With all this Heathrow stuff going on, from the perspective of the grim north - where for most people air travel is about cheap flights from Liverpool etc - it still sounds very southern. I am wondering where is the plan for trains from Liverpool to Hull, buses that aren't pre war, dualling the A1 from London -Edinburgh (guess which bit is missing), and even west coast side Liverpool/Manchester) to Edinburgh.
Dualling the A1 north of the Toon was canned in the budget in spite of being green flagged by the last lot.
Badenoch absolutely dreadful at PMQs. Starmer actually (unusually) answered her first question, so she asked it twice more. Time for Honest Bob?
Davy was effective.
I thought she did rather well?
I thought Starmer won with the line "We know she's not a lawyer, she's clearly not a leader, but if she keeps on like this, she is going to be the next lettuce."
Plus it wasn’t a good look for Badenoch when the Speaker had to tell her off,
She's been much better recently, although she seldom betters Starmer, and that is the crucial point. He's not very good at PMQs either.
On growth, Labour lost the 'benefit of the doubt' with their utterly inept first six months.
What are they proposing? Exactly what you'd expect from them - absolutely nothing new that hasn't been discussed for years, or isn't already happening.
Lots of new reservoirs - many of these have been in the pipeline for years and are at various planning stages. Oxford to Cambridge - years of talking. New runways - decades. Of course, many Labour MPs (including Starmer) have been at the heart of stopping all of these projects over the years.
When they had the actual chance to do something, like with tech and AI, they stopped the investment because of politics, Sunak proposed it.
Let's also not forget that the budget (and Rayner's crap) itself will have increased the cost for all of these growth potentials.
More evidence that they came into power, after 14 years away, without a single original thought or policy.
The contrast with Trump is incredible, and not in a good way for Labour. Trump came in ready from day one minute one, with a detailed plan of what we he was gonna do from the very get go. And wow, he's doing it. Even if you despise him and his brillaint ideas, he's enacting them with ruthless speed and brutal efficiency
Labour look like they accidentally wandered in to power, and then started browsing the shelves to see if there are any scotch eggs
THEY HAD FOURTEEN YEARS TO PREPARE
Well Labour did present themselves as a govt in waiting, ready to go for the start. Obviously they weren't and many people, myself included, were mugged off by them on that. However I think they can turn it around as plenty of their former voters are DK/WNV rather than straight switchers.
Irrespective of what people think of Trump he has clearly hit the ground running and has an agenda and is implementing it. A few upset liberals, like the crying actress Selena Gomez in a now deleted video, won't bother them a bit either. Trump has a mandate and is on with it.
Labours problem was the ming vase approach. Ruling out stuff they really need to do such as the triple lock being reformed. Trump, OTOH, said what he would do rather than what he wouldn't.
Labour have now handily provided us with a metric by which to judge them. The third runway at Heathrow. It may be spurious or wrong-headed, but they've come straight out and said "We desperately need growth, this will provide that growth, we are going to do it". Presumably they are going io legislate to remove all remaining LHR3 obstacles, legal and otherwise, they certainly have a big enough majority to do this
So, if we see shovels at work near Hounslow in the next two years we will know they are serious. If it doesn't happen, then we know they are pathetic liars. My bet is on the second, I sincerely hope they surprise me
I have no doubt their intentions are good and their delivery will be mired by legal campaigns like the one from the crank I posted a twitter thread about the other day who stymies any development with legal objections.
But they have a big enough majority to smash through any objections. They've got 400 MPs FFS. We've also had endless inquiries and endless surveys and no more needs to be done, on that front
This is why it is such a good test of their real intent. There is nothing stopping them saying Action This Day - and seeing it done. They have the power to force this through. I'm not remotely optimistic but I am prepared to give them this one last chance
"Trump came in ready from day one minute one, with a detailed plan"
A plan he repeatedly denied had anything to do with him or his policies during the actual campaign.
His "plan" is simply to dominate the news and titillate himself.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 24m £22.6bn extra for the NHS & they still try to insist they're short of funds & we all ought to cough up even more. When will a politician be brave enough to say "No. We're done."
All it takes, Mr Lilico, is for people to stop living longer. If we just went back to the ‘70s, when people died of cancer, they wouldn’t need all that money.
On growth, Labour lost the 'benefit of the doubt' with their utterly inept first six months.
What are they proposing? Exactly what you'd expect from them - absolutely nothing new that hasn't been discussed for years, or isn't already happening.
Lots of new reservoirs - many of these have been in the pipeline for years and are at various planning stages. Oxford to Cambridge - years of talking. New runways - decades. Of course, many Labour MPs (including Starmer) have been at the heart of stopping all of these projects over the years.
When they had the actual chance to do something, like with tech and AI, they stopped the investment because of politics, Sunak proposed it.
Let's also not forget that the budget (and Rayner's crap) itself will have increased the cost for all of these growth potentials.
More evidence that they came into power, after 14 years away, without a single original thought or policy.
The contrast with Trump is incredible, and not in a good way for Labour. Trump came in ready from day one minute one, with a detailed plan of what we he was gonna do from the very get go. And wow, he's doing it. Even if you despise him and his brillaint ideas, he's enacting them with ruthless speed and brutal efficiency
Labour look like they accidentally wandered in to power, and then started browsing the shelves to see if there are any scotch eggs
THEY HAD FOURTEEN YEARS TO PREPARE
Well Labour did present themselves as a govt in waiting, ready to go for the start. Obviously they weren't and many people, myself included, were mugged off by them on that. However I think they can turn it around as plenty of their former voters are DK/WNV rather than straight switchers.
Irrespective of what people think of Trump he has clearly hit the ground running and has an agenda and is implementing it. A few upset liberals, like the crying actress Selena Gomez in a now deleted video, won't bother them a bit either. Trump has a mandate and is on with it.
Labours problem was the ming vase approach. Ruling out stuff they really need to do such as the triple lock being reformed. Trump, OTOH, said what he would do rather than what he wouldn't.
Comparing Trump and Starmer like this seems a little disingenuous when Starmer had mere hours between being elected and becoming Prime Minister, whereas the US system has a 2-month transitional period!
Meanwhile, Trump’s hitting the ground running has produced complete chaos in federal services with unclear rules and badly worded directives. There have also been vast numbers of legal challenges, unsurprising given how much Trump has sought to trample over laws. If all you care about is headlines and owning the libs, he’s done well, but in terms of actual good governance, it’s been a disaster.
Whether or not it is a disaster we will see, I have no opinion either way on that aspect at the moment but I do know those opposed to Trump are not going to be positive about it. Time will tell.
My main interest is what happens with tariffs.
No it is also perfectly fair to compare the two given one of the selling points of Labour was as a govt ready to go with a team already in place. Starmer and co made a thing of it and even friendly commentators in the media reiterated this claim. IT is one of the reasons I changed from WNV to Labour.
They had been working on policy and the program of govt for a while.
Badenoch absolutely dreadful at PMQs. Starmer actually (unusually) answered her first question, so she asked it twice more. Time for Honest Bob?
Davy was effective.
I thought she did rather well?
It was one of her worst in my opinion. Jenrick must be plotting.
Starmer is useless at PMQs both as LOTO and PM, but he betters Badenoch (she seems poorly prepared) in a way he seldom did with Sunak.
This on the day Starmer's rating of -42 goes below Sunak's worst rating of -41
See More in Common
Kemi Badenoch is very different and has plenty of time to develop, not least because there is nobody else remotely suited at present
You clearly didn't read my post. I said Starmer isn't very good, it's just your girl is even worse. I despise Jenrick with a vengeance, and he got owned by Mahmood yesterday, but he at least reads his briefing notes, Starmer would struggle.
Badenoch absolutely dreadful at PMQs. Starmer actually (unusually) answered her first question, so she asked it twice more. Time for Honest Bob?
Davy was effective.
I thought she did rather well?
I thought Starmer won with the line "We know she's not a lawyer, she's clearly not a leader, but if she keeps on like this, she is going to be the next lettuce."
Plus it wasn’t a good look for Badenoch when the Speaker had to tell her off,
Is calling female politicians lettuces misogynistic? Cant be too careful these days.
Also is a man in a very high chair looking down on and telling off a woman misogynistic?
On growth, Labour lost the 'benefit of the doubt' with their utterly inept first six months.
What are they proposing? Exactly what you'd expect from them - absolutely nothing new that hasn't been discussed for years, or isn't already happening.
Lots of new reservoirs - many of these have been in the pipeline for years and are at various planning stages. Oxford to Cambridge - years of talking. New runways - decades. Of course, many Labour MPs (including Starmer) have been at the heart of stopping all of these projects over the years.
