I may be at risk of appearing in Pseuds Corner but after reading Eckart Frahm's book on Assyria I have been watching The Poor Man of Nippur - the only film in Babylonian. Don't worry - there are subtitles.
I Like the academic punctiliousness of the makers: "The film version of this ancient text is a creation of Cambridge Assyriology, and (as far as we know) the world's first film in Babylonian."
Ditto here - indigenous languages of the Yolŋu Matha language group, in my case.
I still don’t understand why Musk is so engaged. You’d think running a large car company, a space launch company, a satellite comms company (all of which capable of being the biggest in their fields), a large social network baked into the fabric of western society, preparing to run a new Government Department in the U.S, and leading a chunk of Trump’s transition, would keep him busy.
I think he spends more time awake than most people.
I had a lecturer who speculated that a lot of the most impactful people in history are just those able to operate on less than average sleep.
I am not one of those people
There may be reasons why he can stay awake longer than you.
Ouch, the BBC have just pushed a notification out via their app on Elon dumping Nigel.
Guardian leading on it.
My discounted Guardian subscription proving very timely
What do you get for your money ?
Isn’t it free anyway ?
No - half price digital access for a year, not restricted to a few articles a month
Isn't the Graun still free if you choose? I have a subscription to a) support it and b) avoid adverts.
No - it allows a few articles free a month but then it goes paywalled
Not sure that’s correct - I read many many articles a day and have for many years and it never goes behind a paywall. I think they are determined that it’s never paywalled.
Instead you get requests popping up on screen saying you have read x number of articles so please subscribe and they also do pop ups when a news story arises about, say Trump, and they write “this is why we need your support” etc.
But not paywalled.
After a while the access for the rest of the month is paywalled until the next month
The mobile app allows a miniscule 20 (or 30) articles a month. I then don't pay so I have to wait until the month expires or use the full website which is free, although they are prone to begging.
Odds Labour introduces PR in 2028, have we thought about this?
Yes. Thought about it. And it has Zero chance of happening. Lab and Lib doing very well out of FPTP whilst blending each other voters so effectively as last July. PR takes seats away from libs and Lab to give to Greens and Reform. So deffo not happening.
We don’t talk much about the huge role Brexit played in the last election result, and likely at lest the next 5 elections too, until a Conservative PM follows up on promise to renegotiate.
488 seats in the current HoC all from Brexit Haters informal coalition. That’s the psephology of it.
Also, if Musk still wants a home for his £100m donation, I am willing to set up a new political party with policies of radically cutting corporation tax, large subsidies for car manufacturing, and endless wittering on about “freedom of speech”.
I see it as a slow burn project, delivering maybe one tweet a week, but with the leader/CEO attracting a salary of around £10m p/a to reflect on the right future strategy whilst learning lessons from a range of other countries (at the party’s expense of course). As the only member and sole shareholder, unfortunately I will have to fill that position myself.
1. You're wrong about the political context and background not being put in reports. If anything there is quite a lot of it - especially in the blood contamination and Grenfell Tower reports, both of which I have read. And what those reports make clear is how often the political decisions and priorities were wrong or skewed in such a way that scandal was all but inevitable. This was not because of difficult choices which then turned out to be wrong. It was a failure of the state to do essential tasks which only it can do. The same can be said in the PO Inquiry - the political background is highly relevant. But the key point there - and I really hope it comes out (I have certainly made it a central point in the book) - is that for all the failings of Horizon etc, the scandal arose primarily because the state abandoned its fundamental duty with regard to the criminal justice system. It was that which failed and led to the scandal. And that failing had nothing to do with money. It arose because the lawyers were simply incompetent and the government and company did not understand the risks they were taking.
2. Priorities - we all too often have the wrong ones. One of the reasons is because we create conflicts of interest eg with the NCB. But it is also our choices. In no decent society, even with a limited budget, should children have been put at risk in the way the Aberfan children were or the haemophiliacs were over tainted blood products.
And finally -
3. False economies - it is all too easy to say that we cannot afford this or that. But what is always forgotten is how often this is a false economy: the costs of putting matters right is many many multiples of what it would have cost to have prevented them in the first place. I have reams of examples from my professional life - a fraction of what was spent on fines, losses and remediation costs would have prevented the problems in the first place. But too many senior people were too blind to this, too unwilling to understand the risks or too focused on short-term savings at the risk of long-term catastrophe.
All too often, the disruption of an organisation which would be caused by admitting the truth, is used as the excuse to do nothing. Protect The Organisation.
See the NHS scandals where “Lie to protect the NHS” was litterally advocated.
It’s an old story. See Jellicoe demanding a report on the ammunition explosions at Jutland to be re-written to remove blame from officers in the Battlecruiser fleet. Since he (and the report author) came from the Battleship fleet, it would have kicked up a storm.
An interesting development - not wholly a disaster for NF.
Very embarrassing though
Really? It’s about Tommy Robinson. Farage comes out stronger for his Robinson position each time it’s flagged up, doesn’t he? He can’t be embarrassed by that.
It might work out well for Farage if he loses some hardcore racists but gains on the 'general protest vote' front.
Musk trying to pick the leader of Reform UK and yet again interfere in our democracy is a disgrace. What business does he have chiming in.
I don't have an issue with anyone, from anywhere, chiming in on the domestic politics of another country.
The issue with Musk is every utterance is breathlessly reported, he doesn't know as much about politics as he thinks he does, and he's addicted to mouthing off on twitter. Throw potential money into the mix and it just gets messy.
Trying to mess with Farage's leadership is an odd move though - like him or loathe him Reform wouldn't be a significant thing without Farage, and even if the premise were true he has taken them as far as he can, other options don't come with Farage's strengths.
The explanation is that Musk is genuinely is a proper right wing nutter. Farage has pushed back on supporting Robinson and also carve a bit of an independent path on other topics. He is now an obstacle not part of the solution
It seems since Farage appeared on Kuenssberg this morning civil war is breaking out in Reform
It was noticeable that at their conference in Leicester Farage was heckled when he announced Robinson was banned from joining Reform
It is not a week is a long time in politics, a few hours are
Yes, Reform might soon be facing an awful dilemma: stick with Nigel and retain the benefits of his undoubted screen presence; or ditch him and get the Musk millions - a life-changing cash injection for any political party. Putting sentimentality aside, they'll have to decide which option is in Reform's long-term interests in becoming a serious political force. Tricky.
There’s also the possibility that Musk likes driving traffic to TwiX. And the more outrageous things he does and says, the more that happens. This prevent any real rivals - like Bluesky - from being a proper threat
And several explanations can be true at once, especially with a literal polymath/freakaloid like Musk
I suspect he'll get bored, but would be funny if Musk did give $100m to Tommy Robinson to start a proper hard-right racist party (basically the BNP 2.0) and Reform end falling short in a whole bunch of seats at the next GE because Robinson takes away the lunatic vote.
Also, if Musk wants a home for his £100m donation, I am willing to set up a new political party with policies of radically cutting corporation tax, large subsidies for car manufacturing, and endless wittering on about “freedom of speech”.
I see it as a slow burn project, delivering maybe one tweet a week, but with the leader/CEO attracting a salary of around £10m p/a to reflect on the right future strategy whilst learning lessons from a range of other countries (at the party’s expense of course). As the only member and sole shareholder, unfortunately I will have to fill that position myself.
I'm afraid I'm going to one up you: I will charge £20m/year and will therefore be twice as good.
I still don’t understand why Musk is so engaged. You’d think running a large car company, a space launch company, a satellite comms company (all of which capable of being the biggest in their fields), a large social network baked into the fabric of western society, preparing to run a new Government Department in the U.S, and leading a chunk of Trump’s transition, would keep him busy.
I think he spends more time awake than most people.
Musk trying to pick the leader of Reform UK and yet again interfere in our democracy is a disgrace. What business does he have chiming in.
I don't have an issue with anyone, from anywhere, chiming in on the domestic politics of another country.
The issue with Musk is every utterance is breathlessly reported, he doesn't know as much about politics as he thinks he does, and he's addicted to mouthing off on twitter. Throw potential money into the mix and it just gets messy.
Trying to mess with Farage's leadership is an odd move though - like him or loathe him Reform wouldn't be a significant thing without Farage, and even if the premise were true he has taken them as far as he can, other options don't come with Farage's strengths.
The explanation is that Musk is genuinely is a proper right wing nutter. Farage has pushed back on supporting Robinson and also carve a bit of an independent path on other topics. He is now an obstacle not part of the solution
It seems since Farage appeared on Kuenssberg this morning civil war is breaking out in Reform
It was noticeable that at their conference in Leicester Farage was heckled when he announced Robinson was banned from joining Reform
It is not a week is a long time in politics, a few hours are
Yes, Reform might soon be facing an awful dilemma: stick with Nigel and retain the benefits of his undoubted screen presence; or ditch him and get the Musk millions - a life-changing cash injection for any political party. Putting sentimentality aside, they'll have to decide which option is in Reform's long-term interests in becoming a serious political force. Tricky.
Musk trying to pick the leader of Reform UK and yet again interfere in our democracy is a disgrace. What business does he have chiming in.
I don't have an issue with anyone, from anywhere, chiming in on the domestic politics of another country.
The issue with Musk is every utterance is breathlessly reported, he doesn't know as much about politics as he thinks he does, and he's addicted to mouthing off on twitter. Throw potential money into the mix and it just gets messy.
Trying to mess with Farage's leadership is an odd move though - like him or loathe him Reform wouldn't be a significant thing without Farage, and even if the premise were true he has taken them as far as he can, other options don't come with Farage's strengths.
The explanation is that Musk is genuinely is a proper right wing nutter. Farage has pushed back on supporting Robinson and also carve a bit of an independent path on other topics. He is now an obstacle not part of the solution
It seems since Farage appeared on Kuenssberg this morning civil war is breaking out in Reform
It was noticeable that at their conference in Leicester Farage was heckled when he announced Robinson was banned from joining Reform
It is not a week is a long time in politics, a few hours are
Yes, Reform might soon be facing an awful dilemma: stick with Nigel and retain the benefits of his undoubted screen presence; or ditch him and get the Musk millions - a life-changing cash injection for any political party. Putting sentimentality aside, they'll have to decide which option is in Reform's long-term interests in becoming a serious political force. Tricky.
If Farage gets jettisoned and Musk puts his money behind a right-wing party with a harder edge, maybe the Tories will have to embrace Farage in order to fight it off.
We have an administrative class that believes that it is not responsible for its actions. The Process State where morality and personal discretion is replaced by a rules - written and unwritten.
The implication of the The Rules is that those who cleave to them are absolved. They have their Indulgence.
