The Conservatives lost over 60 seats to the LibDems, including 6 here in leafy Surrey (12,000 majority in my constituency). I’m struggling to see how a pact with Reform will entice those defectors back into the blue fold.
Ditto here in South Cambridgeshire / St Neots constituencies. Once true blue.
The Tories aren't going to win those types of seat back.
Then they will never form a majority government.
Never is a long time. I remember people saying Labour would never win another election not that long ago. The electorate is uniquely volatile and disaligned from party identification. This is not a particularly good thing - stability and institutional memory matters and too much disalignment is almost as bad as too much partisanship - but it is where we are.
Apologies if wrong and not a dig, but are you not on your third party since 2019?
I'm also on my third party since 1995. But my defections are, in their own small way, a measure of the volatility on the centre-right. If the Tories were still sensibly conservative, I'd still be there. For that matter, had the Lib Dems had a more democratic (and politically viable) Brexit policy in 2019, I'd have moved directly across. And if the YP could have been made more functional and if the wider British and international picture wasn't so acute, I'd still be working there too - but it isn't and time is too critical to take the chance. Anyway, my objection to the Lib Dems is now in the past.
To be clear, I don't blame the electorate for being politically promiscuous: I blame the parties for not giving a solid, consistent, values-based programme.
Thanks. Certainly we cannot blame the public for being promiscuous when our politicians are flipping from party to party, sometimes for pure opportunism.
There's a reason people like Anna Soubry (Con-SDP-Con-Ind Grp-Change-Lab) or Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Con-Lab-SNP-Alba) aren't taken seriously.
The 'unique volatility' I would largely put at the door of politicians moving parties at a rate we haven't really experienced for a long time.
It is that unique? What of Roy Jenkins (Lab-SDP-LibDem) or Stratton Mills (UUP-Con-APNI) or Enoch Powell (Con-UUP) or Winston Churchill (Con-Lib-ind-Con) or Oswald Mosley (Conservative-Independent-Labour-New Party-Union Movement-National Party of Europe) or Dick Taverne (Lab-Democratic Labour-SDP-LibDem) or Jim Sillars (Lab-Scottish Labour Party-SNP)?
Also worth pointing out that at least some of those you mention and some of those like Anna Soubry mentioned by the OP would claim (with some justification) that it was not they but the parties that moved. They held their philosophical and political positions over an extended period of time and the parties moved away from them rather than vice versa.
The ones I really dislike are the worms like Bercow who moved from one obnoxious extreme to another.
Bercow simply believes in whatever is expedient, at any particular point in time.
The overt grift/bribery is on another scale compared with Trump 1.0
Melania pitched her documentary idea to Bezos over dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Amazon agreed to pay $40M—with more than 70% going to her. And her agent has been trying to sell "sponsorships" for the film—starting at $10M—to CEOs at the inauguration. Buyers would get thanked in the credits and be invited to the premiere... https://x.com/rebeccaballhaus/status/1890205838201045283
These are the values the US shares with Europe, apparently, and which get the Spectator class so excited. I suppose Melania is Slovenian!
Reform voters tend to be low information voters. They don't know much about the detail of how the world works and they don't care - they just want things to be good for them and their own.
TBH there's something refreshing about that - if we're honest with ourselves many of us think we are more knowledgeable about some stuff than we actually are. Good at saying things that are plausible even if they aren't actual.
People expressing a view about how a Trump/Putin deal will be good for Putin. Perhaps. Perhaps not. We have no detail about what the deal might be. Not even any broad outlines of it. So all we're doing is letting our prejudices run wild and imagine what a deal might look like from two people we don't have a good opinion of. We are low information on this subject, no different to anyone else.
Yet I suspect more people, including Reform voters, would have a better idea of where Reform stood on an issue than Lib Dems.
One group of people understand that they are voting for a protest party, the other pretend they aren't.
Austerity Reeves says nobody raised concerns about her expenses when at HBoS
As there was an investigation somebody clearly did
She is silent on fake dentist appointments
It's outrageous. Fake dentists? Whatever next.
Well she was followed when she claimed to be going to the dentist.
She went to a Labour Party meeting
So indeed fake dentists
I don't particularly want to defend Reeves but didn't TSE confirm yesterday that the tale you tell is infact a crock.
Go back to cheerleading Putin!
I don't know about that one, but the BBC has revealed that Reeves was investigated, along with others including her boss for possible expenses fraud following a whistle blower suggesting she had used her expense account to buy personal items such as clothes, designer handbags and perfume.
Not the sort of things you would normally purchase on expenses and also seems to mirror her dodgy receipt of designer clothes from the Labour donor. I believe it has also been suggested that there was a compromise agreement/NDA in place with her previous employer. It is possible that this was because such frivolous use of bank funds infringed FSA regs perhaps? This is all very consistent with someone who lies on their CV. It is why many employers treat exaggerations on CVs as gross misconduct, which is exactly what it is.
The Conservatives lost over 60 seats to the LibDems, including 6 here in leafy Surrey (12,000 majority in my constituency). I’m struggling to see how a pact with Reform will entice those defectors back into the blue fold.
Ditto here in South Cambridgeshire / St Neots constituencies. Once true blue.
The Tories aren't going to win those types of seat back.
Then they will never form a majority government.
Never is a long time. I remember people saying Labour would never win another election not that long ago. The electorate is uniquely volatile and disaligned from party identification. This is not a particularly good thing - stability and institutional memory matters and too much disalignment is almost as bad as too much partisanship - but it is where we are.
Apologies if wrong and not a dig, but are you not on your third party since 2019?
I'm also on my third party since 1995. But my defections are, in their own small way, a measure of the volatility on the centre-right. If the Tories were still sensibly conservative, I'd still be there. For that matter, had the Lib Dems had a more democratic (and politically viable) Brexit policy in 2019, I'd have moved directly across. And if the YP could have been made more functional and if the wider British and international picture wasn't so acute, I'd still be working there too - but it isn't and time is too critical to take the chance. Anyway, my objection to the Lib Dems is now in the past.
To be clear, I don't blame the electorate for being politically promiscuous: I blame the parties for not giving a solid, consistent, values-based programme.
Thanks. Certainly we cannot blame the public for being promiscuous when our politicians are flipping from party to party, sometimes for pure opportunism.
There's a reason people like Anna Soubry (Con-SDP-Con-Ind Grp-Change-Lab) or Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Con-Lab-SNP-Alba) aren't taken seriously.
The 'unique volatility' I would largely put at the door of politicians moving parties at a rate we haven't really experienced for a long time.
It is that unique? What of Roy Jenkins (Lab-SDP-LibDem) or Stratton Mills (UUP-Con-APNI) or Enoch Powell (Con-UUP) or Winston Churchill (Con-Lib-ind-Con) or Oswald Mosley (Conservative-Independent-Labour-New Party-Union Movement-National Party of Europe) or Dick Taverne (Lab-Democratic Labour-SDP-LibDem) or Jim Sillars (Lab-Scottish Labour Party-SNP)?
'Unique' wasn't my word. I'd have said that the political movement of politicians between parties was more 'once in a generation'. Since the early 80s probably. Guess the examples depend on the journey, some are understable, others opportunistic or showing poor judgement.
Again a clear distinction between Reform voters and the other 3 main party voters on Ukraine. Most Tory, Labour and LD voters think a deal negotiated by Putin and Trump will benefit Russia most, a plurality of Reform voters think it will be a compromise.
Most Tory, Labour and LD voters also think Ukraine should not accept a deal which requires them to give up territory if it does not want to and continue providing military aid. Most Reform voters however think Ukraine should be encouraged to accept a deal and a plurality to cut off military aid if it doesn't.
Reform voters therefore very much in the Trump column
Also shows that most reform voters are fundamentally gullible and/or have fascism fetishes.
It also shows they can fuck right off with any notion of a merger with the Conservative Party.
The Ghost of Margaret Thtcher will be getting into that tank to see them off....
She certainly wouldn't be rolling over for Putin, and would be giving that orange surrendering twat a good earful too
Maybe the Tory party can use AI to create a virtual Thatcher who they can then elect leader.
Again a clear distinction between Reform voters and the other 3 main party voters on Ukraine. Most Tory, Labour and LD voters think a deal negotiated by Putin and Trump will benefit Russia most, a plurality of Reform voters think it will be a compromise.
Most Tory, Labour and LD voters also think Ukraine should not accept a deal which requires them to give up territory if it does not want to and continue providing military aid. Most Reform voters however think Ukraine should be encouraged to accept a deal and a plurality to cut off military aid if it doesn't.
Reform voters therefore very much in the Trump column
Also shows that most reform voters are fundamentally gullible and/or have fascism fetishes.
It also shows they can fuck right off with any notion of a merger with the Conservative Party.
The Ghost of Margaret Thtcher will be getting into that tank to see them off....
She certainly wouldn't be rolling over for Putin, and would be giving that orange surrendering twat a good earful too
Maybe the Tory party can use AI to create a virtual Thatcher who they can then elect leader.
Hmm, indeed, an AI hologram of the Great Leader has some appeal. An AI creation of any past PM (recent few accepted) would be more interesting than Sir Keir Boring, and probably a lot more straight forward and honest than Rachel From Customer Complaints.
The overt grift/bribery is on another scale compared with Trump 1.0
Melania pitched her documentary idea to Bezos over dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Amazon agreed to pay $40M—with more than 70% going to her. And her agent has been trying to sell "sponsorships" for the film—starting at $10M—to CEOs at the inauguration. Buyers would get thanked in the credits and be invited to the premiere... https://x.com/rebeccaballhaus/status/1890205838201045283
These are the values the US shares with Europe, apparently, and which get the Spectator class so excited. I suppose Melania is Slovenian!
