But Jenrick is a bit of a star, is quick witted, amoral and nasty, and would - at least - give starmer a booting at PMQs, which would cheer them up if nowt else
Sadly I can’t see Kemi improving. I feared she was a lightweight, I thought she was worth the risk anyway. But she’s turned out to be lightweight - indeed worse than feared
Better to strike now while no one cares or notices
Jenrick has a history like Badenoch of being unprepared and fluffing his lines. He’s had more car crashes than a rally driver. And he doesn’t do sharp wit. So I can imagine PMQs might not suit him either.
He is much better at the pre-recorded piece to camera where he does the whole anger with a steely glint look.
Hmmm. I haven't seen him fluff things up too much - in the HOC do you mean?
In interviews. A lot of examples where he’s gone in with a fact or an answer to a policy question, been probed on it and then fluffed his lines or contradicted himself.
There are a few examples that you can find YouTube vids of, mostly from the last 12 months since he came to prominence but I can remember some very awkward Today outings when he was a minister (and that time he ducked a commons question on his planning scandal and sent his deputy).
Citations or you’re talking nonsense
There are lots, of varying picture and sound qualities, and I’m not going to curate them for you here just type “jenrick car crash interview” into google videos.
But here’s one of the more embarrassing ones on one of the topics that makes him squirm the most. An extended illustration of Jenrick in policy interview rather than tirade mode.
Meh. A moderately bruising interview taking place live in the the middle of the first lockdown madness - and Jenrick also has to cope with loonies shouting at him from the silent london streets (london was especially crazy during that first lockdown)
If that’s the best you can do then pfff
I would link the more recent ones where he’s repeatedly caught lying about asylum data but they’re all accompanied by irritating editorialising by the YouTubers. Braverman is a bit better at saying bonkers stuff with a straight face. Jenrick still squirms a bit.
"The French winemaker whose wines are illegal in his home country"
At £16.50 a bottle they've over-estimated their appreciation for a gimmick! Plenty of good wine at £10/bottle or less at the wine society, spending more than that then I'd suggest their customers aren't looking for a blend.
If you want to tax assets, CGT when properties are sold is the obvious one. No issues with valuation and the money is there.
On primary residence? That would totally f*** labour mobility by meaning no home/mortgage owner ever moves home again, it's dis-incentivised already with fees and stamp duty.
People on here are always talking about taxing assets and housing wealth in particular but the moment anything is suggested which affects them they bridle. And then they have the nerve to attack pensioners or others affected by changes.
If we have to raise money - and we do - especially for our defence, then this and more will be needed: increases in income tax, fuel duty, extensions of VAT, removing the triple lock, no higher rate tax relief for pension contributions, council tax bands for higher value homes, savings to be used for social care and so on. No group will be unaffected. That's the brutal truth.
Best option for what? A fucking doorstop? Because Gig Lamps was not the best option for LotO. That was transparently obvious from the start. Jobert Renwick would have served alt-right c-nt all over the place by now. He is sufficiently devoid of any moral restraint so that he can take on Farage in appealing to people who have horrible kids called Jaxxon and is enough of an opportunistic schemer to cause SKS and his Red Reform project a few problems.
Come come, old bean, there are nicer ways of phrasing this, surely?
Let’s have a go
Upon a Choice Ill-Made
An option - say, for what? Alas, A fucking doorstop - cold and bare; For Gig Lamps, wreathed in empty brass, Was never meant to lead us there
The path was clear from fate’s first breath, The best option, e’en shorn of grace; Had Renwick seized the helm of death, He’d’ve served alt-right c-nt all over the place
Best option for what? A fucking doorstop? Because Gig Lamps was not the best option for LotO. That was transparently obvious from the start. Jobert Renwick would have served alt-right c-nt all over the place by now. He is sufficiently devoid of any moral restraint so that he can take on Farage in appealing to people who have horrible kids called Jaxxon and is enough of an opportunistic schemer to cause SKS and his Red Reform project a few problems.
Is he allocating the money to lease Diego Garcia as defence spending?
Not sure £90 million a year would make much difference to the numbers.
Isn’t your point part of the problem? Everyone says “£90m is nothing in the big picture” except that all these £90 millions that aren’t that big add up and are collectively big.
Think what you can buy for the military with £90m - how many machine guns, bullets, shells. It’s over 69,000 SA-80 machine guns for example.
All these figures can be used and depending on where you sit, £90m for the army might be better than £90m to Mauritius.
I agree. £90M UK spending just to little Mauritius every year for 99 years , just to lease back one island on behalf of American “friends”, seems way over the top to me! In defence spending - which yes surely the budget this must come out of as what other way does taxpayer enjoy leasing this island other than strong UK defence from it - it’s exactly same cost of keeping just one of our carriers in service every year.
£90M is Still £40M lower than Liverpool FC’s annual £130M wage budget, for another comparison of how Ox guzzling UK society operates in 2025 though.
A single payment of £90m would have secured the AZN vaccine centre.
A annual investment with a similar payoff would surely be vastly preferable to chucking the money away - if that is what we’re doing with this deal.
Indeed, it’s one of those things where I think civil servants and governments lose any sense of money. They see departmental budgets and tax takes in the billions and stop being able to really realise that tens of millions, even millions, deployed well are not only still huge sums of money that people worked hard for to generate the tax, but can also have bigger effects than some huge spends.
Is buying a few hundred thousand infantry rifles and training a few hundred thousand people to use them and pay them a stipend to keep training so we have people who know how to shoot in an emergency which might cost, say £300m over many years better than spending it on 40 tanks?
It’s probably easier in the minds of MOD people to think of spending a billion on 150 odd tanks as good as these are big objects and a billion isn’t that big a deal on the gov balance sheet.
So 90m a year to Mauritius can be used better by the army, or specialist medical units, or helping clothe or feed kids who need help. Unfortunately I think a lot of MPs and Civil Servants just lose all sense of money once in place.
A classic of the genre was the US Amry looking at all kinds of exotic systems to improve the hit rate of infantry with rifles.
Multiple flechette rounds, extreme burst fire (fire 3 rounds in milliseconds) etc etc.
Then someone noticed that the testing teams were scoring extraordinarily well with their regular rifles. Better than line soldiers. Better than the improvement that billions in tech was trying to achieve.
Turned out that doing more practise at the range improved soldiers shooting. Massively. You see, most line soldiers were not shooting very often….
If you want to tax assets, CGT when properties are sold is the obvious one. No issues with valuation and the money is there.
On primary residence? That would totally f*** labour mobility by meaning no home/mortgage owner ever moves home again, it's dis-incentivised already with fees and stamp duty.
The clever reform would be to charge CGT on primary residence (and IHT), but abolish Stamp Duty/LBTT entirely. Make it roughly fiscally neutral.
Then why bother?
Increase liquidity in the housing market, making more large homes available for young families and smaller homes for pensioners. Make investing in businesses relatively more attractive. Take some heat out of the market in Edinburgh/London.
I've made more from my flat price increasing than I have from saving from my salary. I should be taxed more on my property and less on my earnings.
The current Tory leaders are like saprophytic fungi on the trunk of a felled oak. They themselves look healthy enough in a weird sort of way, but that old oak has gone and isn't coming back.
But Jenrick is a bit of a star, is quick witted, amoral and nasty, and would - at least - give starmer a booting at PMQs, which would cheer them up if nowt else
Sadly I can’t see Kemi improving. I feared she was a lightweight, I thought she was worth the risk anyway. But she’s turned out to be lightweight - indeed worse than feared
Better to strike now while no one cares or notices
Jenrick has a history like Badenoch of being unprepared and fluffing his lines. He’s had more car crashes than a rally driver. And he doesn’t do sharp wit. So I can imagine PMQs might not suit him either.
He is much better at the pre-recorded piece to camera where he does the whole anger with a steely glint look.
Hmmm. I haven't seen him fluff things up too much - in the HOC do you mean?
In interviews. A lot of examples where he’s gone in with a fact or an answer to a policy question, been probed on it and then fluffed his lines or contradicted himself.
There are a few examples that you can find YouTube vids of, mostly from the last 12 months since he came to prominence but I can remember some very awkward Today outings when he was a minister (and that time he ducked a commons question on his planning scandal and sent his deputy).
Citations or you’re talking nonsense
There are lots, of varying picture and sound qualities, and I’m not going to curate them for you here just type “jenrick car crash interview” into google videos.
But here’s one of the more embarrassing ones on one of the topics that makes him squirm the most. An extended illustration of Jenrick in policy interview rather than tirade mode.
Meh. A moderately bruising interview taking place live in the the middle of the first lockdown madness - and Jenrick also has to cope with loonies shouting at him from the silent london streets (london was especially crazy during that first lockdown)
If that’s the best you can do then pfff
I would link the more recent ones where he’s repeatedly caught lying about asylum data but they’re all accompanied by irritating editorialising by the YouTubers. Braverman is a bit better at saying bonkers stuff with a straight face. Jenrick still squirms a bit.
Best option for what? A fucking doorstop? Because Gig Lamps was not the best option for LotO. That was transparently obvious from the start. Jobert Renwick would have served alt-right c-nt all over the place by now. He is sufficiently devoid of any moral restraint so that he can take on Farage in appealing to people who have horrible kids called Jaxxon and is enough of an opportunistic schemer to cause SKS and his Red Reform project a few problems.
Calm down.
Not until Lucy, our Queen of Hearts, goes free.
There was thought-provoking article by Neena Modi, professor of NeoNatal Medicine at Imperial, in the Guardian a few days ago. Made a number of points including that Cpuntess of Chester wasn't the best place for potentially really sick babies to be born as the staff as a whole weren't really up to it.
Best option for what? A fucking doorstop? Because Gig Lamps was not the best option for LotO. That was transparently obvious from the start. Jobert Renwick would have served alt-right c-nt all over the place by now. He is sufficiently devoid of any moral restraint so that he can take on Farage in appealing to people who have horrible kids called Jaxxon and is enough of an opportunistic schemer to cause SKS and his Red Reform project a few problems.
Calm down.
Not until Lucy, our Queen of Hearts, goes free.
Those Letby supporters Speed dating events look a blast.
If ever she went free a group,of middle aged people with one obsession would lose all sense of purpose.
What Kemi needs to do is some serious, hard thinking about what the Tories actually want from power beyond power itself. She should be setting up groups to think about what we need to do as a country on topics like social care, health, incentivising growth, defence, trade, immigration etc etc. Don't waste the time in opposition: use it to think.
At the moment its all a bit self indulgent, attacking a government which in most respects is doing pretty much what they did in government having lost their way and being mocked for these reasons. If Kemi can't have an Osborne she needs a Keith Joseph or Geoffrey Howe to bring forward ideas and new thinking. She needs to define herself in the public mind. She has barely started that.
The Tories have four years to rebuild. They should take the time to figure out: Where they are. Where they want to be. How to get there. Who will enable them to get there.
Short term fixes are pointless. It won’t matter if Reform are 20% ahead in the polls next year. There won’t be an election next year.
There are elections in Scotland and Wales next year. If Reform get ahead of the Tories in Scotland, or even top the poll in Wales, .. ??
Why would SKS worry about elections in Scotland and Wales, He hasn’t so far. Ask Anas.
Best option for what? A fucking doorstop? Because Gig Lamps was not the best option for LotO. That was transparently obvious from the start. Jobert Renwick would have served alt-right c-nt all over the place by now. He is sufficiently devoid of any moral restraint so that he can take on Farage in appealing to people who have horrible kids called Jaxxon and is enough of an opportunistic schemer to cause SKS and his Red Reform project a few problems.
Calm down.
Not until Lucy, our Queen of Hearts, goes free.
Those Letby supporters Speed dating events look a blast.
If ever she went free a group,of middle aged people with one obsession would lose all sense of purpose.
There's a difference between supporting Ms Letby and being worried about the way in which statistics are used in courts of law.
If you want to tax assets, CGT when properties are sold is the obvious one. No issues with valuation and the money is there.
On primary residence? That would totally f*** labour mobility by meaning no home/mortgage owner ever moves home again, it's dis-incentivised already with fees and stamp duty.
The clever reform would be to charge CGT on primary residence (and IHT), but abolish Stamp Duty/LBTT entirely. Make it roughly fiscally neutral.
Then why bother?
Increase liquidity in the housing market, making more large homes available for young families and smaller homes for pensioners. Make investing in businesses relatively more attractive. Take some heat out of the market in Edinburgh/London.
I've made more from my flat price increasing than I have from saving from my salary. I should be taxed more on my property and less on my earnings.
House prices round here are at what to me are insane levels. Yet there's massive amounts of building.
But Jenrick is a bit of a star, is quick witted, amoral and nasty, and would - at least - give starmer a booting at PMQs, which would cheer them up if nowt else
Sadly I can’t see Kemi improving. I feared she was a lightweight, I thought she was worth the risk anyway. But she’s turned out to be lightweight - indeed worse than feared
Better to strike now while no one cares or notices
Jenrick has a history like Badenoch of being unprepared and fluffing his lines. He’s had more car crashes than a rally driver. And he doesn’t do sharp wit. So I can imagine PMQs might not suit him either.
He is much better at the pre-recorded piece to camera where he does the whole anger with a steely glint look.
Hmmm. I haven't seen him fluff things up too much - in the HOC do you mean?
In interviews. A lot of examples where he’s gone in with a fact or an answer to a policy question, been probed on it and then fluffed his lines or contradicted himself.
There are a few examples that you can find YouTube vids of, mostly from the last 12 months since he came to prominence but I can remember some very awkward Today outings when he was a minister (and that time he ducked a commons question on his planning scandal and sent his deputy).
Citations or you’re talking nonsense
There are lots, of varying picture and sound qualities, and I’m not going to curate them for you here just type “jenrick car crash interview” into google videos.
But here’s one of the more embarrassing ones on one of the topics that makes him squirm the most. An extended illustration of Jenrick in policy interview rather than tirade mode.
Meh. A moderately bruising interview taking place live in the the middle of the first lockdown madness - and Jenrick also has to cope with loonies shouting at him from the silent london streets (london was especially crazy during that first lockdown)
If that’s the best you can do then pfff
I would link the more recent ones where he’s repeatedly caught lying about asylum data but they’re all accompanied by irritating editorialising by the YouTubers. Braverman is a bit better at saying bonkers stuff with a straight face. Jenrick still squirms a bit.