Two things come to mind
1) During WWII, a senior civil servant raised a question about the response to the V1 & V2 attacks. Due to the wholesale takeover of German spies in the UK and the breaks into various German codes, the UK government could control information the Germans gained on where the weapons had actually landed. So they planned to tell them they were landing *beyond* London. So the Germans would correct their aim and drop short.
The civil servant in question raised a question - which I believe got as far as a discussion including Churchill. Did the government have the moral right to change who would die in the attacks? People would still be hit, in the populous South-East. Less, but people would still die. And the government, in effect would be directing attacks on to them
The matter was debated and the deception went ahead.
2) When the Fatwa against Salman Rushdie was created, the British Government responded by guaranteeing his personal security. This rose in cost to the most expensive personal security in the country - more than the PM, at the time of PIRA attacks.
The matter was debated in cabinet. Questions of the morality of what Rushdie did, effects on foreign policy, the moral and legal standing of the governments duty to protect its citizens.... In the end, the collective decision was that the protection would continue at the highest level.
Why do they come to mind?
I've heard people lambast the civil servant in (1) - "It was war. Stupid question" etc. I differ on this. He was not correct, I think, in opposing the disinformation. But the moral question he raised is a worthy one. That he was listened to is, is to the credit of the listeners. He took a moral stand.
On (2) I've heard people say that discussing it was disgraceful - that it should have ben handled by some process. Again, I disagree. The government of the country discussed the moral and practical implications of a policy. And made a decision that was unambiguously their responsibility.
I find it hard to understand why you wouldn't do this TBH.
Ask Leon (or ask Leon about AI) about punching up the language.
Reduce it, would be my advice
@Cyclefree can write a fine sentence, and makes great arguments, but she has a terrible tendency to prolixity
@Leon is absolutely right on this. I know I have written far too much. It probably needs cutting back by 40%. As William Faulkner said: "In writing you have to kill your darlings." Trouble is I am not the best person to do this and I don't know which bits to kill. So this year's task is to get help on doing just this. I have left the draft for a bit so that when I come back to it, it will be easier to see what needs to go and what the focus should be. Plus remove all the lawyer-speak.
And I have some people reading it who I hope will also help.
We have an administrative class that believes that it is not responsible for its actions. The Process State where morality and personal discretion is replaced by a rules - written and unwritten.
The implication of the The Rules is that those who cleave to them are absolved. They have their Indulgence.
Two things come to mind
1) During WWII, a senior civil servant raised a question about the response to the V1 & V2 attacks. Due to the wholesale takeover of German spies in the UK and the breaks into various German codes, the UK government could control information the Germans gained on where the weapons had actually landed. So they planned to tell them they were landing *beyond* London. So the Germans would correct their aim and drop short.
The civil servant in question raised a question - which I believe got as far as a discussion including Churchill. Did the government have the moral right to change who would die in the attacks? People would still be hit, in the populous South-East. Less, but people would still die. And the government, in effect would be directing attacks on to them
The matter was debated and the deception went ahead.
2) When the Fatwa against Salman Rushdie was created, the British Government responded by guaranteeing his personal security. This rose in cost to the most expensive personal security in the country - more than the PM, at the time of PIRA attacks.
The matter was debated in cabinet. Questions of the morality of what Rushdie did, effects on foreign policy, the moral and legal standing of the governments duty to protect its citizens.... In the end, the collective decision was that the protection would continue at the highest level.
Why do they come to mind?
I've heard people lambast the civil servant in (1) - "It was war. Stupid question" etc. I differ on this. He was not correct, I think, in opposing the disinformation. But the moral question he raised is a worthy one. That he was listened to is, is to the credit of the listeners. He took a moral stand.
On (2) I've heard people say that discussing it was disgraceful - that it should have ben handled by some process. Again, I disagree. The government of the country discussed the moral and practical implications of a policy. And made a decision that was unambiguously their responsibility.
I find it hard to understand why you wouldn't do this TBH.
Ask Leon (or ask Leon about AI) about punching up the language.
Reduce it, would be my advice
@Cyclefree can write a fine sentence, and makes great arguments, but she has a terrible tendency to prolixity
@Leon is absolutely right on this. I know I have written far too much. It probably needs cutting back by 40%. As William Faulkner said: "In writing you have to kill your darlings." Trouble is I am not the best person to do this and I don't know which bits to kill. So this year's task is to get help on doing just this. I have left the draft for a bit so that when I come back to it, it will be easier to see what needs to go and what the focus should be. Plus remove all the lawyer-speak.
And I have some people reading it who I hope will also help.
There’s also the possibility that Musk likes driving traffic to TwiX. And the more outrageous things he does and says, the more that happens. This prevent any real rivals - like Bluesky - from being a proper threat
That sounds like when a fraudster makes ever more outrageous claims to attract people into their ponzi scheme. Works right up to the point it collapses.
But I think he's probably safe on the social media front regardless.
Musk trying to pick the leader of Reform UK and yet again interfere in our democracy is a disgrace. What business does he have chiming in.
I don't have an issue with anyone, from anywhere, chiming in on the domestic politics of another country.
The issue with Musk is every utterance is breathlessly reported, he doesn't know as much about politics as he thinks he does, and he's addicted to mouthing off on twitter. Throw potential money into the mix and it just gets messy.
Trying to mess with Farage's leadership is an odd move though - like him or loathe him Reform wouldn't be a significant thing without Farage, and even if the premise were true he has taken them as far as he can, other options don't come with Farage's strengths.
The explanation is that Musk is genuinely is a proper right wing nutter. Farage has pushed back on supporting Robinson and also carve a bit of an independent path on other topics. He is now an obstacle not part of the solution
I think that explanation is overly simplistic. Musk is a businessman. Do you think he'd be all over Mar-A-Lago and wearing a MAGA hat if Trump had lost the election? He made a shrewd bet on Trump, and due to that, he has managed to save his businesses from the impact of some of Trump's proposed policies and be billions of pounds richer. All the tech-billionaires are now rushing to play catch up.
With Reform, again he's shrewdly spotted the growth of Reform and thinks the UK is ripe for a Reform takeover. He knows that Reform's platform is to all-but cancel Net Zero. That's highly dangerous for Musk, who makes a great deal of money here selling his ****-ugly electric cars. So he puts all his chips on Reform, helps get them over the line, and repeats the Trump trick, reversing any slowing down of the switchover to electric, and carving out whatever exemptions he needs to keep the money taps on.
Somewhere along the line Nigel has upset him. I would suggest that it's the 'Senior figures within Reform have reached out to Trump to ask him to stop Elon speaking about Tommy Robinson' - that would have been humiliating for Musk - he is not the sort of person to be reined in. But it could just as easily been that Reform have refused to change their Net Zero policy and continue to fight net zero full on as seen in the Zia Yusuf speech I posted here.
I would suggest that Nigel offers to sit down with Musk in a live-Tweeted one-on-one interview. Nigel can handle Musk in that scenario. Reach a grudging consensus if not get him fully back on board. And as I've been saying, do they really want him fully on board? I think they want Nick Candy, Jim Ratcliffe etc.. Musk is very much a dangerous donor.
We have an administrative class that believes that it is not responsible for its actions. The Process State where morality and personal discretion is replaced by a rules - written and unwritten.
The implication of the The Rules is that those who cleave to them are absolved. They have their Indulgence.
Two things come to mind
1) During WWII, a senior civil servant raised a question about the response to the V1 & V2 attacks. Due to the wholesale takeover of German spies in the UK and the breaks into various German codes, the UK government could control information the Germans gained on where the weapons had actually landed. So they planned to tell them they were landing *beyond* London. So the Germans would correct their aim and drop short.
The civil servant in question raised a question - which I believe got as far as a discussion including Churchill. Did the government have the moral right to change who would die in the attacks? People would still be hit, in the populous South-East. Less, but people would still die. And the government, in effect would be directing attacks on to them
The matter was debated and the deception went ahead.
2) When the Fatwa against Salman Rushdie was created, the British Government responded by guaranteeing his personal security. This rose in cost to the most expensive personal security in the country - more than the PM, at the time of PIRA attacks.
The matter was debated in cabinet. Questions of the morality of what Rushdie did, effects on foreign policy, the moral and legal standing of the governments duty to protect its citizens.... In the end, the collective decision was that the protection would continue at the highest level.
Why do they come to mind?
I've heard people lambast the civil servant in (1) - "It was war. Stupid question" etc. I differ on this. He was not correct, I think, in opposing the disinformation. But the moral question he raised is a worthy one. That he was listened to is, is to the credit of the listeners. He took a moral stand.
On (2) I've heard people say that discussing it was disgraceful - that it should have ben handled by some process. Again, I disagree. The government of the country discussed the moral and practical implications of a policy. And made a decision that was unambiguously their responsibility.
I find it hard to understand why you wouldn't do this TBH.
Ask Leon (or ask Leon about AI) about punching up the language.
Reduce it, would be my advice
@Cyclefree can write a fine sentence, and makes great arguments, but she has a terrible tendency to prolixity
@Leon is absolutely right on this. I know I have written far too much. It probably needs cutting back by 40%. As William Faulkner said: "In writing you have to kill your darlings." Trouble is I am not the best person to do this and I don't know which bits to kill. So this year's task is to get help on doing just this. I have left the draft for a bit so that when I come back to it, it will be easier to see what needs to go and what the focus should be. Plus remove all the lawyer-speak.
And I have some people reading it who I hope will also help.
Wes Streeting is a far better teller of the government's story than Starmer or Reeves.
He's a better politician than both. Neither Starmer, who is a better manager nor Reeves who is a highly respected economist, ask Mark Carney, are natural politicians.
Darren Jones and Jonathan Reynolds are as good as Streeting in terms of communicating under pressure but possibly overall higher intellect.
Also a politician that is stuck at health. Cooper's going to hang on, Streeting replacing Reeves would be ludicrous, so I presume he's out to get Lammy?
I think Streeting is really very good, but I don't warm to the man.
Reeves is an interesting one. I’ve got my eye on the possibility of a 2025 exit for her.
As always, “if” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here but it’s not impossible to visualise a scenario where the economy continues to flatline, inflation is stubborn, Trumps economic policies bite hard and the NI rise causes an uptick in unemployment. I think Reeves has created a hostage to fortune for saying she wouldn’t come back for more tax rises. Another unpopular budget could really spook Labour and might prompt a resignation or dismissal in an effort to relaunch the governments economic policy.
That being said, it is not great for a PM to lose their chancellor. But Starmer has a ruthless streak. I don’t put it past him to jettison cabinet members to try and save his premiership.
In principle yes. Starmer world get rid of Reeves if he thought that would serve him. But as of today I don't see how it does serve him. Reeves is doing what Starmer wants her to do.
Why does he want her to fk up the economy ?
Starmer wants Reeves to raise taxes. Beyond the cost of those taxes it isn't obvious Reeves is fucking up the economy.