When they had the actual chance to do something, like with tech and AI, they stopped the investment because of politics, Sunak proposed it.
Let's also not forget that the budget (and Rayner's crap) itself will have increased the cost for all of these growth potentials.
More evidence that they came into power, after 14 years away, without a single original thought or policy.
The contrast with Trump is incredible, and not in a good way for Labour. Trump came in ready from day one minute one, with a detailed plan of what we he was gonna do from the very get go. And wow, he's doing it. Even if you despise him and his brillaint ideas, he's enacting them with ruthless speed and brutal efficiency
Labour look like they accidentally wandered in to power, and then started browsing the shelves to see if there are any scotch eggs
THEY HAD FOURTEEN YEARS TO PREPARE
Well Labour did present themselves as a govt in waiting, ready to go for the start. Obviously they weren't and many people, myself included, were mugged off by them on that. However I think they can turn it around as plenty of their former voters are DK/WNV rather than straight switchers.
Irrespective of what people think of Trump he has clearly hit the ground running and has an agenda and is implementing it. A few upset liberals, like the crying actress Selena Gomez in a now deleted video, won't bother them a bit either. Trump has a mandate and is on with it.
Labours problem was the ming vase approach. Ruling out stuff they really need to do such as the triple lock being reformed. Trump, OTOH, said what he would do rather than what he wouldn't.
Comparing Trump and Starmer like this seems a little disingenuous when Starmer had mere hours between being elected and becoming Prime Minister, whereas the US system has a 2-month transitional period!
Meanwhile, Trump’s hitting the ground running has produced complete chaos in federal services with unclear rules and badly worded directives. There have also been vast numbers of legal challenges, unsurprising given how much Trump has sought to trample over laws. If all you care about is headlines and owning the libs, he’s done well, but in terms of actual good governance, it’s been a disaster.
The chaos is the point.
It largely is, yes. It's a mistake to overthink him as regards ideology or plans or policies. Trump2 is the ultimate reality tv show and the number one priority, dwarfing all others, is the ratings. So long as people stay addicted it's a win.
Badenoch absolutely dreadful at PMQs. Starmer actually (unusually) answered her first question, so she asked it twice more. Time for Honest Bob?
Davy was effective.
I thought she did rather well?
I thought Starmer won with the line "We know she's not a lawyer, she's clearly not a leader, but if she keeps on like this, she is going to be the next lettuce."
Plus it wasn’t a good look for Badenoch when the Speaker had to tell her off,
So, now that Starmer thinks it is perfectly fine to call Badenoch a 'lettuce' at PMQs and people on here like it, are we all OK with 'Rachel from Accounts'?
With all this Heathrow stuff going on, from the perspective of the grim north - where for most people air travel is about cheap flights from Liverpool etc - it still sounds very southern. I am wondering where is the plan for trains from Liverpool to Hull, buses that aren't pre war, dualling the A1 from London -Edinburgh (guess which bit is missing), and even west coast side Liverpool/Manchester) to Edinburgh.
Dualling the A1 north of the Toon was canned in the budget in spite of being green flagged by the last lot.
The NE of England always gets screwed. They've got 9% of the motorway that the NW of England does (41% of the dual carriageway) , and none of these fabled rail projects will ever make it up there.
On growth, Labour lost the 'benefit of the doubt' with their utterly inept first six months.
What are they proposing? Exactly what you'd expect from them - absolutely nothing new that hasn't been discussed for years, or isn't already happening.
Lots of new reservoirs - many of these have been in the pipeline for years and are at various planning stages. Oxford to Cambridge - years of talking. New runways - decades. Of course, many Labour MPs (including Starmer) have been at the heart of stopping all of these projects over the years.
When they had the actual chance to do something, like with tech and AI, they stopped the investment because of politics, Sunak proposed it.
Let's also not forget that the budget (and Rayner's crap) itself will have increased the cost for all of these growth potentials.
More evidence that they came into power, after 14 years away, without a single original thought or policy.
The contrast with Trump is incredible, and not in a good way for Labour. Trump came in ready from day one minute one, with a detailed plan of what we he was gonna do from the very get go. And wow, he's doing it. Even if you despise him and his brillaint ideas, he's enacting them with ruthless speed and brutal efficiency
Labour look like they accidentally wandered in to power, and then started browsing the shelves to see if there are any scotch eggs
THEY HAD FOURTEEN YEARS TO PREPARE
Well Labour did present themselves as a govt in waiting, ready to go for the start. Obviously they weren't and many people, myself included, were mugged off by them on that. However I think they can turn it around as plenty of their former voters are DK/WNV rather than straight switchers.
Irrespective of what people think of Trump he has clearly hit the ground running and has an agenda and is implementing it. A few upset liberals, like the crying actress Selena Gomez in a now deleted video, won't bother them a bit either. Trump has a mandate and is on with it.
Labours problem was the ming vase approach. Ruling out stuff they really need to do such as the triple lock being reformed. Trump, OTOH, said what he would do rather than what he wouldn't.
Comparing Trump and Starmer like this seems a little disingenuous when Starmer had mere hours between being elected and becoming Prime Minister, whereas the US system has a 2-month transitional period!
Meanwhile, Trump’s hitting the ground running has produced complete chaos in federal services with unclear rules and badly worded directives. There have also been vast numbers of legal challenges, unsurprising given how much Trump has sought to trample over laws. If all you care about is headlines and owning the libs, he’s done well, but in terms of actual good governance, it’s been a disaster.
Wasn’t hiring Sue Gray supposed to be part of a plan to hit the ground running with a series of meticulously planned bills?
I never watch PMQ's but from here I know that from the labour supporters perspective Badenoch is awful and for those on the right she is okay.
And to be fair when conservative start to reflect concern then that would be different but at present she seems to be well supported by conservatives and her mps
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 24m £22.6bn extra for the NHS & they still try to insist they're short of funds & we all ought to cough up even more. When will a politician be brave enough to say "No. We're done."
All it takes, Mr Lilico, is for people to stop living longer. If we just went back to the ‘70s, when people died of cancer, they wouldn’t need all that money.
But more money without reform is madness.
Thanks to family I see far too much of the nhs in action and there is waste and pointless activities and lack of joined-up admin everywhere.
Badenoch absolutely dreadful at PMQs. Starmer actually (unusually) answered her first question, so she asked it twice more. Time for Honest Bob?
Davy was effective.
Badenoch calm. Starmer shouty, patronising and personal. And no, he didn't answer the questions.
Yes. Kemi was calm and forensic. Starmer's entire response is built around "but the last government did this. The last government did that." People have already had enough of it (hence Labour's own dire position in the polls)
i also think a lot of what Kemi is doing at PMQ's right now is laying the groundwork for the next 2-3 years. Labours reversal of Thatchers Union reforms will come back to bite them at some point in this Parliament, IMO.
Badenoch absolutely dreadful at PMQs. Starmer actually (unusually) answered her first question, so she asked it twice more. Time for Honest Bob?
Davy was effective.
I thought she did rather well?
I thought Starmer won with the line "We know she's not a lawyer, she's clearly not a leader, but if she keeps on like this, she is going to be the next lettuce."
Plus it wasn’t a good look for Badenoch when the Speaker had to tell her off,
So, now that Starmer thinks it is perfectly fine to call Badenoch a 'lettuce' at PMQs and people on here like it, are we all OK with 'Rachel from Accounts'?
Of course in some cultures, cabbage is a term of affection. Maybe we can do the same with lettuce.
I’m sorry but I find it very hard to believe that the Chinese would take intellectual property from the west and copy it and turn it out cheap. A very unfair accusation.
A particularly unfair, actually quite amusing, accusation from an organisation who refuses to recognise the copyright of the material it scrapes from the web to train its models because it would make their product unaffordable.
I thought Badenoch was OK at PMQs. OK. Not stellar, not knocking it out of the park, passable.
Truth be told, neither of them are very good at it. Starmer usually does better because he has the right of reply and he is at least somewhat able to think on his feet when it comes to attack lines. When he’s on policy he’s usually quite poor. Badenoch is notably very scripted.
On growth, Labour lost the 'benefit of the doubt' with their utterly inept first six months.
What are they proposing? Exactly what you'd expect from them - absolutely nothing new that hasn't been discussed for years, or isn't already happening.
Lots of new reservoirs - many of these have been in the pipeline for years and are at various planning stages. Oxford to Cambridge - years of talking. New runways - decades. Of course, many Labour MPs (including Starmer) have been at the heart of stopping all of these projects over the years.