It comes down to your views about Mickey Mouse. Jenrick's problem is he pretends to be straight talking when he's actually a weasel. When confronted with his comments, say, on covering up children's murals to create a hostile environment, he then pretends he didn't say what he actually said. Being found out does depend on people confronting him on his comments.
If you want to tax assets, CGT when properties are sold is the obvious one. No issues with valuation and the money is there.
On primary residence? That would totally f*** labour mobility by meaning no home/mortgage owner ever moves home again, it's dis-incentivised already with fees and stamp duty.
The clever reform would be to charge CGT on primary residence (and IHT), but abolish Stamp Duty/LBTT entirely. Make it roughly fiscally neutral.
Then why bother?
Increase liquidity in the housing market, making more large homes available for young families and smaller homes for pensioners. Make investing in businesses relatively more attractive. Take some heat out of the market in Edinburgh/London.
I've made more from my flat price increasing than I have from saving from my salary. I should be taxed more on my property and less on my earnings.
If you are taxed more on your property, that tax will come out of your income and savings. It is nonsensical to pretend that there is some other source.
What you have "made" on your property will be realised when you sell, which is why it makes sense to levy the tax then.
If you want to tax assets, CGT when properties are sold is the obvious one. No issues with valuation and the money is there.
On primary residence? That would totally f*** labour mobility by meaning no home/mortgage owner ever moves home again, it's dis-incentivised already with fees and stamp duty.
The clever reform would be to charge CGT on primary residence (and IHT), but abolish Stamp Duty/LBTT entirely. Make it roughly fiscally neutral.
Then why bother?
Increase liquidity in the housing market, making more large homes available for young families and smaller homes for pensioners. Make investing in businesses relatively more attractive. Take some heat out of the market in Edinburgh/London.
I've made more from my flat price increasing than I have from saving from my salary. I should be taxed more on my property and less on my earnings.
House prices round here are at what to me are insane levels. Yet there's massive amounts of building.
It's the same in Edinburgh and the surrounding area. Snowball effect on demand, even while prices collapse elsewhere in Scotland.
I really think we should have learned from Hague who was both witty and incisive at PMQs that they really don't matter a damn. What matters is having a story to tell that at least 40% of the population can relate to and agree with, even if they are not "natural" Tories.
I think this is a problem for Labour as well as the Conservatives. Who do you think your party would make life better for, and why?
In the Conservatives case the target would be a fifty year plus person end of career with older or grown up children. Concerns: job security, inheritance and healthcare provision. Those are the topics you go hard on and develop friendly policies for.
Labour: thirty somethings, possibly starting a family, likely still renting. Your topics: childcare, schools, rents
It's the economy. The economy is at the root of all these things. With the ability to defend borders being a close second, or increasing GDP is a worthless exercise.
All governments want to grow the economy but that isn't a story. Labour and Conservative parties need stories to tell to a particular audience.
But Jenrick is a bit of a star, is quick witted, amoral and nasty, and would - at least - give starmer a booting at PMQs, which would cheer them up if nowt else
Sadly I can’t see Kemi improving. I feared she was a lightweight, I thought she was worth the risk anyway. But she’s turned out to be lightweight - indeed worse than feared
Better to strike now while no one cares or notices
Jenrick has a history like Badenoch of being unprepared and fluffing his lines. He’s had more car crashes than a rally driver. And he doesn’t do sharp wit. So I can imagine PMQs might not suit him either.
He is much better at the pre-recorded piece to camera where he does the whole anger with a steely glint look.
Hmmm. I haven't seen him fluff things up too much - in the HOC do you mean?
In interviews. A lot of examples where he’s gone in with a fact or an answer to a policy question, been probed on it and then fluffed his lines or contradicted himself.
There are a few examples that you can find YouTube vids of, mostly from the last 12 months since he came to prominence but I can remember some very awkward Today outings when he was a minister (and that time he ducked a commons question on his planning scandal and sent his deputy).
Citations or you’re talking nonsense
There are lots, of varying picture and sound qualities, and I’m not going to curate them for you here just type “jenrick car crash interview” into google videos.
But here’s one of the more embarrassing ones on one of the topics that makes him squirm the most. An extended illustration of Jenrick in policy interview rather than tirade mode.
Meh. A moderately bruising interview taking place live in the the middle of the first lockdown madness - and Jenrick also has to cope with loonies shouting at him from the silent london streets (london was especially crazy during that first lockdown)
If that’s the best you can do then pfff
I would link the more recent ones where he’s repeatedly caught lying about asylum data but they’re all accompanied by irritating editorialising by the YouTubers. Braverman is a bit better at saying bonkers stuff with a straight face. Jenrick still squirms a bit.
Nah, you’re lying
Not lying, but overstating. Jenrick is just averagely shit. The headshake tell when he’s bullshitting is mildly irritating, but he’s way better at it than Kemi.
Simply can’t do the Farage man of the people shtick, though. I don’t think he’d be much of an improvement, as he doesn’t bring any positives - he’s just a bit less rubbish.
If you want to tax assets, CGT when properties are sold is the obvious one. No issues with valuation and the money is there.
On primary residence? That would totally f*** labour mobility by meaning no home/mortgage owner ever moves home again, it's dis-incentivised already with fees and stamp duty.
The clever reform would be to charge CGT on primary residence (and IHT), but abolish Stamp Duty/LBTT entirely. Make it roughly fiscally neutral.
Then why bother?
Increase liquidity in the housing market, making more large homes available for young families and smaller homes for pensioners. Make investing in businesses relatively more attractive. Take some heat out of the market in Edinburgh/London.
I've made more from my flat price increasing than I have from saving from my salary. I should be taxed more on my property and less on my earnings.
House prices round here are at what to me are insane levels. Yet there's massive amounts of building.
Similar population to France. 8 million fewer homes.
I had a fun discussion the other day with a local “housing activist”. Was telling him about how, in other places, a house or flat can remain empty, because there are more than enough properties. Even decent ones sit empty. Because the market was in surplus.
Interesting because, it was like watching his mind expand.
Best option for what? A fucking doorstop? Because Gig Lamps was not the best option for LotO. That was transparently obvious from the start. Jobert Renwick would have served alt-right c-nt all over the place by now. He is sufficiently devoid of any moral restraint so that he can take on Farage in appealing to people who have horrible kids called Jaxxon and is enough of an opportunistic schemer to cause SKS and his Red Reform project a few problems.
Calm down.
Not until Lucy, our Queen of Hearts, goes free.
There was thought-provoking article by Neena Modi, professor of NeoNatal Medicine at Imperial, in the Guardian a few days ago. Made a number of points including that Cpuntess of Chester wasn't the best place for potentially really sick babies to be born as the staff as a whole weren't really up to it.
There have been lots of hospitals with really poor records in maternity and neo-natal care. But only in this one was a nurse charged and convicted of murder and attempted murder. Hard to tell whether this was because the nurse was rightly convicted or made a scapegoat for those failings.
But Jenrick is a bit of a star, is quick witted, amoral and nasty, and would - at least - give starmer a booting at PMQs, which would cheer them up if nowt else
Sadly I can’t see Kemi improving. I feared she was a lightweight, I thought she was worth the risk anyway. But she’s turned out to be lightweight - indeed worse than feared
Better to strike now while no one cares or notices
Jenrick has a history like Badenoch of being unprepared and fluffing his lines. He’s had more car crashes than a rally driver. And he doesn’t do sharp wit. So I can imagine PMQs might not suit him either.
He is much better at the pre-recorded piece to camera where he does the whole anger with a steely glint look.
Hmmm. I haven't seen him fluff things up too much - in the HOC do you mean?
In interviews. A lot of examples where he’s gone in with a fact or an answer to a policy question, been probed on it and then fluffed his lines or contradicted himself.
There are a few examples that you can find YouTube vids of, mostly from the last 12 months since he came to prominence but I can remember some very awkward Today outings when he was a minister (and that time he ducked a commons question on his planning scandal and sent his deputy).
Citations or you’re talking nonsense
There are lots, of varying picture and sound qualities, and I’m not going to curate them for you here just type “jenrick car crash interview” into google videos.
But here’s one of the more embarrassing ones on one of the topics that makes him squirm the most. An extended illustration of Jenrick in policy interview rather than tirade mode.
Meh. A moderately bruising interview taking place live in the the middle of the first lockdown madness - and Jenrick also has to cope with loonies shouting at him from the silent london streets (london was especially crazy during that first lockdown)
If that’s the best you can do then pfff
I would link the more recent ones where he’s repeatedly caught lying about asylum data but they’re all accompanied by irritating editorialising by the YouTubers. Braverman is a bit better at saying bonkers stuff with a straight face. Jenrick still squirms a bit.
It comes down to your views about Mickey Mouse. Jenrick's problem is he pretends to be straight talking when he's actually a weasel. When confronted with his comments, say, on covering up children's murals to create a hostile environment, he then pretends he didn't say what he actually said. Being found out does depend on people confronting him on his comments.
We are operating in a post-Trump reality now where concepts like probity, honesty and consistency have very little political equity.
But Jenrick is a bit of a star, is quick witted, amoral and nasty, and would - at least - give starmer a booting at PMQs, which would cheer them up if nowt else
Sadly I can’t see Kemi improving. I feared she was a lightweight, I thought she was worth the risk anyway. But she’s turned out to be lightweight - indeed worse than feared
Better to strike now while no one cares or notices
Jenrick has a history like Badenoch of being unprepared and fluffing his lines. He’s had more car crashes than a rally driver. And he doesn’t do sharp wit. So I can imagine PMQs might not suit him either.
He is much better at the pre-recorded piece to camera where he does the whole anger with a steely glint look.
Hmmm. I haven't seen him fluff things up too much - in the HOC do you mean?
In interviews. A lot of examples where he’s gone in with a fact or an answer to a policy question, been probed on it and then fluffed his lines or contradicted himself.
There are a few examples that you can find YouTube vids of, mostly from the last 12 months since he came to prominence but I can remember some very awkward Today outings when he was a minister (and that time he ducked a commons question on his planning scandal and sent his deputy).
Citations or you’re talking nonsense
There are lots, of varying picture and sound qualities, and I’m not going to curate them for you here just type “jenrick car crash interview” into google videos.
But here’s one of the more embarrassing ones on one of the topics that makes him squirm the most. An extended illustration of Jenrick in policy interview rather than tirade mode.
Meh. A moderately bruising interview taking place live in the the middle of the first lockdown madness - and Jenrick also has to cope with loonies shouting at him from the silent london streets (london was especially crazy during that first lockdown)
If that’s the best you can do then pfff
I would link the more recent ones where he’s repeatedly caught lying about asylum data but they’re all accompanied by irritating editorialising by the YouTubers. Braverman is a bit better at saying bonkers stuff with a straight face. Jenrick still squirms a bit.
Nah, you’re lying
Not lying, but overstating. Jenrick is just averagely shit. The headshake tell when he’s bullshitting is mildly irritating, but he’s way better at it than Kemi.
Simply can’t do the Farage man of the people shtick, though. I don’t think he’d be much of an improvement, as he doesn’t bring any positives - he’s just a bit less rubbish.
Jenrick is nasty in a way Badenoch, to be fair to her, isn't. There's a market for nastiness but I think the Conservatives should be wary of going all-in, despite their predicament.
If you want to tax assets, CGT when properties are sold is the obvious one. No issues with valuation and the money is there.
On primary residence? That would totally f*** labour mobility by meaning no home/mortgage owner ever moves home again, it's dis-incentivised already with fees and stamp duty.
The clever reform would be to charge CGT on primary residence (and IHT), but abolish Stamp Duty/LBTT entirely. Make it roughly fiscally neutral.
Then why bother?
Increase liquidity in the housing market, making more large homes available for young families and smaller homes for pensioners. Make investing in businesses relatively more attractive. Take some heat out of the market in Edinburgh/London.
I've made more from my flat price increasing than I have from saving from my salary. I should be taxed more on my property and less on my earnings.
House prices round here are at what to me are insane levels. Yet there's massive amounts of building.
Similar population to France. 8 million fewer homes.
I had a fun discussion the other day with a local “housing activist”. Was telling him about how, in other places, a house or flat can remain empty, because there are more than enough properties. Even decent ones sit empty. Because the market was in surplus.
Interesting because, it was like watching his mind expand.
For the umpteenth time, France has higher housing costs than we do.
But Jenrick is a bit of a star, is quick witted, amoral and nasty, and would - at least - give starmer a booting at PMQs, which would cheer them up if nowt else
Sadly I can’t see Kemi improving. I feared she was a lightweight, I thought she was worth the risk anyway. But she’s turned out to be lightweight - indeed worse than feared
Better to strike now while no one cares or notices
Jenrick has a history like Badenoch of being unprepared and fluffing his lines. He’s had more car crashes than a rally driver. And he doesn’t do sharp wit. So I can imagine PMQs might not suit him either.
He is much better at the pre-recorded piece to camera where he does the whole anger with a steely glint look.
Hmmm. I haven't seen him fluff things up too much - in the HOC do you mean?
In interviews. A lot of examples where he’s gone in with a fact or an answer to a policy question, been probed on it and then fluffed his lines or contradicted himself.
There are a few examples that you can find YouTube vids of, mostly from the last 12 months since he came to prominence but I can remember some very awkward Today outings when he was a minister (and that time he ducked a commons question on his planning scandal and sent his deputy).
Citations or you’re talking nonsense
There are lots, of varying picture and sound qualities, and I’m not going to curate them for you here just type “jenrick car crash interview” into google videos.
But here’s one of the more embarrassing ones on one of the topics that makes him squirm the most. An extended illustration of Jenrick in policy interview rather than tirade mode.
Meh. A moderately bruising interview taking place live in the the middle of the first lockdown madness - and Jenrick also has to cope with loonies shouting at him from the silent london streets (london was especially crazy during that first lockdown)
If that’s the best you can do then pfff
I would link the more recent ones where he’s repeatedly caught lying about asylum data but they’re all accompanied by irritating editorialising by the YouTubers. Braverman is a bit better at saying bonkers stuff with a straight face. Jenrick still squirms a bit.
It comes down to your views about Mickey Mouse. Jenrick's problem is he pretends to be straight talking when he's actually a weasel. When confronted with his comments, say, on covering up children's murals to create a hostile environment, he then pretends he didn't say what he actually said. Being found out does depend on people confronting him on his comments.