Starmer had no choice but to raise taxes as the NI cuts that Rishi and Hunt implemented in 2023/4 were based on complete lies.
The issue for Reeves is that there was a sane way of reversing those cuts that she didn't adopt so she's massively increased Employer NI which is going to be awkward for a lot of minimum wage operators..
I agree raising employee NI or income tax would be the better way to fill the fiscal gap.
BIG HOWEVER. The public almost certainly prefers tax increases to fall on their employers than on themselves directly. For a government accused of being bad at politics this was a very politically aware decision.
The issue is that the bill really falls upon large firms who employ a lot of minimum wage staff - and that is going to have a noticeable impact on the high street..
Musk trying to pick the leader of Reform UK and yet again interfere in our democracy is a disgrace. What business does he have chiming in.
I don't have an issue with anyone, from anywhere, chiming in on the domestic politics of another country.
The issue with Musk is every utterance is breathlessly reported, he doesn't know as much about politics as he thinks he does, and he's addicted to mouthing off on twitter. Throw potential money into the mix and it just gets messy.
Trying to mess with Farage's leadership is an odd move though - like him or loathe him Reform wouldn't be a significant thing without Farage, and even if the premise were true he has taken them as far as he can, other options don't come with Farage's strengths.
The explanation is that Musk is genuinely is a proper right wing nutter. Farage has pushed back on supporting Robinson and also carve a bit of an independent path on other topics. He is now an obstacle not part of the solution
It seems since Farage appeared on Kuenssberg this morning civil war is breaking out in Reform
It was noticeable that at their conference in Leicester Farage was heckled when he announced Robinson was banned from joining Reform
It is not a week is a long time in politics, a few hours are
Yes, Reform might soon be facing an awful dilemma: stick with Nigel and retain the benefits of his undoubted screen presence; or ditch him and get the Musk millions - a life-changing cash injection for any political party. Putting sentimentality aside, they'll have to decide which option is in Reform's long-term interests in becoming a serious political force. Tricky.
If Farage gets jettisoned and Musk puts his money behind a right-wing party with a harder edge, maybe the Tories will have to embrace Farage in order to fight it off.
In that scenario they could embrace Farage or they could press the emergency Boris button.
We have an administrative class that believes that it is not responsible for its actions. The Process State where morality and personal discretion is replaced by a rules - written and unwritten.
The implication of the The Rules is that those who cleave to them are absolved. They have their Indulgence.
Two things come to mind
1) During WWII, a senior civil servant raised a question about the response to the V1 & V2 attacks. Due to the wholesale takeover of German spies in the UK and the breaks into various German codes, the UK government could control information the Germans gained on where the weapons had actually landed. So they planned to tell them they were landing *beyond* London. So the Germans would correct their aim and drop short.
The civil servant in question raised a question - which I believe got as far as a discussion including Churchill. Did the government have the moral right to change who would die in the attacks? People would still be hit, in the populous South-East. Less, but people would still die. And the government, in effect would be directing attacks on to them
The matter was debated and the deception went ahead.
2) When the Fatwa against Salman Rushdie was created, the British Government responded by guaranteeing his personal security. This rose in cost to the most expensive personal security in the country - more than the PM, at the time of PIRA attacks.
The matter was debated in cabinet. Questions of the morality of what Rushdie did, effects on foreign policy, the moral and legal standing of the governments duty to protect its citizens.... In the end, the collective decision was that the protection would continue at the highest level.
Why do they come to mind?
I've heard people lambast the civil servant in (1) - "It was war. Stupid question" etc. I differ on this. He was not correct, I think, in opposing the disinformation. But the moral question he raised is a worthy one. That he was listened to is, is to the credit of the listeners. He took a moral stand.
On (2) I've heard people say that discussing it was disgraceful - that it should have ben handled by some process. Again, I disagree. The government of the country discussed the moral and practical implications of a policy. And made a decision that was unambiguously their responsibility.
I find it hard to understand why you wouldn't do this TBH.
Ask Leon (or ask Leon about AI) about punching up the language.
Reduce it, would be my advice
@Cyclefree can write a fine sentence, and makes great arguments, but she has a terrible tendency to prolixity
@Leon is absolutely right on this. I know I have written far too much. It probably needs cutting back by 40%. As William Faulkner said: "In writing you have to kill your darlings." Trouble is I am not the best person to do this and I don't know which bits to kill. So this year's task is to get help on doing just this. I have left the draft for a bit so that when I come back to it, it will be easier to see what needs to go and what the focus should be. Plus remove all the lawyer-speak.
And I have some people reading it who I hope will also help.
If anyone would like to volunteer mind ..... 😉
I can help. DM me
Our mutual friend, I'm assuming.
James Lomax? Yes. He’s brilliant at this if you feed him the right stuff
A mistake for Farage to refer to Tommy Robinson in his reply. He should have just attacked Musk for interfering in British politics.
He’s given Musk a way to deescalate and, if he doesn’t then he’s positioned reform as non-racist (no sniggering at the back) because he threw over musk rather than allow Robinson in
We have an administrative class that believes that it is not responsible for its actions. The Process State where morality and personal discretion is replaced by a rules - written and unwritten.
The implication of the The Rules is that those who cleave to them are absolved. They have their Indulgence.
Two things come to mind
1) During WWII, a senior civil servant raised a question about the response to the V1 & V2 attacks. Due to the wholesale takeover of German spies in the UK and the breaks into various German codes, the UK government could control information the Germans gained on where the weapons had actually landed. So they planned to tell them they were landing *beyond* London. So the Germans would correct their aim and drop short.
The civil servant in question raised a question - which I believe got as far as a discussion including Churchill. Did the government have the moral right to change who would die in the attacks? People would still be hit, in the populous South-East. Less, but people would still die. And the government, in effect would be directing attacks on to them
The matter was debated and the deception went ahead.
2) When the Fatwa against Salman Rushdie was created, the British Government responded by guaranteeing his personal security. This rose in cost to the most expensive personal security in the country - more than the PM, at the time of PIRA attacks.
The matter was debated in cabinet. Questions of the morality of what Rushdie did, effects on foreign policy, the moral and legal standing of the governments duty to protect its citizens.... In the end, the collective decision was that the protection would continue at the highest level.
Why do they come to mind?
I've heard people lambast the civil servant in (1) - "It was war. Stupid question" etc. I differ on this. He was not correct, I think, in opposing the disinformation. But the moral question he raised is a worthy one. That he was listened to is, is to the credit of the listeners. He took a moral stand.
On (2) I've heard people say that discussing it was disgraceful - that it should have ben handled by some process. Again, I disagree. The government of the country discussed the moral and practical implications of a policy. And made a decision that was unambiguously their responsibility.
I find it hard to understand why you wouldn't do this TBH.
Ask Leon (or ask Leon about AI) about punching up the language.
Reduce it, would be my advice
@Cyclefree can write a fine sentence, and makes great arguments, but she has a terrible tendency to prolixity
@Leon is absolutely right on this. I know I have written far too much. It probably needs cutting back by 40%. As William Faulkner said: "In writing you have to kill your darlings." Trouble is I am not the best person to do this and I don't know which bits to kill. So this year's task is to get help on doing just this. I have left the draft for a bit so that when I come back to it, it will be easier to see what needs to go and what the focus should be. Plus remove all the lawyer-speak.
And I have some people reading it who I hope will also help.
Musk trying to pick the leader of Reform UK and yet again interfere in our democracy is a disgrace. What business does he have chiming in.
I don't have an issue with anyone, from anywhere, chiming in on the domestic politics of another country.
The issue with Musk is every utterance is breathlessly reported, he doesn't know as much about politics as he thinks he does, and he's addicted to mouthing off on twitter. Throw potential money into the mix and it just gets messy.
Trying to mess with Farage's leadership is an odd move though - like him or loathe him Reform wouldn't be a significant thing without Farage, and even if the premise were true he has taken them as far as he can, other options don't come with Farage's strengths.
The explanation is that Musk is genuinely is a proper right wing nutter. Farage has pushed back on supporting Robinson and also carve a bit of an independent path on other topics. He is now an obstacle not part of the solution
I think that explanation is overly simplistic. Musk is a businessman. Do you think he'd be all over Mar-A-Lago and wearing a MAGA hat if Trump had lost the election? He made a shrewd bet on Trump, and due to that, he has managed to save his businesses from the impact of some of Trump's proposed policies and be billions of pounds richer. All the tech-billionaires are now rushing to play catch up.
With Reform, again he's shrewdly spotted the growth of Reform and thinks the UK is ripe for a Reform takeover. He knows that Reform's platform is to all-but cancel Net Zero. That's highly dangerous for Musk, who makes a great deal of money here selling his ****-ugly electric cars. So he puts all his chips on Reform, helps get them over the line, and repeats the Trump trick, reversing any slowing down of the switchover to electric, and carving out whatever exemptions he needs to keep the money taps on.
Somewhere along the line Nigel has upset him. I would suggest that it's the 'Senior figures within Reform have reached out to Trump to ask him to stop Elon speaking about Tommy Robinson' - that would have been humiliating for Musk - he is not the sort of person to be reined in. But it could just as easily been that Reform have refused to change their Net Zero policy and continue to fight net zero full on as seen in the Zia Yusuf speech I posted here.
I would suggest that Nigel offers to sit down with Musk in a live-Tweeted one-on-one interview. Nigel can handle Musk in that scenario. Reach a grudging consensus if not get him fully back on board. And as I've been saying, do they really want him fully on board? I think they want Nick Candy, Jim Ratcliffe etc.. Musk is very much a dangerous donor.
Utter bull
Farage is was and always will be only interested in 2 things.
1 making money
2 his own inflated ego
In Musk he has a similar person.
Difference is Musk is a Whale, Farage is a grain of sand.
With Tommy Robinson on his back, I predict Farage will asset strip Reform PLX, vanish again and take the money and run.
We have an administrative class that believes that it is not responsible for its actions. The Process State where morality and personal discretion is replaced by a rules - written and unwritten.
The implication of the The Rules is that those who cleave to them are absolved. They have their Indulgence.
Two things come to mind
1) During WWII, a senior civil servant raised a question about the response to the V1 & V2 attacks. Due to the wholesale takeover of German spies in the UK and the breaks into various German codes, the UK government could control information the Germans gained on where the weapons had actually landed. So they planned to tell them they were landing *beyond* London. So the Germans would correct their aim and drop short.
The civil servant in question raised a question - which I believe got as far as a discussion including Churchill. Did the government have the moral right to change who would die in the attacks? People would still be hit, in the populous South-East. Less, but people would still die. And the government, in effect would be directing attacks on to them
The matter was debated and the deception went ahead.