How conveniently you lefties forget Hunter Biden
Hunter Biden is American. He has nothing to do with European values.
The Conservatives lost over 60 seats to the LibDems, including 6 here in leafy Surrey (12,000 majority in my constituency). I’m struggling to see how a pact with Reform will entice those defectors back into the blue fold.
Ditto here in South Cambridgeshire / St Neots constituencies. Once true blue.
The Tories aren't going to win those types of seat back.
Then they will never form a majority government.
Never is a long time. I remember people saying Labour would never win another election not that long ago. The electorate is uniquely volatile and disaligned from party identification. This is not a particularly good thing - stability and institutional memory matters and too much disalignment is almost as bad as too much partisanship - but it is where we are.
Apologies if wrong and not a dig, but are you not on your third party since 2019?
I'm also on my third party since 1995. But my defections are, in their own small way, a measure of the volatility on the centre-right. If the Tories were still sensibly conservative, I'd still be there. For that matter, had the Lib Dems had a more democratic (and politically viable) Brexit policy in 2019, I'd have moved directly across. And if the YP could have been made more functional and if the wider British and international picture wasn't so acute, I'd still be working there too - but it isn't and time is too critical to take the chance. Anyway, my objection to the Lib Dems is now in the past.
To be clear, I don't blame the electorate for being politically promiscuous: I blame the parties for not giving a solid, consistent, values-based programme.
Thanks. Certainly we cannot blame the public for being promiscuous when our politicians are flipping from party to party, sometimes for pure opportunism.
There's a reason people like Anna Soubry (Con-SDP-Con-Ind Grp-Change-Lab) or Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Con-Lab-SNP-Alba) aren't taken seriously.
The 'unique volatility' I would largely put at the door of politicians moving parties at a rate we haven't really experienced for a long time.
It is that unique? What of Roy Jenkins (Lab-SDP-LibDem) or Stratton Mills (UUP-Con-APNI) or Enoch Powell (Con-UUP) or Winston Churchill (Con-Lib-ind-Con) or Oswald Mosley (Conservative-Independent-Labour-New Party-Union Movement-National Party of Europe) or Dick Taverne (Lab-Democratic Labour-SDP-LibDem) or Jim Sillars (Lab-Scottish Labour Party-SNP)?
Also worth pointing out that at least some of those you mention and some of those like Anna Soubry mentioned by the OP would claim (with some justification) that it was not they but the parties that moved. They held their philosophical and political positions over an extended period of time and the parties moved away from them rather than vice versa.
The ones I really dislike are the worms like Bercow who moved from one obnoxious extreme to another.
Bercow simply believes in whatever is expedient, at any particular point in time.
Very off-topic, but 4pm on a Friday is when my next YouTube video goes out. And I've had a phenomenal week. Earned as much in 7 days as I did in January as a whole. Added more than a 1,000 new subscribers. Had an interesting approach from a potential new sponsor.
Sometimes feels like I am a slave to the algorithm but other times it just clicks and things surge forward. I've also built up a bank of material for the coming weeks - next 2 weeks are mostly edited, the week after is shot, I've got a stack of other ideas to pull together and more road trips planned.
It's very much my secondary business activity, but of the 4 I have this is the most fun.
Very off-topic, but 4pm on a Friday is when my next YouTube video goes out. And I've had a phenomenal week. Earned as much in 7 days as I did in January as a whole. Added more than a 1,000 new subscribers. Had an interesting approach from a potential new sponsor.
Sometimes feels like I am a slave to the algorithm but other times it just clicks and things surge forward. I've also built up a bank of material for the coming weeks - next 2 weeks are mostly edited, the week after is shot, I've got a stack of other ideas to pull together and more road trips planned.
It's very much my secondary business activity, but of the 4 I have this is the most fun.
Well done. Great work.
If he's promoting Tesla, he's doing the devil's work...
The overt grift/bribery is on another scale compared with Trump 1.0
Melania pitched her documentary idea to Bezos over dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Amazon agreed to pay $40M—with more than 70% going to her. And her agent has been trying to sell "sponsorships" for the film—starting at $10M—to CEOs at the inauguration. Buyers would get thanked in the credits and be invited to the premiere... https://x.com/rebeccaballhaus/status/1890205838201045283
These are the values the US shares with Europe, apparently, and which get the Spectator class so excited. I suppose Melania is Slovenian!
How conveniently you lefties forget Hunter Biden
Hunter Biden is American. He has nothing to do with European values.
The overt grift/bribery is on another scale compared with Trump 1.0
Melania pitched her documentary idea to Bezos over dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Amazon agreed to pay $40M—with more than 70% going to her. And her agent has been trying to sell "sponsorships" for the film—starting at $10M—to CEOs at the inauguration. Buyers would get thanked in the credits and be invited to the premiere... https://x.com/rebeccaballhaus/status/1890205838201045283
These are the values the US shares with Europe, apparently, and which get the Spectator class so excited. I suppose Melania is Slovenian!
How conveniently you lefties forget Hunter Biden
Hunter Biden is American. He has nothing to do with European values.
"European values" ?
Ask JD Vance, he was talking about them today. He didn't say what they were just said we shared them with the US.
Given the almost certainty of a comedy double act that just test their strength against the great willyometer of the world where it's hard to think of good things about the world rather than it has to be the Duke of Wellington. what on earth is going on?
"It increasingly looks as if Lucy Letby’s conviction was unsafe The case of a nurse jailed for killing babies exposes deep problems with British justice"
The Conservatives lost over 60 seats to the LibDems, including 6 here in leafy Surrey (12,000 majority in my constituency). I’m struggling to see how a pact with Reform will entice those defectors back into the blue fold.
Ditto here in South Cambridgeshire / St Neots constituencies. Once true blue.
The Tories aren't going to win those types of seat back.
Then they will never form a majority government.
Never is a long time. I remember people saying Labour would never win another election not that long ago. The electorate is uniquely volatile and disaligned from party identification. This is not a particularly good thing - stability and institutional memory matters and too much disalignment is almost as bad as too much partisanship - but it is where we are.
Apologies if wrong and not a dig, but are you not on your third party since 2019?
I'm also on my third party since 1995. But my defections are, in their own small way, a measure of the volatility on the centre-right. If the Tories were still sensibly conservative, I'd still be there. For that matter, had the Lib Dems had a more democratic (and politically viable) Brexit policy in 2019, I'd have moved directly across. And if the YP could have been made more functional and if the wider British and international picture wasn't so acute, I'd still be working there too - but it isn't and time is too critical to take the chance. Anyway, my objection to the Lib Dems is now in the past.
To be clear, I don't blame the electorate for being politically promiscuous: I blame the parties for not giving a solid, consistent, values-based programme.
Thanks. Certainly we cannot blame the public for being promiscuous when our politicians are flipping from party to party, sometimes for pure opportunism.
There's a reason people like Anna Soubry (Con-SDP-Con-Ind Grp-Change-Lab) or Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Con-Lab-SNP-Alba) aren't taken seriously.
The 'unique volatility' I would largely put at the door of politicians moving parties at a rate we haven't really experienced for a long time.
It is that unique? What of Roy Jenkins (Lab-SDP-LibDem) or Stratton Mills (UUP-Con-APNI) or Enoch Powell (Con-UUP) or Winston Churchill (Con-Lib-ind-Con) or Oswald Mosley (Conservative-Independent-Labour-New Party-Union Movement-National Party of Europe) or Dick Taverne (Lab-Democratic Labour-SDP-LibDem) or Jim Sillars (Lab-Scottish Labour Party-SNP)?
Also worth pointing out that at least some of those you mention and some of those like Anna Soubry mentioned by the OP would claim (with some justification) that it was not they but the parties that moved. They held their philosophical and political positions over an extended period of time and the parties moved away from them rather than vice versa.
The ones I really dislike are the worms like Bercow who moved from one obnoxious extreme to another.
Bercow simply believes in whatever is expedient, at any particular point in time.
Fpt @williamglenn re: CDC website deletion not actually happening
From Google AI:
In January 2025, the Trump administration took down several Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) datasets and surveys. The deletions were part of a larger purge of federal health data that was prompted by executive orders on gender and diversity.
What was deleted? Data on adolescent health Infectious disease data Clinical guidelines on reproductive care and HIV Large-scale national health surveys Indices Data dashboards
Given the almost certainty of a comedy double act that just test their strength against the great willyometer of the world where it's hard to think of good things about the world rather than it has to be the Duke of Wellington. what on earth is going on?
Not quite sure what you mean but...
Are you aware that the Duke of Wellington was actually doing an act? - the whole Iron Duke thing was the public face of a man who was at heart, a bit of an artist and amateur dramatist.
His public utterances were carefully calculated to build that image.
Today, I learned that I can leave my house in Hampshire at 7.30am and arrive in Thurso by 11pm the same day by train. 5 trains to be precise. That's over 500 miles north. At a cost of less than £130.
That really is quite incredible.
Next, I want to see if I can fathom a route that gets me to the Orkney Islands (where I have never been, and i want to survey Scapa Flow) inside 24 hours sans car.
Trump's strategy is to be as confusing as possible so his opponents never quite know where he stands. Where does he stand on Ukraine? It's difficult to tell.
My guess is that he is trying to impose a deal, as for Israel/Hamas.
He is threatening both sides to get them to sign *something*. My guesstimate is a ceasefire in place.
I think a ceasefire in place is most likely. That was in effect the position between 2014 and 2022, with a fair number of ceasefire violations.