We are operating in a post-Trump reality now where concepts like probity, honesty and consistency have very little political equity.
But Jenrick is a bit of a star, is quick witted, amoral and nasty, and would - at least - give starmer a booting at PMQs, which would cheer them up if nowt else
Sadly I can’t see Kemi improving. I feared she was a lightweight, I thought she was worth the risk anyway. But she’s turned out to be lightweight - indeed worse than feared
Better to strike now while no one cares or notices
Jenrick has a history like Badenoch of being unprepared and fluffing his lines. He’s had more car crashes than a rally driver. And he doesn’t do sharp wit. So I can imagine PMQs might not suit him either.
He is much better at the pre-recorded piece to camera where he does the whole anger with a steely glint look.
Hmmm. I haven't seen him fluff things up too much - in the HOC do you mean?
In interviews. A lot of examples where he’s gone in with a fact or an answer to a policy question, been probed on it and then fluffed his lines or contradicted himself.
There are a few examples that you can find YouTube vids of, mostly from the last 12 months since he came to prominence but I can remember some very awkward Today outings when he was a minister (and that time he ducked a commons question on his planning scandal and sent his deputy).
Citations or you’re talking nonsense
There are lots, of varying picture and sound qualities, and I’m not going to curate them for you here just type “jenrick car crash interview” into google videos.
But here’s one of the more embarrassing ones on one of the topics that makes him squirm the most. An extended illustration of Jenrick in policy interview rather than tirade mode.
Meh. A moderately bruising interview taking place live in the the middle of the first lockdown madness - and Jenrick also has to cope with loonies shouting at him from the silent london streets (london was especially crazy during that first lockdown)
If that’s the best you can do then pfff
I would link the more recent ones where he’s repeatedly caught lying about asylum data but they’re all accompanied by irritating editorialising by the YouTubers. Braverman is a bit better at saying bonkers stuff with a straight face. Jenrick still squirms a bit.
Nah, you’re lying
Not lying, but overstating. Jenrick is just averagely shit. The headshake tell when he’s bullshitting is mildly irritating, but he’s way better at it than Kemi.
Simply can’t do the Farage man of the people shtick, though. I don’t think he’d be much of an improvement, as he doesn’t bring any positives - he’s just a bit less rubbish.
Jenrick is nasty in a way Badenoch, to be fair to her, isn't. There's a market for nastiness but I think the Conservatives should be wary of going all-in, despite their predicament.
I don’t disagree, but you can see how it might appeal to Leon - and in a perverse way, Dura. Electorally, though, it’s unlikely to be of huge use.
Best option for what? A fucking doorstop? Because Gig Lamps was not the best option for LotO. That was transparently obvious from the start. Jobert Renwick would have served alt-right c-nt all over the place by now. He is sufficiently devoid of any moral restraint so that he can take on Farage in appealing to people who have horrible kids called Jaxxon and is enough of an opportunistic schemer to cause SKS and his Red Reform project a few problems.
Calm down.
Not until Lucy, our Queen of Hearts, goes free.
Those Letby supporters Speed dating events look a blast.
If ever she went free a group,of middle aged people with one obsession would lose all sense of purpose.
There's a difference between supporting Ms Letby and being worried about the way in which statistics are used in courts of law.
Because of the moronic culture war on everything, reality is being lost.
Letby may or may not need an appeal or a re-trial. Yet because of who some of her supporters are, we are seeing people saying “We must die in a ditch to defend Justice”.
On topic, what is the point? It is not as if the Tories have a David Cameron or George Osborne (let alone both) to make the party relevant and coherent again sitting in the wings. Just remember that the alternative was Jenrick. That was the best they could come up with.
Just look at the bar chart (and commentary) I've added.
Thought you were away this weekend?
What the Tories really need is Osborne to come back into front line politics but he seems to be enjoying life making serious money and being an incisive commentator from the side lines. Penny was promoting herself yesterday and seems keen to get back but Osborne seems to have moved on, sadly. Cameron's greatest strength was having someone like that to watch his back. None of these others had that. Who does Kemi have?
Osborne was pantomime villain levels of unpopular when he was CoE, .
Is he allocating the money to lease Diego Garcia as defence spending?
Not sure £90 million a year would make much difference to the numbers.
Isn’t your point part of the problem? Everyone says “£90m is nothing in the big picture” except that all these £90 millions that aren’t that big add up and are collectively big.
Think what you can buy for the military with £90m - how many machine guns, bullets, shells. It’s over 69,000 SA-80 machine guns for example.
All these figures can be used and depending on where you sit, £90m for the army might be better than £90m to Mauritius.
I agree. £90M UK spending just to little Mauritius every year for 99 years , just to lease back one island on behalf of American “friends”, seems way over the top to me! In defence spending - which yes surely the budget this must come out of as what other way does taxpayer enjoy leasing this island other than strong UK defence from it - it’s exactly same cost of keeping just one of our carriers in service every year.
£90M is Still £40M lower than Liverpool FC’s annual £130M wage budget, for another comparison of how Ox guzzling UK society operates in 2025 though.
As an aside, Liverpool FC's annual wage budget was £387m for 23/24. (I know that there are 'guestimate' sites that say £130m, and that figure is now all over the internet, but the true figure is in their accounts).
But Jenrick is a bit of a star, is quick witted, amoral and nasty, and would - at least - give starmer a booting at PMQs, which would cheer them up if nowt else
Sadly I can’t see Kemi improving. I feared she was a lightweight, I thought she was worth the risk anyway. But she’s turned out to be lightweight - indeed worse than feared
Better to strike now while no one cares or notices
Jenrick has a history like Badenoch of being unprepared and fluffing his lines. He’s had more car crashes than a rally driver. And he doesn’t do sharp wit. So I can imagine PMQs might not suit him either.
He is much better at the pre-recorded piece to camera where he does the whole anger with a steely glint look.
Hmmm. I haven't seen him fluff things up too much - in the HOC do you mean?
In interviews. A lot of examples where he’s gone in with a fact or an answer to a policy question, been probed on it and then fluffed his lines or contradicted himself.
There are a few examples that you can find YouTube vids of, mostly from the last 12 months since he came to prominence but I can remember some very awkward Today outings when he was a minister (and that time he ducked a commons question on his planning scandal and sent his deputy).
Citations or you’re talking nonsense
There are lots, of varying picture and sound qualities, and I’m not going to curate them for you here just type “jenrick car crash interview” into google videos.
But here’s one of the more embarrassing ones on one of the topics that makes him squirm the most. An extended illustration of Jenrick in policy interview rather than tirade mode.
Meh. A moderately bruising interview taking place live in the the middle of the first lockdown madness - and Jenrick also has to cope with loonies shouting at him from the silent london streets (london was especially crazy during that first lockdown)
If that’s the best you can do then pfff
I would link the more recent ones where he’s repeatedly caught lying about asylum data but they’re all accompanied by irritating editorialising by the YouTubers. Braverman is a bit better at saying bonkers stuff with a straight face. Jenrick still squirms a bit.
It comes down to your views about Mickey Mouse. Jenrick's problem is he pretends to be straight talking when he's actually a weasel. When confronted with his comments, say, on covering up children's murals to create a hostile environment, he then pretends he didn't say what he actually said. Being found out does depend on people confronting him on his comments.
We are operating in a post-Trump reality now where concepts like probity, honesty and consistency have very little political equity.
Jenrick dovetails quite nicely into the Trump narrative of hate for "others". Jenrick shrewdly knows who all the right people not to like are.
If you want to tax assets, CGT when properties are sold is the obvious one. No issues with valuation and the money is there.
On primary residence? That would totally f*** labour mobility by meaning no home/mortgage owner ever moves home again, it's dis-incentivised already with fees and stamp duty.
People on here are always talking about taxing assets and housing wealth in particular but the moment anything is suggested which affects them they bridle. And then they have the nerve to attack pensioners or others affected by changes.
If we have to raise money - and we do - especially for our defence, then this and more will be needed: increases in income tax, fuel duty, extensions of VAT, removing the triple lock, no higher rate tax relief for pension contributions, council tax bands for higher value homes, savings to be used for social care and so on. No group will be unaffected. That's the brutal truth.
Obviously I am not a politician.
No higher rate tax relief on pensions and a lot of incentive to work disappears for older people because working more than 3 days a week would make zero sense (2 days to earn £48k max, 1 day to throw money into the pension). And I wouldn’t even need to cut my holiday spending.
There is a reason why we always come back to a welfare tax based on house prices - it’s just about the only thing that doesn’t move and where the change won’t impact behavior of those subject to it
If you want to tax assets, CGT when properties are sold is the obvious one. No issues with valuation and the money is there.
On primary residence? That would totally f*** labour mobility by meaning no home/mortgage owner ever moves home again, it's dis-incentivised already with fees and stamp duty.
The clever reform would be to charge CGT on primary residence (and IHT), but abolish Stamp Duty/LBTT entirely. Make it roughly fiscally neutral.
Then why bother?
Increase liquidity in the housing market, making more large homes available for young families and smaller homes for pensioners. Make investing in businesses relatively more attractive. Take some heat out of the market in Edinburgh/London.
I've made more from my flat price increasing than I have from saving from my salary. I should be taxed more on my property and less on my earnings.
House prices round here are at what to me are insane levels. Yet there's massive amounts of building.
Similar population to France. 8 million fewer homes.
I had a fun discussion the other day with a local “housing activist”. Was telling him about how, in other places, a house or flat can remain empty, because there are more than enough properties. Even decent ones sit empty. Because the market was in surplus.
Interesting because, it was like watching his mind expand.
For the umpteenth time, France has higher housing costs than we do.
Everywhere you actually look, even Paris vs London (where you have the national capital effects), France is cheaper for rental. Often massively.
That's true, and why I couldn't (and didn't) vote for him.
The basic problem is that while Jenrick is a more assured politician both are caught in the same trap.
One would note he is more assured though, simply because he's capable of getting basics right like "being well-briefed on the issue you are trying to hammer the government on" and "not picking fights where you come off looking as bad if not worse than the government". Badenoch is seemingly incapable of that.
That doesn't mean he's particularly likeable - he's extremely oily, and the epitome of a politician who's been planning his way up the greasy pole since his teens. Which if it wasn't not a good look on a Miliband or Burnham, isn't on a Tory. He's also Kryptonite to Tory-Lib Dem switchers.
Which speaks to the trap the Tories are in. They lost half the seats in Surrey at the last election. Some of them by absolutely whopping margins. Worse than that, there's another tranche of Home Counties Tory-LD seats that are well within range if current trends away from the Tories continue. They are simply not going to be able to form a government without winning some of them - especially as their fight against Labour in the North and Midlands is hugely complicated by Reform's presence.
But they have absolutely no theory of how to do so. With their only strategy actively hostile to it - which is to be more Reformy and right-wing in the hope they can recreate the dynamics that won in 2019. But those are gone. Reform are more serious opponents than the Brexit Party, and Boris/Truss/Rishi and Brexit not delivering what even its supporters wanted has tarnished that pitch.
It's a bit like Labour thinking the path to winning lay in unseating IDS and winning some extra seats in the London exurbs while they were getting trounced in seats in the North East and North West.
Now, you could argue, as some do on here, that Britain is ripe for a revolt from the populist and far right. But accepting that as true why would a Tory be the beneficiary? If you want to blow everything up or a party that's anti-immigration to the exclusion all else, then there's Reform.
Whether it's Jenrick or Badenoch, where is this huge mass of voters who are going to say "everything's shit we need huge change and a party that will stop immigration, let's vote the last government back in that already promised those things but failed"?
I have been thinking for a while now that the end of NATO might be a good thing for Europe, allowing Europeans to rebuild their own defenses, invest in their own high-tech defense industries, and defend their own democracies without being subverted by the USA. It wont be easy and it will require a great deal of investment—but it might be for the best.
That's true, and why I couldn't (and didn't) vote for him.
The basic problem is that while Jenrick is a more assured politician both are caught in the same trap.
One would note he is more assured though, simply because he's capable of getting basics right like "being well-briefed on the issue you are trying to hammer the government on" and "not picking fights where you come off looking as bad if not worse than the government". Badenoch is seemingly incapable of that.
That doesn't mean he's particularly likeable - he's extremely oily, and the epitome of a politician who's been planning his way up the greasy pole since his teens. Which if it wasn't not a good look on a Miliband or Burnham, isn't on a Tory. He's also Kryptonite to Tory-Lib Dem switchers.
Which speaks to the trap the Tories are in. They lost half the seats in Surrey at the last election. Some of them by absolutely whopping margins. Worse than that, there's another tranche of Home Counties Tory-LD seats that are well within range if current trends away from the Tories continue. They are simply not going to be able to form a government without winning some of them - especially as their fight against Labour in the North and Midlands is hugely complicated by Reform's presence.
But they have absolutely no theory of how to do so. With their only strategy actively hostile to it - which is to be more Reformy and right-wing in the hope they can recreate the dynamics that won in 2019. But those are gone. Reform are more serious opponents than the Brexit Party, and Boris/Truss/Rishi and Brexit not delivering what even its supporters wanted has tarnished that pitch.
It's a bit like Labour thinking the path to winning lay in unseating IDS and winning some extra seats in the London exurbs while they were getting trounced in seats in the North East and North West.
Now, you could argue, as some do on here, that Britain is ripe for a revolt from the populist and far right. But accepting that as true why would a Tory be the beneficiary? If you want to blow everything up or a party that's anti-immigration to the exclusion all else, then there's Reform.
Whether it's Jenrick or Badenoch, where is this huge mass of voters who are going to say "everything's shit we need huge change and a party that will stop immigration, let's vote the last government back in that already promised those things but failed"?
The whole reason for looking at Reform votes first was to solve the “Reform issue” before tacking back to the Centre to pick up voters tending Lib Dem. It was never going to work and the reality is that polling is starting to reflect that the idea wasn’t practical
Best option for what? A fucking doorstop? Because Gig Lamps was not the best option for LotO. That was transparently obvious from the start. Jobert Renwick would have served alt-right c-nt all over the place by now. He is sufficiently devoid of any moral restraint so that he can take on Farage in appealing to people who have horrible kids called Jaxxon and is enough of an opportunistic schemer to cause SKS and his Red Reform project a few problems.
