 125.
If the majority of polls have been systematically wrong then I think it's possible we could be missing something dramatic like that. Lots of things are possible.
The odds for a polling miss such as we had in our GE in Harris' favour are simply astonishing. I'm on the following to cash in on a potential Harris landslide:
£20 @ 22-1 180-209 £15 @ 60-1 179-
Possibly good bets.
My position, since well before Leon (formerly of this parish but now rightfully and gratefully banned) started wittering on about Biden’s sanity, was to lay both Trump and Biden for both nominee and president. The nominee bets only net me a small profit, so I am relying on Harris bringing it home to keep me in fine wine for a few more months.
Trump’s closing campaign has been about setting up his complaint when he loses, rather than reaching out to the few remaining undecideds to win, and Trump looks tired. The battle for the future of the GOP starts this week, whether he wins or loses.
I’ve bet on Harris, despite pretty much every American (who would make a prediction) I met during my 6,608 mile road trip expecting Trump, because I can’t sit up watching the results with my money riding on a Trump win.
CNN, I expect, will be the channel to watch on Wednesday morning, the UK’s coverage of US elections usually being risible and almost data- and insight-free?
Personally, I'm kind of mulling moving to Scotland...
Of course, we won't. We've got family and friends here. It would be a massive faff to uproot our lives. We'd have to find new jobs (though these days that's less clear cut as a 'must' than it once was).
OTOH, I'm from Manchester. I'm inured to bad weather. But I do like hills. Even without the prospect of my daughters starting their adult life without £30k of debt each, it's a not unattractive prospect.
The Selzer Iowa poll was a political shockwave. What if I told you there was a poll in neighboring Kansas that shows the same dynamic as Iowa? It's the Kansas Speaks poll which had Trump only +5 in a state he won +14 in 2020
Here's the kicker for the Kansas Speaks poll. Harris' surprising strength comes from older people with a large gender gap. The same dynamic as Selzer's poll
There’s a real scenario here where older women deliver for Harris
Hold on, that poll looks like one where the samples are completely skewed. I would almost - b ut not quite - say it looks like it has been manipulated to push an agenda.
Look at the lead and then compare with the cross-tabs:
To get to a +5% lead, you therefore have to assume that 85% of the electorate is female and only 15% male.
What it looks like they have done is massively weighted the 65+ vote towards female (you would have to say close to 100%), which would explain Harris' lead.
One other thing that has not been picked up in that poll:
Look at the 18-34 age - it is the age category with the biggest Trump lead of all the 4 age categories (48.2% vs 30.7%).
Is that a sign that Trump is gaining a lot more younger voters?
It is a 645 person poll. Trying to analyse small unweighted subsamples within it is completely pointless.
Well Trump getting the most votes while Harris wins the EC isn't that likely but a 2.5% chance seems reasonably likely.
My problem is that if Trump wins the popular vote he's going to be complaining forever that he only lost because of dodgy voting elsewhere where things are close.
So for may sanity I hope for a Harris win on both popular votes and in the Electoral College.
If the Selzer and Kansas polls are correct in the slightest, showing huge swings in deep red states, the Trump loss but PV win seems the least likely scenario.
They are small states. California and New York may look quite different. For one thing, women there are less likely to think there is an imminent risk to losing abortion rights.
They may be small states, but if that dynamic is happening in Iowa and Kansas, it’s also happening throughout that red swath of states in the middle and south of the USA.
Not in the south which is more anti abortion and evangelical and has more black men who Trump has made inroads with. Trump almost certainly wins Georgia for example this time and that is a bigger state with more voters than Iowa and Kansas combined
I don't know. The analysis of the early voting data in Georgia looks pretty positive for Harris.
In 2020 my American mother-in-law said that, if Trump lost in 2020 he would be finished, because Americans don't like a loser.
It's looked for a long time as though she was wrong, because Trump managed to persuade enough people that he didn't lose, and so he wasn't a loser. But, perhaps, there are just enough people who didn't buy that lie that he will be decisively defeated.
If Harris carries all the Biden states, and adds those that would be won on a 4.5% swing, then she'd win the Electoral College by 413 to 125.
If the majority of polls have been systematically wrong then I think it's possible we could be missing something dramatic like that. Lots of things are possible.
The odds for a polling miss such as we had in our GE in Harris' favour are simply astonishing. I'm on the following to cash in on a potential Harris landslide:
£20 @ 22-1 180-209 £15 @ 60-1 179-
Possibly good bets.