It is possible for such ceasefire to endure (Korea and China/Taiwan for example) but they are inherently unstable. A ceasefire is different to a lasting peace treaty.
Both sides would re-arm and prepare for the next round. Ukraine would bind itself into the EU economic system, but probably not NATO. Russia would agitate for sanctions to drop.
So, wait, you’re saying iits going to end up as a Korea style armistice?
If only we’d listened to that pb-er who told us all this 18 months ago; unfortunately I believe he was shouted down as a “Putinist shill” and a “fucking appeaser”
It is appeasement. Just because it might happen doesn't make it any less appeasement. And all it will mean is that Russia rearm, reorganise and come back for another go in a few years. Anyone who supports this is indeed a fucking appeaser. Putin wins. Ukraine and Europe - inluding the UK - lose.
Having a view on the outcome of a conflict doesn't make one an appeaser or anything else. It makes one an analyst.
'Supporting' is not just analysis.
Where is the support bit in wot he wrote:
“I disagree. Putin and Russia are all in. Russia will not be defeated like this, ie with total Ukrainian victory
OTOH I can’t see how Russia wins, either. I predict a long bloody stalemate that ends with a Korean style partition and an exhausted armistice”
The Russian oil industry is now "all in" because the bulk of it is situated west of the Urals and now in range of Ukraine drone strikes. There could perhaps have been back channel chats to keep power and oil facilities "off limits" to both sides. But that hasn't happened. The latest Ukrainian strikes on oil refining and storage capacity are taking it off-line for months. Maybe longer, as Russia doesn't have access to spares embargoed by the West. Whilst chips for missiles might get smuggled in from various of the Stans, trying to smuggle in a number of distillation towers isn't possible. So the capacity to refine crude oil is reducing at an alarming rate for Russia.
If it can't refine the oil, it has to store it until it can sell it. As sales to India are the latest to have ended, there's more need for storage - which storage the Ukrainians are destroying. If it can't store it, Russia has to stop production. Stopping production can be terminal to oil wells continuing production. It means they have to be reworked when production recommences. This process is very expensive and can take years - as was shown when the Soviet Union collapsed.
If Ukraine isn't leant on to stop hitting the Russian refining and storage capacity, it's hand in the negotaition gets stronger and stronger over time. No Russian oil = no money for Russia = no Russian army in Ukraine. Russia has planned its war on the expectation that Trump will step in to call for a ceasefire that fixes the current de facto borders. Russia is absolutely at the limit of holding its gains in Ukraine. Stockpiles of Soviet-era tanks and infantry fighting vehicles are largely gone; Russian production is a fraction of losses on the battlefield. Its infantry are now trying to get to the Ukrainian lines in comandeered cars. Few make it. Many more months of this will expose the Russian army for the hollowed out entity that remains.
Naturally I didn't read your post (keep it pithy would be my advice).
But if it says something like just one more push/Russia is going to run out of XYZ/any minute now he will fail/etc then give over.
Just today, Ukraine have hit a steel mill that produces 20% of Russia's steel...
As Topping says so what
They have lost and will be giving up land
They will be repaying America via mineral rights.
Its like Hitler claiming a triumph as he has a new heating system in his bunker in 1945
As one of the chief "Ukraine is going to win this" posters for the last 3 years.
It comes over as pathetic on the eve of defeat.
Zelensky will be fine mind
How do you know Zelensky will be fine after an engineered defeat by Trump?
Citation please. The step from Corbyn fanboi to Putin fascist appears to be a short one.
The horseshoe theory of politics is among the most compelling there is. The far-left loves Putin because he socks it to the West., The far-right loves him because he socks it to the woke. Both are very happy for the rest of us to sacrifice our democracy, rule of law and freedom of speech to see him win.
Fascism was popularised as a political concept by Mussolini, who was a socialist/communist/marxist just a few years earlier. This is direct evidence that the seemingly different political philosophies are actually rather appealing to the same sort of person.
Given the almost certainty of a comedy double act that just test their strength against the great willyometer of the world where it's hard to think of good things about the world rather than it has to be the Duke of Wellington. what on earth is going on?
Not quite sure what you mean but...
Are you aware that the Duke of Wellington was actually doing an act? - the whole Iron Duke thing was the public face of a man who was at heart, a bit of an artist and amateur dramatist.
His public utterances were carefully calculated to build that image.
Having met the Duke of Wellington's descendants I'm pretty sure he was a ghastly toad of a man that got lucky.They're called 'Wellesley'. One should avoid.
Trump's strategy is to be as confusing as possible so his opponents never quite know where he stands. Where does he stand on Ukraine? It's difficult to tell.
My guess is that he is trying to impose a deal, as for Israel/Hamas.
He is threatening both sides to get them to sign *something*. My guesstimate is a ceasefire in place.
I think a ceasefire in place is most likely. That was in effect the position between 2014 and 2022, with a fair number of ceasefire violations.
It is possible for such ceasefire to endure (Korea and China/Taiwan for example) but they are inherently unstable. A ceasefire is different to a lasting peace treaty.
Both sides would re-arm and prepare for the next round. Ukraine would bind itself into the EU economic system, but probably not NATO. Russia would agitate for sanctions to drop.
So, wait, you’re saying iits going to end up as a Korea style armistice?
If only we’d listened to that pb-er who told us all this 18 months ago; unfortunately I believe he was shouted down as a “Putinist shill” and a “fucking appeaser”
It is appeasement. Just because it might happen doesn't make it any less appeasement. And all it will mean is that Russia rearm, reorganise and come back for another go in a few years. Anyone who supports this is indeed a fucking appeaser. Putin wins. Ukraine and Europe - inluding the UK - lose.
Having a view on the outcome of a conflict doesn't make one an appeaser or anything else. It makes one an analyst.
'Supporting' is not just analysis.
Where is the support bit in wot he wrote:
“I disagree. Putin and Russia are all in. Russia will not be defeated like this, ie with total Ukrainian victory
OTOH I can’t see how Russia wins, either. I predict a long bloody stalemate that ends with a Korean style partition and an exhausted armistice”
The Russian oil industry is now "all in" because the bulk of it is situated west of the Urals and now in range of Ukraine drone strikes. There could perhaps have been back channel chats to keep power and oil facilities "off limits" to both sides. But that hasn't happened. The latest Ukrainian strikes on oil refining and storage capacity are taking it off-line for months. Maybe longer, as Russia doesn't have access to spares embargoed by the West. Whilst chips for missiles might get smuggled in from various of the Stans, trying to smuggle in a number of distillation towers isn't possible. So the capacity to refine crude oil is reducing at an alarming rate for Russia.
If it can't refine the oil, it has to store it until it can sell it. As sales to India are the latest to have ended, there's more need for storage - which storage the Ukrainians are destroying. If it can't store it, Russia has to stop production. Stopping production can be terminal to oil wells continuing production. It means they have to be reworked when production recommences. This process is very expensive and can take years - as was shown when the Soviet Union collapsed.
If Ukraine isn't leant on to stop hitting the Russian refining and storage capacity, it's hand in the negotaition gets stronger and stronger over time. No Russian oil = no money for Russia = no Russian army in Ukraine. Russia has planned its war on the expectation that Trump will step in to call for a ceasefire that fixes the current de facto borders. Russia is absolutely at the limit of holding its gains in Ukraine. Stockpiles of Soviet-era tanks and infantry fighting vehicles are largely gone; Russian production is a fraction of losses on the battlefield. Its infantry are now trying to get to the Ukrainian lines in comandeered cars. Few make it. Many more months of this will expose the Russian army for the hollowed out entity that remains.
Naturally I didn't read your post (keep it pithy would be my advice).
But if it says something like just one more push/Russia is going to run out of XYZ/any minute now he will fail/etc then give over.
Just today, Ukraine have hit a steel mill that produces 20% of Russia's steel...
As Topping says so what
They have lost and will be giving up land
They will be repaying America via mineral rights.
Its like Hitler claiming a triumph as he has a new heating system in his bunker in 1945
As one of the chief "Ukraine is going to win this" posters for the last 3 years.
It comes over as pathetic on the eve of defeat.
Zelensky will be fine mind
How do you know Zelensky will be fine after an engineered defeat by Trump?
Citation please. The step from Corbyn fanboi to Putin fascist appears to be a short one.
The horseshoe theory of politics is among the most compelling there is. The far-left loves Putin because he socks it to the West., The far-right loves him because he socks it to the woke. Both are very happy for the rest of us to sacrifice our democracy, rule of law and freedom of speech to see him win.
Fascism was popularised as a political concept by Mussolini, who was a socialist/communist/marxist just a few years earlier. This is direct evidence that the seemingly different political philosophies are actually rather appealing to the same sort of person.
The reason for that was that Mussolini was supporting the Allied War effort from the Left. After the disasters of the 12 battles of the Isonzo - culminating in Caporetto - Italy looked like it might drop out of the war.
The Indian economy is about to be devastated by AI. It will kill all the outsourced workers - the programmers. Then it will kill their call centres. Then it will kill *anyone* who works on a screen from abroad. Then it will kill anyone who works from home, even domestically. Then it will kill 50% of white collar workers overall
That’s in the next 1-4 years
I just want to get my next predictions in, after my success with Ukraine
Just heard Rachel Reeves in the radio denying her expenses fuddle. She has quite an annoying voice. Also, her coda that "I am proud of the work I did at the Bank of England as an economist and later at HBoS" draws into attention that a) she wasn't an economist at HBoS, and b) what an odd career trajectory it is to go from economist to complaints department.