When they had the actual chance to do something, like with tech and AI, they stopped the investment because of politics, Sunak proposed it.
Let's also not forget that the budget (and Rayner's crap) itself will have increased the cost for all of these growth potentials.
More evidence that they came into power, after 14 years away, without a single original thought or policy.
The contrast with Trump is incredible, and not in a good way for Labour. Trump came in ready from day one minute one, with a detailed plan of what we he was gonna do from the very get go. And wow, he's doing it. Even if you despise him and his brillaint ideas, he's enacting them with ruthless speed and brutal efficiency
Labour look like they accidentally wandered in to power, and then started browsing the shelves to see if there are any scotch eggs
THEY HAD FOURTEEN YEARS TO PREPARE
Well Labour did present themselves as a govt in waiting, ready to go for the start. Obviously they weren't and many people, myself included, were mugged off by them on that. However I think they can turn it around as plenty of their former voters are DK/WNV rather than straight switchers.
Irrespective of what people think of Trump he has clearly hit the ground running and has an agenda and is implementing it. A few upset liberals, like the crying actress Selena Gomez in a now deleted video, won't bother them a bit either. Trump has a mandate and is on with it.
Labours problem was the ming vase approach. Ruling out stuff they really need to do such as the triple lock being reformed. Trump, OTOH, said what he would do rather than what he wouldn't.
Comparing Trump and Starmer like this seems a little disingenuous when Starmer had mere hours between being elected and becoming Prime Minister, whereas the US system has a 2-month transitional period!
Meanwhile, Trump’s hitting the ground running has produced complete chaos in federal services with unclear rules and badly worded directives. There have also been vast numbers of legal challenges, unsurprising given how much Trump has sought to trample over laws. If all you care about is headlines and owning the libs, he’s done well, but in terms of actual good governance, it’s been a disaster.
Wasn’t hiring Sue Gray supposed to be part of a plan to hit the ground running with a series of meticulously planned bills?
Badenoch absolutely dreadful at PMQs. Starmer actually (unusually) answered her first question, so she asked it twice more. Time for Honest Bob?
Davy was effective.
I thought she did rather well?
I thought Starmer won with the line "We know she's not a lawyer, she's clearly not a leader, but if she keeps on like this, she is going to be the next lettuce."
Plus it wasn’t a good look for Badenoch when the Speaker had to tell her off,
I'm sure she knew/was expecting the Speaker would tell her off. But she planted the seed didn't she?
Did Starmer mislead the house? Does he really know what his own government is doing or not?
Badenoch absolutely dreadful at PMQs. Starmer actually (unusually) answered her first question, so she asked it twice more. Time for Honest Bob?
Davy was effective.
Badenoch calm. Starmer shouty, patronising and personal. And no, he didn't answer the questions.
Yes. Kemi was calm and forensic. Starmer's entire response is built around "but the last government did this. The last government did that." People have already had enough of it (hence Labour's own dire position in the polls)
i also think a lot of what Kemi is doing at PMQ's is laying the groundwork for the next 2-3 years. Labours reversal of Thatchers Union reforms will come back to bite them at some point in this Parliament, IMO.
Exactly this. She is tying him in personally to all of the policies that they are proposing, when they inevitably go wrong. He can only get away with blaming the last government for so long.
Badenoch absolutely dreadful at PMQs. Starmer actually (unusually) answered her first question, so she asked it twice more. Time for Honest Bob?
Davy was effective.
I thought she did rather well?
I thought Starmer won with the line "We know she's not a lawyer, she's clearly not a leader, but if she keeps on like this, she is going to be the next lettuce."
Plus it wasn’t a good look for Badenoch when the Speaker had to tell her off,
So, now that Starmer thinks it is perfectly fine to call Badenoch a 'lettuce' at PMQs and people on here like it, are we all OK with 'Rachel from Accounts'?
The lettuce joke is rather tired. I don't think "lettuce" is misogynistic, so is it racist?
Badenoch absolutely dreadful at PMQs. Starmer actually (unusually) answered her first question, so she asked it twice more. Time for Honest Bob?
Davy was effective.
I thought she did rather well?
I thought Starmer won with the line "We know she's not a lawyer, she's clearly not a leader, but if she keeps on like this, she is going to be the next lettuce."
Plus it wasn’t a good look for Badenoch when the Speaker had to tell her off,
I'm sure she knew/was expecting the Speakert would tell her off. But she planted the seed didn't she?
Did Starmer mislead the house? Does he really know what his own government is doing or not?
I suspect the line, 'when is he going to stop being a lawyer and be a leader' has been road tested in their own focus groups.
Today marks the first day of the year in which the sun rises before 8am (in Manchester). The last month has seen sunrise get 27 minutes earlier; in the next month it will get an hour earlier. Crucially, in about a fortnight, there will be a faint morning light coming through my curtains before the alarm goes off. It will make getting out of bed substantially less unpleasant.
Badenoch absolutely dreadful at PMQs. Starmer actually (unusually) answered her first question, so she asked it twice more. Time for Honest Bob?
Davy was effective.
I thought she did rather well?
I thought Starmer won with the line "We know she's not a lawyer, she's clearly not a leader, but if she keeps on like this, she is going to be the next lettuce."
Plus it wasn’t a good look for Badenoch when the Speaker had to tell her off,
So, now that Starmer thinks it is perfectly fine to call Badenoch a 'lettuce' at PMQs and people on here like it, are we all OK with 'Rachel from Accounts'?
The lettuce joke is rather tired. I don't think "lettuce" is misogynistic, so is it racist?
Definitely 'ableist'. It is in their nature that lettuce's wilt. They can't help it.
Badenoch absolutely dreadful at PMQs. Starmer actually (unusually) answered her first question, so she asked it twice more. Time for Honest Bob?
Davy was effective.
Badenoch calm. Starmer shouty, patronising and personal. And no, he didn't answer the questions.
Yes. Kemi was calm and forensic. Starmer's entire response is built around "but the last government did this. The last government did that." People have already had enough of it (hence Labour's own dire position in the polls)
i also think a lot of what Kemi is doing at PMQ's right now is laying the groundwork for the next 2-3 years. Labours reversal of Thatchers Union reforms will come back to bite them at some point in this Parliament, IMO.
Wow. I suspect Labour, Reform and the LDs will be quite content if Badenoch remains LOTO for the next GE.
I am not sure the Red Robbo and Arthur Scargill run the country narrative is as compelling as it was in the 1970s and 80s.
On growth, Labour lost the 'benefit of the doubt' with their utterly inept first six months.
What are they proposing? Exactly what you'd expect from them - absolutely nothing new that hasn't been discussed for years, or isn't already happening.
Lots of new reservoirs - many of these have been in the pipeline for years and are at various planning stages. Oxford to Cambridge - years of talking. New runways - decades. Of course, many Labour MPs (including Starmer) have been at the heart of stopping all of these projects over the years.
When they had the actual chance to do something, like with tech and AI, they stopped the investment because of politics, Sunak proposed it.
Let's also not forget that the budget (and Rayner's crap) itself will have increased the cost for all of these growth potentials.
More evidence that they came into power, after 14 years away, without a single original thought or policy.
The contrast with Trump is incredible, and not in a good way for Labour. Trump came in ready from day one minute one, with a detailed plan of what we he was gonna do from the very get go. And wow, he's doing it. Even if you despise him and his brillaint ideas, he's enacting them with ruthless speed and brutal efficiency
Labour look like they accidentally wandered in to power, and then started browsing the shelves to see if there are any scotch eggs
THEY HAD FOURTEEN YEARS TO PREPARE
Well Labour did present themselves as a govt in waiting, ready to go for the start. Obviously they weren't and many people, myself included, were mugged off by them on that. However I think they can turn it around as plenty of their former voters are DK/WNV rather than straight switchers.
Irrespective of what people think of Trump he has clearly hit the ground running and has an agenda and is implementing it. A few upset liberals, like the crying actress Selena Gomez in a now deleted video, won't bother them a bit either. Trump has a mandate and is on with it.
Labours problem was the ming vase approach. Ruling out stuff they really need to do such as the triple lock being reformed. Trump, OTOH, said what he would do rather than what he wouldn't.
Comparing Trump and Starmer like this seems a little disingenuous when Starmer had mere hours between being elected and becoming Prime Minister, whereas the US system has a 2-month transitional period!