My position, since well before Leon (formerly of this parish but now rightfully and gratefully banned) started wittering on about Biden, was to lay both Trump and Biden for both nominee and president. The nominee bets broke even, so I am relying on Harris bringing it home to keep me in fine wine for a few more months.
Trump’s closing campaign has been about setting up his complaint when he loses, rather than reaching out to the few remaining undecideds to win, and Trump looks tired. The battle for the future of the GOP starts this week, whether he wins or loses.
I’ve bet on Harris, despite pretty much every American who would make a prediction expecting Trump, because I can’t sit up watching the results with my money riding on Trump.
CNN, I expect, will be the channel to watch on Wednesday morning, the UK’s coverage of US elections usually being risible and almost data- and insight-free?
Err - re Leon, you might want to glance down-thread.
Comments
It makes the election more like a league, or a boxing bout with rounds. It adds to the excitement (assuming it’s close) towards the end. It enables voters to calibrate how they will vote as things progress. After all that’s how the primaries work.
source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/04/election-predictions-harris-trump-congress/
£20 @ 22-1 180-209
£15 @ 60-1 179-
Laura Trott is shadow education secretary
The allegations against him come from the same nonsense as the alleged murders of kids at Dolphin Square - the dribbling pathetic fantasies of disturbed minds.
Further they do not cover even their own story properly. For example they talk about how Prince William "has recently appointed his close friend William van Cutsem as a duchy adviser." They somehow forgot to mention that the guy is a Chartered Surveyor, so eminently suited to take up the role.
If they wanted to contribute to a useful debate, they could have done so. They overwhelmingly chose not so to do.
They even had the gall to link it to "Sunday Times Insight Team". Harold Evans will be spinning in his grave.
For me it's mainly a reminder of just how shitty our media is, pretty much from end to end.
MEDIUM RISK I: MONTANA: 1/5 Tim Sheehy R to win
Too far ahead in the polls. Will bet 2X. X in this case is £50
Ladbrokes: https://sports.ladbrokes.com/event/politics/international/us-elections/2024-senate-elections/245888335/main-markets
MEDIUM RISK II: ARIZONA: 2/9 Reuben Gallego D to win
He's up against Kari Lake, who is a bit mad. Will bet 2X. X in this case is £50
Ladbrokes: https://sports.ladbrokes.com/event/politics/international/us-elections/2024-senate-elections/245888335/main-markets
Quite why we have allowed media "sane washing" to get away with pretending Trump doesn't intend to do harm is one of those questions that needs an urgent answer.
He certainly didn’t accuse Heath of being a pedo, he made remarks about his alleged homosexuality, which is hardly ground breaking (and also not illegal when Heath was PM)
Dr Paul Duckett"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGbGsIKnp-c
Video about Jason Beer from the PO inquiry.
https://benansell.substack.com/p/hostage-to-fortune
40% Harris landslide (6 out of 7 swing states)
25% Narrow Harris (4 out of 7)
25% Narrow Trump (5 out of 7 for Trump)
10% Trump landslide (all 7 for Trump).
Feels about right to me
The flip side is this. Animals in the wild are predated on and live lives of fear, disease, a need to find food etc. Farmed animals (in the UK at least) are superbly looked after and cared for. They need not fear a predator. If they are ill they are treated. When they are old they are given a humane death.
Again, I genuinely hope I’m wrong. Women, the Abortion issue, younger voters, seniors, a better GOTV operation. They could conceivably all combine to give Harris the win. But at the moment, looking at the fundamentals, I just can’t see anything but a Trump victory. Sorry.
https://x.com/DPJHodges/status/1853420630537843087
There is quite a lot more if you Google . It was probably unwise to make my original comment. However if we weren't too prim to discuss these issues perhaps Greville Janner would have ended his days, where he belonged, in jail.
I apologise for the personal offence I caused you.
NEW — I asked the Trump campaign why the coup-attempting, now convicted criminal, former president is an unfocused mess in these final days.
This is their response:
https://x.com/svdate/status/1853243014572908763
And who can blame him for being closeted? He was a Tory MP and for most of his adult life homosexuality was criminal and, earlier on, severely punished
Do it twice however and your reputation is dust and ashes
https://www.thenational.scot/news/24697644.john-curtice-delivers-verdict-labours-drop-support/
It’s AVOIDING these questions that led to the Democrats screwing up with Biden and ending up with a deeply substandard untested candidate like Harris who may well lose to Trump (I don’t think she will but it is certainly possible)
Surely everyone has learned from that disastrous sequence of events? It is legitimate to question the mental and physical health of any candidate, especially men over 75 trying to be POTUS
NEW: An internal memo from co-campaign manager Susie Wiles, outlines post-election plans, w/ phrases "should we be victorious," "regardless of the outcome of the election" & "God willing" — acknowledging that Trump could lose the election.
https://x.com/SophiaCai99/status/1853423506043580753
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jq134y91o
Try this, although there are more formal details available.
https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/police-apologise-again-child-abuse-7728026
Meanwhile
Harris appears to be stronger than Clinton, but weaker than Biden in 2020
So it feels like it could be close. It’s a question of what we cannot see, giving one or two the edge.