Today, I learned that I can leave my house in Hampshire at 7.30am and arrive in Thurso by 11pm the same day by train. 5 trains to be precise. That's over 500 miles north. At a cost of less than £130.
That really is quite incredible.
Next, I want to see if I can fathom a route that gets me to the Orkney Islands (where I have never been, and i want to survey Scapa Flow) inside 24 hours sans car.
Not sure it is possible but this is information on ferries to Orkney
My wife spent the last few war years on Orkney by Scapa as the fishermen and others supplied the ships
Just heard Rachel Reeves in the radio denying her expenses fuddle. She has quite an annoying voice. Also, her coda that "I am proud of the work I did at the Bank of England as an economist and later at HBoS" draws into attention that a) she wasn't an economist at HBoS, and b) what an odd career trajectory it is to go from economist to complaints department.
Not really she took the best job she could find at the place she relocated to.
Today, I learned that I can leave my house in Hampshire at 7.30am and arrive in Thurso by 11pm the same day by train. 5 trains to be precise. That's over 500 miles north. At a cost of less than £130.
That really is quite incredible.
Next, I want to see if I can fathom a route that gets me to the Orkney Islands (where I have never been, and i want to survey Scapa Flow) inside 24 hours sans car.
Check Aberdeen-Orkney ferry. But it would take you to Kirkwall, not thro' the Flow as I understand it, so you'd need to walk a couple of miles at the end. . The Thurso ferry will go into Scapa for a little bit en route to Stromness. The route from John O G|roats or whatever to South Ronaldsay will get you a drive past Scapa Flow for some of the way but getting to the ferry from Thurso would be an issue.
The overt grift/bribery is on another scale compared with Trump 1.0
Melania pitched her documentary idea to Bezos over dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Amazon agreed to pay $40M—with more than 70% going to her. And her agent has been trying to sell "sponsorships" for the film—starting at $10M—to CEOs at the inauguration. Buyers would get thanked in the credits and be invited to the premiere... https://x.com/rebeccaballhaus/status/1890205838201045283
These are the values the US shares with Europe, apparently, and which get the Spectator class so excited. I suppose Melania is Slovenian!
How conveniently you lefties forget Hunter Biden
Hunter Biden is American. He has nothing to do with European values.
The Indian economy is about to be devastated by AI. It will kill all the outsourced workers - the programmers. Then it will kill their call centres. Then it will kill *anyone* who works on a screen from abroad. Then it will kill anyone who works from home, even domestically. Then it will kill 50% of white collar workers overall
That’s in the next 1-4 years
I just want to get my next predictions in, after my success with Ukraine
Looking at the people I'm forced to deal with at the moment - it won't be a loss ...
My client has spent 2.5 years on an outsourced IT project that should have been 6 months max and most of the work I'm doing is fixing mistakes they made due to not knowing enough about the software they are developing.
Hint most products provide multiple options and you don't always use the sledgehammer..
The Indian economy is about to be devastated by AI. It will kill all the outsourced workers - the programmers. Then it will kill their call centres. Then it will kill *anyone* who works on a screen from abroad. Then it will kill anyone who works from home, even domestically. Then it will kill 50% of white collar workers overall
That’s in the next 1-4 years
I just want to get my next predictions in, after my success with Ukraine
The question is what form will the opposition to this take.
That the ongoing and near-future deskilling, dumbing down, capital concentration, and labour market reduction have been given a name - and a two-letter name at that - may turn out to be a weakness.
Who with any humanity in them, who with a soul, isn't open to the call "Fuck AI to stay alive"?
One thing is for sure - they're not going to be able to sell this as to do with freedom, the way they've sold smartphones.
Today, I learned that I can leave my house in Hampshire at 7.30am and arrive in Thurso by 11pm the same day by train. 5 trains to be precise. That's over 500 miles north. At a cost of less than £130.
That really is quite incredible.
Next, I want to see if I can fathom a route that gets me to the Orkney Islands (where I have never been, and i want to survey Scapa Flow) inside 24 hours sans car.
Not sure it is possible but this is information on ferries to Orkney
My wife spent the last few war years on Orkney by Scapa as the fishermen and others supplied the ships
"It increasingly looks as if Lucy Letby’s conviction was unsafe The case of a nurse jailed for killing babies exposes deep problems with British justice"
I wish instead of making these judgements in the print media, the papers asked the questions and then let the processes take their course.
I am not close enough to the case to know one way or the other, but clearly Letby’s representatives have a right to argue that and to go through the judicial process to have the case reviewed. If the conviction is unsafe then she should be freed, obviously.
But there’s something in this whole saga I find deeply unedifying, with commentators enjoying loudly playing judge and jury in the centre of a deeply troubling situation which involves an awful lot of bereaved parents.
There was an article in Guardian (yes, I know) earlier this week by Neena Modi, Professor of Neonatal medicine at Imperial College and past president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, in which she sets out her concern, notably that Countess of Chester wasn't equipped or staffed to deal with really seriously ill babies, and some at least of these children had been identified as such before their mothers went into labour.
If she's guilty then she is currently correctly incarcerated. It does no harm to re-investigate the evidence. If she is still found guilty she stays there. If she is innocent, then its in all our interests to have justice done.
I think the great danger about this case is that a lot of people have started taking an interest but without enough evidence. They were not in the court for the trial. They did not hear the witnesses. They are aware of previous failures on legal systems, such as the seemingly similar Dutch case. And so a lot of people are starting to question whether the outcome of the case was right.
I am always skeptical when statistics and juries meet. In general the great unwashed has little comprehension of statistics and is certainly not able to spot fallacies in the thinking. There was, allegedly, a chart showing that all the babies who died or were harmed happened when Letby was on duty. It has been alleged that other deaths happened when she was not there but were excluded from said chart. Some people suspect that the chart which seems so damning may in fact be an example of the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy. Others assert that it isn't.
Its surely only fair (to all concerned) to be robust in this.
It is not just juries; often judge, prosecution and defence are similarly baffled, along with medical experts as we have seen in this case and famously with Roy Meadow.
Then there is the whole appeals set up which grinds slow and has rules around new evidence that are clearly unfit for purpose, if that purpose is justice.
Away from all that is the adequacy of the hospital, its expertise, equipment and procedures as in OKC's Guardian story.
Whether Letby killed babies or not, and if so how many and how, seems almost an afterthought to the medicolegal car crash.
The Indian economy is about to be devastated by AI. It will kill all the outsourced workers - the programmers. Then it will kill their call centres. Then it will kill *anyone* who works on a screen from abroad. Then it will kill anyone who works from home, even domestically. Then it will kill 50% of white collar workers overall
That’s in the next 1-4 years
I just want to get my next predictions in, after my success with Ukraine
The question is what form will the opposition to this take.
That the ongoing and near-future deskilling, dumbing down, capital concentration, and labour market reduction have been given a name - and a two-letter name at that - may turn out to be a weakness.
Who with any humanity in them, who with a soul, isn't open to the call "Fuck AI to stay alive"?
Anyone campaigning against AI who isn't using AI is giving themselves a handicap, so it's a self-defeating proposition.
The overt grift/bribery is on another scale compared with Trump 1.0
Melania pitched her documentary idea to Bezos over dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Amazon agreed to pay $40M—with more than 70% going to her. And her agent has been trying to sell "sponsorships" for the film—starting at $10M—to CEOs at the inauguration. Buyers would get thanked in the credits and be invited to the premiere... https://x.com/rebeccaballhaus/status/1890205838201045283
These are the values the US shares with Europe, apparently, and which get the Spectator class so excited. I suppose Melania is Slovenian!
How conveniently you lefties forget Hunter Biden
Hunter Biden is American. He has nothing to do with European values.
"European values" ?
You know, like centigrade.
Celsius. Daft names are important with all the daft. You can't go around bandying sense.
Today, I learned that I can leave my house in Hampshire at 7.30am and arrive in Thurso by 11pm the same day by train. 5 trains to be precise. That's over 500 miles north. At a cost of less than £130.
That really is quite incredible.
Next, I want to see if I can fathom a route that gets me to the Orkney Islands (where I have never been, and i want to survey Scapa Flow) inside 24 hours sans car.
Sure you can, albeit you will need to fly: Hampshire -> London -> Aberdeen/Glasgow -> Orkney.
The overt grift/bribery is on another scale compared with Trump 1.0
Melania pitched her documentary idea to Bezos over dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Amazon agreed to pay $40M—with more than 70% going to her. And her agent has been trying to sell "sponsorships" for the film—starting at $10M—to CEOs at the inauguration. Buyers would get thanked in the credits and be invited to the premiere... https://x.com/rebeccaballhaus/status/1890205838201045283
These are the values the US shares with Europe, apparently, and which get the Spectator class so excited. I suppose Melania is Slovenian!
How conveniently you lefties forget Hunter Biden
Hunter Biden is American. He has nothing to do with European values.
The overt grift/bribery is on another scale compared with Trump 1.0
Melania pitched her documentary idea to Bezos over dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Amazon agreed to pay $40M—with more than 70% going to her. And her agent has been trying to sell "sponsorships" for the film—starting at $10M—to CEOs at the inauguration. Buyers would get thanked in the credits and be invited to the premiere... https://x.com/rebeccaballhaus/status/1890205838201045283
These are the values the US shares with Europe, apparently, and which get the Spectator class so excited. I suppose Melania is Slovenian!
How conveniently you lefties forget Hunter Biden
Hunter Biden is American. He has nothing to do with European values.
"European values" ?
You know, like centigrade.
Celsius. Daft names are important with all the daft. You can't go around bandying sense.