2) When the Fatwa against Salman Rushdie was created, the British Government responded by guaranteeing his personal security. This rose in cost to the most expensive personal security in the country - more than the PM, at the time of PIRA attacks.
The matter was debated in cabinet. Questions of the morality of what Rushdie did, effects on foreign policy, the moral and legal standing of the governments duty to protect its citizens.... In the end, the collective decision was that the protection would continue at the highest level.
Why do they come to mind?
I've heard people lambast the civil servant in (1) - "It was war. Stupid question" etc. I differ on this. He was not correct, I think, in opposing the disinformation. But the moral question he raised is a worthy one. That he was listened to is, is to the credit of the listeners. He took a moral stand.
On (2) I've heard people say that discussing it was disgraceful - that it should have ben handled by some process. Again, I disagree. The government of the country discussed the moral and practical implications of a policy. And made a decision that was unambiguously their responsibility.
I find it hard to understand why you wouldn't do this TBH.
Ask Leon (or ask Leon about AI) about punching up the language.
Reduce it, would be my advice
@Cyclefree can write a fine sentence, and makes great arguments, but she has a terrible tendency to prolixity
@Leon is absolutely right on this. I know I have written far too much. It probably needs cutting back by 40%. As William Faulkner said: "In writing you have to kill your darlings." Trouble is I am not the best person to do this and I don't know which bits to kill. So this year's task is to get help on doing just this. I have left the draft for a bit so that when I come back to it, it will be easier to see what needs to go and what the focus should be. Plus remove all the lawyer-speak.
And I have some people reading it who I hope will also help.
If anyone would like to volunteer mind ..... 😉
Biteback Publishing https://www.bitebackpublishing.com/ (founded by Iain Dale) are the sort of small publishing house who might take on a book like yours.
A lot of new or one-off authors now go down the self-publishing route, in which case definitely get yourself an editor (or two). Amazon will literally print books one at a time after they’re ordered, and ship them out.
Shout to @Morris_Dancer who has worked on book editing before.
A mistake for Farage to refer to Tommy Robinson in his reply. He should have just attacked Musk for interfering in British politics.
He’s given Musk a way to deescalate and, if he doesn’t then he’s positioned reform as non-racist (no sniggering at the back) because he threw over musk rather than allow Robinson in
$100,000m up for grabs by Jenrick Tories (assuming Badenoch falls). I doubt Jenrick would be so squeamish.
Musk trying to pick the leader of Reform UK and yet again interfere in our democracy is a disgrace. What business does he have chiming in.
I don't have an issue with anyone, from anywhere, chiming in on the domestic politics of another country.
The issue with Musk is every utterance is breathlessly reported, he doesn't know as much about politics as he thinks he does, and he's addicted to mouthing off on twitter. Throw potential money into the mix and it just gets messy.
Trying to mess with Farage's leadership is an odd move though - like him or loathe him Reform wouldn't be a significant thing without Farage, and even if the premise were true he has taken them as far as he can, other options don't come with Farage's strengths.
The explanation is that Musk is genuinely is a proper right wing nutter. Farage has pushed back on supporting Robinson and also carve a bit of an independent path on other topics. He is now an obstacle not part of the solution
I think that explanation is overly simplistic. Musk is a businessman. Do you think he'd be all over Mar-A-Lago and wearing a MAGA hat if Trump had lost the election? He made a shrewd bet on Trump, and due to that, he has managed to save his businesses from the impact of some of Trump's proposed policies and be billions of pounds richer. All the tech-billionaires are now rushing to play catch up.
With Reform, again he's shrewdly spotted the growth of Reform and thinks the UK is ripe for a Reform takeover. He knows that Reform's platform is to all-but cancel Net Zero. That's highly dangerous for Musk, who makes a great deal of money here selling his ****-ugly electric cars. So he puts all his chips on Reform, helps get them over the line, and repeats the Trump trick, reversing any slowing down of the switchover to electric, and carving out whatever exemptions he needs to keep the money taps on.
Somewhere along the line Nigel has upset him. I would suggest that it's the 'Senior figures within Reform have reached out to Trump to ask him to stop Elon speaking about Tommy Robinson' - that would have been humiliating for Musk - he is not the sort of person to be reined in. But it could just as easily been that Reform have refused to change their Net Zero policy and continue to fight net zero full on as seen in the Zia Yusuf speech I posted here.
I would suggest that Nigel offers to sit down with Musk in a live-Tweeted one-on-one interview. Nigel can handle Musk in that scenario. Reach a grudging consensus if not get him fully back on board. And as I've been saying, do they really want him fully on board? I think they want Nick Candy, Jim Ratcliffe etc.. Musk is very much a dangerous donor.
Utter bull
Farage is was and always will be only interested in 2 things.
1 making money
2 his own inflated ego
In Musk he has a similar person.
Difference is Musk is a Whale, Farage is a grain of sand.
With Tommy Robinson on his back, I predict Farage will asset strip Reform PLX, vanish again and take the money and run.
He may reincarnate in 5 or 6 years Boris style.
He has no backbone, no spivs do.
Well done for using more full stops. I'm giving you a solid 6.5/10 for this one. PLX is a bit of an obvious nutter typo. Try to let them occur more naturally.
A mistake for Farage to refer to Tommy Robinson in his reply. He should have just attacked Musk for interfering in British politics.
He’s given Musk a way to deescalate and, if he doesn’t then he’s positioned reform as non-racist (no sniggering at the back) because he threw over musk rather than allow Robinson in
$100,000m up for grabs by Jenrick Tories (assuming Badenoch falls). I doubt Jenrick would be so squeamish.
Starmer's genie: Sorry, I've been gone a while... but I'm sure you agree this more than makes up for it.
Seems like Farage has been hoist by his own retard.
That's going way over the heads of pro-Musk PBers.
Very good nonetheless.
As a Musk fanboi (the engineering, not the politics) I have to confess that I am indeed aware of the saying "hoist by his own petard", meaning "blown upwards by his own bomblet"
Really? I always thought it was something to do with flags?
So did I. PB is so good for learning new things, although I'm not sure what use this will be other than showing off and being a smart arse when someone uses the phrase .
And, of course, no one who posts on PB is a smart arse who likes to show off
A mistake for Farage to refer to Tommy Robinson in his reply. He should have just attacked Musk for interfering in British politics.
He’s given Musk a way to deescalate and, if he doesn’t then he’s positioned reform as non-racist (no sniggering at the back) because he threw over musk rather than allow Robinson in
$100,000m up for grabs by Jenrick Tories (assuming Badenoch falls). I doubt Jenrick would be so squeamish.
Larry the Cat @Number10cat · 1h In fairness you were right Nigel; foreigners were coming for your job.
Musk trying to pick the leader of Reform UK and yet again interfere in our democracy is a disgrace. What business does he have chiming in.
I don't have an issue with anyone, from anywhere, chiming in on the domestic politics of another country.
The issue with Musk is every utterance is breathlessly reported, he doesn't know as much about politics as he thinks he does, and he's addicted to mouthing off on twitter. Throw potential money into the mix and it just gets messy.
Trying to mess with Farage's leadership is an odd move though - like him or loathe him Reform wouldn't be a significant thing without Farage, and even if the premise were true he has taken them as far as he can, other options don't come with Farage's strengths.
The explanation is that Musk is genuinely is a proper right wing nutter. Farage has pushed back on supporting Robinson and also carve a bit of an independent path on other topics. He is now an obstacle not part of the solution
Can’t see how this harms Farage given Musk still seems to think Robinson is a political prisoner.
LOL. Part of the Farage shtick is hanging out with the big boyz. It's what, at least in part, giving him the big mo. Plus the prospect of a few dollars more.
It's obvs not terminal. But a big slap nonetheless. Kemi will be having a laugh.
I wonder if Musk will get behind a Tory. Kemi, or Jenrick
However as we have seen, having Musk's support is like being defended by a someone with the loosest of loose cannons, as likely to blow your head off as shoot the enemy
What they all want, however, is his money. Trump included
If Farage is junked, or junks himself, that's great news for the Tories.
No-one else has anything like his cut through, and neithee Lee Anderson or Richard Tice could do anything more than the Paul Nuttall 2.0
Farage wont be junked. The worst that can happen is he gets no cash from Musk
Farage made it clear on LK today he is looking at really developing Reform into a proper political party putting in place a structure to support it.
I suspect he thinks his,party can replace the Tories.
Farage should have pointed out he owns Reform and offered to sell it to him and then set up another party!
Musk trying to pick the leader of Reform UK and yet again interfere in our democracy is a disgrace. What business does he have chiming in.
I don't have an issue with anyone, from anywhere, chiming in on the domestic politics of another country.
The issue with Musk is every utterance is breathlessly reported, he doesn't know as much about politics as he thinks he does, and he's addicted to mouthing off on twitter. Throw potential money into the mix and it just gets messy.
Trying to mess with Farage's leadership is an odd move though - like him or loathe him Reform wouldn't be a significant thing without Farage, and even if the premise were true he has taken them as far as he can, other options don't come with Farage's strengths.
The explanation is that Musk is genuinely is a proper right wing nutter. Farage has pushed back on supporting Robinson and also carve a bit of an independent path on other topics. He is now an obstacle not part of the solution
It seems since Farage appeared on Kuenssberg this morning civil war is breaking out in Reform
It was noticeable that at their conference in Leicester Farage was heckled when he announced Robinson was banned from joining Reform
It is not a week is a long time in politics, a few hours are
Yes, Reform might soon be facing an awful dilemma: stick with Nigel and retain the benefits of his undoubted screen presence; or ditch him and get the Musk millions - a life-changing cash injection for any political party. Putting sentimentality aside, they'll have to decide which option is in Reform's long-term interests in becoming a serious political force. Tricky.
If Farage gets jettisoned and Musk puts his money behind a right-wing party with a harder edge, maybe the Tories will have to embrace Farage in order to fight it off.
It's moved the betting. Farage and Reform on the drift.
I think Farage will be fine but if he does get forced out it would be a wealthy South African, living in Texas, deciding who leads a party with a good chance of winning our next election.
Can’t see how this harms Farage given Musk still seems to think Robinson is a political prisoner.
LOL. Part of the Farage shtick is hanging out with the big boyz. It's what, at least in part, giving him the big mo. Plus the prospect of a few dollars more.
It's obvs not terminal. But a big slap nonetheless. Kemi will be having a laugh.
I wonder if Musk will get behind a Tory. Kemi, or Jenrick
However as we have seen, having Musk's support is like being defended by a someone with the loosest of loose cannons, as likely to blow your head off as shoot the enemy
What they all want, however, is his money. Trump included
If Farage is junked, or junks himself, that's great news for the Tories.