Meanwhile, Trump’s hitting the ground running has produced complete chaos in federal services with unclear rules and badly worded directives. There have also been vast numbers of legal challenges, unsurprising given how much Trump has sought to trample over laws. If all you care about is headlines and owning the libs, he’s done well, but in terms of actual good governance, it’s been a disaster.
Wasn’t hiring Sue Gray supposed to be part of a plan to hit the ground running with a series of meticulously planned bills?
Labour’s Gray strategy did not go well, no.
(But, equally, parts of Trump’s plan faltered quickly: whither Matt Gaetz and Vivek Ramaswamy?)
On growth, Labour lost the 'benefit of the doubt' with their utterly inept first six months.
What are they proposing? Exactly what you'd expect from them - absolutely nothing new that hasn't been discussed for years, or isn't already happening.
Lots of new reservoirs - many of these have been in the pipeline for years and are at various planning stages. Oxford to Cambridge - years of talking. New runways - decades. Of course, many Labour MPs (including Starmer) have been at the heart of stopping all of these projects over the years.
When they had the actual chance to do something, like with tech and AI, they stopped the investment because of politics, Sunak proposed it.
Let's also not forget that the budget (and Rayner's crap) itself will have increased the cost for all of these growth potentials.
More evidence that they came into power, after 14 years away, without a single original thought or policy.
The contrast with Trump is incredible, and not in a good way for Labour. Trump came in ready from day one minute one, with a detailed plan of what we he was gonna do from the very get go. And wow, he's doing it. Even if you despise him and his brillaint ideas, he's enacting them with ruthless speed and brutal efficiency
Labour look like they accidentally wandered in to power, and then started browsing the shelves to see if there are any scotch eggs
THEY HAD FOURTEEN YEARS TO PREPARE
Well Labour did present themselves as a govt in waiting, ready to go for the start. Obviously they weren't and many people, myself included, were mugged off by them on that. However I think they can turn it around as plenty of their former voters are DK/WNV rather than straight switchers.
Irrespective of what people think of Trump he has clearly hit the ground running and has an agenda and is implementing it. A few upset liberals, like the crying actress Selena Gomez in a now deleted video, won't bother them a bit either. Trump has a mandate and is on with it.
Labours problem was the ming vase approach. Ruling out stuff they really need to do such as the triple lock being reformed. Trump, OTOH, said what he would do rather than what he wouldn't.
Labour have now handily provided us with a metric by which to judge them. The third runway at Heathrow. It may be spurious or wrong-headed, but they've come straight out and said "We desperately need growth, this will provide that growth, we are going to do it". Presumably they are going io legislate to remove all remaining LHR3 obstacles, legal and otherwise, they certainly have a big enough majority to do this
So, if we see shovels at work near Hounslow in the next two years we will know they are serious. If it doesn't happen, then we know they are pathetic liars. My bet is on the second, I sincerely hope they surprise me
I have no doubt their intentions are good and their delivery will be mired by legal campaigns like the one from the crank I posted a twitter thread about the other day who stymies any development with legal objections.
But they have a big enough majority to smash through any objections. They've got 400 MPs FFS. We've also had endless inquiries and endless surveys and no more needs to be done, on that front
This is why it is such a good test of their real intent. There is nothing stopping them saying Action This Day - and seeing it done. They have the power to force this through. I'm not remotely optimistic but I am prepared to give them this one last chance
"Trump came in ready from day one minute one, with a detailed plan"
A plan he repeatedly denied had anything to do with him or his policies during the actual campaign.
His "plan" is simply to dominate the news and titillate himself.
The full scope of what is happening is completely unprecedented in our lifetimes.
The Trump executive orders were clearly meticulously planned to strike every single source of blue power, simultaneously, both in the US and abroad.
A fusillade of legal cruise missiles.
Not an alternative, as such, since I agree that a blizzard of crude, ill-intentioned, impractical and illegal executive orders in the first week of a presidency is unprecedented. And there's a good reason for that.
What’s happened to me. I used to do drugs and be bad
Now I have become the sort of person that buys artisanal handwoven throws
It’s from Kachin. $105
I was going to say how rubbish it is, but it's actually not a bad effort for the 8-year-old who probably made it.
That’s a bit racist
I love it. I love the shamanic “outsider art” aesthetic
For me the figures - at once naive and deliberate - evoke the primitivist urgency of CoBrA artists or the fragmented narratives of Aboriginal dot paintings, their surreal distortions suggesting an alternative epistemology, a cosmology unmoored from Western linearity. The animals, spectral yet concrete? - they possess a totemic authority: elephants rendered in a near-psychedelic incompleteness, a spotted stag crowned with antlers that defy taxonomy. They’re lovely. But are they vegan? I dare say they might be
Then there’s rhe chromatic field - that red of such purity that it transcends mere pigment - it’s like a visual amplifier, both sacral and visceral, an arterial current binding the disparate elements. The embroidered tableaux oscillate between ritual and the quotidian: a peacock with imperial gravitas, a bowman in mid-sacrament, and a gong suspended in an enigma of sport or ceremony. The humanoid figures, with their elongated faces and spectral expressions, resist anthropocentric familiarity, emerging instead as liminal beings, intermediaries between the real and the ineffable. Also they remind me of @kinabalu when he’s unable to grasp a point
Is this a cultural document, an oneiric map, or a piece of noomy détournement? It is all and none - a relic of a narrative forever in motion, refusing resolution
It is PB hand woven in cotton, in the remote valleys of Kachin Myanmar
With all this Heathrow stuff going on, from the perspective of the grim north - where for most people air travel is about cheap flights from Liverpool etc - it still sounds very southern. I am wondering where is the plan for trains from Liverpool to Hull, buses that aren't pre war, dualling the A1 from London -Edinburgh (guess which bit is missing), and even west coast side Liverpool/Manchester) to Edinburgh.
Dualling the A1 north of the Toon was canned in the budget in spite of being green flagged by the last lot.
The NE of England always gets screwed. They've got 9% of the motorway that the NW of England does (41% of the dual carriageway) , and none of these fabled rail projects will ever make it up there.
At least make the Metro bigger and better.
We get very little up here and have to be happy with what we get.
NECA have had plans in place for a while now in 2016 they had a vision for the Metro which would expand it. Suffice to say nothing happened and these must be dead now we have a Metro Mayor.
"Ban under-16s from social media, says majority of public Poll shows 75 per cent want minimum age for accessing social media sites to be raised from 13"
Badenoch absolutely dreadful at PMQs. Starmer actually (unusually) answered her first question, so she asked it twice more. Time for Honest Bob?
Davy was effective.
I thought she did rather well?
I thought Starmer won with the line "We know she's not a lawyer, she's clearly not a leader, but if she keeps on like this, she is going to be the next lettuce."
Plus it wasn’t a good look for Badenoch when the Speaker had to tell her off,
...Also is a man in a very high chair looking down on and telling off a woman misogynistic?.. .
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 24m £22.6bn extra for the NHS & they still try to insist they're short of funds & we all ought to cough up even more. When will a politician be brave enough to say "No. We're done."
All it takes, Mr Lilico, is for people to stop living longer. If we just went back to the ‘70s, when people died of cancer, they wouldn’t need all that money.
But more money without reform is madness.
Thanks to family I see far too much of the nhs in action and there is waste and pointless activities and lack of joined-up admin everywhere.
More money without reform would be madness, but given there is a vast amount of reform going on all the time in the NHS, that won’t be a problem.
Badenoch absolutely dreadful at PMQs. Starmer actually (unusually) answered her first question, so she asked it twice more. Time for Honest Bob?
Davy was effective.
I thought she did rather well?
I thought Starmer won with the line "We know she's not a lawyer, she's clearly not a leader, but if she keeps on like this, she is going to be the next lettuce."
Plus it wasn’t a good look for Badenoch when the Speaker had to tell her off,
So, now that Starmer thinks it is perfectly fine to call Badenoch a 'lettuce' at PMQs and people on here like it, are we all OK with 'Rachel from Accounts'?
The lettuce joke is rather tired. I don't think "lettuce" is misogynistic, so is it racist?
Definitely 'ableist'. It is in their nature that lettuce's wilt. They can't help it.
But wasn't that the thrust of the Daily Star's joke. Truss's Government wilted fast.
Many Labour voters in London are too. It's an odd fight to pick which she may well lose. She should have concentrated on Gatwick expansion which costs a fraction of Heathrow3 and delivers similar benefits. It is also a hub. There are 220 overseas destinations from Gatwick as well as Aberdeen, Edinburgh etc.