Today, I learned that I can leave my house in Hampshire at 7.30am and arrive in Thurso by 11pm the same day by train. 5 trains to be precise. That's over 500 miles north. At a cost of less than £130.
That really is quite incredible.
Next, I want to see if I can fathom a route that gets me to the Orkney Islands (where I have never been, and i want to survey Scapa Flow) inside 24 hours sans car.
Sure you can, albeit you will need to fly: Hampshire -> London -> Aberdeen/Glasgow -> Orkney.
Hmmm... you can get the 5pm ferry from Aberdeen, which gets you into Kirkwall at 11pm. And so long as you go in mid-June, it'll be light pretty late. It's tough to get to Aberdeen in time for that ferry, though. You'd need to get to Kings Cross really early.
A bold prediction. Reform are peaking too soon. They may still rise a bit over the next year or so, but will then stagnate in the run-up to 2029 GE, and will decline during the heat of an election campaign, ending up with a core vote of around 20% or less as their lack of substance is revealed. Why? Lots of reasons. Tice is an idiot. Their policy offer is incoherent and unaffordable. Immigration will have come down. And Farage's end of the pier show will feel a bit old hat.
That's possible, but I'm not sure that rational policy analysis and statistics matters as much as it used to in today's outrage-fuelled, single-opinion social media echo chambers. And an incoherent and unaffordable policy offer lacking in substance didn't stop Labour winning a huge landslide seven months ago. Also they may be even more annoyed after another four years of stagnant or declining living standards.
Today, I learned that I can leave my house in Hampshire at 7.30am and arrive in Thurso by 11pm the same day by train. 5 trains to be precise. That's over 500 miles north. At a cost of less than £130.
That really is quite incredible.
Next, I want to see if I can fathom a route that gets me to the Orkney Islands (where I have never been, and i want to survey Scapa Flow) inside 24 hours sans car.
Sure you can, albeit you will need to fly: Hampshire -> London -> Aberdeen/Glasgow -> Orkney.
Southampton - Edin - Orkney (via Wick is certainly sometimes possible).
Today, I learned that I can leave my house in Hampshire at 7.30am and arrive in Thurso by 11pm the same day by train. 5 trains to be precise. That's over 500 miles north. At a cost of less than £130.
That really is quite incredible.
Next, I want to see if I can fathom a route that gets me to the Orkney Islands (where I have never been, and i want to survey Scapa Flow) inside 24 hours sans car.
Sure you can, albeit you will need to fly: Hampshire -> London -> Aberdeen/Glasgow -> Orkney.
Hmmm... you can get the 5pm ferry from Aberdeen, which gets you into Kirkwall at 11pm. And so long as you go in mid-June, it'll be light pretty late. It's tough to get to Aberdeen in time for that ferry, though. You'd need to get to Kings Cross really early.
Don't even try it at the weekend for the next few weeks. The East Coast mainline is closed between Durham and Newcastle for 'works'. I am heading back offshore again Monday so am having to fly up on Sunday rather than take the train.
The Indian economy is about to be devastated by AI. It will kill all the outsourced workers - the programmers. Then it will kill their call centres. Then it will kill *anyone* who works on a screen from abroad. Then it will kill anyone who works from home, even domestically. Then it will kill 50% of white collar workers overall
That’s in the next 1-4 years
I just want to get my next predictions in, after my success with Ukraine
The question is what form will the opposition to this take.
That the ongoing and near-future deskilling, dumbing down, capital concentration, and labour market reduction have been given a name - and a two-letter name at that - may turn out to be a weakness.
Who with any humanity in them, who with a soul, isn't open to the call "Fuck AI to stay alive"?
Anyone campaigning against AI who isn't using AI is giving themselves a handicap, so it's a self-defeating proposition.
Asymmetric warfare.
How will the AI side crush those who in their opposition to it don't use AI? What specific weapons will they use?
CND didn't use nukes. Okay, CND lost, but the reason wasn't its omission to nuke up.
Today, I learned that I can leave my house in Hampshire at 7.30am and arrive in Thurso by 11pm the same day by train. 5 trains to be precise. That's over 500 miles north. At a cost of less than £130.
That really is quite incredible.
Next, I want to see if I can fathom a route that gets me to the Orkney Islands (where I have never been, and i want to survey Scapa Flow) inside 24 hours sans car.
Sure you can, albeit you will need to fly: Hampshire -> London -> Aberdeen/Glasgow -> Orkney.
Hmmm... you can get the 5pm ferry from Aberdeen, which gets you into Kirkwall at 11pm. And so long as you go in mid-June, it'll be light pretty late. It's tough to get to Aberdeen in time for that ferry, though. You'd need to get to Kings Cross really early.
The sleeper from Euston to Aberdeen would be a good option, although you'd need to spend a few hours in Aberdeen...
Reform voters tend to be low information voters. They don't know much about the detail of how the world works and they don't care - they just want things to be good for them and their own.
The overt grift/bribery is on another scale compared with Trump 1.0
Melania pitched her documentary idea to Bezos over dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Amazon agreed to pay $40M—with more than 70% going to her. And her agent has been trying to sell "sponsorships" for the film—starting at $10M—to CEOs at the inauguration. Buyers would get thanked in the credits and be invited to the premiere... https://x.com/rebeccaballhaus/status/1890205838201045283
These are the values the US shares with Europe, apparently, and which get the Spectator class so excited. I suppose Melania is Slovenian!
How conveniently you lefties forget Hunter Biden
Hunter Biden is American. He has nothing to do with European values.
"European values" ?
You know, like centigrade.
Celsius. Daft names are important with all the daft. You can't go around bandying sense.
Kelvin. Proper units, for proper people.
Good Scots name too. Like Joule is so much better than foot-pound. A fine Brummie name.
The overt grift/bribery is on another scale compared with Trump 1.0
Melania pitched her documentary idea to Bezos over dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Amazon agreed to pay $40M—with more than 70% going to her. And her agent has been trying to sell "sponsorships" for the film—starting at $10M—to CEOs at the inauguration. Buyers would get thanked in the credits and be invited to the premiere... https://x.com/rebeccaballhaus/status/1890205838201045283
These are the values the US shares with Europe, apparently, and which get the Spectator class so excited. I suppose Melania is Slovenian!
How conveniently you lefties forget Hunter Biden
Hunter Biden is American. He has nothing to do with European values.
"European values" ?
You know, like centigrade.
Celsius. Daft names are important with all the daft. You can't go around bandying sense.
Kelvin. Proper units, for proper people.
- Adopting your quite right and proper system is a thumbs up from me.
A bold prediction. Reform are peaking too soon. They may still rise a bit over the next year or so, but will then stagnate in the run-up to 2029 GE, and will decline during the heat of an election campaign, ending up with a core vote of around 20% or less as their lack of substance is revealed. Why? Lots of reasons. Tice is an idiot. Their policy offer is incoherent and unaffordable. Immigration will have come down. And Farage's end of the pier show will feel a bit old hat.
I think so. There's just not quite enough racism, bigotry and stupidity in this country to get them over the line. There's enough to do well though.
The overt grift/bribery is on another scale compared with Trump 1.0
Melania pitched her documentary idea to Bezos over dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Amazon agreed to pay $40M—with more than 70% going to her. And her agent has been trying to sell "sponsorships" for the film—starting at $10M—to CEOs at the inauguration. Buyers would get thanked in the credits and be invited to the premiere... https://x.com/rebeccaballhaus/status/1890205838201045283
These are the values the US shares with Europe, apparently, and which get the Spectator class so excited. I suppose Melania is Slovenian!
How conveniently you lefties forget Hunter Biden
Hunter Biden is American. He has nothing to do with European values.
"European values" ?
You know, like centigrade.
Celsius. Daft names are important with all the daft. You can't go around bandying sense.
Kelvin. Proper units, for proper people.
Good Scots name too. Like Joule is so much better than foot-pound. A fine Brummie name.
Today, I learned that I can leave my house in Hampshire at 7.30am and arrive in Thurso by 11pm the same day by train. 5 trains to be precise. That's over 500 miles north. At a cost of less than £130.
That really is quite incredible.
Next, I want to see if I can fathom a route that gets me to the Orkney Islands (where I have never been, and i want to survey Scapa Flow) inside 24 hours sans car.
Sure you can, albeit you will need to fly: Hampshire -> London -> Aberdeen/Glasgow -> Orkney.
The overt grift/bribery is on another scale compared with Trump 1.0
Melania pitched her documentary idea to Bezos over dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Amazon agreed to pay $40M—with more than 70% going to her. And her agent has been trying to sell "sponsorships" for the film—starting at $10M—to CEOs at the inauguration. Buyers would get thanked in the credits and be invited to the premiere... https://x.com/rebeccaballhaus/status/1890205838201045283
These are the values the US shares with Europe, apparently, and which get the Spectator class so excited. I suppose Melania is Slovenian!
How conveniently you lefties forget Hunter Biden
Hunter Biden is American. He has nothing to do with European values.
"European values" ?
You know, like centigrade.
Celsius. Daft names are important with all the daft. You can't go around bandying sense.
Kelvin. Proper units, for proper people.
Good Scots name too. Like Joule is so much better than foot-pound. A fine Brummie name.
The Indian economy is about to be devastated by AI. It will kill all the outsourced workers - the programmers. Then it will kill their call centres. Then it will kill *anyone* who works on a screen from abroad. Then it will kill anyone who works from home, even domestically. Then it will kill 50% of white collar workers overall
That’s in the next 1-4 years
I just want to get my next predictions in, after my success with Ukraine
Have you tried asking AI to write a travel column based on a YouTube video of the place in question?