No-one else has anything like his cut through, and neithee Lee Anderson or Richard Tice could do anything more than the Paul Nuttall 2.0
Farage wont be junked. The worst that can happen is he gets no cash from Musk
Farage made it clear on LK today he is looking at really developing Reform into a proper political party putting in place a structure to support it.
I suspect he thinks his,party can replace the Tories.
I think it's a little more complex than that: I think there is a large -and still relatively empty- space for a nationalist, rather than an internationalist party. And it draws support from the Conservatives and Labour. Reform can easily, I suspect, get to 35%.
After that, it becomes a little more difficult, not least because of the need to pull together two very different forms of nationalism. (Specifically the same issue with Brexit, between those who wanted us to leave the EU because they wanted more protectionism, against those who wanted less.)
Now, there is an opportunity - I think - to convert anger about levels of immigration into a vote share above that level. But at the same time, the larger the vote share, and the more people you bring into the tent, the more tensions about the non-immigration part of the Reform manifesto.
I don’t just think it’s anger about migration, or the levels of it, it’s anger at being left behind. At these towns and cities either dying or declining while other regions of the country have done well. Especially after the 2008 crash and austerity.
We have small towns in the red wall, like in Durham, that are used by wealthy southern councils to dump problem families. At our expense and just reinforcing the gross regional imbalance in this country.
The Tories realised this with levelling up. Went nowhere.
We have an administrative class that believes that it is not responsible for its actions. The Process State where morality and personal discretion is replaced by a rules - written and unwritten.
The implication of the The Rules is that those who cleave to them are absolved. They have their Indulgence.
Two things come to mind
1) During WWII, a senior civil servant raised a question about the response to the V1 & V2 attacks. Due to the wholesale takeover of German spies in the UK and the breaks into various German codes, the UK government could control information the Germans gained on where the weapons had actually landed. So they planned to tell them they were landing *beyond* London. So the Germans would correct their aim and drop short.
The civil servant in question raised a question - which I believe got as far as a discussion including Churchill. Did the government have the moral right to change who would die in the attacks? People would still be hit, in the populous South-East. Less, but people would still die. And the government, in effect would be directing attacks on to them
The matter was debated and the deception went ahead.
2) When the Fatwa against Salman Rushdie was created, the British Government responded by guaranteeing his personal security. This rose in cost to the most expensive personal security in the country - more than the PM, at the time of PIRA attacks.
The matter was debated in cabinet. Questions of the morality of what Rushdie did, effects on foreign policy, the moral and legal standing of the governments duty to protect its citizens.... In the end, the collective decision was that the protection would continue at the highest level.
Why do they come to mind?
I've heard people lambast the civil servant in (1) - "It was war. Stupid question" etc. I differ on this. He was not correct, I think, in opposing the disinformation. But the moral question he raised is a worthy one. That he was listened to is, is to the credit of the listeners. He took a moral stand.
On (2) I've heard people say that discussing it was disgraceful - that it should have ben handled by some process. Again, I disagree. The government of the country discussed the moral and practical implications of a policy. And made a decision that was unambiguously their responsibility.
I find it hard to understand why you wouldn't do this TBH.
Ask Leon (or ask Leon about AI) about punching up the language.
Reduce it, would be my advice
@Cyclefree can write a fine sentence, and makes great arguments, but she has a terrible tendency to prolixity
@Leon is absolutely right on this. I know I have written far too much. It probably needs cutting back by 40%. As William Faulkner said: "In writing you have to kill your darlings." Trouble is I am not the best person to do this and I don't know which bits to kill. So this year's task is to get help on doing just this. I have left the draft for a bit so that when I come back to it, it will be easier to see what needs to go and what the focus should be. Plus remove all the lawyer-speak.
And I have some people reading it who I hope will also help.
If anyone would like to volunteer mind ..... 😉
Biteback Publishing https://www.bitebackpublishing.com/ (founded by Iain Dale) are the sort of small publishing house who might take on a book like yours.
A lot of new or one-off authors now go down the self-publishing route, in which case definitely get yourself an editor (or two). Amazon will literally print books one at a time after they’re ordered, and ship them out.
Shout to @Morris_Dancer who has worked on book editing before.
I have published through both "real" publishers and self-published. Its very genre-dependent. For my technical books, self publishing is great. $27 royalty per copy on a $49.99 book against $5 you might get from a publisher - and people find the book by an Amazon search for the topic. For my more popular (genre, not sales figures) books, there's no substitute for a real publisher - unless you already have a huge personal following. A pop science or pop psych or pop politics book will generally sink without trace without a real publisher or a large personal following.
Lewis Goodall @lewisgoodall.com · 26m Reply to Lewis Goodall Farage making the astute (and only) move available to him here. Musk’s money would have been very useful. More useful still would be more moderate conservative voters (who Reform needs) to back him: which they won’t do if there’s any hint of association with Robinson.
Musk trying to pick the leader of Reform UK and yet again interfere in our democracy is a disgrace. What business does he have chiming in.
I don't have an issue with anyone, from anywhere, chiming in on the domestic politics of another country.
The issue with Musk is every utterance is breathlessly reported, he doesn't know as much about politics as he thinks he does, and he's addicted to mouthing off on twitter. Throw potential money into the mix and it just gets messy.
Trying to mess with Farage's leadership is an odd move though - like him or loathe him Reform wouldn't be a significant thing without Farage, and even if the premise were true he has taken them as far as he can, other options don't come with Farage's strengths.
The explanation is that Musk is genuinely is a proper right wing nutter. Farage has pushed back on supporting Robinson and also carve a bit of an independent path on other topics. He is now an obstacle not part of the solution
It seems since Farage appeared on Kuenssberg this morning civil war is breaking out in Reform
It was noticeable that at their conference in Leicester Farage was heckled when he announced Robinson was banned from joining Reform
It is not a week is a long time in politics, a few hours are
Yes, Reform might soon be facing an awful dilemma: stick with Nigel and retain the benefits of his undoubted screen presence; or ditch him and get the Musk millions - a life-changing cash injection for any political party. Putting sentimentality aside, they'll have to decide which option is in Reform's long-term interests in becoming a serious political force. Tricky.
If Farage gets jettisoned and Musk puts his money behind a right-wing party with a harder edge, maybe the Tories will have to embrace Farage in order to fight it off.
It's moved the betting. Farage and Reform on the drift.
I think Farage will be fine but if he does get forced out it would be a wealthy South African, living in Texas, deciding who leads a party with a good chance of winning our next election.
Not an acceptable situation.
The only way out is to unite the Anglosphere into a giant federal republic so that we all get to vote on our direction. The Five Eyes should become One.
Seems like Farage has been hoist by his own retard.
That's going way over the heads of pro-Musk PBers.
Very good nonetheless.
As a Musk fanboi (the engineering, not the politics) I have to confess that I am indeed aware of the saying "hoist by his own petard", meaning "blown upwards by his own bomblet"
Really? I always thought it was something to do with flags?
So did I. PB is so good for learning new things, although I'm not sure what use this will be other than showing off and being a smart arse when someone uses the phrase.
You're both perhaps thinking of pennant/pendant, a kind of flag (same word in RN, orthography depending on date). E.g. A Commodore's pennant is hoisted when a captain of a ship is designated the senior and commanding captain of his group of warships.
Ishmael of treasured memory claimed that HYUFD stands for "hoist your union flag defiantly"
We have an administrative class that believes that it is not responsible for its actions. The Process State where morality and personal discretion is replaced by a rules - written and unwritten.
The implication of the The Rules is that those who cleave to them are absolved. They have their Indulgence.
Two things come to mind
1) During WWII, a senior civil servant raised a question about the response to the V1 & V2 attacks. Due to the wholesale takeover of German spies in the UK and the breaks into various German codes, the UK government could control information the Germans gained on where the weapons had actually landed. So they planned to tell them they were landing *beyond* London. So the Germans would correct their aim and drop short.
The civil servant in question raised a question - which I believe got as far as a discussion including Churchill. Did the government have the moral right to change who would die in the attacks? People would still be hit, in the populous South-East. Less, but people would still die. And the government, in effect would be directing attacks on to them
The matter was debated and the deception went ahead.
2) When the Fatwa against Salman Rushdie was created, the British Government responded by guaranteeing his personal security. This rose in cost to the most expensive personal security in the country - more than the PM, at the time of PIRA attacks.
The matter was debated in cabinet. Questions of the morality of what Rushdie did, effects on foreign policy, the moral and legal standing of the governments duty to protect its citizens.... In the end, the collective decision was that the protection would continue at the highest level.
Why do they come to mind?
I've heard people lambast the civil servant in (1) - "It was war. Stupid question" etc. I differ on this. He was not correct, I think, in opposing the disinformation. But the moral question he raised is a worthy one. That he was listened to is, is to the credit of the listeners. He took a moral stand.
On (2) I've heard people say that discussing it was disgraceful - that it should have ben handled by some process. Again, I disagree. The government of the country discussed the moral and practical implications of a policy. And made a decision that was unambiguously their responsibility.
I find it hard to understand why you wouldn't do this TBH.
Ask Leon (or ask Leon about AI) about punching up the language.
Reduce it, would be my advice
@Cyclefree can write a fine sentence, and makes great arguments, but she has a terrible tendency to prolixity
@Leon is absolutely right on this. I know I have written far too much. It probably needs cutting back by 40%. As William Faulkner said: "In writing you have to kill your darlings." Trouble is I am not the best person to do this and I don't know which bits to kill. So this year's task is to get help on doing just this. I have left the draft for a bit so that when I come back to it, it will be easier to see what needs to go and what the focus should be. Plus remove all the lawyer-speak.
And I have some people reading it who I hope will also help.
Musk trying to pick the leader of Reform UK and yet again interfere in our democracy is a disgrace. What business does he have chiming in.
I don't have an issue with anyone, from anywhere, chiming in on the domestic politics of another country.
The issue with Musk is every utterance is breathlessly reported, he doesn't know as much about politics as he thinks he does, and he's addicted to mouthing off on twitter. Throw potential money into the mix and it just gets messy.
Trying to mess with Farage's leadership is an odd move though - like him or loathe him Reform wouldn't be a significant thing without Farage, and even if the premise were true he has taken them as far as he can, other options don't come with Farage's strengths.
The explanation is that Musk is genuinely is a proper right wing nutter. Farage has pushed back on supporting Robinson and also carve a bit of an independent path on other topics. He is now an obstacle not part of the solution
It seems since Farage appeared on Kuenssberg this morning civil war is breaking out in Reform
It was noticeable that at their conference in Leicester Farage was heckled when he announced Robinson was banned from joining Reform
It is not a week is a long time in politics, a few hours are
Yes, Reform might soon be facing an awful dilemma: stick with Nigel and retain the benefits of his undoubted screen presence; or ditch him and get the Musk millions - a life-changing cash injection for any political party. Putting sentimentality aside, they'll have to decide which option is in Reform's long-term interests in becoming a serious political force. Tricky.