Calm down.
Not until Lucy, our Queen of Hearts, goes free.
There was thought-provoking article by Neena Modi, professor of NeoNatal Medicine at Imperial, in the Guardian a few days ago. Made a number of points including that Cpuntess of Chester wasn't the best place for potentially really sick babies to be born as the staff as a whole weren't really up to it.
There have been lots of hospitals with really poor records in maternity and neo-natal care. But only in this one was a nurse charged and convicted of murder and attempted murder. Hard to tell whether this was because the nurse was rightly convicted or made a scapegoat for those failings.
Agree. However, the care level was not the only point Modi made. The depth and quality of advice given to the Court was another. In a way I hope she is guilty, because I'd hate for the quality of decision making in our Courts to be brought further into question. But conversely, if she isn't, I hope the Courts and the system deal with the case swiftly and openly. Another Malkinson-type case would reduce confidence further.
If you want to tax assets, CGT when properties are sold is the obvious one. No issues with valuation and the money is there.
On primary residence? That would totally f*** labour mobility by meaning no home/mortgage owner ever moves home again, it's dis-incentivised already with fees and stamp duty.
People on here are always talking about taxing assets and housing wealth in particular but the moment anything is suggested which affects them they bridle. And then they have the nerve to attack pensioners or others affected by changes.
If we have to raise money - and we do - especially for our defence, then this and more will be needed: increases in income tax, fuel duty, extensions of VAT, removing the triple lock, no higher rate tax relief for pension contributions, council tax bands for higher value homes, savings to be used for social care and so on. No group will be unaffected. That's the brutal truth.
Obviously I am not a politician.
No higher rate tax relief on pensions and a lot of incentive to work disappears for older people because working more than 3 days a week would make zero sense (2 days to earn £48k max, 1 day to throw money into the pension). And I wouldn’t even need to cut my holiday spending.
There is a reason why we always come back to a welfare tax based on house prices - it’s just about the only thing that doesn’t move and where the change won’t impact behavior of those subject to it
A tax based on actual house values as shown in sales seems sensible to me. If that means houses are treated like homes rather than assets, so much the better.
That's the least stealthy tax possible. The price is advertised in giant neon letters every 2 miles or so.
(If the total cost of petrol had kept pace with inflation since 2010, it would now be 178p per litre. A real terms cut of 21%).
The time to do it was last Autumn’s budget. Everyone was expecting un unfreezing. Pump prices weee low. Reeves fluffed it. Now if she does it everyone will notice.
There was talk last week of doing away with cash ISAs. The time to do that was when ISAs (well, mine anyway) were paying 0.2% p.a.
Shashank Joshi @shashj.bsky.social · 1h For a sense of mood: I was told today by one person - albeit second hand - that Trump admin threatened Canada with revisions to the border & expulsion from Five Eyes. Canada said to have threatened retal on energy front. (Despite that, Gabbard seems to have impressed in Munich).
====
How long before Trump is literally sending weapons to Putin rather than Ukraine?
Best option for what? A fucking doorstop? Because Gig Lamps was not the best option for LotO. That was transparently obvious from the start. Jobert Renwick would have served alt-right c-nt all over the place by now. He is sufficiently devoid of any moral restraint so that he can take on Farage in appealing to people who have horrible kids called Jaxxon and is enough of an opportunistic schemer to cause SKS and his Red Reform project a few problems.
Calm down.
Not until Lucy, our Queen of Hearts, goes free.
There was thought-provoking article by Neena Modi, professor of NeoNatal Medicine at Imperial, in the Guardian a few days ago. Made a number of points including that Cpuntess of Chester wasn't the best place for potentially really sick babies to be born as the staff as a whole weren't really up to it.
There have been lots of hospitals with really poor records in maternity and neo-natal care. But only in this one was a nurse charged and convicted of murder and attempted murder. Hard to tell whether this was because the nurse was rightly convicted or made a scapegoat for those failings.
It also requires quite a well organised conspiracy by a large number of incompetent staff and managers to frame Letby.
That's the least stealthy tax possible. The price is advertised in giant neon letters every 2 miles or so.
(If the total cost of petrol had kept pace with inflation since 2010, it would now be 178p per litre. A real terms cut of 21%).
The time to do it was last Autumn’s budget. Everyone was expecting un unfreezing. Pump prices weee low. Reeves fluffed it. Now if she does it everyone will notice.
There was talk last week of doing away with cash ISAs. The time to do that was when ISAs (well, mine anyway) were paying 0.2% p.a.
+1 mine is currently paying 4.3% having shifted it around
Rachel Reeves' dog has not barked in the Sunday papers – traditional home of investigative journalism.
The BBC article was about standing up old claims (the twitter ones which hitherto no newspaper would print), not the discovery of new ones. So I'm not surprised.
Best option for what? A fucking doorstop? Because Gig Lamps was not the best option for LotO. That was transparently obvious from the start. Jobert Renwick would have served alt-right c-nt all over the place by now. He is sufficiently devoid of any moral restraint so that he can take on Farage in appealing to people who have horrible kids called Jaxxon and is enough of an opportunistic schemer to cause SKS and his Red Reform project a few problems.
Calm down.
Not until Lucy, our Queen of Hearts, goes free.
There was thought-provoking article by Neena Modi, professor of NeoNatal Medicine at Imperial, in the Guardian a few days ago. Made a number of points including that Cpuntess of Chester wasn't the best place for potentially really sick babies to be born as the staff as a whole weren't really up to it.
There have been lots of hospitals with really poor records in maternity and neo-natal care. But only in this one was a nurse charged and convicted of murder and attempted murder. Hard to tell whether this was because the nurse was rightly convicted or made a scapegoat for those failings.
It also requires quite a well organised conspiracy by a large number of incompetent staff and managers to frame Letby.
It isn't really a credible position to take.
I don't think anyone's suggesting that Letby was framed. More that she was the fall guy, that her defence wasn't well conducted, and that the Court wasn't fully informed.
Timothy Snyder @TimothyDSnyder · 13h I’m in Munich and people keep asking me to decode Vance’s speech. OK: In Vance English “free speech” means “Let Musk run your elections” and “democracy” means “let Russia run your elections.” Now move on. 2025 is about what Europeans do, not what Americans say.
Best option for what? A fucking doorstop? Because Gig Lamps was not the best option for LotO. That was transparently obvious from the start. Jobert Renwick would have served alt-right c-nt all over the place by now. He is sufficiently devoid of any moral restraint so that he can take on Farage in appealing to people who have horrible kids called Jaxxon and is enough of an opportunistic schemer to cause SKS and his Red Reform project a few problems.
Calm down.
Not until Lucy, our Queen of Hearts, goes free.
There was thought-provoking article by Neena Modi, professor of NeoNatal Medicine at Imperial, in the Guardian a few days ago. Made a number of points including that Cpuntess of Chester wasn't the best place for potentially really sick babies to be born as the staff as a whole weren't really up to it.
There have been lots of hospitals with really poor records in maternity and neo-natal care. But only in this one was a nurse charged and convicted of murder and attempted murder. Hard to tell whether this was because the nurse was rightly convicted or made a scapegoat for those failings.
Agree. However, the care level was not the only point Modi made. The depth and quality of advice given to the Court was another. In a way I hope she is guilty, because I'd hate for the quality of decision making in our Courts to be brought further into question. But conversely, if she isn't, I hope the Courts and the system deal with the case swiftly and openly. Another Malkinson-type case would reduce confidence further.
To me, and many others, an overturned conviction is an affirmation of the system. Not its defeat.
If mistakes can be dealt with as part of the system, then the system is at least partially healthy.
To me, it was a dreadful failure, when Parliament had to overturn the convictions of the Sub Post Masters en masse. In a kind of reverse Act Of Attainder. The courts had failed.
What Kemi needs to do is some serious, hard thinking about what the Tories actually want from power beyond power itself. She should be setting up groups to think about what we need to do as a country on topics like social care, health, incentivising growth, defence, trade, immigration etc etc. Don't waste the time in opposition: use it to think.
At the moment its all a bit self indulgent, attacking a government which in most respects is doing pretty much what they did in government having lost their way and being mocked for these reasons. If Kemi can't have an Osborne she needs a Keith Joseph or Geoffrey Howe to bring forward ideas and new thinking. She needs to define herself in the public mind. She has barely started that.
The Tories have four years to rebuild. They should take the time to figure out: Where they are. Where they want to be. How to get there. Who will enable them to get there.
Short term fixes are pointless. It won’t matter if Reform are 20% ahead in the polls next year. There won’t be an election next year.
There are elections in Scotland and Wales next year. If Reform get ahead of the Tories in Scotland, or even top the poll in Wales, .. ??
Why would SKS worry about elections in Scotland and Wales, He hasn’t so far. Ask Anas.
I wasn't talking about SKS, I was talking about the Tory party.
Best option for what? A fucking doorstop? Because Gig Lamps was not the best option for LotO. That was transparently obvious from the start. Jobert Renwick would have served alt-right c-nt all over the place by now. He is sufficiently devoid of any moral restraint so that he can take on Farage in appealing to people who have horrible kids called Jaxxon and is enough of an opportunistic schemer to cause SKS and his Red Reform project a few problems.
Calm down.
Not until Lucy, our Queen of Hearts, goes free.
There was thought-provoking article by Neena Modi, professor of NeoNatal Medicine at Imperial, in the Guardian a few days ago. Made a number of points including that Cpuntess of Chester wasn't the best place for potentially really sick babies to be born as the staff as a whole weren't really up to it.
There have been lots of hospitals with really poor records in maternity and neo-natal care. But only in this one was a nurse charged and convicted of murder and attempted murder. Hard to tell whether this was because the nurse was rightly convicted or made a scapegoat for those failings.
It also requires quite a well organised conspiracy by a large number of incompetent staff and managers to frame Letby.
It isn't really a credible position to take.
Except that there were more deaths than those ascribed to Letby. There is no need for a management conspiracy if the prosecution is happy to include or exclude cases based on the shift roster.
But Jenrick is a bit of a star, is quick witted, amoral and nasty, and would - at least - give starmer a booting at PMQs, which would cheer them up if nowt else
Sadly I can’t see Kemi improving. I feared she was a lightweight, I thought she was worth the risk anyway. But she’s turned out to be lightweight - indeed worse than feared
Better to strike now while no one cares or notices
Jenrick has a history like Badenoch of being unprepared and fluffing his lines. He’s had more car crashes than a rally driver. And he doesn’t do sharp wit. So I can imagine PMQs might not suit him either.
He is much better at the pre-recorded piece to camera where he does the whole anger with a steely glint look.
Hmmm. I haven't seen him fluff things up too much - in the HOC do you mean?
In interviews. A lot of examples where he’s gone in with a fact or an answer to a policy question, been probed on it and then fluffed his lines or contradicted himself.
There are a few examples that you can find YouTube vids of, mostly from the last 12 months since he came to prominence but I can remember some very awkward Today outings when he was a minister (and that time he ducked a commons question on his planning scandal and sent his deputy).
Citations or you’re talking nonsense
There are lots, of varying picture and sound qualities, and I’m not going to curate them for you here just type “jenrick car crash interview” into google videos.
But here’s one of the more embarrassing ones on one of the topics that makes him squirm the most. An extended illustration of Jenrick in policy interview rather than tirade mode.
I’m reminded of the funniest bit in that affair. Admitting “apparent bias” as if he was in the third person. From the CityAM article:
Jenrick admitted that he had unlawfully approved the planning application due to “apparent bias”, but he denies that he had accepted party donations for a favourable decision.
(Desmond sat next to Jenrick at dinner just before he overturned the decision, and popped 12k into party coffers a couple of weeks afterwards).
That interview is a tough watch, for a few reasons. The major one is that some gobby twat is yelling across the street - I don't know if it's directed at Robert Jenrick but I think I make out "Robert Jenrick" as part of it. Secondly there's a distinct delay as you can hear Boulton's words come out to Jenrick a few seconds after he's said them, which is always difficult. Thirdly, Jenrick was on a fairly stick wicket with the topic of questioning. He certainly looks to be struggling, but he doesn't seem underprepared or not across his brief, which was your claim.
I happen to think he was absolutely right to move to approve the planning application, and the subsequent housebuilding crisis and his apparent success as housing minister in getting homes built puts his decision in a different light. But yes, the donation was ridiculous.
The 'apparent bias' thing isn't particularly funny, the appearance of bias is important to avoid, and he admitted being wrong to approve the application because he had not avoided that appearance.
That's true, and why I couldn't (and didn't) vote for him.
The basic problem is that while Jenrick is a more assured politician both are caught in the same trap.
One would note he is more assured though, simply because he's capable of getting basics right like "being well-briefed on the issue you are trying to hammer the government on" and "not picking fights where you come off looking as bad if not worse than the government". Badenoch is seemingly incapable of that.
That doesn't mean he's particularly likeable - he's extremely oily, and the epitome of a politician who's been planning his way up the greasy pole since his teens. Which if it wasn't not a good look on a Miliband or Burnham, isn't on a Tory. He's also Kryptonite to Tory-Lib Dem switchers.
Which speaks to the trap the Tories are in. They lost half the seats in Surrey at the last election. Some of them by absolutely whopping margins. Worse than that, there's another tranche of Home Counties Tory-LD seats that are well within range if current trends away from the Tories continue. They are simply not going to be able to form a government without winning some of them - especially as their fight against Labour in the North and Midlands is hugely complicated by Reform's presence.
But they have absolutely no theory of how to do so. With their only strategy actively hostile to it - which is to be more Reformy and right-wing in the hope they can recreate the dynamics that won in 2019. But those are gone. Reform are more serious opponents than the Brexit Party, and Boris/Truss/Rishi and Brexit not delivering what even its supporters wanted has tarnished that pitch.
It's a bit like Labour thinking the path to winning lay in unseating IDS and winning some extra seats in the London exurbs while they were getting trounced in seats in the North East and North West.
Now, you could argue, as some do on here, that Britain is ripe for a revolt from the populist and far right. But accepting that as true why would a Tory be the beneficiary? If you want to blow everything up or a party that's anti-immigration to the exclusion all else, then there's Reform.
Whether it's Jenrick or Badenoch, where is this huge mass of voters who are going to say "everything's shit we need huge change and a party that will stop immigration, let's vote the last government back in that already promised those things but failed"?