And flights to Gatwick don’t fly over Barnes…
In the meantime there are several other runway projects which are ready to roll - for example increased use of Runway Two at Gatwick, which is consultation and regulation, plus Luton, are in process.
plus Bristol, plus London City, plus Manston (Kent), plus Southampton, plus Stansted, are approved. Plus Birmingham and Manchester being built aiui.
RR needs to get her butt in gear and just move on these.
Especially with Luton, since that is convenient for the Oxford/Cambridge corridor.
On growth, Labour lost the 'benefit of the doubt' with their utterly inept first six months.
What are they proposing? Exactly what you'd expect from them - absolutely nothing new that hasn't been discussed for years, or isn't already happening.
Lots of new reservoirs - many of these have been in the pipeline for years and are at various planning stages. Oxford to Cambridge - years of talking. New runways - decades. Of course, many Labour MPs (including Starmer) have been at the heart of stopping all of these projects over the years.
When they had the actual chance to do something, like with tech and AI, they stopped the investment because of politics, Sunak proposed it.
Let's also not forget that the budget (and Rayner's crap) itself will have increased the cost for all of these growth potentials.
More evidence that they came into power, after 14 years away, without a single original thought or policy.
The contrast with Trump is incredible, and not in a good way for Labour. Trump came in ready from day one minute one, with a detailed plan of what we he was gonna do from the very get go. And wow, he's doing it. Even if you despise him and his brillaint ideas, he's enacting them with ruthless speed and brutal efficiency
Labour look like they accidentally wandered in to power, and then started browsing the shelves to see if there are any scotch eggs
THEY HAD FOURTEEN YEARS TO PREPARE
Well Labour did present themselves as a govt in waiting, ready to go for the start. Obviously they weren't and many people, myself included, were mugged off by them on that. However I think they can turn it around as plenty of their former voters are DK/WNV rather than straight switchers.
Irrespective of what people think of Trump he has clearly hit the ground running and has an agenda and is implementing it. A few upset liberals, like the crying actress Selena Gomez in a now deleted video, won't bother them a bit either. Trump has a mandate and is on with it.
Labours problem was the ming vase approach. Ruling out stuff they really need to do such as the triple lock being reformed. Trump, OTOH, said what he would do rather than what he wouldn't.
That comparison is not quite right. For one thing, even if Labour's Ming vase tactic meant not disclosing plans, that does not preclude making plans. Second, Trump distanced himself from Project 2025 whose programme he is now rushing through.
Badenoch absolutely dreadful at PMQs. Starmer actually (unusually) answered her first question, so she asked it twice more. Time for Honest Bob?
Davy was effective.
I thought she did rather well?
I thought Starmer won with the line "We know she's not a lawyer, she's clearly not a leader, but if she keeps on like this, she is going to be the next lettuce."
Plus it wasn’t a good look for Badenoch when the Speaker had to tell her off,
So, now that Starmer thinks it is perfectly fine to call Badenoch a 'lettuce' at PMQs and people on here like it, are we all OK with 'Rachel from Accounts'?
I'd have been tempted to say Rachel from Accounts after the lettuce jibe.
I think you'll find that "Rachel from Accounts" is not a jibe that Kemi Badenoch, being a woman, would want to use. She will recognize its innate sexism.
Badenoch absolutely dreadful at PMQs. Starmer actually (unusually) answered her first question, so she asked it twice more. Time for Honest Bob?
Davy was effective.
I thought she did rather well?
I thought Starmer won with the line "We know she's not a lawyer, she's clearly not a leader, but if she keeps on like this, she is going to be the next lettuce."
Plus it wasn’t a good look for Badenoch when the Speaker had to tell her off,
So, now that Starmer thinks it is perfectly fine to call Badenoch a 'lettuce' at PMQs and people on here like it, are we all OK with 'Rachel from Accounts'?
Would it stop you if the answer was no?
Until now, I have never once used the term 'Rachel from Accounts' anywhere. However, now that the PM thinks calling people a lettuce at PMQs is the appropriate grown up thing to do (and many on here clearly agree), I feel that I shall use the term freely at all available moments.
What’s happened to me. I used to do drugs and be bad
Now I have become the sort of person that buys artisanal handwoven throws
It’s from Kachin. $105
I was going to say how rubbish it is, but it's actually not a bad effort for the 8-year-old who probably made it.
Being soaked in the tears of the 8 year old slave who made it counters any Woke entirely.
It wasn’t a slave. Kachin Burma has a long noble tradition of hand woven textiles
“Kachin textiles are not merely aesthetic but play an essential role in social and ceremonial life. Traditionally, they are worn during weddings, festivals (Manau celebrations), and rites of passage. Men wear intricately woven longyis (sarongs), while women wear htameins (skirts) paired with elaborately embroidered jackets and headdresses. Warriors and leaders historically wore finely woven garments as symbols of status
Kachin textiles are renowned and highly prized by collectors for their bold geometric patterns, intricate embroidery, and bright contrasting colors. Common motifs include:
Zigzags & diamonds: Representing mountains and rivers, key features of Kachin landscapes.
Animal symbols: Elephants, deer, birds, and mythical creatures, often linked to animist beliefs.
Tribal patterns: Each Kachin sub-group (such as the Jinghpaw, Rawang, or Lisu) has distinct designs that indicate regional or clan identity.”
I just remembered a line from Yes Minister about the role of NATO: "Keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down". We've failed all three...
Not sure I agree.
The Americans are still in NATO, the Russians never took West Berlin that I remember and the Germans are doing an excellent job of keeping themselves down at the moment with one incompetent, failing coalition after another.
I wouldn't get too pleased about Germans having one incompetent, failing coalition after another.
We know what happened last time that was the case in Germany.
True.
Also it doesn't come well from an Englishman as we are currently suffering one incompetent, failing single party government after another.
What’s happened to me. I used to do drugs and be bad
Now I have become the sort of person that buys artisanal handwoven throws
It’s from Kachin. $105
I was going to say how rubbish it is, but it's actually not a bad effort for the 8-year-old who probably made it.
That’s a bit racist
I love it. I love the shamanic “outsider art” aesthetic
For me the figures - at once naive and deliberate - evoke the primitivist urgency of CoBrA artists or the fragmented narratives of Aboriginal dot paintings, their surreal distortions suggesting an alternative epistemology, a cosmology unmoored from Western linearity. The animals, spectral yet concrete? - they possess a totemic authority: elephants rendered in a near-psychedelic incompleteness, a spotted stag crowned with antlers that defy taxonomy. They’re lovely. But are they vegan? I dare say they might be
Then there’s rhe chromatic field - that red of such purity that it transcends mere pigment - it’s like a visual amplifier, both sacral and visceral, an arterial current binding the disparate elements. The embroidered tableaux oscillate between ritual and the quotidian: a peacock with imperial gravitas, a bowman in mid-sacrament, and a gong suspended in an enigma of sport or ceremony. The humanoid figures, with their elongated faces and spectral expressions, resist anthropocentric familiarity, emerging instead as liminal beings, intermediaries between the real and the ineffable. Also they remind me of @kinabalu when he’s unable to grasp a point
Is this a cultural document, an oneiric map, or a piece of noomy détournement? It is all and none - a relic of a narrative forever in motion, refusing resolution
It is PB hand woven in cotton, in the remote valleys of Kachin Myanmar
I hope you didn't craft the whole of this strong contender for pseuds corner simply to get that kuntibula gag in.
What’s happened to me. I used to do drugs and be bad
Now I have become the sort of person that buys artisanal handwoven throws
It’s from Kachin. $105
I was going to say how rubbish it is, but it's actually not a bad effort for the 8-year-old who probably made it.
Being soaked in the tears of the 8 year old slave who made it counters any Woke entirely.
It wasn’t a slave. Kachin Burma has a long noble tradition of hand woven cotton
“Kachin textiles are not merely aesthetic but play an essential role in social and ceremonial life. Traditionally, they are worn during weddings, festivals (Manau celebrations), and rites of passage. Men wear intricately woven longyis (sarongs), while women wear htameins (skirts) paired with elaborately embroidered jackets and headdresses. Warriors and leaders historically wore finely woven garments as symbols of status
Kachin textiles are renowned and highly prized by collectors for their bold geometric patterns, intricate embroidery, and bright contrasting colors. Common motifs include:
Zigzags & diamonds: Representing mountains and rivers, key features of Kachin landscapes.
Animal symbols: Elephants, deer, birds, and mythical creatures, often linked to animist beliefs.
Tribal patterns: Each Kachin sub-group (such as the Jinghpaw, Rawang, or Lisu) has distinct designs that indicate regional or clan identity.”