If Farage gets jettisoned and Musk puts his money behind a right-wing party with a harder edge, maybe the Tories will have to embrace Farage in order to fight it off.
It's moved the betting. Farage and Reform on the drift.
I think Farage will be fine but if he does get forced out it would be a wealthy South African, living in Texas, deciding who leads a party with a good chance of winning our next election.
Not an acceptable situation.
The only way out is to unite the Anglosphere into a giant federal republic so that we all get to vote on our direction. The Five Eyes should become One.
Gotta confess, a US billionaire forcing Farage out of his own party in order to replace him with a convicted criminal currently actually in jail wasn't on my new year bingo card.
Yes, Lowe seems to have sprung out of nowhere (for me a least) but his ambitions to take over Reform have presumably been simmering for some time. Tommy Robinson appears to be regarded as a genuine hero/martyr figure amongst the Reform rank and file. Whether Nigel stays or goes will all depend on whether affection for Nigel or idolatry of Tommy furrows deepest within Reform hearts!
Lewis Goodall @lewisgoodall.com · 26m Reply to Lewis Goodall Farage making the astute (and only) move available to him here. Musk’s money would have been very useful. More useful still would be more moderate conservative voters (who Reform needs) to back him: which they won’t do if there’s any hint of association with Robinson.
Farage is playing this right, as you’d expect from someone who’s been in politics for the best part of two decades.
That “Tommy” and his fans have managed to persuade a load of Americans that he’s a political prisoner or a free speech warrior, doesn’t mean that he isn’t totally and utterly toxic to almost everyone in the UK.
I still don’t understand why Musk is so engaged. You’d think running a large car company, a space launch company, a satellite comms company (all of which capable of being the biggest in their fields), a large social network baked into the fabric of western society, preparing to run a new Government Department in the U.S, and leading a chunk of Trump’s transition, would keep him busy.
Theory. Is Musk really, truly interested in the nitty-gritty running of DOGE? Why not just leave that sort of thing to Vivek. More fun trolling and I wonder if that includes trolling Trump? How far can he push him? My impression is that the Donald is quite fond of Nige. But, apparently, Farage isn't hard enough, according to Elon. Sooner or later these two are going to bust aren't they?
Yes, Lowe seems to have sprung out of nowhere (for me a least) but his ambitions to take over Reform have presumably been simmering for some time. Tommy Robinson appears to be regarded as a genuine hero/martyr figure amongst the Reform rank and file. Whether Nigel stays or goes will all depend on whether affection for Nigel or idolatry of Tommy furrows deepest within Reform hearts!
He was a referendum candidate in 1997, so Wikipedia tells me. So he's been at it a while.
Yes, Lowe seems to have sprung out of nowhere (for me a least) but his ambitions to take over Reform have presumably been simmering for some time. Tommy Robinson appears to be regarded as a genuine hero/martyr figure amongst the Reform rank and file. Whether Nigel stays or goes will all depend on whether affection for Nigel or idolatry of Tommy furrows deepest within Reform hearts!
I thought S Y-L was persona non-grata with the Reform party? Lowe would need a de-adolf makeover for a leadership bid I'd have thought.
Musk trying to pick the leader of Reform UK and yet again interfere in our democracy is a disgrace. What business does he have chiming in.
I don't have an issue with anyone, from anywhere, chiming in on the domestic politics of another country.
The issue with Musk is every utterance is breathlessly reported, he doesn't know as much about politics as he thinks he does, and he's addicted to mouthing off on twitter. Throw potential money into the mix and it just gets messy.
Trying to mess with Farage's leadership is an odd move though - like him or loathe him Reform wouldn't be a significant thing without Farage, and even if the premise were true he has taken them as far as he can, other options don't come with Farage's strengths.
The explanation is that Musk is genuinely is a proper right wing nutter. Farage has pushed back on supporting Robinson and also carve a bit of an independent path on other topics. He is now an obstacle not part of the solution
It seems since Farage appeared on Kuenssberg this morning civil war is breaking out in Reform
It was noticeable that at their conference in Leicester Farage was heckled when he announced Robinson was banned from joining Reform
It is not a week is a long time in politics, a few hours are
Yes, Reform might soon be facing an awful dilemma: stick with Nigel and retain the benefits of his undoubted screen presence; or ditch him and get the Musk millions - a life-changing cash injection for any political party. Putting sentimentality aside, they'll have to decide which option is in Reform's long-term interests in becoming a serious political force. Tricky.
If Farage gets jettisoned and Musk puts his money behind a right-wing party with a harder edge, maybe the Tories will have to embrace Farage in order to fight it off.
It's moved the betting. Farage and Reform on the drift.
I think Farage will be fine but if he does get forced out it would be a wealthy South African, living in Texas, deciding who leads a party with a good chance of winning our next election.
Not an acceptable situation.
The only way out is to unite the Anglosphere into a giant federal republic so that we all get to vote on our direction. The Five Eyes should become One.
William.
You can take the Euro out of Eurofederalist and you still get @williamglenn .
I still don’t understand why Musk is so engaged. You’d think running a large car company, a space launch company, a satellite comms company (all of which capable of being the biggest in their fields), a large social network baked into the fabric of western society, preparing to run a new Government Department in the U.S, and leading a chunk of Trump’s transition, would keep him busy.
Theory. Is Musk really, truly interested in the nitty-gritty running of DOGE? Why not just leave that sort of thing to Vivek. More fun trolling and I wonder if that includes trolling Trump? How far can he push him? My impression is that the Donald is quite fond of Nige. But, apparently, Farage isn't hard enough, according to Elon. Sooner or later these two are going to bust aren't they?
Yep.
Popcorn on standby.
Might even happen before the inauguration at current rate of bonkersness.
Seems like Farage has been hoist by his own retard.
That's going way over the heads of pro-Musk PBers.
Very good nonetheless.
As a Musk fanboi (the engineering, not the politics) I have to confess that I am indeed aware of the saying "hoist by his own petard", meaning "blown upwards by his own bomblet"
Really? I always thought it was something to do with flags?
So did I. PB is so good for learning new things, although I'm not sure what use this will be other than showing off and being a smart arse when someone uses the phrase.
You're both perhaps thinking of pennant/pendant, a kind of flag (same word in RN, orthography depending on date). E.g. A Commodore's pennant is hoisted when a captain of a ship is designated the senior and commanding captain of his group of warships.
Ishmael of treasured memory claimed that HYUFD stands for "hoist your union flag defiantly"
He will likely be back, he has been indulging in some very interesting travels.
The more I think about it the more convinced I am that PART of Musk’s strategy is simply to drive eyes and traffic back to TwiX
The main markets where he’s lost users (principally to Bluesky) are the USA - and the UK
All these kerfuffles happening on X make X once again the place to be
That plus Ket
Really - Musk being a muppet and talking crap about UK politics has ensured I've stopped visiting X and now just visit Bluesky for that type of post...
Musk trying to pick the leader of Reform UK and yet again interfere in our democracy is a disgrace. What business does he have chiming in.
I don't have an issue with anyone, from anywhere, chiming in on the domestic politics of another country.
The issue with Musk is every utterance is breathlessly reported, he doesn't know as much about politics as he thinks he does, and he's addicted to mouthing off on twitter. Throw potential money into the mix and it just gets messy.
Trying to mess with Farage's leadership is an odd move though - like him or loathe him Reform wouldn't be a significant thing without Farage, and even if the premise were true he has taken them as far as he can, other options don't come with Farage's strengths.
The explanation is that Musk is genuinely is a proper right wing nutter. Farage has pushed back on supporting Robinson and also carve a bit of an independent path on other topics. He is now an obstacle not part of the solution
Re Farage and Reform. It's just obvious that he has no future in company with TR or with Musk. While Trump's dark side has to be put up with, Musk's doesn't and UK voters won't.
Populist social democratic nationalism with easy answers to complex problems can do well on those terms.
There is an imponderable problem it faces. The unacknowledged truth is that Reform supporters views on migration and so on is a multi faceted problem. It isn't mostly about numbers. It's about what sort of people, racially, culturally, morally and religiously, and in terms of class. All this transgresses the normal boundaries of civil public discourse. And in the end I think other parties too will find this a challenge.
What I find most trying, is that people are not prepared to look at the case for why Starmer might end up being successful (I put this at 50/50), instead they just bleat "he is crap".
He reformed the Labour party in five years, no other leader has ever done that and been as successful as him. I wish people would question why, as opposed to just shouting.
I suppose the main issue is that he has done little to justify his majority. That's a result of a split opposition. He has no vision, no plan and cant take people with him as a result. He's the Chauncey Gardener of UK politics,
Not really - if you add all the Reform votes to the Conservatives, and all the Lib Dem votes to Labour, you still get a "left-wing" majority of nearly 400 seats on a lead of 8 points.
And LD voters are far closer to Labour voters than Reform voters are to Conservatives. Indeed, on some topics the remaining Conservative vote ( BigG trad types) are closer to Labour than they are Reform.
I am not close to Labour under any circumstances
I could be to the Lib Dems but I do not agree on their EU policy
Simply I remain a conservative and will vote conservative, unless I can tactically vote out a Labour candidate
Would you vote Reform to beat Labour?
I don't know at this far out but having suffered Labour in Wales for 25 years anybody but Labour could also.include Plaid
I'll mark you down as a yes then.
Do whatever you want if it contributes to your well being
You've already had to apologise to me this week after making a wholly false and wrong accusation, so another one incoming when I vote Plaid which is a very real prospect
I apologised twice for the same error which occurred because quotes were faulty and something offensive was apparently self attributed ( incorrectly as it happens ) by you. But you can't let that go. Imagine how Starmer felt reading PB and all your accusations about Currygate. Did you apologise -twice per indiscretion?
Musk trying to pick the leader of Reform UK and yet again interfere in our democracy is a disgrace. What business does he have chiming in.
I don't have an issue with anyone, from anywhere, chiming in on the domestic politics of another country.
The issue with Musk is every utterance is breathlessly reported, he doesn't know as much about politics as he thinks he does, and he's addicted to mouthing off on twitter. Throw potential money into the mix and it just gets messy.
Trying to mess with Farage's leadership is an odd move though - like him or loathe him Reform wouldn't be a significant thing without Farage, and even if the premise were true he has taken them as far as he can, other options don't come with Farage's strengths.
