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Sleazy does it – politicalbetting.com
Sleazy does it – politicalbetting.com
Is the Labour government sleazy?Very/fairly sleazy: 54%Not very/at all sleazy: 28% pic.twitter.com/V3vkrJcqj8
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Is the Labour government sleazy?Very/fairly sleazy: 54%Not very/at all sleazy: 28% pic.twitter.com/V3vkrJcqj8
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https://x.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1880234812784406950?t=wvBinKbCpYM_9hT4YQnoQQ&s=19
Also one notes recent events across the Atlantic - lots of people, including many on here, thought that accusations, then indictments, then convictions would be a bar to holding office, but apparently they very little difference. A convicted felon beat a prosecutor.
Britain’s politics is fragmenting – and it’s looking like Reform is here to stay
One in six of those who still voted Conservative in July have now switched over to Nigel Farage’s insurgent party"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/16/britain-politics-fragmenting-reform-here-to-stay/
On the one hand, the rich can buy their own bloody tickets, but stop this endless crying wolf about trivia.
Nevertheless, now is their chance.
So I must be unique in paying for tickets but not going.
Who knew subsidised alcohol was popular ?
The revitalised US chip industry might be one of the less controversial and more significant pieces of his legacy.
GlobalFoundries Announces New York Advanced Packaging and Photonics Center
First of-its-kind center will offer advanced packaging and test capabilities in New York for U.S.-made essential chips used in AI, automotive, aerospace and defense, and other applications
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/01/17/3011296/0/en/GlobalFoundries-Announces-New-York-Advanced-Packaging-and-Photonics-Center.html
If Trump pushes ahead on tariffs, the effects will be both interesting and probably painful for us all.
"Trump has said he would place a 25% tariffs on all Canadian goods entering the US. Do you support or oppose these tariffs?"
All:
Oppose: 50%
Support: 26%
Trump Voters:
Support: 53%
Oppose: 19%
Harris Voters:
Oppose: 88%
Support: 3%
Angus Reid / Jan 13, 2025 / n=518 / Online
https://x.com/USA_Polling/status/1880009655134613984
I don't think it was any of the MPs against whom allegations were made public.
Isn't nice of Elon to provide such a spectacular fireworks display yesterday.
Expensive though..
Governor Hochul Announces Corning to Invest More Than $315 Million and Create up to 300 Jobs at Semiconductor Glass Manufacturing Facility in North Country
https://esd.ny.gov/esd-media-center/press-releases/governor-hochul-announces-corning-invest-more-315-million-and-create-300-jobs-semiconductor-glass-manufacturing-facility-north-country
It might not be a determining factor in many cases but politics isn't a binary thing and decisions are the result of many inputs. Sleaziness will impact the individual, their party and the system as a whole - all of which will make marginal differences to future outcomes. Tracing cause and effect is usually difficult but that's not to say it doesn't exist.
I'd also add that sleaze, corruption and hypocrisy aren't all the same thing and those who are guilty of one are not necessarily guilty of all but they're closely related and often when a party has a problem with standards in one area, it'll impact elsewhere too - and when it fails on all three, the public really will take notice, both because it will tend to affect practical outputs and also because there is still an expectation that govt should operate fairly.
This is not America and we have more than two choices.
"Revision of the mini budget" is good, though.
...My book uses the writings and perspectives of enlisted men in order to show that eighteenth-century battles were a negotiation of authority between officers and their men. The officers wanted the men to fight like they do in the movies. The men weren't having it...
https://x.com/KKriegeBlog/status/1879918622447223077
NY Times blog
She obviously doesn't want the implosion to be the last word about her. Difficult to see how she manages that just by trudging around with a MAGA hat.
A move to Reform? Would Farage accept her?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHOGRhBkWOE
As she decides what photos to issue on her own feed, she opens them to comment. It is certainly a remarkable image.
Extremely depressed. Starmer and Reeves just don't get it at all. And the budget measures on NI and and workers' rights having a disastrous effect on businesses and their attitude to employing new staff.
I had kinda thought that Starmer was at least a grown-up in the room. Well, he may be in chambers, but apparently not at all in the world outside of that. Very sobering.
Her mother, who has only ever worked in the public sector, said she should go to her union. Her daughter was baffled. She’d never actually come across a union in any of her employment.
In 40 odd years of working in the law I have never come across a Union either ( other than as a source of business, almost exclusively in the public sector).