A bold prediction. Reform are peaking too soon. They may still rise a bit over the next year or so, but will then stagnate in the run-up to 2029 GE, and will decline during the heat of an election campaign, ending up with a core vote of around 20% or less as their lack of substance is revealed. Why? Lots of reasons. Tice is an idiot. Their policy offer is incoherent and unaffordable. Immigration will have come down. And Farage's end of the pier show will feel a bit old hat.
I think so. There's just not quite enough racism, bigotry and stupidity in this country to get them over the line. There's enough to do well though.
There's a lot of desperation and a very large number of people who have been doing badly for a long time though, so we shall see. My instinct is that there are enough people out there who loathe Farage, and/or who still feel they might have too much to lose through real disruption of the existing political settlement, to keep Reform penned into the Brexit heartlands. But I never thought the Tories would collapse quite as badly as they did at the last election, so what do I know?
Reform voters tend to be low information voters. They don't know much about the detail of how the world works and they don't care - they just want things to be good for them and their own.
That is so polite. They are racist thickos.
Characterisations like that are why Labour will continue to lose voters to Reform. If you tell people they are racist for wanting lower immigration, they will not stop wanting lower immigration; they will just conclude that your definition of 'racist' is so infantile and meaningless that there is no bar to voting for the party you are characterising as 'racist'.
25% of the electorate are not racist thickos. Rochdale's characterisation is correct.
The Indian economy is about to be devastated by AI. It will kill all the outsourced workers - the programmers. Then it will kill their call centres. Then it will kill *anyone* who works on a screen from abroad. Then it will kill anyone who works from home, even domestically. Then it will kill 50% of white collar workers overall
That’s in the next 1-4 years
I just want to get my next predictions in, after my success with Ukraine
That's quite good. Though if I may critique the thrust of the argument they appear to be making in the song - which I broadly agree with - you're not going to enthuse people about English folk with downbeat songs of complaint about people's lack of enthusiasm for English folk.
The overt grift/bribery is on another scale compared with Trump 1.0
Melania pitched her documentary idea to Bezos over dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Amazon agreed to pay $40M—with more than 70% going to her. And her agent has been trying to sell "sponsorships" for the film—starting at $10M—to CEOs at the inauguration. Buyers would get thanked in the credits and be invited to the premiere... https://x.com/rebeccaballhaus/status/1890205838201045283
These are the values the US shares with Europe, apparently, and which get the Spectator class so excited. I suppose Melania is Slovenian!
How conveniently you lefties forget Hunter Biden
Hunter Biden is American. He has nothing to do with European values.
"European values" ?
You know, like centigrade.
Celsius. Daft names are important with all the daft. You can't go around bandying sense.
Just heard Rachel Reeves in the radio denying her expenses fuddle. She has quite an annoying voice. Also, her coda that "I am proud of the work I did at the Bank of England as an economist and later at HBoS" draws into attention that a) she wasn't an economist at HBoS, and b) what an odd career trajectory it is to go from economist to complaints department.
Not really she took the best job she could find at the place she relocated to.
Really? There were no jobs for economists in West Yorkshire?
Good man. I hope there are enough decent Americans like this left to pick up the pieces once Trump has trashed the country.
Note, a lot of these guys are Republicans.
DOJ leadership has put all Public Integrity Section lawyers into a room with 1 hour to decide who will dismiss Adams indictment or else all will be fired. Sending them strength to stand by their oath, which is to support the Constitution, not the president’s political agenda… https://x.com/BarbMcQuade/status/1890431228085473411
A bold prediction. Reform are peaking too soon. They may still rise a bit over the next year or so, but will then stagnate in the run-up to 2029 GE, and will decline during the heat of an election campaign, ending up with a core vote of around 20% or less as their lack of substance is revealed. Why? Lots of reasons. Tice is an idiot. Their policy offer is incoherent and unaffordable. Immigration will have come down. And Farage's end of the pier show will feel a bit old hat.
I think so. There's just not quite enough racism, bigotry and stupidity in this country to get them over the line. There's enough to do well though.
It seems bold to imagine that immigration will have substantially subsided to the 'tens of thousands' or whatever we consider historically normal and absorbable by the end of this parliament. It seems almost impossible to imagine that immigration will 'feel' solved. The numbers may decrease, but visibility of immigration - the boat crossings, the illegal immigrants congregating in Piccadilly Gardens, the endless empty barber shops and vape shops, the steadily increasing proportion of English-as-a-second-language pupils in our schools - aren't going to go away.
Just heard Rachel Reeves in the radio denying her expenses fuddle. She has quite an annoying voice. Also, her coda that "I am proud of the work I did at the Bank of England as an economist and later at HBoS" draws into attention that a) she wasn't an economist at HBoS, and b) what an odd career trajectory it is to go from economist to complaints department.
Not really she took the best job she could find at the place she relocated to.
Really? There were no jobs for economists in West Yorkshire?
Some of the resignations so far. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5145882-here-are-the-doj-officials-who-resigned-over-order-to-drop-adams-case/ … When the Southern District of New York refused to drop the case, it was reassigned to the DOJ Public Integrity Section (PIN), according to NBC 4 New York. Keller chose to resign after learning of the news. He spent over a decade serving in the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section in roles spanning from trial attorney and deputy chief to acting chief, according to his staff profile. ..
The Indian economy is about to be devastated by AI. It will kill all the outsourced workers - the programmers. Then it will kill their call centres. Then it will kill *anyone* who works on a screen from abroad. Then it will kill anyone who works from home, even domestically. Then it will kill 50% of white collar workers overall
That’s in the next 1-4 years
I just want to get my next predictions in, after my success with Ukraine
The question is what form will the opposition to this take.
That the ongoing and near-future deskilling, dumbing down, capital concentration, and labour market reduction have been given a name - and a two-letter name at that - may turn out to be a weakness.
Who with any humanity in them, who with a soul, isn't open to the call "Fuck AI to stay alive"?
Anyone campaigning against AI who isn't using AI is giving themselves a handicap, so it's a self-defeating proposition.
Asymmetric warfare.
How will the AI side crush those who in their opposition to it don't use AI? What specific weapons will they use?
CND didn't use nukes. Okay, CND lost, but the reason wasn't its omission to nuke up.
Maybe that's where they went wrong. If the ladies of Greenham Common had an independent nuclear deterrent, they wouldn't have been so easy to ignore.
Just heard Rachel Reeves in the radio denying her expenses fuddle. She has quite an annoying voice. Also, her coda that "I am proud of the work I did at the Bank of England as an economist and later at HBoS" draws into attention that a) she wasn't an economist at HBoS, and b) what an odd career trajectory it is to go from economist to complaints department.
Not really she took the best job she could find at the place she relocated to.
Really? There were no jobs for economists in West Yorkshire?
I don't know, but quite possibly not enough to just be able to move and step smoothly into a role.
One of those red flags that the UK is more Londoncentric than is good for us (including Londoners).
That's quite good. Though if I may critique the thrust of the argument they appear to be making in the song - which I broadly agree with - you're not going to enthuse people about English folk with downbeat songs of complaint about people's lack of enthusiasm for English folk.
How about an upbeat song about folk music and politics?
The Indian economy is about to be devastated by AI. It will kill all the outsourced workers - the programmers. Then it will kill their call centres. Then it will kill *anyone* who works on a screen from abroad. Then it will kill anyone who works from home, even domestically. Then it will kill 50% of white collar workers overall
That’s in the next 1-4 years
I just want to get my next predictions in, after my success with Ukraine
The question is what form will the opposition to this take.
That the ongoing and near-future deskilling, dumbing down, capital concentration, and labour market reduction have been given a name - and a two-letter name at that - may turn out to be a weakness.
Who with any humanity in them, who with a soul, isn't open to the call "Fuck AI to stay alive"?
Anyone campaigning against AI who isn't using AI is giving themselves a handicap, so it's a self-defeating proposition.
Asymmetric warfare.
How will the AI side crush those who in their opposition to it don't use AI? What specific weapons will they use?
CND didn't use nukes. Okay, CND lost, but the reason wasn't its omission to nuke up.
Maybe that's where they went wrong. If the ladies of Greenham Common had an independent nuclear deterrent, they wouldn't have been so easy to ignore.
....and one evening in walks Dinsdale with a couple of big lads, one of whom was carrying a tactical nuclear missile. They said I had bought one of their fruit machines and would I pay for it
2nd Interviewer: How much did they want?
Vercotti: They wanted three quarters of a million pounds.
2nd Interviewer: Why didn't you call the police?
Vercotti: Well I had noticed that the lad with the thermonuclear device was the Chief Constable for the area.
Good man. I hope there are enough decent Americans like this left to pick up the pieces once Trump has trashed the country.
Note, a lot of these guys are Republicans.
DOJ leadership has put all Public Integrity Section lawyers into a room with 1 hour to decide who will dismiss Adams indictment or else all will be fired. Sending them strength to stand by their oath, which is to support the Constitution, not the president’s political agenda… https://x.com/BarbMcQuade/status/1890431228085473411
I’m not sure that’s smart? Wouldn’t you do better to challenge them one by one? Putting them together will lead to peer pressure… unless they want to clear them all out and replace them with patsies…
Good man. I hope there are enough decent Americans like this left to pick up the pieces once Trump has trashed the country.
Note, a lot of these guys are Republicans.