$105! Bargain. I utterly adore it
Is that your hotel room. I would be seriously concerned if you made your bed up every day like that in NW1.
On growth, Labour lost the 'benefit of the doubt' with their utterly inept first six months.
What are they proposing? Exactly what you'd expect from them - absolutely nothing new that hasn't been discussed for years, or isn't already happening.
Lots of new reservoirs - many of these have been in the pipeline for years and are at various planning stages. Oxford to Cambridge - years of talking. New runways - decades. Of course, many Labour MPs (including Starmer) have been at the heart of stopping all of these projects over the years.
When they had the actual chance to do something, like with tech and AI, they stopped the investment because of politics, Sunak proposed it.
Let's also not forget that the budget (and Rayner's crap) itself will have increased the cost for all of these growth potentials.
More evidence that they came into power, after 14 years away, without a single original thought or policy.
The contrast with Trump is incredible, and not in a good way for Labour. Trump came in ready from day one minute one, with a detailed plan of what we he was gonna do from the very get go. And wow, he's doing it. Even if you despise him and his brillaint ideas, he's enacting them with ruthless speed and brutal efficiency
Labour look like they accidentally wandered in to power, and then started browsing the shelves to see if there are any scotch eggs
THEY HAD FOURTEEN YEARS TO PREPARE
Well Labour did present themselves as a govt in waiting, ready to go for the start. Obviously they weren't and many people, myself included, were mugged off by them on that. However I think they can turn it around as plenty of their former voters are DK/WNV rather than straight switchers.
Irrespective of what people think of Trump he has clearly hit the ground running and has an agenda and is implementing it. A few upset liberals, like the crying actress Selena Gomez in a now deleted video, won't bother them a bit either. Trump has a mandate and is on with it.
Labours problem was the ming vase approach. Ruling out stuff they really need to do such as the triple lock being reformed. Trump, OTOH, said what he would do rather than what he wouldn't.
Labour have now handily provided us with a metric by which to judge them. The third runway at Heathrow. It may be spurious or wrong-headed, but they've come straight out and said "We desperately need growth, this will provide that growth, we are going to do it". Presumably they are going io legislate to remove all remaining LHR3 obstacles, legal and otherwise, they certainly have a big enough majority to do this
So, if we see shovels at work near Hounslow in the next two years we will know they are serious. If it doesn't happen, then we know they are pathetic liars. My bet is on the second, I sincerely hope they surprise me
I have no doubt their intentions are good and their delivery will be mired by legal campaigns like the one from the crank I posted a twitter thread about the other day who stymies any development with legal objections.
But they have a big enough majority to smash through any objections. They've got 400 MPs FFS. We've also had endless inquiries and endless surveys and no more needs to be done, on that front
This is why it is such a good test of their real intent. There is nothing stopping them saying Action This Day - and seeing it done. They have the power to force this through. I'm not remotely optimistic but I am prepared to give them this one last chance
"Trump came in ready from day one minute one, with a detailed plan"
A plan he repeatedly denied had anything to do with him or his policies during the actual campaign.
As i said, that's not the point
The fact is he had two or three years to prepare, and boy did he and they prepare. So it shows it can be done, in a democracy. Labour had fourteen years to be introspective, then get over it, then have some ideas, then turn these ideas into policy, then map out a grid for how these policies would be enacted in the first six months of government, thereby energising the country and providing hope for all
Instead, their plan seems to have been - "moan a lot about the Tories and make sure we all get some free shit". Literally, that was their entire plan for government. That was their big idea, after fourteen fucking years of opposition
I think many of them genuinely thought that the ills of Britain were caused by the fact that the government were Tories, and all they had to do was not be Tories.
For Starmer and Reeves, certainly. The two technocrats do apparently believe there is a technically correct answer to every problem that the evil Tories had blocked the civil service from implementing.
We can see this in their appeals to Whitehall department for their plans for growth and also for savings (never mind any implied contradiction there). And when there were none, or not enough, the Prime Minister announces the blockers are not just the last government but also senior civil servants ‘comfortable in tepid bath of managed decline’.
Badenoch absolutely dreadful at PMQs. Starmer actually (unusually) answered her first question, so she asked it twice more. Time for Honest Bob?
Davy was effective.
I thought she did rather well?
I thought Starmer won with the line "We know she's not a lawyer, she's clearly not a leader, but if she keeps on like this, she is going to be the next lettuce."
Plus it wasn’t a good look for Badenoch when the Speaker had to tell her off,
So, now that Starmer thinks it is perfectly fine to call Badenoch a 'lettuce' at PMQs and people on here like it, are we all OK with 'Rachel from Accounts'?
Would it stop you if the answer was no?
Until now, I have never once used the term 'Rachel from Accounts' anywhere. However, now that the PM thinks calling people a lettuce at PMQs is the appropriate grown up thing to do (and many on here clearly agree), I feel that I shall use the term freely at all available moments.
I think it is very wrong for Starmer to call Badenoch a lettuce. That should be reserved exclusively for the Trusster.
What’s happened to me. I used to do drugs and be bad
Now I have become the sort of person that buys artisanal handwoven throws
It’s from Kachin. $105
I was going to say how rubbish it is, but it's actually not a bad effort for the 8-year-old who probably made it.
Being soaked in the tears of the 8 year old slave who made it counters any Woke entirely.
It wasn’t a slave. Kachin Burma has a long noble tradition of hand woven cotton
“Kachin textiles are not merely aesthetic but play an essential role in social and ceremonial life. Traditionally, they are worn during weddings, festivals (Manau celebrations), and rites of passage. Men wear intricately woven longyis (sarongs), while women wear htameins (skirts) paired with elaborately embroidered jackets and headdresses. Warriors and leaders historically wore finely woven garments as symbols of status
Kachin textiles are renowned and highly prized by collectors for their bold geometric patterns, intricate embroidery, and bright contrasting colors. Common motifs include:
Zigzags & diamonds: Representing mountains and rivers, key features of Kachin landscapes.
Animal symbols: Elephants, deer, birds, and mythical creatures, often linked to animist beliefs.
Tribal patterns: Each Kachin sub-group (such as the Jinghpaw, Rawang, or Lisu) has distinct designs that indicate regional or clan identity.”
$105! Bargain. I utterly adore it
Is that your hotel room. I would be seriously concerned if you made your bed up every day like that in NW1.
Badenoch absolutely dreadful at PMQs. Starmer actually (unusually) answered her first question, so she asked it twice more. Time for Honest Bob?
Davy was effective.
I thought she did rather well?
I thought Starmer won with the line "We know she's not a lawyer, she's clearly not a leader, but if she keeps on like this, she is going to be the next lettuce."
Plus it wasn’t a good look for Badenoch when the Speaker had to tell her off,
So, now that Starmer thinks it is perfectly fine to call Badenoch a 'lettuce' at PMQs and people on here like it, are we all OK with 'Rachel from Accounts'?
Would it stop you if the answer was no?
Until now, I have never once used the term 'Rachel from Accounts' anywhere. However, now that the PM thinks calling people a lettuce at PMQs is the appropriate grown up thing to do (and many on here clearly agree), I feel that I shall use the term freely at all available moments.
Ah ok, sorry, I thought (assumed?) you had. I can't track everyone all the time, I try but I can't, so in that case hats off and please continue to not. It reflects well on you.
Badenoch absolutely dreadful at PMQs. Starmer actually (unusually) answered her first question, so she asked it twice more. Time for Honest Bob?
Davy was effective.
I thought she did rather well?
I thought Starmer won with the line "We know she's not a lawyer, she's clearly not a leader, but if she keeps on like this, she is going to be the next lettuce."
Plus it wasn’t a good look for Badenoch when the Speaker had to tell her off,
So, now that Starmer thinks it is perfectly fine to call Badenoch a 'lettuce' at PMQs and people on here like it, are we all OK with 'Rachel from Accounts'?
Would it stop you if the answer was no?
Until now, I have never once used the term 'Rachel from Accounts' anywhere. However, now that the PM thinks calling people a lettuce at PMQs is the appropriate grown up thing to do (and many on here clearly agree), I feel that I shall use the term freely at all available moments.
Ah ok, sorry, I thought (assumed?) you had. I can't track everyone all the time, I try but I can't, so in that case hats off and please continue to not. It reflects well on you.
Badenoch absolutely dreadful at PMQs. Starmer actually (unusually) answered her first question, so she asked it twice more. Time for Honest Bob?
Davy was effective.
I thought she did rather well?
I thought Starmer won with the line "We know she's not a lawyer, she's clearly not a leader, but if she keeps on like this, she is going to be the next lettuce."