With the collapse of large organised labour employers I wonder how many have.
This link got swallowed in the close of the last thread:
What do we make of this character ?
It appears he's suddenly very influential.
‘He’s one of the best’: the economist shaping Rachel Reeves’s growth plans
John Van Reenen believes he can help Labour solve the ‘peculiar British problem’ of chronically weak productivity
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jan/17/economist-shaping-rachel-reeves-growth-plans-john-van-reenen
..While Labour rarely spells it out for fear of being seen to applaud job losses, there is also a hope that a higher minimum wage, better workers’ rights and even the £25bn rise in national insurance contributions (NICs) will incentivise companies to invest more in productivity-enhancing technology, rather than relying on low-cost workers...
...Van Reenen told a 2020 podcast hosted by the innovation agency Nesta that he thought perhaps 40-45% of the productivity gap between the UK and US may be explained by these management differences.
“This is where politics and economics bump up against each other,” says Portes, pointing out that, in a thriving economy, poorly run businesses will fail, to be replaced by more productive ones...
They're doing better than the Greens now or last parliament. Since the last May round of elections, they've gained 8 seats. That's not a huge number but then they've only been in the 20s for a few months.
For context, in that time:
- the Tories have defended 47 (held 30, lost 17) and gained 38;
- Labour has defended 133 (held 96, lost 37), and gained 13;
- the Lib Dems have defended 41 (held 28, lost 13) and gained 12;
- the Greens have defended 7 (held 5, lost 2), and gained 6.
So not yet a big breakthrough at that level but then council by-elections are not Reform's natural habitat. They don't have the activist experience or data, so lack ground game, which is crucial in these contests (because other parties will have them to concentrate in a way they won't in the normal May rounds). They also tend to focus on national rather than local issues, which again plays against them in these elections.
For decades of economists have been pointing to the low levels of productivity and efficiency in the UK. It's not just low wages. It's low wages and taxpayer subsidies through the benefits system.
... and they complain about Reeves not 'getting it'
The complaints are from those who actually have now to go out and earn a living as enterprise managers rather than getting it handed to them by the UK taxpayer.
...When the Marquis de Montcalm (Plains of Abraham fame) sees infantry fighting from cover at Carillon in 1758, he doesn't say: wow, this is unique to North America!
Instead, he says, "the firefight on both sides was like the Battle of Parma" (in North Italy, in 1734). The War of Polish Succession and the tactical developments it brought to infantry warfare, need to be reintroduced to the overall story of infantry tactics...
I'm simply amazed at the nonsense people are interested in.
Edit: Washington did have regular units. And once the Brits cottoned on, and started developiong light companies with green jackets and rifles ...
Westminster Voting Intention:
RFM: 25% (=)
CON: 25% (+5)
LAB: 24% (-1)
LDM: 12% (+1)
GRN: 10% (-1)
SNP: 3% (=)
Via @FindoutnowUK, 15 Jan.
Changes w/ 8 Jan.
SKS Fans please explain
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1880040599761596689
(video embedded in tweet)
I think the Taylor Swift tickets are much more interesting. Equally trivial but at least it's funny
Tories not doomed but Kemi really will need to look considered and credible to the general public sooner or later, or she could be in trouble. A Cleverly/Tugendhat combo could look attractive in time if the Tories pivot to the LibDem threat and regaining seats in southern England.
Come on, sugar, let me know
If you really need me, just reach out and touch me
Come on, honey, tell me so.
Sky reporting this story - are you saying it is untrue
Maybe think before you knee jerk your reactions
https://news.sky.com/story/parliament-bar-to-close-following-alleged-spiking-incident-13290840
My understanding is that the proportion of spiking allegations which are spurious (i.e. not actually spiking) is somewhere between 30 and 99 percent. But I know relatively little about it.
It’s becoming very apparent that both Starmer and Reeves are calamitously over-promoted. “Rachel from Accounts” is funny because it’s correct. She’s a deputy bank manager on your high street
Starmer is a midrange career lawyer who should never have made it to DPP - let alone PM - the most unimaginative premier in our history at a time when we desperately need imagination
Added to this Starmer has ridiculous woke “humans rights lawyer” opinions and stiffly believes they are morally correct and they are so unpopular they could destroy the Labour Party by themselves
It’s… unideal for Labour
And even more so in Parliament