The whole reason for looking at Reform votes first was to solve the “Reform issue” before tacking back to the Centre to pick up voters tending Lib Dem. It was never going to work and the reality is that polling is starting to reflect that the idea wasn’t practical
Is it though? Or is it that since the Brexit wars the Tories fundamentally don't have a political theory of how to appeal to their liberal former voters that fits what the party wants to be, so are retreating into their comfort zone of 'one more hardline immigration policy or attack on woke will do the trick' to win over those voting Reform.
You can't go from full 'sink the boats and kick them out, Net Zero's for losers' and then tack back to saying oh we're back to Cameronism again now - people have memories.
Best option for what? A fucking doorstop? Because Gig Lamps was not the best option for LotO. That was transparently obvious from the start. Jobert Renwick would have served alt-right c-nt all over the place by now. He is sufficiently devoid of any moral restraint so that he can take on Farage in appealing to people who have horrible kids called Jaxxon and is enough of an opportunistic schemer to cause SKS and his Red Reform project a few problems.
Calm down.
Not until Lucy, our Queen of Hearts, goes free.
There was thought-provoking article by Neena Modi, professor of NeoNatal Medicine at Imperial, in the Guardian a few days ago. Made a number of points including that Cpuntess of Chester wasn't the best place for potentially really sick babies to be born as the staff as a whole weren't really up to it.
There have been lots of hospitals with really poor records in maternity and neo-natal care. But only in this one was a nurse charged and convicted of murder and attempted murder. Hard to tell whether this was because the nurse was rightly convicted or made a scapegoat for those failings.
It also requires quite a well organised conspiracy by a large number of incompetent staff and managers to frame Letby.
It isn't really a credible position to take.
Except that there were more deaths than those ascribed to Letby. There is no need for a management conspiracy if the prosecution is happy to include or exclude cases based on the shift roster.
It still requires a conspiracy to frame Letby though.
Merely having a high mortality and morbidity rate would be much less bad publicity than having a prolific serial killer nurse.
That's true, and why I couldn't (and didn't) vote for him.
You managed to be quite happy in a party with Osborne, Cameron, Gove, Cummings, and a whole host of other pond life, so its a bit much to try to pass off your poor judgement as some sort of moral stand.
That's true, and why I couldn't (and didn't) vote for him.
The basic problem is that while Jenrick is a more assured politician both are caught in the same trap.
One would note he is more assured though, simply because he's capable of getting basics right like "being well-briefed on the issue you are trying to hammer the government on" and "not picking fights where you come off looking as bad if not worse than the government". Badenoch is seemingly incapable of that.
That doesn't mean he's particularly likeable - he's extremely oily, and the epitome of a politician who's been planning his way up the greasy pole since his teens. Which if it wasn't not a good look on a Miliband or Burnham, isn't on a Tory. He's also Kryptonite to Tory-Lib Dem switchers.
Which speaks to the trap the Tories are in. They lost half the seats in Surrey at the last election. Some of them by absolutely whopping margins. Worse than that, there's another tranche of Home Counties Tory-LD seats that are well within range if current trends away from the Tories continue. They are simply not going to be able to form a government without winning some of them - especially as their fight against Labour in the North and Midlands is hugely complicated by Reform's presence.
But they have absolutely no theory of how to do so. With their only strategy actively hostile to it - which is to be more Reformy and right-wing in the hope they can recreate the dynamics that won in 2019. But those are gone. Reform are more serious opponents than the Brexit Party, and Boris/Truss/Rishi and Brexit not delivering what even its supporters wanted has tarnished that pitch.
It's a bit like Labour thinking the path to winning lay in unseating IDS and winning some extra seats in the London exurbs while they were getting trounced in seats in the North East and North West.
Now, you could argue, as some do on here, that Britain is ripe for a revolt from the populist and far right. But accepting that as true why would a Tory be the beneficiary? If you want to blow everything up or a party that's anti-immigration to the exclusion all else, then there's Reform.
Whether it's Jenrick or Badenoch, where is this huge mass of voters who are going to say "everything's shit we need huge change and a party that will stop immigration, let's vote the last government back in that already promised those things but failed"?
Tories only need to win back seats lost to the LDs for an overall majority, if they win some soft Leave seats lost to Labour and Reform win the redwall seats Labour won at the last GE they could well have enough seats combined for a majority
But Jenrick is a bit of a star, is quick witted, amoral and nasty, and would - at least - give starmer a booting at PMQs, which would cheer them up if nowt else
Sadly I can’t see Kemi improving. I feared she was a lightweight, I thought she was worth the risk anyway. But she’s turned out to be lightweight - indeed worse than feared
Better to strike now while no one cares or notices
Jenrick has a history like Badenoch of being unprepared and fluffing his lines. He’s had more car crashes than a rally driver. And he doesn’t do sharp wit. So I can imagine PMQs might not suit him either.
He is much better at the pre-recorded piece to camera where he does the whole anger with a steely glint look.
Hmmm. I haven't seen him fluff things up too much - in the HOC do you mean?
In interviews. A lot of examples where he’s gone in with a fact or an answer to a policy question, been probed on it and then fluffed his lines or contradicted himself.
There are a few examples that you can find YouTube vids of, mostly from the last 12 months since he came to prominence but I can remember some very awkward Today outings when he was a minister (and that time he ducked a commons question on his planning scandal and sent his deputy).
Citations or you’re talking nonsense
There are lots, of varying picture and sound qualities, and I’m not going to curate them for you here just type “jenrick car crash interview” into google videos.
But here’s one of the more embarrassing ones on one of the topics that makes him squirm the most. An extended illustration of Jenrick in policy interview rather than tirade mode.
Meh. A moderately bruising interview taking place live in the the middle of the first lockdown madness - and Jenrick also has to cope with loonies shouting at him from the silent london streets (london was especially crazy during that first lockdown)
If that’s the best you can do then pfff
I would link the more recent ones where he’s repeatedly caught lying about asylum data but they’re all accompanied by irritating editorialising by the YouTubers. Braverman is a bit better at saying bonkers stuff with a straight face. Jenrick still squirms a bit.
It comes down to your views about Mickey Mouse. Jenrick's problem is he pretends to be straight talking when he's actually a weasel. When confronted with his comments, say, on covering up children's murals to create a hostile environment, he then pretends he didn't say what he actually said. Being found out does depend on people confronting him on his comments.
We are operating in a post-Trump reality now where concepts like probity, honesty and consistency have very little political equity.
I’m sure it’s just my TDS, but I think Trump is proving to be exactly as bad as we said he was going to be and people who acted like we were hysterical should be embarrassed they didn’t do more to try and stop it.
But Jenrick is a bit of a star, is quick witted, amoral and nasty, and would - at least - give starmer a booting at PMQs, which would cheer them up if nowt else
Sadly I can’t see Kemi improving. I feared she was a lightweight, I thought she was worth the risk anyway. But she’s turned out to be lightweight - indeed worse than feared
Better to strike now while no one cares or notices
Jenrick has a history like Badenoch of being unprepared and fluffing his lines. He’s had more car crashes than a rally driver. And he doesn’t do sharp wit. So I can imagine PMQs might not suit him either.
He is much better at the pre-recorded piece to camera where he does the whole anger with a steely glint look.
Hmmm. I haven't seen him fluff things up too much - in the HOC do you mean?
In interviews. A lot of examples where he’s gone in with a fact or an answer to a policy question, been probed on it and then fluffed his lines or contradicted himself.
There are a few examples that you can find YouTube vids of, mostly from the last 12 months since he came to prominence but I can remember some very awkward Today outings when he was a minister (and that time he ducked a commons question on his planning scandal and sent his deputy).
Citations or you’re talking nonsense
There are lots, of varying picture and sound qualities, and I’m not going to curate them for you here just type “jenrick car crash interview” into google videos.
But here’s one of the more embarrassing ones on one of the topics that makes him squirm the most. An extended illustration of Jenrick in policy interview rather than tirade mode.
Meh. A moderately bruising interview taking place live in the the middle of the first lockdown madness - and Jenrick also has to cope with loonies shouting at him from the silent london streets (london was especially crazy during that first lockdown)
If that’s the best you can do then pfff
I would link the more recent ones where he’s repeatedly caught lying about asylum data but they’re all accompanied by irritating editorialising by the YouTubers. Braverman is a bit better at saying bonkers stuff with a straight face. Jenrick still squirms a bit.
It comes down to your views about Mickey Mouse. Jenrick's problem is he pretends to be straight talking when he's actually a weasel. When confronted with his comments, say, on covering up children's murals to create a hostile environment, he then pretends he didn't say what he actually said. Being found out does depend on people confronting him on his comments.
We are operating in a post-Trump reality now where concepts like probity, honesty and consistency have very little political equity.
Question for the PBers more technically adept than me (ie everyone): is it easy or hard to replace a belt on an exercise bike's fly wheel?
After some furkling, found that it's snapped. My initial thought had been to replace the bike, as it's pretty old (I think there's a reasonable chance something else might break given the age). But apparently the firm in question might send instructions for replacement plus the relevant part even if out of warranty, so sayeth an Amazon review.
Is he allocating the money to lease Diego Garcia as defence spending?
Not sure £90 million a year would make much difference to the numbers.
Isn’t your point part of the problem? Everyone says “£90m is nothing in the big picture” except that all these £90 millions that aren’t that big add up and are collectively big.
Think what you can buy for the military with £90m - how many machine guns, bullets, shells. It’s over 69,000 SA-80 machine guns for example.
All these figures can be used and depending on where you sit, £90m for the army might be better than £90m to Mauritius.
I agree. £90M UK spending just to little Mauritius every year for 99 years , just to lease back one island on behalf of American “friends”, seems way over the top to me! In defence spending - which yes surely the budget this must come out of as what other way does taxpayer enjoy leasing this island other than strong UK defence from it - it’s exactly same cost of keeping just one of our carriers in service every year.
£90M is Still £40M lower than Liverpool FC’s annual £130M wage budget, for another comparison of how Ox guzzling UK society operates in 2025 though.
As an aside, Liverpool FC's annual wage budget was £387m for 23/24. (I know that there are 'guestimate' sites that say £130m, and that figure is now all over the internet, but the true figure is in their accounts).
So that £90m looks even smaller.
£387m One football club wages? In a Great Britain babies are dying because there are not enough mid wives. Does something not seem right to you in the way we live now.
ALL the Chagos deal money must come from the defence budget, all the UK taxpayer gets from the deal is security from the Chinese.
Tories only need to win back seats lost to the LDs for an overall majority
Their current strategy is to repel LD voters with maximum force
I notice that Davey has gone all in on calling out Trump and saying he is a disgrace etc.
Now it may be that he genuinely believes that and wants to say (and which sane person doesn't?) but may also have come up in focus groups for liberals. Conservatives like Braverman and Truss and Reform are out of step with most UK voters with their Trump cult worship. They will be even more out of step when Trump burns america to the ground and tries invading Canada.
I’m sure it’s just my TDS, but I think Trump is proving to be exactly as bad as we said he was going to be and people who acted like we were hysterical should be embarrassed they didn’t do more to try and stop it.
I’m sure it’s just my TDS, but I think Trump is proving to be exactly as bad as we said he was going to be and people who acted like we were hysterical should be embarrassed they didn’t do more to try and stop it.
I think if anything he's actually been worse than I was expecting.
I did expect him to do down Ukraine, steal loads of money, try to get his fellow criminals off from punishment and ignore all constitutional requirements.
I didn't expect him to fire all nuclear safety inspectors through sheer incompetence.
But Jenrick is a bit of a star, is quick witted, amoral and nasty, and would - at least - give starmer a booting at PMQs, which would cheer them up if nowt else
Sadly I can’t see Kemi improving. I feared she was a lightweight, I thought she was worth the risk anyway. But she’s turned out to be lightweight - indeed worse than feared
Better to strike now while no one cares or notices
Jenrick has a history like Badenoch of being unprepared and fluffing his lines. He’s had more car crashes than a rally driver. And he doesn’t do sharp wit. So I can imagine PMQs might not suit him either.
He is much better at the pre-recorded piece to camera where he does the whole anger with a steely glint look.
Hmmm. I haven't seen him fluff things up too much - in the HOC do you mean?
In interviews. A lot of examples where he’s gone in with a fact or an answer to a policy question, been probed on it and then fluffed his lines or contradicted himself.
There are a few examples that you can find YouTube vids of, mostly from the last 12 months since he came to prominence but I can remember some very awkward Today outings when he was a minister (and that time he ducked a commons question on his planning scandal and sent his deputy).
Citations or you’re talking nonsense
There are lots, of varying picture and sound qualities, and I’m not going to curate them for you here just type “jenrick car crash interview” into google videos.
But here’s one of the more embarrassing ones on one of the topics that makes him squirm the most. An extended illustration of Jenrick in policy interview rather than tirade mode.
Meh. A moderately bruising interview taking place live in the the middle of the first lockdown madness - and Jenrick also has to cope with loonies shouting at him from the silent london streets (london was especially crazy during that first lockdown)
If that’s the best you can do then pfff
I would link the more recent ones where he’s repeatedly caught lying about asylum data but they’re all accompanied by irritating editorialising by the YouTubers. Braverman is a bit better at saying bonkers stuff with a straight face. Jenrick still squirms a bit.
It comes down to your views about Mickey Mouse. Jenrick's problem is he pretends to be straight talking when he's actually a weasel. When confronted with his comments, say, on covering up children's murals to create a hostile environment, he then pretends he didn't say what he actually said. Being found out does depend on people confronting him on his comments.
We are operating in a post-Trump reality now where concepts like probity, honesty and consistency have very little political equity.
I agree Jenrick being a charlatan out purely for himself is no handicap these days. The biggest politics job in the world has just gone to one of those on steroids (turn of phrase, not alleging that, don't want to be extradited and sent to a prison in Florida or Texas).
The problem is his persona. It's repellent. You feel you'd need a good wash after even the briefest encounter with him. Trump, Vance, Farage, Johnson, etc, I and people like me might find these characters a turn-off, but the sad truth is they have a positive appeal to many. I can't see that with Jenrick.
That's true, and why I couldn't (and didn't) vote for him.
You managed to be quite happy in a party with Osborne, Cameron, Gove, Cummings, and a whole host of other pond life, so its a bit much to try to pass off your poor judgement as some sort of moral stand.