My hunch is that some of the fascist stuff, pushed some polite Trump support under the radar. But then again the legendary GOTV for Kamala might edge it.
I going for a tie +\- 3 EC.
So, what makes Scottish Tories and Reformers even crazier than those in the rest of the UK?
points or EC votes ?
I don't know if Janner was guilty and neither do you. He may have been.
END OF THE TRUMP TRADE? Dollar weakens as investors rein in bets on Trump victory.
https://x.com/Arjunneilalim/status/1853390969162641494
go or no
fuck. It’s also “the fifteenth best hotel in the world”
Badenoch has an in here. Disgraceful policy.
Jeremy, Jeremy; woof, woof, bang!
There's increasing evidence that the polls are less reliable than normal, and so there's a lack of evidence on which to base a prediction. This increases the range of plausible outcomes.
Statements such as, x almost certainly wins y, are very likely to provoke me into expostulating the contrary opinion.
There are still lots of reasons why it wouldn't surprise me if Trump won the seven swing states comfortably enough. Then, NH, MN, VA, ME and NM aren't impossible. 347-191.
We'd all say it was obvious after Kabul, inflation, immigration, Ukraine, an incumbent President being forced to withdraw, the weaknesses of Harris as a candidate, sanewashing of Trump, etc.
Look at the lead and then compare with the cross-tabs:
It says a +5% lead for Trump in Kansas overall.
Yet the Male / Female splits are as follows:
Male: 33.6% Harris - 51.5% Trump (+17.9%)
Female: 38.5% Harris - 41.6% Trump (+3.1%)
To get to a +5% lead, you therefore have to assume that 85% of the electorate is female and only 15% male.
What it looks like they have done is massively weighted the 65+ vote towards female (you would have to say close to 100%), which would explain Harris' lead.
One other thing that has not been picked up in that poll:
Look at the 18-34 age - it is the age category with the biggest Trump lead of all the 4 age categories (48.2% vs 30.7%).
Is that a sign that Trump is gaining a lot more younger voters?
Trump lied and deceived and dissimulated about his medical records, and made dishonest claims (for which some would come up with off-the-wall justifications) about his health. "But he exaggerates everything" does not wash when it has been the normal practice for Presidential Candidates to release their medical records.
Given Trump's manner and behaviour, I'm inclined to support taking the gloves off, including ridicule.
It generated reactions from him, and from his supporters, which could be seen as justifying ridicule as a political strategy. Supporters turned up at his rallies with diapers outside their trousers (OK pants), like fat, late middle-aged Trumpist Supermen. When he was shot at, they turned up in their phalanxes with cotton wool on their ears, like so many half finished statues escaped from the quarry at Easter Island.
Is it OK to do that if it causes your opponents to make themselves look as stupid on video as they are in reality?
I know, let's rescind the foreign student dependents being banned from Britain stunt. International fees were propping up the sector.
My position, since well before Leon (formerly of this parish but now rightfully and gratefully banned) started wittering on about Biden’s sanity, was to lay both Trump and Biden for both nominee and president. The nominee bets only net me a small profit, so I am relying on Harris bringing it home to keep me in fine wine for a few more months.
Trump’s closing campaign has been about setting up his complaint when he loses, rather than reaching out to the few remaining undecideds to win, and Trump looks tired. The battle for the future of the GOP starts this week, whether he wins or loses.
I’ve bet on Harris, despite pretty much every American (who would make a prediction) I met during my 6,608 mile road trip expecting Trump, because I can’t sit up watching the results with my money riding on a Trump win.
CNN, I expect, will be the channel to watch on Wednesday morning, the UK’s coverage of US elections usually being risible and almost data- and insight-free?
Of course, we won't. We've got family and friends here. It would be a massive faff to uproot our lives. We'd have to find new jobs (though these days that's less clear cut as a 'must' than it once was).
OTOH, I'm from Manchester. I'm inured to bad weather. But I do like hills. Even without the prospect of my daughters starting their adult life without £30k of debt each, it's a not unattractive prospect.