DOJ leadership has put all Public Integrity Section lawyers into a room with 1 hour to decide who will dismiss Adams indictment or else all will be fired. Sending them strength to stand by their oath, which is to support the Constitution, not the president’s political agenda… https://x.com/BarbMcQuade/status/1890431228085473411
I’m not sure that’s smart? Wouldn’t you do better to challenge them one by one? Putting them together will lead to peer pressure… unless they want to clear them all out and replace them with patsies…
Good man. I hope there are enough decent Americans like this left to pick up the pieces once Trump has trashed the country.
Note, a lot of these guys are Republicans.
DOJ leadership has put all Public Integrity Section lawyers into a room with 1 hour to decide who will dismiss Adams indictment or else all will be fired. Sending them strength to stand by their oath, which is to support the Constitution, not the president’s political agenda… https://x.com/BarbMcQuade/status/1890431228085473411
I’m not sure that’s smart? Wouldn’t you do better to challenge them one by one? Putting them together will lead to peer pressure… unless they want to clear them all out and replace them with patsies…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c24728zpp70t?post=asset:d5412ab7-65cf-4fce-967c-57f510d09bb6#post … There is a full-scale war raging a few hundred few miles east of here, on Europe's eastern borders, and everyone wants to know how America is planning to end that war without selling out Ukraine. But they didn't hear that from JD Vance when he addressed the Munich Security Conference a little earlier. Instead, we got chapter and verse on misinformation, disinformation, right of free speech, and he had a go at pretty much all the US's allies - including Britain. It was a very weird speech from a US vice-president; it wasn't what anyone wanted to talk about. He made a joke at one point saying, "if American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk". And then he paused for the applause, to be met with absolute dead silence. A US commentator said to me afterwards: "That was all for US domestic consumption"...
Germany's defence min Boris Pistorius says JD Vance's stunning attack on Europe is "unacceptable". "I had a speech I prepared today. It was supposed to be about security in Europe. But I cannot start in the way I originally intended." https://x.com/ChassNews/status/1890428885042418154
Reform voters tend to be low information voters. They don't know much about the detail of how the world works and they don't care - they just want things to be good for them and their own.
That is so polite. They are racist thickos.
Characterisations like that are why Labour will continue to lose voters to Reform. If you tell people they are racist for wanting lower immigration, they will not stop wanting lower immigration; they will just conclude that your definition of 'racist' is so infantile and meaningless that there is no bar to voting for the party you are characterising as 'racist'.
25% of the electorate are not racist thickos. Rochdale's characterisation is correct.
Most of the electorate are low information, in the sense that, even if some still pay attention to the news, they spend no significant amounts of time analysing politics and policy. PB readers are not normal. Most of the electorate, including most of the Reform electorate, are not racist thickos either.
Whilst I'd surmise that Reform has more than its fair share of hard right fans - it dominates the right of Tory space on the political spectrum currently - its real source of strength is amongst the great many people who have been struggling economically for a long time, who see no realistic prospect of their lot improving, and therefore feel that they have little left to lose by upending the political system.
If you view Labour and the Conservatives simply as two cheeks of the same rich fat arse that shits on you from a great height, then the choices you have left are to give up and not participate in the democratic process, or find a disruptor. It's possible (and personally I think it's almost certain) that a hypothetical Reform Government would be just as much for the already wealthy and powerful as the big two, but it's arguably logical to roll the dice.
Labour can only get these voters back through delivery, and that primarily means rising living standards for the bottom half of the income distribution. It's not going to happen, is it?
Austerity Reeves says nobody raised concerns about her expenses when at HBoS
As there was an investigation somebody clearly did
She is silent on fake dentist appointments
It's outrageous. Fake dentists? Whatever next.
Just filling time at a fake dentists?
I can imagine going to a local Labour Party meeting would be a bit like pulling teeth
I haven't attended one for decades. In Camden in the 1980s it was all (old school- they had been on the Aldermaston march in the fifties and sixties) CND, miners's strikes and pipes and doves of peace. It is probably no worse now. What I would consider even more unpleasant would be a room full of Johnsonian Tories and Faragista Brexiteers.
The Indian economy is about to be devastated by AI. It will kill all the outsourced workers - the programmers. Then it will kill their call centres. Then it will kill *anyone* who works on a screen from abroad. Then it will kill anyone who works from home, even domestically. Then it will kill 50% of white collar workers overall
That’s in the next 1-4 years
I just want to get my next predictions in, after my success with Ukraine
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c24728zpp70t?post=asset:d5412ab7-65cf-4fce-967c-57f510d09bb6#post … There is a full-scale war raging a few hundred few miles east of here, on Europe's eastern borders, and everyone wants to know how America is planning to end that war without selling out Ukraine. But they didn't hear that from JD Vance when he addressed the Munich Security Conference a little earlier. Instead, we got chapter and verse on misinformation, disinformation, right of free speech, and he had a go at pretty much all the US's allies - including Britain. It was a very weird speech from a US vice-president; it wasn't what anyone wanted to talk about. He made a joke at one point saying, "if American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk". And then he paused for the applause, to be met with absolute dead silence. A US commentator said to me afterwards: "That was all for US domestic consumption"...
Germany's defence min Boris Pistorius says JD Vance's stunning attack on Europe is "unacceptable". "I had a speech I prepared today. It was supposed to be about security in Europe. But I cannot start in the way I originally intended." https://x.com/ChassNews/status/1890428885042418154
He could have spent that time condemning dictatorships. Instead he condemned the democracies.
This era feels like high Brexit when the right-wing boys were parading around like masters of the universe. A few years after disrupting everything, they left people not better off but poorer and feeling miserable.
I don't really see the comparison. High Brexit was characterised by wall-to-wall mockery of the Brexiteers and hysteria about a No Deal Hard Brexit that never happened.
Trump 2.0 is more like the end of a long culture war that has been comprehensibly lost by his opponents.
Were you not one of the people indulging in the wall-to-wall mockery when you were an EU federalist before you hit yourself on the head or whatever caused such an astonishing political volte face, and you became a slobbering MAGA apologist and enthusiastic Brexit loon?
LOL - love this.
@williamglenn may be the site’s clown, moron, cretin and idiot. But he just may be a parody.
Just watched Vance's speech to the Munich security conference today.
It is well worth a listen, whatever your politics. He makes an excellent challenge to Europe. I believe strongly that we should listen to his arguments, even if he has little credibility as a messenger.
For those who haven't listened, essentially he argues that Europe's biggest threat to security is our own desire to censor certain voices and not to listen to voters who want to vote for e.g. AfD. His strongest argument is that we cannot win by pretending far right parties are not popular.
My problem with his speech, though, is the blatant hypocrisy. To have Musk at the centre of your government and to lecture others on free speech is, to put it mildly, shameless.
My other problem is that he does not make any attempt to address the other side of the argument i.e. that the reason we need to fight against misinformation is that those such as Musk are in the business of spreading it, because it is profitable.
In my view the only way that we achieve the good parts of what Vance argues for (more robust free speech) is if we ensure that the megaphones that amplify speech in our democracy (media of all sorts) are working for us not against us.
Just heard Rachel Reeves in the radio denying her expenses fuddle. She has quite an annoying voice. Also, her coda that "I am proud of the work I did at the Bank of England as an economist and later at HBoS" draws into attention that a) she wasn't an economist at HBoS, and b) what an odd career trajectory it is to go from economist to complaints department.
Not really she took the best job she could find at the place she relocated to.
Really? There were no jobs for economists in West Yorkshire?
I don't know, but quite possibly not enough to just be able to move and step smoothly into a role.
One of those red flags that the UK is more Londoncentric than is good for us (including Londoners).
Seems unlikely the best job open to an competent economist in West Yorks was less good than one in the complaints department, but you never know. The problem you identify is true though. If onky Rachel Reeves were niw able to do something about it? Instead, it appears treasury is reverting to type and focusing all infrastructure on the South East.
Reform voters tend to be low information voters. They don't know much about the detail of how the world works and they don't care - they just want things to be good for them and their own.
That is so polite. They are racist thickos.
Characterisations like that are why Labour will continue to lose voters to Reform. If you tell people they are racist for wanting lower immigration, they will not stop wanting lower immigration; they will just conclude that your definition of 'racist' is so infantile and meaningless that there is no bar to voting for the party you are characterising as 'racist'.
25% of the electorate are not racist thickos. Rochdale's characterisation is correct.
But why do you think they aren't racist thickos?
The only ways Labour could reasonably conceivably stop losing voters on the immigration issue are by adopting Reform-like policies (which they and the Conservatives probably will) or by turning left and encouraging native and immigrant workers alike to join trade unions (which would mean going further left than Corbyn, which they certainly won't).
In addition the wages differentials (and often also working hours differentials) in say the building sector or hospitality between native British workers and e.g. Romanian illegals may be too high for "uniting and fighting" to be that attractive to many workers in either group.
Just watched Vance's speech to the Munich security conference today.
It is well worth a listen, whatever your politics. He makes an excellent challenge to Europe. I believe strongly that we should listen to his arguments, even if he has little credibility as a messenger.
For those who haven't listened, essentially he argues that Europe's biggest threat to security is our own desire to censor certain voices and not to listen to voters who want to vote for e.g. AfD. His strongest argument is that we cannot win by pretending far right parties are not popular.
My problem with his speech, though, is the blatant hypocrisy. To have Musk at the centre of your government and to lecture others on free speech is, to put it mildly, shameless.
My other problem is that he does not make any attempt to address the other side of the argument i.e. that the reason we need to fight against misinformation is that those such as Musk are in the business of spreading it, because it is profitable.
In my view the only way that we achieve the good parts of what Vance argues for (more robust free speech) is if we ensure that the megaphones that amplify speech in our democracy (media of all sorts) are working for us not against us.