The explanation is that Musk is genuinely is a proper right wing nutter. Farage has pushed back on supporting Robinson and also carve a bit of an independent path on other topics. He is now an obstacle not part of the solution
It seems since Farage appeared on Kuenssberg this morning civil war is breaking out in Reform
It was noticeable that at their conference in Leicester Farage was heckled when he announced Robinson was banned from joining Reform
It is not a week is a long time in politics, a few hours are
Yes, Reform might soon be facing an awful dilemma: stick with Nigel and retain the benefits of his undoubted screen presence; or ditch him and get the Musk millions - a life-changing cash injection for any political party. Putting sentimentality aside, they'll have to decide which option is in Reform's long-term interests in becoming a serious political force. Tricky.
If Farage gets jettisoned and Musk puts his money behind a right-wing party with a harder edge, maybe the Tories will have to embrace Farage in order to fight it off.
It's moved the betting. Farage and Reform on the drift.
I think Farage will be fine but if he does get forced out it would be a wealthy South African, living in Texas, deciding who leads a party with a good chance of winning our next election.
Not an acceptable situation.
The only way out is to unite the Anglosphere into a giant federal republic so that we all get to vote on our direction. The Five Eyes should become One.
William.
You can take the Euro out of Eurofederalist and you still get @williamglenn .
It's really an idea whose time has come. We can invite Greenland and Iceland to join too, and perhaps Malta and Cyprus as well. It will be like getting the band back together.
Gotta confess, a US billionaire forcing Farage out of his own party in order to replace him with a convicted criminal currently actually in jail wasn't on my new year bingo card.
I'd intended to get my competition answers prepared yesterday, on the basis of some degree of steadiness even in the light blue corner. I'm fairly glad I didn't.
Re Farage and Reform. It's just obvious that he has no future in company with TR or with Musk. While Trump's dark side has to be put up with, Musk's doesn't and UK voters won't.
Populist social democratic nationalism with easy answers to complex problems can do well on those terms.
There is an imponderable problem it faces. The unacknowledged truth is that Reform supporters views on migration and so on is a multi faceted problem. It isn't mostly about numbers. It's about what sort of people, racially, culturally, morally and religiously, and in terms of class. All this transgresses the normal boundaries of civil public discourse. And in the end I think other parties too will find this a challenge.
Ben Habib predicted Farage would take all the Reform money and run.
Musk trying to pick the leader of Reform UK and yet again interfere in our democracy is a disgrace. What business does he have chiming in.
I don't have an issue with anyone, from anywhere, chiming in on the domestic politics of another country.
The issue with Musk is every utterance is breathlessly reported, he doesn't know as much about politics as he thinks he does, and he's addicted to mouthing off on twitter. Throw potential money into the mix and it just gets messy.
Trying to mess with Farage's leadership is an odd move though - like him or loathe him Reform wouldn't be a significant thing without Farage, and even if the premise were true he has taken them as far as he can, other options don't come with Farage's strengths.
The explanation is that Musk is genuinely is a proper right wing nutter. Farage has pushed back on supporting Robinson and also carve a bit of an independent path on other topics. He is now an obstacle not part of the solution
Shouldn't he and Laurence Fox get on?
We need Musk to obsess over Reclaim not Reform.
Should he reclaim reform or reform reclaim?
Will Weform or Weclaim welease Wobinson?
Who will end the year the highest wanking offither in Weform?
Yes, Lowe seems to have sprung out of nowhere (for me a least) but his ambitions to take over Reform have presumably been simmering for some time. Tommy Robinson appears to be regarded as a genuine hero/martyr figure amongst the Reform rank and file. Whether Nigel stays or goes will all depend on whether affection for Nigel or idolatry of Tommy furrows deepest within Reform hearts!
I thought S Y-L was persona non-grata with the Reform party? Lowe would need a de-adolf makeover for a leadership bid I'd have thought.
Yes, Lowe seems to have sprung out of nowhere (for me a least) but his ambitions to take over Reform have presumably been simmering for some time. Tommy Robinson appears to be regarded as a genuine hero/martyr figure amongst the Reform rank and file. Whether Nigel stays or goes will all depend on whether affection for Nigel or idolatry of Tommy furrows deepest within Reform hearts!
He was a referendum candidate in 1997, so Wikipedia tells me. So he's been at it a while.
All these young low iq teenage boys they have been giving free membership too will be making sure Tommy Robinson is Reform leader any time he wants.
If I was Farage I'd be getting out of Dodge City pretty sharpish.
Also, if Musk wants a home for his £100m donation, I am willing to set up a new political party with policies of radically cutting corporation tax, large subsidies for car manufacturing, and endless wittering on about “freedom of speech”.
I see it as a slow burn project, delivering maybe one tweet a week, but with the leader/CEO attracting a salary of around £10m p/a to reflect on the right future strategy whilst learning lessons from a range of other countries (at the party’s expense of course). As the only member and sole shareholder, unfortunately I will have to fill that position myself.
I'm afraid I'm going to one up you: I will charge £20m/year and will therefore be twice as good.
Musk trying to pick the leader of Reform UK and yet again interfere in our democracy is a disgrace. What business does he have chiming in.
I don't have an issue with anyone, from anywhere, chiming in on the domestic politics of another country.
The issue with Musk is every utterance is breathlessly reported, he doesn't know as much about politics as he thinks he does, and he's addicted to mouthing off on twitter. Throw potential money into the mix and it just gets messy.
Trying to mess with Farage's leadership is an odd move though - like him or loathe him Reform wouldn't be a significant thing without Farage, and even if the premise were true he has taken them as far as he can, other options don't come with Farage's strengths.
The explanation is that Musk is genuinely is a proper right wing nutter. Farage has pushed back on supporting Robinson and also carve a bit of an independent path on other topics. He is now an obstacle not part of the solution
Musk trying to pick the leader of Reform UK and yet again interfere in our democracy is a disgrace. What business does he have chiming in.
I don't have an issue with anyone, from anywhere, chiming in on the domestic politics of another country.
The issue with Musk is every utterance is breathlessly reported, he doesn't know as much about politics as he thinks he does, and he's addicted to mouthing off on twitter. Throw potential money into the mix and it just gets messy.
Trying to mess with Farage's leadership is an odd move though - like him or loathe him Reform wouldn't be a significant thing without Farage, and even if the premise were true he has taken them as far as he can, other options don't come with Farage's strengths.
The explanation is that Musk is genuinely is a proper right wing nutter. Farage has pushed back on supporting Robinson and also carve a bit of an independent path on other topics. He is now an obstacle not part of the solution
It seems since Farage appeared on Kuenssberg this morning civil war is breaking out in Reform
It was noticeable that at their conference in Leicester Farage was heckled when he announced Robinson was banned from joining Reform
It is not a week is a long time in politics, a few hours are
Yes, Reform might soon be facing an awful dilemma: stick with Nigel and retain the benefits of his undoubted screen presence; or ditch him and get the Musk millions - a life-changing cash injection for any political party. Putting sentimentality aside, they'll have to decide which option is in Reform's long-term interests in becoming a serious political force. Tricky.
If Farage gets jettisoned and Musk puts his money behind a right-wing party with a harder edge, maybe the Tories will have to embrace Farage in order to fight it off.
It's moved the betting. Farage and Reform on the drift.
I think Farage will be fine but if he does get forced out it would be a wealthy South African, living in Texas, deciding who leads a party with a good chance of winning our next election.
Not an acceptable situation.
The only way out is to unite the Anglosphere into a giant federal republic so that we all get to vote on our direction. The Five Eyes should become One.
Musk trying to pick the leader of Reform UK and yet again interfere in our democracy is a disgrace. What business does he have chiming in.
I don't have an issue with anyone, from anywhere, chiming in on the domestic politics of another country.
The issue with Musk is every utterance is breathlessly reported, he doesn't know as much about politics as he thinks he does, and he's addicted to mouthing off on twitter. Throw potential money into the mix and it just gets messy.
Trying to mess with Farage's leadership is an odd move though - like him or loathe him Reform wouldn't be a significant thing without Farage, and even if the premise were true he has taken them as far as he can, other options don't come with Farage's strengths.
The explanation is that Musk is genuinely is a proper right wing nutter. Farage has pushed back on supporting Robinson and also carve a bit of an independent path on other topics. He is now an obstacle not part of the solution
Shouldn't he and Laurence Fox get on?
We need Musk to obsess over Reclaim not Reform.
Should he reclaim reform or reform reclaim?
Will Weform or Weclaim welease Wobinson?
Does he wank highly in Wome?
Dunno, but I'm sure he thinks those who signed the Tweaty of Wome are a bunch of...
(and we're grateful to the nun from the recent Paddington movie for sending in that joke.)
Re Farage and Reform. It's just obvious that he has no future in company with TR or with Musk. While Trump's dark side has to be put up with, Musk's doesn't and UK voters won't.
Populist social democratic nationalism with easy answers to complex problems can do well on those terms.
There is an imponderable problem it faces. The unacknowledged truth is that Reform supporters views on migration and so on is a multi faceted problem. It isn't mostly about numbers. It's about what sort of people, racially, culturally, morally and religiously, and in terms of class. All this transgresses the normal boundaries of civil public discourse. And in the end I think other parties too will find this a challenge.
Ben Habib predicted Farage would take all the Reform money and run.
He is majority shareholder
He will cut and run.
This Ben Habib ?
The one who thinks Tommy Robinson’s plight is partly political.
You may trust his judgement because ‘my enemies enemy is my friend’, I don’t.
More awareness has been raised around the rape and abuse of thousands of vulnerable British girls in the last few days than has ever happened before. As a country, this is a conversation we needed to have. It shames our political class that it has taken a man of Elon Musk’s influence to drag this into the light.
This is where the focus should remain, not elsewhere - swift and brutal justice for those responsible.
Tommy Robinson’s role in exposing these gangs should be acknowledged. He is not right for Reform, but I do think that his efforts in revealing these heinous crimes should not be overlooked.
I thank Elon for his kind comments. I just want to do what is right for my constituency and my country - that is my only interest.
Nigel is leader of Reform. He made Brexit happen, and for that I will always be grateful. I look forward to working with Nigel and the entire team to continue to hold this incompetent Labour Party to account, democratise our own party, win the next election and form a Reform Government.
A power from outside the existing political establishment is the ONLY way to achieve the change this country so desperately needs
More awareness has been raised around the rape and abuse of thousands of vulnerable British girls in the last few days than has ever happened before. As a country, this is a conversation we needed to have. It shames our political class that it has taken a man of Elon Musk’s influence to drag this into the light.
This is where the focus should remain, not elsewhere - swift and brutal justice for those responsible.
Tommy Robinson’s role in exposing these gangs should be acknowledged. He is not right for Reform, but I do think that his efforts in revealing these heinous crimes should not be overlooked.
I thank Elon for his kind comments. I just want to do what is right for my constituency and my country - that is my only interest.
Nigel is leader of Reform. He made Brexit happen, and for that I will always be grateful. I look forward to working with Nigel and the entire team to continue to hold this incompetent Labour Party to account, democratise our own party, win the next election and form a Reform Government.