Question though, from someone who is clearly not the target audience.
Faced with a choice of a hard right Jenrick, who does things in the style of the steely eyed Tory boy, or a hard right Farage, who does things in the style of the bloke down the pub, isn’t there always going to be one answer?
But Jenrick is a bit of a star, is quick witted, amoral and nasty, and would - at least - give starmer a booting at PMQs, which would cheer them up if nowt else
Sadly I can’t see Kemi improving. I feared she was a lightweight, I thought she was worth the risk anyway. But she’s turned out to be lightweight - indeed worse than feared
Better to strike now while no one cares or notices
Jenrick has a history like Badenoch of being unprepared and fluffing his lines. He’s had more car crashes than a rally driver. And he doesn’t do sharp wit. So I can imagine PMQs might not suit him either.
He is much better at the pre-recorded piece to camera where he does the whole anger with a steely glint look.
Hmmm. I haven't seen him fluff things up too much - in the HOC do you mean?
In interviews. A lot of examples where he’s gone in with a fact or an answer to a policy question, been probed on it and then fluffed his lines or contradicted himself.
There are a few examples that you can find YouTube vids of, mostly from the last 12 months since he came to prominence but I can remember some very awkward Today outings when he was a minister (and that time he ducked a commons question on his planning scandal and sent his deputy).
Citations or you’re talking nonsense
There are lots, of varying picture and sound qualities, and I’m not going to curate them for you here just type “jenrick car crash interview” into google videos.
But here’s one of the more embarrassing ones on one of the topics that makes him squirm the most. An extended illustration of Jenrick in policy interview rather than tirade mode.
Meh. A moderately bruising interview taking place live in the the middle of the first lockdown madness - and Jenrick also has to cope with loonies shouting at him from the silent london streets (london was especially crazy during that first lockdown)
If that’s the best you can do then pfff
I would link the more recent ones where he’s repeatedly caught lying about asylum data but they’re all accompanied by irritating editorialising by the YouTubers. Braverman is a bit better at saying bonkers stuff with a straight face. Jenrick still squirms a bit.
It comes down to your views about Mickey Mouse. Jenrick's problem is he pretends to be straight talking when he's actually a weasel. When confronted with his comments, say, on covering up children's murals to create a hostile environment, he then pretends he didn't say what he actually said. Being found out does depend on people confronting him on his comments.
We are operating in a post-Trump reality now where concepts like probity, honesty and consistency have very little political equity.
I agree Jenrick being a charlatan out purely for himself is no handicap these days. The biggest politics job in the world has just gone to one of those on steroids (turn of phrase, not alleging that, don't want to be extradited and sent to a prison in Florida or Texas).
The problem is his persona. It's repellent. You feel you'd need a good wash after even the briefest encounter with him. Trump, Vance, Farage, Johnson, etc, I and people like me might find these characters a turn-off, but the sad truth is they have a positive appeal to many. I can't see that with Jenrick.
I assume Jenrick’s personal hygiene is somewhat better than Trump’s. He looks freshly washed. So there’s that. More of a Vance, maybe.
If you want to tax assets, CGT when properties are sold is the obvious one. No issues with valuation and the money is there.
On primary residence? That would totally f*** labour mobility by meaning no home/mortgage owner ever moves home again, it's dis-incentivised already with fees and stamp duty.
The clever reform would be to charge CGT on primary residence (and IHT), but abolish Stamp Duty/LBTT entirely. Make it roughly fiscally neutral.
Then why bother?
Increase liquidity in the housing market, making more large homes available for young families and smaller homes for pensioners. Make investing in businesses relatively more attractive. Take some heat out of the market in Edinburgh/London.
I've made more from my flat price increasing than I have from saving from my salary. I should be taxed more on my property and less on my earnings.
House prices round here are at what to me are insane levels. Yet there's massive amounts of building.
Similar population to France. 8 million fewer homes.
I had a fun discussion the other day with a local “housing activist”. Was telling him about how, in other places, a house or flat can remain empty, because there are more than enough properties. Even decent ones sit empty. Because the market was in surplus.
Interesting because, it was like watching his mind expand.
For the umpteenth time, France has higher housing costs than we do.
Everywhere you actually look, even Paris vs London (where you have the national capital effects), France is cheaper for rental. Often massively.
What the stats how is, on average, the UK has lower mortgage costs, and slightly higher renting costs, than France, despite having 8 million fewer homes. It has significantly lower rates of overcrowding compared with France. For people on median and higher incomes, renting in the UK is cheaper.
That points to an issue with income inequality, not supply of housing. There is no guarantee that building 8 million homes would slow they widening gap. My parents would probably by 3 of them and rent them.out, bless.
I’m sure it’s just my TDS, but I think Trump is proving to be exactly as bad as we said he was going to be and people who acted like we were hysterical should be embarrassed they didn’t do more to try and stop it.
I think if anything he's actually been worse than I was expecting.
I did expect him to do down Ukraine, steal loads of money, try to get his fellow criminals off from punishment and ignore all constitutional requirements.
I didn't expect him to fire all nuclear safety inspectors through sheer incompetence.
When did we realise that Musk was actually going to be running things while Trump basked in the glory of Being President? Or that putting RFK in charge of health wasn't just a joke?
Thorsten Benner @thorstenbenner · 6h 🇺🇸carefully created an opening for Beijing to present itself as rooting for 🇺🇦and 🇪🇺seat at the table — a seat that is being denied by the Trump Administration.
The US presented Wang Yi with the best possible Munich weekend he could have imagined. 🇨🇳delegation truly had fun.
Andriy Yermak @AndriyYermak The Chinese Foreign Minister expressed confidence that Ukraine must be a party to any peace negotiations, just as Europe’s participation in them is also essential.
Best option for what? A fucking doorstop? Because Gig Lamps was not the best option for LotO. That was transparently obvious from the start. Jobert Renwick would have served alt-right c-nt all over the place by now. He is sufficiently devoid of any moral restraint so that he can take on Farage in appealing to people who have horrible kids called Jaxxon and is enough of an opportunistic schemer to cause SKS and his Red Reform project a few problems.
Calm down.
Not until Lucy, our Queen of Hearts, goes free.
There was thought-provoking article by Neena Modi, professor of NeoNatal Medicine at Imperial, in the Guardian a few days ago. Made a number of points including that Cpuntess of Chester wasn't the best place for potentially really sick babies to be born as the staff as a whole weren't really up to it.
There have been lots of hospitals with really poor records in maternity and neo-natal care. But only in this one was a nurse charged and convicted of murder and attempted murder. Hard to tell whether this was because the nurse was rightly convicted or made a scapegoat for those failings.
It also requires quite a well organised conspiracy by a large number of incompetent staff and managers to frame Letby.
It isn't really a credible position to take.
Except that there were more deaths than those ascribed to Letby. There is no need for a management conspiracy if the prosecution is happy to include or exclude cases based on the shift roster.
It still requires a conspiracy to frame Letby though.
Merely having a high mortality and morbidity rate would be much less bad publicity than having a prolific serial killer nurse.
If you look at the history of miscarriages of justice, it’s never a conspiracy where a bunch of blokes in a smoke filled room decide to fit up a victim.
Someone gets an idea. Then they go looking for evidence to support that idea. Evidence to the contrary is ignored.
The actual faking or destruction of evidence is pretty rare in these cases. Certainly in last few decades.
Kemi is obviously a bit rubbish. What I can’t fathom is the mind blowing gap between her opinion of her own talent and everyone else’s. She carries on like she thinks she’s Elvis. It’s bizarre.
She only had to be better than Jenrick to be leader. And she's that.
Would she have beaten Mordaunt though? Not a chance. With the Conservatives having historically so few seats, the likelihood of a safe-ish seat coming up any time soon is limited. Look to a grandee getting a peerage in the honours list. Maybe that is already in motion, if Penny is back being active.
Tories only need to win back seats lost to the LDs for an overall majority
Their current strategy is to repel LD voters with maximum force
Not entirely true, on the latest Yougov 11% of 2024 LDs have switched to the Kemi Tories and just 5% of 2024 Tories have gone LD.
By contrast 23% of 2024 Conservatives have gone Reform and just 4% of 2024 Reform voters have gone Tory. So Kemi clearly does have some appeal to LDs which say Jenrick wouldn't but she also has less appeal to Reform voters than Jenrick might
Best option for what? A fucking doorstop? Because Gig Lamps was not the best option for LotO. That was transparently obvious from the start. Jobert Renwick would have served alt-right c-nt all over the place by now. He is sufficiently devoid of any moral restraint so that he can take on Farage in appealing to people who have horrible kids called Jaxxon and is enough of an opportunistic schemer to cause SKS and his Red Reform project a few problems.
Calm down.
Not until Lucy, our Queen of Hearts, goes free.
There was thought-provoking article by Neena Modi, professor of NeoNatal Medicine at Imperial, in the Guardian a few days ago. Made a number of points including that Cpuntess of Chester wasn't the best place for potentially really sick babies to be born as the staff as a whole weren't really up to it.
There have been lots of hospitals with really poor records in maternity and neo-natal care. But only in this one was a nurse charged and convicted of murder and attempted murder. Hard to tell whether this was because the nurse was rightly convicted or made a scapegoat for those failings.
It also requires quite a well organised conspiracy by a large number of incompetent staff and managers to frame Letby.
It isn't really a credible position to take.
Except that there were more deaths than those ascribed to Letby. There is no need for a management conspiracy if the prosecution is happy to include or exclude cases based on the shift roster.
It still requires a conspiracy to frame Letby though.
Merely having a high mortality and morbidity rate would be much less bad publicity than having a prolific serial killer nurse.
Which says something about the management. I don't think that, if she is innocent, she and her defence have gone the right way about things.
If you want to tax assets, CGT when properties are sold is the obvious one. No issues with valuation and the money is there.
On primary residence? That would totally f*** labour mobility by meaning no home/mortgage owner ever moves home again, it's dis-incentivised already with fees and stamp duty.
The clever reform would be to charge CGT on primary residence (and IHT), but abolish Stamp Duty/LBTT entirely. Make it roughly fiscally neutral.
Then why bother?
Increase liquidity in the housing market, making more large homes available for young families and smaller homes for pensioners. Make investing in businesses relatively more attractive. Take some heat out of the market in Edinburgh/London.
I've made more from my flat price increasing than I have from saving from my salary. I should be taxed more on my property and less on my earnings.
House prices round here are at what to me are insane levels. Yet there's massive amounts of building.
Similar population to France. 8 million fewer homes.
I had a fun discussion the other day with a local “housing activist”. Was telling him about how, in other places, a house or flat can remain empty, because there are more than enough properties. Even decent ones sit empty. Because the market was in surplus.
Interesting because, it was like watching his mind expand.
For the umpteenth time, France has higher housing costs than we do.
Everywhere you actually look, even Paris vs London (where you have the national capital effects), France is cheaper for rental. Often massively.
What the stats how is, on average, the UK has lower mortgage costs, and slightly higher renting costs, than France, despite having 8 million fewer homes. It has significantly lower rates of overcrowding compared with France. For people on median and higher incomes, renting in the UK is cheaper.
That points to an issue with income inequality, not supply of housing. There is no guarantee that building 8 million homes would slow they widening gap. My parents would probably by 3 of them and rent them.out, bless.
I find that remarkable. I assume it is affected by Paris. In the more cosmopolitan parts of Saone et Loire, on the motorway and main rail less than an hour from Lyon, and minutes from the TGV that takes you to Paris in an hour and a half, a 2-3 bed detached limestone house with garden goes for on average 120-140k Euros. If it’s high spec then up to 200k.
That's true, and why I couldn't (and didn't) vote for him.
You managed to be quite happy in a party with Osborne, Cameron, Gove, Cummings, and a whole host of other pond life, so its a bit much to try to pass off your poor judgement as some sort of moral stand.
I know they are not your cup of tea and not mine either, although I must admit I quite liked Cameron (so I am not completely unbiased) but I don't think they are all pond life (I'll exclude Cummings from this because I only really know the negative side, but he might be an alright human as well). Cameron and Osborne appeared to be in it for the right reasons and although I don't like Gove politically I have met him a few times and he knew I was an opponent and we had a very civilised chat.
Question for the PBers more technically adept than me (ie everyone): is it easy or hard to replace a belt on an exercise bike's fly wheel?
After some furkling, found that it's snapped. My initial thought had been to replace the bike, as it's pretty old (I think there's a reasonable chance something else might break given the age). But apparently the firm in question might send instructions for replacement plus the relevant part even if out of warranty, so sayeth an Amazon review.
But I'm not exactly the hands-on, DIY type.
First of all - treat it as a “have a go, before you put it in a skip”. The worst that can happen is that you have to junk it.
Second - what tools do you have? With ability no knowledge of the machine - some need no tools, others need Allen keys, screwdrivers or spanners.
I’d put the tools, the replacement part and the bike somewhere there is good light and plenty of space. Read the instructions first, try and visualise how it’s going to work. Take your time.
When dismantling, take photos as you go. Have a small bowl handy to put screws and bolts in.
God knows I’m no friend of the Conservatives but this is absurd.
The Party experienced in July 2024 its worst defeat under universal suffrage - the only saving grace was it finished second in terms of votes and seats making it, by most definitions, still the credible alternative Government.
Coming to terms with such a defeat doesn’t take seven months, it might need seven years or many more. There’s a more than reasonable argument even though the traditional principles of One Nation Toryism may seem irrelevant now their day will inevitably return when people grow tired of tedious populism and want more sensible politics.
The Conservatives must prepare for that and be ready to explain conservatism for the 2030s and beyond.
To some extent correct, you aren't going to beat your competitors by becoming them, they will always prefer the real thing, you need something distinctive and One Nation Toryism while accepting Brexit on current terms is still what distinguishes the Tories from Labour and the LDs on one end and Reform on the other,
Otherwise if you just become Reform 2 you may as well merge with Reform anyway
Question for the PBers more technically adept than me (ie everyone): is it easy or hard to replace a belt on an exercise bike's fly wheel?
After some furkling, found that it's snapped. My initial thought had been to replace the bike, as it's pretty old (I think there's a reasonable chance something else might break given the age). But apparently the firm in question might send instructions for replacement plus the relevant part even if out of warranty, so sayeth an Amazon review.