Plus it wasn’t a good look for Badenoch when the Speaker had to tell her off,
So, now that Starmer thinks it is perfectly fine to call Badenoch a 'lettuce' at PMQs and people on here like it, are we all OK with 'Rachel from Accounts'?
Would it stop you if the answer was no?
Until now, I have never once used the term 'Rachel from Accounts' anywhere. However, now that the PM thinks calling people a lettuce at PMQs is the appropriate grown up thing to do (and many on here clearly agree), I feel that I shall use the term freely at all available moments.
Ah ok, sorry, I thought (assumed?) you had. I can't track everyone all the time, I try but I can't, so in that case hats off and please continue to not. It reflects well on you.
You try to track everyone all the time?
Give it up for your own good
I'd like to but who would take over? It's a big commitment.
Badenoch absolutely dreadful at PMQs. Starmer actually (unusually) answered her first question, so she asked it twice more. Time for Honest Bob?
Davy was effective.
I thought she did rather well?
I thought Starmer won with the line "We know she's not a lawyer, she's clearly not a leader, but if she keeps on like this, she is going to be the next lettuce."
Plus it wasn’t a good look for Badenoch when the Speaker had to tell her off,
So, now that Starmer thinks it is perfectly fine to call Badenoch a 'lettuce' at PMQs and people on here like it, are we all OK with 'Rachel from Accounts'?
'lettuce' is gender neutral, I think? but it's a bit of a tired joke by now that doesn't seem to make any sense in this context - hasn't Badenoch already lasted longer a lettuce? Or is he predicting that she will become PM but only for a few days? I don't get it.
I wouldn't use 'Rachel from Accounts' myself, and as you're asking my advice: steer clear of it if you want to avoid any appearance of being an arse.
I'm happy to give people the benefit of the doubt if they do use it, though it does leave a bit of an off smell.
Robert Jenrick must be feeling quietly confident that he'll be Tory leader within a year or two. Badenoch needs to improve fairly quickly.
She's got the toughest job in politics and she's doing fine (for now)
Kemi is doing badly but as posted earlier in this thread, Jenrick is just as bad, if not worse. Here is that 30-second clip showing him being read the riot act yesterday. https://x.com/PeterStefanovi2/status/1884273412534894738
What’s happened to me. I used to do drugs and be bad
Now I have become the sort of person that buys artisanal handwoven throws
It’s from Kachin. $105
I was going to say how rubbish it is, but it's actually not a bad effort for the 8-year-old who probably made it.
Being soaked in the tears of the 8 year old slave who made it counters any Woke entirely.
It wasn’t a slave. Kachin Burma has a long noble tradition of hand woven cotton
“Kachin textiles are not merely aesthetic but play an essential role in social and ceremonial life. Traditionally, they are worn during weddings, festivals (Manau celebrations), and rites of passage. Men wear intricately woven longyis (sarongs), while women wear htameins (skirts) paired with elaborately embroidered jackets and headdresses. Warriors and leaders historically wore finely woven garments as symbols of status
Kachin textiles are renowned and highly prized by collectors for their bold geometric patterns, intricate embroidery, and bright contrasting colors. Common motifs include:
Zigzags & diamonds: Representing mountains and rivers, key features of Kachin landscapes.
Animal symbols: Elephants, deer, birds, and mythical creatures, often linked to animist beliefs.
Tribal patterns: Each Kachin sub-group (such as the Jinghpaw, Rawang, or Lisu) has distinct designs that indicate regional or clan identity.”
$105! Bargain. I utterly adore it
Is that your hotel room. I would be seriously concerned if you made your bed up every day like that in NW1.
Badenoch absolutely dreadful at PMQs. Starmer actually (unusually) answered her first question, so she asked it twice more. Time for Honest Bob?
Davy was effective.
I thought she did rather well?
I thought Starmer won with the line "We know she's not a lawyer, she's clearly not a leader, but if she keeps on like this, she is going to be the next lettuce."
Plus it wasn’t a good look for Badenoch when the Speaker had to tell her off,
So, now that Starmer thinks it is perfectly fine to call Badenoch a 'lettuce' at PMQs and people on here like it, are we all OK with 'Rachel from Accounts'?
Would it stop you if the answer was no?
Until now, I have never once used the term 'Rachel from Accounts' anywhere. However, now that the PM thinks calling people a lettuce at PMQs is the appropriate grown up thing to do (and many on here clearly agree), I feel that I shall use the term freely at all available moments.
I think it is very wrong for Starmer to call Badenoch a lettuce. That should be reserved exclusively for the Trusster.
Badenoch absolutely dreadful at PMQs. Starmer actually (unusually) answered her first question, so she asked it twice more. Time for Honest Bob?
Davy was effective.
I thought she did rather well?
I thought Starmer won with the line "We know she's not a lawyer, she's clearly not a leader, but if she keeps on like this, she is going to be the next lettuce."
Plus it wasn’t a good look for Badenoch when the Speaker had to tell her off,
So, now that Starmer thinks it is perfectly fine to call Badenoch a 'lettuce' at PMQs and people on here like it, are we all OK with 'Rachel from Accounts'?
'lettuce' is gender neutral, I think? but it's a bit of a tired joke by now that doesn't seem to make any sense in this context - hasn't Badenoch already lasted longer a lettuce? Or is he predicting that she will become PM but only for a few days? I don't get it.
I wouldn't use 'Rachel from Accounts' myself, and as you're asking my advice: steer clear of it if you want to avoid any appearance of being an arse.
I'm happy to give people the benefit of the doubt if they do use it, though it does leave a bit of an off smell.
This stuff is really really pathetic. Labour are in power. They will get mocked and insulted. What did they honestly expect??
Given my day job, I can confidently say that 99% of all cash transactions are something to do with dodging taxes, drugs, and/or wider criminality.
If you use cash you are on the side of the criminals and tax dodgers as well as making the lives harder for legitimate businesses.
Every week I go to the cash point and take out a fixed amount of cash. It helps me budget during the week. I also get the slip that tells me how much money I have and enter that in a spreadsheet. I have been doing that for more decades than I like to think.
What’s happened to me. I used to do drugs and be bad
Now I have become the sort of person that buys artisanal handwoven throws
It’s from Kachin. $105
I was going to say how rubbish it is, but it's actually not a bad effort for the 8-year-old who probably made it.
That’s a bit racist
I love it. I love the shamanic “outsider art” aesthetic
For me the figures - at once naive and deliberate - evoke the primitivist urgency of CoBrA artists or the fragmented narratives of Aboriginal dot paintings, their surreal distortions suggesting an alternative epistemology, a cosmology unmoored from Western linearity. The animals, spectral yet concrete? - they possess a totemic authority: elephants rendered in a near-psychedelic incompleteness, a spotted stag crowned with antlers that defy taxonomy. They’re lovely. But are they vegan? I dare say they might be
Then there’s rhe chromatic field - that red of such purity that it transcends mere pigment - it’s like a visual amplifier, both sacral and visceral, an arterial current binding the disparate elements. The embroidered tableaux oscillate between ritual and the quotidian: a peacock with imperial gravitas, a bowman in mid-sacrament, and a gong suspended in an enigma of sport or ceremony. The humanoid figures, with their elongated faces and spectral expressions, resist anthropocentric familiarity, emerging instead as liminal beings, intermediaries between the real and the ineffable. Also they remind me of @kinabalu when he’s unable to grasp a point
Is this a cultural document, an oneiric map, or a piece of noomy détournement? It is all and none - a relic of a narrative forever in motion, refusing resolution
It is PB hand woven in cotton, in the remote valleys of Kachin Myanmar
Given my day job, I can confidently say that 99% of all cash transactions are something to do with dodging taxes, drugs, and/or wider criminality.
If you use cash you are on the side of the criminals and tax dodgers as well as making the lives harder for legitimate businesses.
'I can confidently say that 99% of all cash transactions are something to do with dodging taxes, drugs, and/or wider criminality.
Wow. Any particular data to back up this 99% of all cash transactions are dodgy statistic? I will think on this next time I buy a pint, or do some top up shopping and consider what criminality I am supporting.
PMQs – note the idea to build datacentres in naturally cold areas has long been floated on pb.
That works for the big global superscaler cloud applications that do stuff in the background, and lots of them are already in cold countries with cheap renewable energy, but a lot of data centres need to be close to the main markets to minimise latency, hence most are in the Thames valley and more widely around the FLAPD hubs.