A power from outside the existing political establishment is the ONLY way to achieve the change this country so desperately needs
I had thought him a quite effective local MP but this is fucking pathetic. Robinson did nothing to expose these gangs. He nearly caused a trial to collapse and used the scandal for his own political ends. People like Maggie Oliver, Nazir Afzal, Ann Cryer and Andrew Norfolk did their part in exposing it, truly exposing it.
There is something very, very, funny about this Musk and Farage business.
There's somehow two narratives - the inevitable march of history, and the world's richest man funding Reform inevitably leads to their 1000-year rule , which cannot be stopped, any more than Trump or Meloni. Or grown-up teenager who bought the Internet posts random whims and rubbish every morning, and can't relied on by any other political figures.
This afternoon is a reminder that Reform have weaknesses and challenges and no matter whether you think their rise in the polls will be sustained (I suspect so) it won’t be a smooth ride because Farage travels with some exceptionally odd folk like Musk who can embarrass him.
More awareness has been raised around the rape and abuse of thousands of vulnerable British girls in the last few days than has ever happened before. As a country, this is a conversation we needed to have. It shames our political class that it has taken a man of Elon Musk’s influence to drag this into the light.
This is where the focus should remain, not elsewhere - swift and brutal justice for those responsible.
Tommy Robinson’s role in exposing these gangs should be acknowledged. He is not right for Reform, but I do think that his efforts in revealing these heinous crimes should not be overlooked.
I thank Elon for his kind comments. I just want to do what is right for my constituency and my country - that is my only interest.
Nigel is leader of Reform. He made Brexit happen, and for that I will always be grateful. I look forward to working with Nigel and the entire team to continue to hold this incompetent Labour Party to account, democratise our own party, win the next election and form a Reform Government.
A power from outside the existing political establishment is the ONLY way to achieve the change this country so desperately needs
I had thought him a quite effective local MP but this is fucking pathetic. Robinson did nothing to expose these gangs. He nearly caused a trial to collapse and used the scandal for his own political ends. People like Maggie Oliver, Nazir Afzal, Ann Cryer and Andrew Norfolk did their part in exposing it, truly exposing it.
I think the substantive point here is that Lowe has not opened up a rift with NF on the Robinson point. His support for Farage here is somewhat restrained, and his specific reference to 'democratising the party' is not without a bit of edge, but the fact remains that his position on Robinson here is not much Tommier than Nigel's own.
Comments
I Like the academic punctiliousness of the makers: "The film version of this ancient text is a creation of Cambridge Assyriology, and (as far as we know) the world's first film in Babylonian."
Ditto here - indigenous languages of the Yolŋu Matha language group, in my case.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Canoes
We don’t talk much about the huge role Brexit played in the last election result, and likely at lest the next 5 elections too, until a Conservative PM follows up on promise to renegotiate.
488 seats in the current HoC all from Brexit Haters informal coalition. That’s the psephology of it.
weekday is a long time in politics.I see it as a slow burn project, delivering maybe one tweet a week, but with the leader/CEO attracting a salary of around £10m p/a to reflect on the right future strategy whilst learning lessons from a range of other countries (at the party’s expense of course). As the only member and sole shareholder, unfortunately I will have to fill that position myself.
See the NHS scandals where “Lie to protect the NHS” was litterally advocated.
It’s an old story. See Jellicoe demanding a report on the ammunition explosions at Jutland to be re-written to remove blame from officers in the Battlecruiser fleet. Since he (and the report author) came from the Battleship fleet, it would have kicked up a storm.
And several explanations can be true at once, especially with a literal polymath/freakaloid like Musk
And I have some people reading it who I hope will also help.
If anyone would like to volunteer mind ..... 😉
But I think he's probably safe on the social media front regardless.
With Reform, again he's shrewdly spotted the growth of Reform and thinks the UK is ripe for a Reform takeover. He knows that Reform's platform is to all-but cancel Net Zero. That's highly dangerous for Musk, who makes a great deal of money here selling his ****-ugly electric cars. So he puts all his chips on Reform, helps get them over the line, and repeats the Trump trick, reversing any slowing down of the switchover to electric, and carving out whatever exemptions he needs to keep the money taps on.
Somewhere along the line Nigel has upset him. I would suggest that it's the 'Senior figures within Reform have reached out to Trump to ask him to stop Elon speaking about Tommy Robinson' - that would have been humiliating for Musk - he is not the sort of person to be reined in. But it could just as easily been that Reform have refused to change their Net Zero policy and continue to fight net zero full on as seen in the Zia Yusuf speech I posted here.
I would suggest that Nigel offers to sit down with Musk in a live-Tweeted one-on-one interview. Nigel can handle Musk in that scenario. Reach a grudging consensus if not get him fully back on board. And as I've been saying, do they really want him fully on board? I think they want Nick Candy, Jim Ratcliffe etc.. Musk is very much a dangerous donor.
Or both. But I doubt they could coexist.
As Starmer found with his failed reboot of the Govt.
Farage is was and always will be only interested in 2 things.
1 making money
2 his own inflated ego
In Musk he has a similar person.
Difference is Musk is a Whale, Farage is a grain of sand.
With Tommy Robinson on his back, I predict Farage will asset strip Reform PLX, vanish again and take the money and run.
He may reincarnate in 5 or 6 years Boris style.
He has no backbone, no spivs do.
A lot of new or one-off authors now go down the self-publishing route, in which case definitely get yourself an editor (or two). Amazon will literally print books one at a time after they’re ordered, and ship them out.
Shout to @Morris_Dancer who has worked on book editing before.
Rupert Lowe is now 2/1 to be the next leader of Reform UK & 20/1 to be the next Prime Minister
*googles "Rupert Lowe"
https://x.com/LadPolitics/status/1875945241607553424
@Number10cat
·
1h
In fairness you were right Nigel; foreigners were coming for your job.
I think Farage will be fine but if he does get forced out it would be a wealthy South African, living in Texas, deciding who leads a party with a good chance of winning our next election.
Not an acceptable situation.
We have small towns in the red wall, like in Durham, that are used by wealthy southern councils to dump problem families. At our expense and just reinforcing the gross regional imbalance in this country.
The Tories realised this with levelling up. Went nowhere.
Lewis Goodall @lewisgoodall.com
·
26m
Reply to
Lewis Goodall
Farage making the astute (and only) move available to him here. Musk’s money would have been very useful. More useful still would be more moderate conservative voters (who Reform needs) to back him: which they won’t do if there’s any hint of association with Robinson.
https://bsky.app/profile/lewisgoodall.com/post/3lez2allgek2s
The main markets where he’s lost users (principally to Bluesky) are the USA - and the UK
All these kerfuffles happening on X make X once again the place to be
That plus Ket
That “Tommy” and his fans have managed to persuade a load of Americans that he’s a political prisoner or a free speech warrior, doesn’t mean that he isn’t totally and utterly toxic to almost everyone in the UK.
The BNP vote never got higher than 6.2%, and that was in the EU election system. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_European_Parliament_election_in_the_United_Kingdom
Lowe would need a de-adolf makeover for a leadership bid I'd have thought.
Popcorn on standby.
Might even happen before the inauguration at current rate of bonkersness.
Populist social democratic nationalism with easy answers to complex problems can do well on those terms.
There is an imponderable problem it faces. The unacknowledged truth is that Reform supporters views on migration and so on is a multi faceted problem. It isn't mostly about numbers. It's about what sort of people, racially, culturally, morally and religiously, and in terms of class. All this transgresses the normal boundaries of civil public discourse. And in the end I think other parties too will find this a challenge.
Highest share of the vote in 2025 with a BPC registered pollster in a GB wide poll for each of Lab, Con, LD, Reform.
Lab 34%
Con 30%
LD 25%
Reform 30%
Lowest share of the vote in 2025 with a BPC registered pollster in a GB wide poll for each of Lab, Con, LD, Reform.
Lab 19%
Con 17%
LD 9%
Reform 12%
Number of Reform MPs on 31/12/2025.
6
Number of Tory MP defectors to Reform in 2025.
1
Number of Westminster by-elections held in 2025.
2
Number of ministers to leave the Westminster cabinet during 2025.
3
Number of seats won by the AfD in the 2025 German Federal Election.
106
UK CPI figure for November 2025 (Nov 2024 = 2.6%).
UK borrowing in the financial year-to-November 2025 (Year to Nov 2024 = £113.2bn).
£118bn
UK GDP growth in the 12 months to October 2025 (Oct 23 to Oct 24 = 1.3%).
1.7%
US growth annualised rate in Q3 2025 (Q3 2024 = 3.1%).
3.7%
EU growth Q3 2024 to Q3 2025 (2024 = 1.0%).
1.3%
USD/Ruble exchange rate at London FOREX close on 31/12/2025 (31/12/2024 = 114 USD/RUB).
170
The result of the 2025-2026 Ashes series (2023 series: Drawn 2–2).
Australia 2 - 2 England
He is majority shareholder
He will cut and run.
If I was Farage I'd be getting out of Dodge City pretty sharpish.
He's probably worth laying as next leader of Reform as well.
https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/5069611#Comment_5069611
(and we're grateful to the nun from the recent Paddington movie for sending in that joke.)
You've made an allegation against Rupert Lowe, can you back it up with a link from a reputable news source?
The one who thinks Tommy Robinson’s plight is partly political.
You may trust his judgement because ‘my enemies enemy is my friend’, I don’t.
https://x.com/benhabib6/status/1875837469263790143?s=61
https://x.com/rupertlowe10/status/1875965526981419259
More awareness has been raised around the rape and abuse of thousands of vulnerable British girls in the last few days than has ever happened before. As a country, this is a conversation we needed to have. It shames our political class that it has taken a man of Elon Musk’s influence to drag this into the light.
This is where the focus should remain, not elsewhere - swift and brutal justice for those responsible.
Tommy Robinson’s role in exposing these gangs should be acknowledged. He is not right for Reform, but I do think that his efforts in revealing these heinous crimes should not be overlooked.
I thank Elon for his kind comments. I just want to do what is right for my constituency and my country - that is my only interest.
Nigel is leader of Reform. He made Brexit happen, and for that I will always be grateful. I look forward to working with Nigel and the entire team to continue to hold this incompetent Labour Party to account, democratise our own party, win the next election and form a Reform Government.
A power from outside the existing political establishment is the ONLY way to achieve the change this country so desperately needs
There's somehow two narratives - the inevitable march of history, and the world's richest man funding Reform inevitably leads to their 1000-year rule , which cannot be stopped, any more than Trump or Meloni. Or grown-up teenager who bought the Internet posts random whims and rubbish every morning, and can't relied on by any other political figures.
Especially watching MU miss a sitter deep into injury time.