"Our desire to censor voices" is just a hard-right fantasy that the likes of Musk use to try to justify an overwhelming stream of online disinformation.
What fools people are to believe a word of this crap.
Today, I learned that I can leave my house in Hampshire at 7.30am and arrive in Thurso by 11pm the same day by train. 5 trains to be precise. That's over 500 miles north. At a cost of less than £130.
That really is quite incredible.
Next, I want to see if I can fathom a route that gets me to the Orkney Islands (where I have never been, and i want to survey Scapa Flow) inside 24 hours sans car.
Sure you can, albeit you will need to fly: Hampshire -> London -> Aberdeen/Glasgow -> Orkney.
Wouldn’t Farnborough > Orkney be easier?
It's a shame you want Orkney as the ferry from Aberdeen leaves at 17:00 just before the 10:00 from Kings Cross arrives.
Now if you want to get to the Shetlands that ferry leaves at 19:00 and arrives at 7:30 so if you can get to Kings Cross in less than 2.5 hours you can get to Shetland in under 24 hours..
Edit if you get the 8:30 from KX you get to Aberdeen by 16:00 giving you an hour to get on the ferry.
Comments
Go back to cheerleading Putin!
One group of people understand that they are voting for a protest party, the other pretend they aren't.
Not the sort of things you would normally purchase on expenses and also seems to mirror her dodgy receipt of designer clothes from the Labour donor. I believe it has also been suggested that there was a compromise agreement/NDA in place with her previous employer. It is possible that this was because such frivolous use of bank funds infringed FSA regs perhaps? This is all very consistent with someone who lies on their CV. It is why many employers treat exaggerations on CVs as gross misconduct, which is exactly what it is.
SHE NEEDS TO BE FIRED!
Seems like a stretch, but there you go.
I'll give you that one.
From Google AI:
In January 2025, the Trump administration took down several Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) datasets and surveys. The deletions were part of a larger purge of federal health data that was prompted by executive orders on gender and diversity.
What was deleted?
Data on adolescent health
Infectious disease data
Clinical guidelines on reproductive care and HIV
Large-scale national health surveys
Indices
Data dashboards
Are you aware that the Duke of Wellington was actually doing an act? - the whole Iron Duke thing was the public face of a man who was at heart, a bit of an artist and amateur dramatist.
His public utterances were carefully calculated to build that image.
That really is quite incredible.
Next, I want to see if I can fathom a route that gets me to the Orkney Islands (where I have never been, and i want to survey Scapa Flow) inside 24 hours sans car.
Mussolini and the golden Knights of St George.
“I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me.”
This guy got two Bronze stars in Iraq and clerked for Roberts before landing at SDNY
https://x.com/jonfavs/status/1890445003375227246
That’s in the next 1-4 years
I just want to get my next predictions in, after my success with Ukraine
https://x.com/MattCartoonist/status/1890455492654231839
My wife spent the last few war years on Orkney by Scapa as the fishermen and others supplied the ships
https://www.orkney.com/plan/getting-here
My client has spent 2.5 years on an outsourced IT project that should have been 6 months max and most of the work I'm doing is fixing mistakes they made due to not knowing enough about the software they are developing.
Hint most products provide multiple options and you don't always use the sledgehammer..
That the ongoing and near-future deskilling, dumbing down, capital concentration, and labour market reduction have been given a name - and a two-letter name at that - may turn out to be a weakness.
Who with any humanity in them, who with a soul, isn't open to the call "Fuck AI to stay alive"?
One thing is for sure - they're not going to be able to sell this as to do with freedom, the way they've sold smartphones.
Then there is the whole appeals set up which grinds slow and has rules around new evidence that are clearly unfit for purpose, if that purpose is justice.
Away from all that is the adequacy of the hospital, its expertise, equipment and procedures as in OKC's Guardian story.
Whether Letby killed babies or not, and if so how many and how, seems almost an afterthought to the medicolegal car crash.
I din't know Show of Hands - I will look them out - but The Fix and Bottle of Smoke are splendid whether you are a racing enthusiast or not.
Still, as always, time will tell.
How will the AI side crush those who in their opposition to it don't use AI? What specific weapons will they use?
CND didn't use nukes. Okay, CND lost, but the reason wasn't its omission to nuke up.
https://youtu.be/wYnz3HgzZ2U?si=3jGPou6eG4MBcvQ7
Adopting your quite right and proper system is a thumbs up from me.
If you tell people they are racist for wanting lower immigration, they will not stop wanting lower immigration; they will just conclude that your definition of 'racist' is so infantile and meaningless that there is no bar to voting for the party you are characterising as 'racist'.
25% of the electorate are not racist thickos. Rochdale's characterisation is correct.
DOJ leadership has put all Public Integrity Section lawyers into a room with 1 hour to decide who will dismiss Adams indictment or else all will be fired. Sending them strength to stand by their oath, which is to support the Constitution, not the president’s political agenda…
https://x.com/BarbMcQuade/status/1890431228085473411
They t'were 'ard times, them.....
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5145882-here-are-the-doj-officials-who-resigned-over-order-to-drop-adams-case/
… When the Southern District of New York refused to drop the case, it was reassigned to the DOJ Public Integrity Section (PIN), according to NBC 4 New York.
Keller chose to resign after learning of the news.
He spent over a decade serving in the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section in roles spanning from trial attorney and deputy chief to acting chief, according to his staff profile. ..
https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-war-volodymyr-zelenskyy-donald-trump-putin-liar-peace/
One of those red flags that the UK is more Londoncentric than is good for us (including Londoners).
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LixJECmbfNY&pp=ygUTVGhlIG9uZSBrbiB0YmUgbWVmdA==
....and one evening in walks Dinsdale with a couple of big lads, one of whom was carrying a tactical nuclear missile. They said I had bought one of their fruit machines and would I pay for it
2nd Interviewer: How much did they want?
Vercotti: They wanted three quarters of a million pounds.
2nd Interviewer: Why didn't you call the police?
Vercotti: Well I had noticed that the lad with the thermonuclear device was the Chief Constable for the area.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c24728zpp70t?post=asset:d5412ab7-65cf-4fce-967c-57f510d09bb6#post
… There is a full-scale war raging a few hundred few miles east of here, on Europe's eastern borders, and everyone wants to know how America is planning to end that war without selling out Ukraine.
But they didn't hear that from JD Vance when he addressed the Munich Security Conference a little earlier.
Instead, we got chapter and verse on misinformation, disinformation, right of free speech, and he had a go at pretty much all the US's allies - including Britain.
It was a very weird speech from a US vice-president; it wasn't what anyone wanted to talk about.
He made a joke at one point saying, "if American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk". And then he paused for the applause, to be met with absolute dead silence.
A US commentator said to me afterwards: "That was all for US domestic consumption"...
Germany's defence min Boris Pistorius says JD Vance's stunning attack on Europe is "unacceptable". "I had a speech I prepared today. It was supposed to be about security in Europe. But I cannot start in the way I originally intended."
https://x.com/ChassNews/status/1890428885042418154
Whilst I'd surmise that Reform has more than its fair share of hard right fans - it dominates the right of Tory space on the political spectrum currently - its real source of strength is amongst the great many people who have been struggling economically for a long time, who see no realistic prospect of their lot improving, and therefore feel that they have little left to lose by upending the political system.
If you view Labour and the Conservatives simply as two cheeks of the same rich fat arse that shits on you from a great height, then the choices you have left are to give up and not participate in the democratic process, or find a disruptor. It's possible (and personally I think it's almost certain) that a hypothetical Reform Government would be just as much for the already wealthy and powerful as the big two, but it's arguably logical to roll the dice.
Labour can only get these voters back through delivery, and that primarily means rising living standards for the bottom half of the income distribution. It's not going to happen, is it?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/grandparents/dear-richard-madeley-hide-politics-win-back-grandson/
@williamglenn may be the site’s clown, moron, cretin and idiot. But he just may be a parody.
It is well worth a listen, whatever your politics. He makes an excellent challenge to Europe. I believe strongly that we should listen to his arguments, even if he has little credibility as a messenger.
For those who haven't listened, essentially he argues that Europe's biggest threat to security is our own desire to censor certain voices and not to listen to voters who want to vote for e.g. AfD. His strongest argument is that we cannot win by pretending far right parties are not popular.
My problem with his speech, though, is the blatant hypocrisy. To have Musk at the centre of your government and to lecture others on free speech is, to put it mildly, shameless.
My other problem is that he does not make any attempt to address the other side of the argument i.e. that the reason we need to fight against misinformation is that those such as Musk are in the business of spreading it, because it is profitable.
In my view the only way that we achieve the good parts of what Vance argues for (more robust free speech) is if we ensure that the megaphones that amplify speech in our democracy (media of all sorts) are working for us not against us.
The only ways Labour could reasonably conceivably stop losing voters on the immigration issue are by adopting Reform-like policies (which they and the Conservatives probably will) or by turning left and encouraging native and immigrant workers alike to join trade unions (which would mean going further left than Corbyn, which they certainly won't).
In addition the wages differentials (and often also working hours differentials) in say the building sector or hospitality between native British workers and e.g. Romanian illegals may be too high for "uniting and fighting" to be that attractive to many workers in either group.
What fools people are to believe a word of this crap.
Now if you want to get to the Shetlands that ferry leaves at 19:00 and arrives at 7:30 so if you can get to Kings Cross in less than 2.5 hours you can get to Shetland in under 24 hours..
Edit if you get the 8:30 from KX you get to Aberdeen by 16:00 giving you an hour to get on the ferry.