With all this Heathrow stuff going on, from the perspective of the grim north - where for most people air travel is about cheap flights from Liverpool etc - it still sounds very southern. I am wondering where is the plan for trains from Liverpool to Hull, buses that aren't pre war, dualling the A1 from London -Edinburgh (guess which bit is missing), and even west coast side Liverpool/Manchester) to Edinburgh.
When the Heathrow 3rd runways opens there will be five flights from Liverpool to London before 9am, and vice-versa.
Yes there is a missed opprtunity to run E-W rail in the North, from Liverpool to Hull.
The fact there would be that kind of demand, for a train journey of only 2 hours, demonstrates just how much we needed HS2 to open up some capacity (not speed FFS).
3rd runway at Heathrow to enable people to fly to Liverpool? Not a serious country.
You’re right but equally at the moment if I want to fly to someone that isn’t incredibly mainstream I have no choice but to fly via Amsterdam.
Yes I could go to Newcastle and go via CDG but just nope either way you can’t go via Heathrow which would be what most people expect
So those 3 flights from Liverpool will be 1 plane for onward connections and 2 for people to get to London cheaper than the train - with train prices set insanely high to limit demand on already full services
Comments
But this is an area where I'm almost always out of step with everyone else.
Also, PMQs doesn't matter one bit.
A former participant in PMQs once observed nobody notices if you win but people notice when you do badly.
See More in Common
Kemi Badenoch is very different and has plenty of time to develop, not least because there is nobody else remotely suited at present
https://x.com/balajis/status/1884271593620468026
The full scope of what is happening is completely unprecedented in our lifetimes.
The Trump executive orders were clearly meticulously planned to strike every single source of blue power, simultaneously, both in the US and abroad.
A fusillade of legal cruise missiles.
Their "plan" so far has been a shitshow
"We are going to spend $500 billion on AI"
China can do it for $50...
"We are going to pause all Government grants"
You know that means 90% of all US Government spending, right?
"Oh shit, we didn't mean ALL grants... just the ones we don't like..."
If this is what prepared looks like, Labour are on a winner
Whether or not it is a disaster we will see, I have no opinion either way on that aspect at the moment but I do know those opposed to Trump are not going to be positive about it. Time will tell.
My main interest is what happens with tariffs.
No it is also perfectly fair to compare the two given one of the selling points of Labour was as a govt ready to go with a team already in place. Starmer and co made a thing of it and even friendly commentators in the media reiterated this claim. IT is one of the reasons I changed from WNV to Labour.
They had been working on policy and the program of govt for a while.
Also is a man in a very high chair looking down on and telling off a woman misogynistic?
Thanks in advance.
At least make the Metro bigger and better.
Thanks to family I see far too much of the nhs in action and there is waste and pointless activities and lack of joined-up admin everywhere.
i also think a lot of what Kemi is doing at PMQ's right now is laying the groundwork for the next 2-3 years. Labours reversal of Thatchers Union reforms will come back to bite them at some point in this Parliament, IMO.
Truth be told, neither of them are very good at it. Starmer usually does better because he has the right of reply and he is at least somewhat able to think on his feet when it comes to attack lines. When he’s on policy he’s usually quite poor. Badenoch is notably very scripted.
Chapeau.
Did Starmer mislead the house? Does he really know what his own government is doing or not?
I thought Starmer won with the line "We know she's not a lawyer,"
I think that would not go well for her with him.
If she liked Pineapple on Pizza and Radiohead I think it gets even worse for her.
Lloyds Banking Group to close a further 136 branches.
https://www.ft.com/content/d41e7dc9-90e4-4247-a70e-fc1ae1fd4c72
Crucially, in about a fortnight, there will be a faint morning light coming through my curtains before the alarm goes off. It will make getting out of bed substantially less unpleasant.
I am not sure the Red Robbo and Arthur Scargill run the country narrative is as compelling as it was in the 1970s and 80s.
(But, equally, parts of Trump’s plan faltered quickly: whither Matt Gaetz and Vivek Ramaswamy?)
I love it. I love the shamanic “outsider art” aesthetic
For me the figures - at once naive and deliberate - evoke the primitivist urgency of CoBrA artists or the fragmented narratives of Aboriginal dot paintings, their surreal distortions suggesting an alternative epistemology, a cosmology unmoored from Western linearity. The animals, spectral yet concrete? - they possess a totemic authority: elephants rendered in a near-psychedelic incompleteness, a spotted stag crowned with antlers that defy taxonomy. They’re lovely. But are they vegan? I dare say they might be
Then there’s rhe chromatic field - that red of such purity that it transcends mere pigment - it’s like a visual amplifier, both sacral and visceral, an arterial current binding the disparate elements. The embroidered tableaux oscillate between ritual and the quotidian: a peacock with imperial gravitas, a bowman in mid-sacrament, and a gong suspended in an enigma of sport or ceremony. The humanoid figures, with their elongated faces and spectral expressions, resist anthropocentric familiarity, emerging instead as liminal beings, intermediaries between the real and the ineffable. Also they remind me of @kinabalu when he’s unable to grasp a point
Is this a cultural document, an oneiric map, or a piece of noomy détournement? It is all and none - a relic of a narrative forever in motion, refusing resolution
It is PB hand woven in cotton, in the remote valleys of Kachin Myanmar
NECA have had plans in place for a while now in 2016 they had a vision for the Metro which would expand it. Suffice to say nothing happened and these must be dead now we have a Metro Mayor.
https://www.nexus.org.uk/sites/default/files/vfm_eco_value_19_march.pdf
However Kim McGuinness our new Mayor is looking at the Washington Loop for the Metro as part of a wider project on the Leamside Line.
https://www.northeast-ca.gov.uk/news/transport/north-east-mayor-will-bring-the-metro-to-washington
"Ban under-16s from social media, says majority of public
Poll shows 75 per cent want minimum age for accessing social media sites to be raised from 13"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/28/ban-under-16s-from-social-media-say-public/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cre8n7wr31jo
Oliver Cooper
@OliverCooper
Yesterday, Lloyds Banking Group’s CEO had breakfast sat between Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves.
Today, Lloyds announce they’re shutting 136 branches.
Growth plan going well then.
https://x.com/BNONews/status/1884403526673006977?t=AE-PPWpFv0hcQZAFDuGLXg&s=19
“Kachin textiles are not merely aesthetic but play an essential role in social and ceremonial life. Traditionally, they are worn during weddings, festivals (Manau celebrations), and rites of passage. Men wear intricately woven longyis (sarongs), while women wear htameins (skirts) paired with elaborately embroidered jackets and headdresses. Warriors and leaders historically wore finely woven garments as symbols of status
Kachin textiles are renowned and highly prized by collectors for their bold geometric patterns, intricate embroidery, and bright contrasting colors. Common motifs include:
Zigzags & diamonds: Representing mountains and rivers, key features of Kachin landscapes.
Animal symbols: Elephants, deer, birds, and mythical creatures, often linked to animist beliefs.
Tribal patterns: Each Kachin sub-group (such as the Jinghpaw, Rawang, or Lisu) has distinct designs that indicate regional or clan identity.”
$105! Bargain. I utterly adore it
Also it doesn't come well from an Englishman as we are currently suffering one incompetent, failing single party government after another.
We can see this in their appeals to Whitehall department for their plans for growth and also for savings (never mind any implied contradiction there). And when there were none, or not enough, the Prime Minister announces the blockers are not just the last government but also senior civil servants ‘comfortable in tepid bath of managed decline’.
Not seen him this year?
If you use cash you are on the side of the criminals and tax dodgers as well as making the lives harder for legitimate businesses.
CDU/CSU 29%
AfD 23%
SPD 15%
Green 13%
BSW 6%
Left 5%
FDP 3%
Others 5%
https://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/
Look at William Hague, battered Blair at PMQs pretty much every week but was behind in the polls bar a week for four years.
It says: this stings
Ergo we must all continue to use it
Give it up for your own good
I wouldn't use 'Rachel from Accounts' myself, and as you're asking my advice: steer clear of it if you want to avoid any appearance of being an arse.
I'm happy to give people the benefit of the doubt if they do use it, though it does leave a bit of an off smell.
https://x.com/PeterStefanovi2/status/1884273412534894738
Wow. Any particular data to back up this 99% of all cash transactions are dodgy statistic? I will think on this next time I buy a pint, or do some top up shopping and consider what criminality I am supporting.
Yes I could go to Newcastle and go via CDG but just nope either way you can’t go via Heathrow which would be what most people expect
So those 3 flights from Liverpool will be 1 plane for onward connections and 2 for people to get to London cheaper than the train - with train prices set insanely high to limit demand on already full services