But I'm not exactly the hands-on, DIY type.
First of all - treat it as a “have a go, before you put it in a skip”. The worst that can happen is that you have to junk it.
Second - what tools do you have? With ability no knowledge of the machine - some need no tools, others need Allen keys, screwdrivers or spanners.
I’d put the tools, the replacement part and the bike somewhere there is good light and plenty of space. Read the instructions first, try and visualise how it’s going to work. Take your time.
When dismantling, take photos as you go. Have a small bowl handy to put screws and bolts in.
Yeah, I think I'll take that approach. I was careful to note which screws went where while opening it up.
Anyway, I've got to be off. I'll contact the firm and see how things stand.
But Jenrick is a bit of a star, is quick witted, amoral and nasty, and would - at least - give starmer a booting at PMQs, which would cheer them up if nowt else
Sadly I can’t see Kemi improving. I feared she was a lightweight, I thought she was worth the risk anyway. But she’s turned out to be lightweight - indeed worse than feared
Better to strike now while no one cares or notices
Jenrick has a history like Badenoch of being unprepared and fluffing his lines. He’s had more car crashes than a rally driver. And he doesn’t do sharp wit. So I can imagine PMQs might not suit him either.
He is much better at the pre-recorded piece to camera where he does the whole anger with a steely glint look.
Hmmm. I haven't seen him fluff things up too much - in the HOC do you mean?
In interviews. A lot of examples where he’s gone in with a fact or an answer to a policy question, been probed on it and then fluffed his lines or contradicted himself.
There are a few examples that you can find YouTube vids of, mostly from the last 12 months since he came to prominence but I can remember some very awkward Today outings when he was a minister (and that time he ducked a commons question on his planning scandal and sent his deputy).
Citations or you’re talking nonsense
There are lots, of varying picture and sound qualities, and I’m not going to curate them for you here just type “jenrick car crash interview” into google videos.
But here’s one of the more embarrassing ones on one of the topics that makes him squirm the most. An extended illustration of Jenrick in policy interview rather than tirade mode.
Meh. A moderately bruising interview taking place live in the the middle of the first lockdown madness - and Jenrick also has to cope with loonies shouting at him from the silent london streets (london was especially crazy during that first lockdown)
If that’s the best you can do then pfff
I would link the more recent ones where he’s repeatedly caught lying about asylum data but they’re all accompanied by irritating editorialising by the YouTubers. Braverman is a bit better at saying bonkers stuff with a straight face. Jenrick still squirms a bit.
It comes down to your views about Mickey Mouse. Jenrick's problem is he pretends to be straight talking when he's actually a weasel. When confronted with his comments, say, on covering up children's murals to create a hostile environment, he then pretends he didn't say what he actually said. Being found out does depend on people confronting him on his comments.
We are operating in a post-Trump reality now where concepts like probity, honesty and consistency have very little political equity.
I agree Jenrick being a charlatan out purely for himself is no handicap these days. The biggest politics job in the world has just gone to one of those on steroids (turn of phrase, not alleging that, don't want to be extradited and sent to a prison in Florida or Texas).
The problem is his persona. It's repellent. You feel you'd need a good wash after even the briefest encounter with him. Trump, Vance, Farage, Johnson, etc, I and people like me might find these characters a turn-off, but the sad truth is they have a positive appeal to many. I can't see that with Jenrick.
I assume Jenrick’s personal hygiene is somewhat better than Trump’s. He looks freshly washed. So there’s that. More of a Vance, maybe.
Yes, he looks technically spotless. "Oily" is perhaps the word. You just wouldn't trust the guy. Not with money, not with a secret, not with your vote. I know I wouldn't. My alt right side vastly prefers Nigel Farage.
If you want to tax assets, CGT when properties are sold is the obvious one. No issues with valuation and the money is there.
On primary residence? That would totally f*** labour mobility by meaning no home/mortgage owner ever moves home again, it's dis-incentivised already with fees and stamp duty.
The clever reform would be to charge CGT on primary residence (and IHT), but abolish Stamp Duty/LBTT entirely. Make it roughly fiscally neutral.
Then why bother?
Increase liquidity in the housing market, making more large homes available for young families and smaller homes for pensioners. Make investing in businesses relatively more attractive. Take some heat out of the market in Edinburgh/London.
I've made more from my flat price increasing than I have from saving from my salary. I should be taxed more on my property and less on my earnings.
House prices round here are at what to me are insane levels. Yet there's massive amounts of building.
Similar population to France. 8 million fewer homes.
I had a fun discussion the other day with a local “housing activist”. Was telling him about how, in other places, a house or flat can remain empty, because there are more than enough properties. Even decent ones sit empty. Because the market was in surplus.
Interesting because, it was like watching his mind expand.
For the umpteenth time, France has higher housing costs than we do.
Everywhere you actually look, even Paris vs London (where you have the national capital effects), France is cheaper for rental. Often massively.
What the stats how is, on average, the UK has lower mortgage costs, and slightly higher renting costs, than France, despite having 8 million fewer homes. It has significantly lower rates of overcrowding compared with France. For people on median and higher incomes, renting in the UK is cheaper.
That points to an issue with income inequality, not supply of housing. There is no guarantee that building 8 million homes would slow they widening gap. My parents would probably by 3 of them and rent them.out, bless.
I’d be interested to see such rental numbers - I’ve seen 50% less for equivalents between France and the U.K. in some areas
If your parents buy three of flats, there is no guarantee that someone will want to rent them at *any* price. Remember the fate of the Bunker Brothers….
A friend has a flat in Lyons. The particular suburb actually has a surplus of flats - occupancy is under 90%. So her nice flat sits there unoccupied. Because everyone wanting to rent a flat around there has one.
We already have an European Army, it's called NATO
Just what I said yesterday and not sure why anyone would think differently
NATO is USA, Canada and Europe.
If it becomes necessary to distance ourselves from the USA (because their government has gone utterly tonto and cannot be trusted), you end up with a European army by elimination. Plus Canada, if we want to offer them a security guarantee.
Not sure we're there yet, but we're clearly too close for comfort. And best to be prepared.
Tories only need to win back seats lost to the LDs for an overall majority
Their current strategy is to repel LD voters with maximum force
Not entirely true, on the latest Yougov 11% of 2024 LDs have switched to the Kemi Tories and just 5% of 2024 Tories have gone LD.
By contrast 23% of 2024 Conservatives have gone Reform and just 4% of 2024 Reform voters have gone Tory. So Kemi clearly does have some appeal to LDs which say Jenrick wouldn't but she also has less appeal to Reform voters than Jenrick might
Re the first sentence - Why do you, or anyone, think that is? It doesn't make any sense to me. My only thought is ex Tories who wanted to swap to Labour (but had to vote tactically for the LDs) to get rid of the Tories at the GE are now unhappy with Labour so are returning to the Tories. But that seems a bit convoluted.
We already have an European Army, it's called NATO
Just what I said yesterday and not sure why anyone would think differently
There's a massive issue now with command structures though surely?
We cannot have American military in the chain of command as it is quite clear that whatever their own personal views on the matter their commander in chief is now an ally of Russia and has no interest in protecting europe.
But Jenrick is a bit of a star, is quick witted, amoral and nasty, and would - at least - give starmer a booting at PMQs, which would cheer them up if nowt else
Sadly I can’t see Kemi improving. I feared she was a lightweight, I thought she was worth the risk anyway. But she’s turned out to be lightweight - indeed worse than feared
Better to strike now while no one cares or notices
Jenrick has a history like Badenoch of being unprepared and fluffing his lines. He’s had more car crashes than a rally driver. And he doesn’t do sharp wit. So I can imagine PMQs might not suit him either.
He is much better at the pre-recorded piece to camera where he does the whole anger with a steely glint look.
Hmmm. I haven't seen him fluff things up too much - in the HOC do you mean?
In interviews. A lot of examples where he’s gone in with a fact or an answer to a policy question, been probed on it and then fluffed his lines or contradicted himself.
There are a few examples that you can find YouTube vids of, mostly from the last 12 months since he came to prominence but I can remember some very awkward Today outings when he was a minister (and that time he ducked a commons question on his planning scandal and sent his deputy).
Citations or you’re talking nonsense
There are lots, of varying picture and sound qualities, and I’m not going to curate them for you here just type “jenrick car crash interview” into google videos.
But here’s one of the more embarrassing ones on one of the topics that makes him squirm the most. An extended illustration of Jenrick in policy interview rather than tirade mode.
Meh. A moderately bruising interview taking place live in the the middle of the first lockdown madness - and Jenrick also has to cope with loonies shouting at him from the silent london streets (london was especially crazy during that first lockdown)
If that’s the best you can do then pfff
I would link the more recent ones where he’s repeatedly caught lying about asylum data but they’re all accompanied by irritating editorialising by the YouTubers. Braverman is a bit better at saying bonkers stuff with a straight face. Jenrick still squirms a bit.
It comes down to your views about Mickey Mouse. Jenrick's problem is he pretends to be straight talking when he's actually a weasel. When confronted with his comments, say, on covering up children's murals to create a hostile environment, he then pretends he didn't say what he actually said. Being found out does depend on people confronting him on his comments.
We are operating in a post-Trump reality now where concepts like probity, honesty and consistency have very little political equity.
I agree Jenrick being a charlatan out purely for himself is no handicap these days. The biggest politics job in the world has just gone to one of those on steroids (turn of phrase, not alleging that, don't want to be extradited and sent to a prison in Florida or Texas).
The problem is his persona. It's repellent. You feel you'd need a good wash after even the briefest encounter with him. Trump, Vance, Farage, Johnson, etc, I and people like me might find these characters a turn-off, but the sad truth is they have a positive appeal to many. I can't see that with Jenrick.
I assume Jenrick’s personal hygiene is somewhat better than Trump’s. He looks freshly washed. So there’s that. More of a Vance, maybe.
Yes, he looks technically spotless. "Oily" is perhaps the word. You just wouldn't trust the guy. Not with money, not with a secret, not with your vote. I know I wouldn't. My alt right side vastly prefers Nigel Farage.
Best option for what? A fucking doorstop? Because Gig Lamps was not the best option for LotO. That was transparently obvious from the start. Jobert Renwick would have served alt-right c-nt all over the place by now. He is sufficiently devoid of any moral restraint so that he can take on Farage in appealing to people who have horrible kids called Jaxxon and is enough of an opportunistic schemer to cause SKS and his Red Reform project a few problems.
Calm down.
Not until Lucy, our Queen of Hearts, goes free.
There was thought-provoking article by Neena Modi, professor of NeoNatal Medicine at Imperial, in the Guardian a few days ago. Made a number of points including that Cpuntess of Chester wasn't the best place for potentially really sick babies to be born as the staff as a whole weren't really up to it.
There have been lots of hospitals with really poor records in maternity and neo-natal care. But only in this one was a nurse charged and convicted of murder and attempted murder. Hard to tell whether this was because the nurse was rightly convicted or made a scapegoat for those failings.
It also requires quite a well organised conspiracy by a large number of incompetent staff and managers to frame Letby.
It isn't really a credible position to take.
Except that there were more deaths than those ascribed to Letby. There is no need for a management conspiracy if the prosecution is happy to include or exclude cases based on the shift roster.
It still requires a conspiracy to frame Letby though.
Merely having a high mortality and morbidity rate would be much less bad publicity than having a prolific serial killer nurse.
Which says something about the management. I don't think that, if she is innocent, she and her defence have gone the right way about things.
Of course the defence team ballsed up. Police and lawyers, judges and juries, do not understand technical, medical and of course probabilistic evidence, so why expect defence counsel or the accused to be any different?
And yet the appeals system is focussed on narrow points of legal procedure, as if all the other stuff was perfect. In the real world it is generally the other way round.
We already have an European Army, it's called NATO
Just what I said yesterday and not sure why anyone would think differently
NATO is USA, Canada and Europe.
If it becomes necessary to distance ourselves from the USA (because their government has gone utterly tonto and cannot be trusted), you end up with a European army by elimination. Plus Canada, if we want to offer them a security guarantee.
Not sure we're there yet, but we're clearly too close for comfort. And best to be prepared.
Given America says it would like to withdraw from European operations perhaps they would like to vacate their multiple military bases on Greenland. That can then be the lynchpin of the new North Atlantic arc of security.
We already have an European Army, it's called NATO
Just what I said yesterday and not sure why anyone would think differently
NATO is USA, Canada and Europe.
If it becomes necessary to distance ourselves from the USA (because their government has gone utterly tonto and cannot be trusted), you end up with a European army by elimination. Plus Canada, if we want to offer them a security guarantee.
Not sure we're there yet, but we're clearly too close for comfort. And best to be prepared.
NATO is the established military alliance and it is the instrument for European security no matter that the US is unreliable
But Jenrick is a bit of a star, is quick witted, amoral and nasty, and would - at least - give starmer a booting at PMQs, which would cheer them up if nowt else
Sadly I can’t see Kemi improving. I feared she was a lightweight, I thought she was worth the risk anyway. But she’s turned out to be lightweight - indeed worse than feared
Better to strike now while no one cares or notices
Jenrick has a history like Badenoch of being unprepared and fluffing his lines. He’s had more car crashes than a rally driver. And he doesn’t do sharp wit. So I can imagine PMQs might not suit him either.
He is much better at the pre-recorded piece to camera where he does the whole anger with a steely glint look.
Hmmm. I haven't seen him fluff things up too much - in the HOC do you mean?
In interviews. A lot of examples where he’s gone in with a fact or an answer to a policy question, been probed on it and then fluffed his lines or contradicted himself.
There are a few examples that you can find YouTube vids of, mostly from the last 12 months since he came to prominence but I can remember some very awkward Today outings when he was a minister (and that time he ducked a commons question on his planning scandal and sent his deputy).
Citations or you’re talking nonsense
There are lots, of varying picture and sound qualities, and I’m not going to curate them for you here just type “jenrick car crash interview” into google videos.
But here’s one of the more embarrassing ones on one of the topics that makes him squirm the most. An extended illustration of Jenrick in policy interview rather than tirade mode.
Meh. A moderately bruising interview taking place live in the the middle of the first lockdown madness - and Jenrick also has to cope with loonies shouting at him from the silent london streets (london was especially crazy during that first lockdown)
If that’s the best you can do then pfff
I would link the more recent ones where he’s repeatedly caught lying about asylum data but they’re all accompanied by irritating editorialising by the YouTubers. Braverman is a bit better at saying bonkers stuff with a straight face. Jenrick still squirms a bit.
It comes down to your views about Mickey Mouse. Jenrick's problem is he pretends to be straight talking when he's actually a weasel. When confronted with his comments, say, on covering up children's murals to create a hostile environment, he then pretends he didn't say what he actually said. Being found out does depend on people confronting him on his comments.
We are operating in a post-Trump reality now where concepts like probity, honesty and consistency have very little political equity.
I agree Jenrick being a charlatan out purely for himself is no handicap these days. The biggest politics job in the world has just gone to one of those on steroids (turn of phrase, not alleging that, don't want to be extradited and sent to a prison in Florida or Texas).
The problem is his persona. It's repellent. You feel you'd need a good wash after even the briefest encounter with him. Trump, Vance, Farage, Johnson, etc, I and people like me might find these characters a turn-off, but the sad truth is they have a positive appeal to many. I can't see that with Jenrick.
Thank god the UK is merely governed by a traitor, eh?
I’m sure it’s just my TDS, but I think Trump is proving to be exactly as bad as we said he was going to be and people who acted like we were hysterical should be embarrassed they didn’t do more to try and stop it.
I think if anything he's actually been worse than I was expecting.
I did expect him to do down Ukraine, steal loads of money, try to get his fellow criminals off from punishment and ignore all constitutional requirements.
I didn't expect him to fire all nuclear safety inspectors through sheer incompetence.
Trump 1 was actually pretty mild. Yes he made a lot of offensive tweets but he didnt do much real damage. This time he is doing real damage.
I’m sure it’s just my TDS, but I think Trump is proving to be exactly as bad as we said he was going to be and people who acted like we were hysterical should be embarrassed they didn’t do more to try and stop it.
If you want to tax assets, CGT when properties are sold is the obvious one. No issues with valuation and the money is there.
On primary residence? That would totally f*** labour mobility by meaning no home/mortgage owner ever moves home again, it's dis-incentivised already with fees and stamp duty.
Depends on how they apply it. If a Land Value Tax was applied alongside or as well as Council Tax, people who are occupying more space than they need (my home is my pension etc) may decide to downsize and put the additional cash into equities. Currently houses are overpriced and investment in UK equities is lower than other countries. You could put the equity investment into a SIPP which would provide more certainty in retirement as no one ever sells the house to fund their pension. They just ask for cash from the taxpayer e.g. WFA.
This government like the last one, wasted their massive majorities when they could have used it to make inroads into the structural problems of the governments finances.
Question for the PBers more technically adept than me (ie everyone): is it easy or hard to replace a belt on an exercise bike's fly wheel?
After some furkling, found that it's snapped. My initial thought had been to replace the bike, as it's pretty old (I think there's a reasonable chance something else might break given the age). But apparently the firm in question might send instructions for replacement plus the relevant part even if out of warranty, so sayeth an Amazon review.
But I'm not exactly the hands-on, DIY type.
First of all - treat it as a “have a go, before you put it in a skip”. The worst that can happen is that you have to junk it.
Second - what tools do you have? With ability no knowledge of the machine - some need no tools, others need Allen keys, screwdrivers or spanners.
I’d put the tools, the replacement part and the bike somewhere there is good light and plenty of space. Read the instructions first, try and visualise how it’s going to work. Take your time.
When dismantling, take photos as you go. Have a small bowl handy to put screws and bolts in.
Better still separate little bowls with labels for the different joints ... and do it over something like a metre of leftover wallpaper, on the floor.
Comments
Plenty of good wine at £10/bottle or less at the wine society, spending more than that then I'd suggest their customers aren't looking for a blend.
If we have to raise money - and we do - especially for our defence, then this and more will be needed: increases in income tax, fuel duty, extensions of VAT, removing the triple lock, no higher rate tax relief for pension contributions, council tax bands for higher value homes, savings to be used for social care and so on. No group will be unaffected. That's the brutal truth.
Obviously I am not a politician.
Let’s have a go
Upon a Choice Ill-Made
An option - say, for what? Alas,
A fucking doorstop - cold and bare;
For Gig Lamps, wreathed in empty brass,
Was never meant to lead us there
The path was clear from fate’s first breath,
The best option, e’en shorn of grace;
Had Renwick seized the helm of death,
He’d’ve served alt-right c-nt all over the place
Multiple flechette rounds, extreme burst fire (fire 3 rounds in milliseconds) etc etc.
Then someone noticed that the testing teams were scoring extraordinarily well with their regular rifles. Better than line soldiers. Better than the improvement that billions in tech was trying to achieve.
Turned out that doing more practise at the range improved soldiers shooting. Massively. You see, most line soldiers were not shooting very often….
I've made more from my flat price increasing than I have from saving from my salary. I should be taxed more on my property and less on my earnings.
If ever she went free a group,of middle aged people with one obsession would lose all sense of purpose.
What you have "made" on your property will be realised when you sell, which is why it makes sense to levy the tax then.
The headshake tell when he’s bullshitting is mildly irritating, but he’s way better at it than Kemi.
Simply can’t do the Farage man of the people shtick, though. I don’t think he’d be much of an improvement, as he doesn’t bring any positives - he’s just a bit less rubbish.
I had a fun discussion the other day with a local “housing activist”. Was telling him about how, in other places, a house or flat can remain empty, because there are more than enough properties. Even decent ones sit empty. Because the market was in surplus.
Interesting because, it was like watching his mind expand.
I would like to think it won't be true for much longer
Letby may or may not need an appeal or a re-trial. Yet because of who some of her supporters are, we are seeing people saying “We must die in a ditch to defend Justice”.
So that £90m looks even smaller.
There is a reason why we always come back to a welfare tax based on house prices - it’s just about the only thing that doesn’t move and where the change won’t impact behavior of those subject to it
One would note he is more assured though, simply because he's capable of getting basics right like "being well-briefed on the issue you are trying to hammer the government on" and "not picking fights where you come off looking as bad if not worse than the government". Badenoch is seemingly incapable of that.
That doesn't mean he's particularly likeable - he's extremely oily, and the epitome of a politician who's been planning his way up the greasy pole since his teens. Which if it wasn't not a good look on a Miliband or Burnham, isn't on a Tory. He's also Kryptonite to Tory-Lib Dem switchers.
Which speaks to the trap the Tories are in. They lost half the seats in Surrey at the last election. Some of them by absolutely whopping margins. Worse than that, there's another tranche of Home Counties Tory-LD seats that are well within range if current trends away from the Tories continue. They are simply not going to be able to form a government without winning some of them - especially as their fight against Labour in the North and Midlands is hugely complicated by Reform's presence.
But they have absolutely no theory of how to do so. With their only strategy actively hostile to it - which is to be more Reformy and right-wing in the hope they can recreate the dynamics that won in 2019. But those are gone. Reform are more serious opponents than the Brexit Party, and Boris/Truss/Rishi and Brexit not delivering what even its supporters wanted has tarnished that pitch.
It's a bit like Labour thinking the path to winning lay in unseating IDS and winning some extra seats in the London exurbs while they were getting trounced in seats in the North East and North West.
Now, you could argue, as some do on here, that Britain is ripe for a revolt from the populist and far right. But accepting that as true why would a Tory be the beneficiary? If you want to blow everything up or a party that's anti-immigration to the exclusion all else, then there's Reform.
Whether it's Jenrick or Badenoch, where is this huge mass of voters who are going to say "everything's shit we need huge change and a party that will stop immigration, let's vote the last government back in that already promised those things but failed"?
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update120-the-us-changes?r=1tgexa&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true
In a way I hope she is guilty, because I'd hate for the quality of decision making in our Courts to be brought further into question.
But conversely, if she isn't, I hope the Courts and the system deal with the case swiftly and openly. Another Malkinson-type case would reduce confidence further.
Better stop here otherwise there's a risk of us being helpful.
Shashank Joshi @shashj.bsky.social
·
1h
For a sense of mood: I was told today by one person - albeit second hand - that Trump admin threatened Canada with revisions to the border & expulsion from Five Eyes. Canada said to have threatened retal on energy front. (Despite that, Gabbard seems to have impressed in Munich).
====
How long before Trump is literally sending weapons to Putin rather than Ukraine?
It isn't really a credible position to take.
@TimothyDSnyder
·
13h
I’m in Munich and people keep asking me to decode Vance’s speech. OK: In Vance English “free speech” means “Let Musk run your elections” and “democracy” means “let Russia run your elections.” Now move on. 2025 is about what Europeans do, not what Americans say.
https://x.com/TimothyDSnyder/status/1890895093395075156
If mistakes can be dealt with as part of the system, then the system is at least partially healthy.
To me, it was a dreadful failure, when Parliament had to overturn the convictions of the Sub Post Masters en masse. In a kind of reverse Act Of Attainder. The courts had failed.
The reasons for it are even worse.
I happen to think he was absolutely right to move to approve the planning application, and the subsequent housebuilding crisis and his apparent success as housing minister in getting homes built puts his decision in a different light. But yes, the donation was ridiculous.
The 'apparent bias' thing isn't particularly funny, the appearance of bias is important to avoid, and he admitted being wrong to approve the application because he had not avoided that appearance.
You can't go from full 'sink the boats and kick them out, Net Zero's for losers' and then tack back to saying oh we're back to Cameronism again now - people have memories.
Merely having a high mortality and morbidity rate would be much less bad publicity than having a prolific serial killer nurse.
Sarah Longwell
@SarahLongwell25
I’m sure it’s just my TDS, but I think Trump is proving to be exactly as bad as we said he was going to be and people who acted like we were hysterical should be embarrassed they didn’t do more to try and stop it.
https://x.com/SarahLongwell25
After some furkling, found that it's snapped. My initial thought had been to replace the bike, as it's pretty old (I think there's a reasonable chance something else might break given the age). But apparently the firm in question might send instructions for replacement plus the relevant part even if out of warranty, so sayeth an Amazon review.
But I'm not exactly the hands-on, DIY type.
ALL the Chagos deal money must come from the defence budget, all the UK taxpayer gets from the deal is security from the Chinese.
Now it may be that he genuinely believes that and wants to say (and which sane person doesn't?) but may also have come up in focus groups for liberals. Conservatives like Braverman and Truss and Reform are out of step with most UK voters with their Trump cult worship. They will be even more out of step when Trump burns america to the ground and tries invading Canada.
I did expect him to do down Ukraine, steal loads of money, try to get his fellow criminals off from punishment and ignore all constitutional requirements.
I didn't expect him to fire all nuclear safety inspectors through sheer incompetence.
The problem is his persona. It's repellent. You feel you'd need a good wash after even the briefest encounter with him. Trump, Vance, Farage, Johnson, etc, I and people like me might find these characters a turn-off, but the sad truth is they have a positive appeal to many. I can't see that with Jenrick.
Faced with a choice of a hard right Jenrick, who does things in the style of the steely eyed Tory boy, or a hard right Farage, who does things in the style of the bloke down the pub, isn’t there always going to be one answer?
That points to an issue with income inequality, not supply of housing. There is no guarantee that building 8 million homes would slow they widening gap. My parents would probably by 3 of them and rent them.out, bless.
But yeah- surprising on the downside.
@thorstenbenner
·
6h
🇺🇸carefully created an opening for Beijing to present itself as rooting for 🇺🇦and 🇪🇺seat at the table — a seat that is being denied by the Trump Administration.
The US presented Wang Yi with the best possible Munich weekend he could have imagined. 🇨🇳delegation truly had fun.
Andriy Yermak
@AndriyYermak
The Chinese Foreign Minister expressed confidence that Ukraine must be a party to any peace negotiations, just as Europe’s participation in them is also essential.
https://x.com/thorstenbenner/status/1891018105435857051
Someone gets an idea. Then they go looking for evidence to support that idea. Evidence to the contrary is ignored.
The actual faking or destruction of evidence is pretty rare in these cases. Certainly in last few decades.
Would she have beaten Mordaunt though? Not a chance. With the Conservatives having historically so few seats, the likelihood of a safe-ish seat coming up any time soon is limited. Look to a grandee getting a peerage in the honours list. Maybe that is already in motion, if Penny is back being active.
By contrast 23% of 2024 Conservatives have gone Reform and just 4% of 2024 Reform voters have gone Tory. So Kemi clearly does have some appeal to LDs which say Jenrick wouldn't but she also has less appeal to Reform voters than Jenrick might
https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/documents/VotingIntention_MRP_250210_w.pdf
I don't think that, if she is innocent, she and her defence have gone the right way about things.
There comes a point where her performance is so poor that even Tawdry Bob would be preferable. I wonder where that is?
We already have an European Army, it's called NATO
Just what I said yesterday and not sure why anyone would think differently
Second - what tools do you have? With ability no knowledge of the machine - some need no tools, others need Allen keys, screwdrivers or spanners.
I’d put the tools, the replacement part and the bike somewhere there is good light and plenty of space. Read the instructions first, try and visualise how it’s going to work. Take your time.
When dismantling, take photos as you go. Have a small bowl handy to put screws and bolts in.
Otherwise if you just become Reform 2 you may as well merge with Reform anyway
Anyway, I've got to be off. I'll contact the firm and see how things stand.
If your parents buy three of flats, there is no guarantee that someone will want to rent them at *any* price. Remember the fate of the Bunker Brothers….
A friend has a flat in Lyons. The particular suburb actually has a surplus of flats - occupancy is under 90%. So her nice flat sits there unoccupied. Because everyone wanting to rent a flat around there has one.
She could buy more flats, quite cheap.
If it becomes necessary to distance ourselves from the USA (because their government has gone utterly tonto and cannot be trusted), you end up with a European army by elimination. Plus Canada, if we want to offer them a security guarantee.
Not sure we're there yet, but we're clearly too close for comfort. And best to be prepared.
We cannot have American military in the chain of command as it is quite clear that whatever their own personal views on the matter their commander in chief is now an ally of Russia and has no interest in protecting europe.
And yet the appeals system is focussed on narrow points of legal procedure, as if all the other stuff was perfect. In the real world it is generally the other way round.
[yes yes I know it’s on the North American plate]
This government like the last one, wasted their massive majorities when they could have used it to make inroads into the structural problems of the governments finances.