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Death by a thousand cuts? – politicalbetting.com
Death by a thousand cuts? – politicalbetting.com
It is curious that somebody is clearly gunning for Rachel Reeves, we’ve had several stories that are sub-optimal for her. None of these stories on their own are resigning/sacking offences but on a cumulative basis they are problematic.
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Problem is if Starmer gets rid of her who does he replace her with. Darren Jones seems competent. Aside from him it is hard to see.
Perhaps Trump is trying to recreate a world like the 1890s, where big powers get to do what they want - eg foment the Spanish-American war or the earlier 1848 war that allowed the USA to take over half of Mexico *. He wants to be able to operate like Presidents McKinley or Teddy Roosevelt.
That requires an understanding with Russia and China, and Europe with it's annoying belief in International Law etc to be taken out of the wider game - as I put it turned into a place to be quarried like South America used to be.
The weaknesses in the position are that Russia is nothing like as powerful as he thinks, and neither relatively is the USA - bearing in mind the proportion of population and GDP compared to South America or Europe or the rest of the world.
His thought framework is stuck in the past, and he's rolling the dice to create a new age of Usonian Imperialism.
It also involves overthrowing the current Usonian polity, which is what is happening now.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican–American_War
My guess is that oh so honest Chancellor will seek to blame the increase in defence spending but try to increase taxes by more than is required for that purpose to give herself some headroom. One can only hope that she finds some taxes this time that don't impact so directly on growth.
https://x.com/sentdefender/status/1891756275668504761
Probably something a busy CoE delegates... if Labour was a tightly run operation someone would be picking these up. Trivial but Labour should understand that they have to be almost infinitely more careful on this stuff
I’m not sure if deranged Bernard Manning should be the face of beating the ‘shit libtards’ aesthetically.
https://x.com/inevitablewest/status/1890892291151106259?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
Ha, just realised it’s that crypto grifter posing as defender of western values tweeting this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin's_meeting_table
I think she is overpromoted, slightly dogmatic, with a vindictive streak, and not quite as bright as she makes out.
Those public school boys who mocked her as a child have led to some lifelong chips.
The much more interesting question is who is the scandal stalker, and to what end?
What the world needs is footage of a Saudi secret policeman vomiting into a bucket next to a stack of bin bags while bright orange and green ectoplasm is hosed off him.
European nations and Canada, pushing up defence expenditure may well be a case of being careful what you wish for. If the USA does not want allies, among well-armed, rich world democracies, it won’t have them.
And, I do get American frustration at European freeloading on the back of its military. But, rewarding Putin’s naked aggression is not the solution.
It is not unheard for politicians to have done this in the past. IDS of course played very fast and loose with a foreign university he claimed he attended.
I don't think so.
That's never happened before in history, has it?
if tax rises are coming for increased Defence spending, would you really fire the incumbent Chancellor and have her successor start their tenure by immediately increasing taxes?
https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.journals.all.html
As I said last week I think she got lucky with the employer Ni increase first. There is now a reason to increase income tax in ways that didn’t exist back in early January
I don’t think the Russians have any intention of ending the war though, they’re too far down the rabbit hole for what they’ve actually achieved.
We’ll know soon from Rubio whether there’s anything that looks like good faith from Lavrov, and then Ukraine and European countries need to clearly and effectively state their case. Kellogg (and to some extent JD Vance) will have got the message loud and clear from the Europeans in the last few days, that the US alone aren’t going to be able to do a deal.
I suspect we are in for several weeks of sherpas running around and political proclamations from all involved, to be followed by an outline of what all sides might consider to be an acceptable outcome to the conflict.
It would tend to encourage an expectation of the cut being reversed.
The only good way to sack a Chancellor is in the wake of some national catharsis - like the flight from the ERM - which in itself has beneficial effects.
As it is, the government has to keep plugging away.
"UK wages continue to outpace inflation"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gwgpjgl5zo
Also mentioned is an unemployment rate of 4.4% though they admit it may not be as accurate as they suggest.
If wages are growing despite the NI worries then there's a tightness in the labour market that is not quite apparent. Also growth in wages means more money for HMRC since they take a whack of it.
Is it time to use the phrase 'gangbusters' yet?
Prime Ministers who botch removing Chancellors tend not to be Prime Ministers with remarkable speed afterwards. Liz Truss. Harold Macmillan. Margaret Thatcher. Boris Johnson (albeit he got away with the first occasion for a time at least).
Major waited on firing Lamont for a good reason, and it sort of worked even if it didn't solve the fundamental problem. Blair kept Brown in when he probably shouldn't for fear of the consequences. Ditto Brown and Darling.
A more likely scenario is Reeves is kept for three years and then carefully shunted sideways, so she can be blamed for all the tough stuff (massive tax rises and spending cuts) and then a new Chancellor can offer some goodies just before the election sold as 'a new approach because the pain has worked.'
What we should be watching for, if that is the plan, is the building up by Starmer of alternative power bases within the party to ensure Reeves does not become too powerful and ergo unsackable. Blair tried it a few times but never quite pulled it off.
There’s a pattern.
https://x.com/sentdefender/status/1891717184629473570
Looks like it clipped a wing on landing in howling winds and flipped over, coming to rest with the fuselage somehow almost intact but the plane upside-down.
His social media presence is massive, way outside F1. 35.5 million followers on Instagram alone. The next driver, Leclerc, has a third of that.
And Ferrari has them both next year...
https://boardroom.tv/formula-1-f1-drivers-instagram/
It is still low compared to the most-followed accounts, but his appeal outside F1 is very useful to the sport.
Extraordinary to think that so far nobody has died and only three were seriously hurt. That is a tribute to the safety features.
Trump wants a deal and doesn’t care what the effect is on Ukraine and the rest of Europe .
The only good to come of this is hopefully Europe finally wakes up and realizes that on defence it needs to forget about the USA and build up its own capability.
It also means that the UK and EU effectively have no choice but to have closer links. Hopefully this goes beyond just security and we can start to re-build those cultural links and co-operation in other areas badly damaged by Brexit .
Just a typo right? Only one word wrong? They even begin with the same letter and are the same length!
I'd argue that Lewis Hamilton is the greater sporting figure, and Muhammad Ali the greater cultural icon.
And equally McLaren are the team to beat and they’ve got changes to their car which if they have improved it may make them very hard to beat. We won’t know really until Australia though
Will be interesting to see what happens with Red Bull now they've lost Newey, and whether he's made a big difference to Aston Martin.
These talks won't end the war - they will just be for half time and oranges, until Putin is ready for the second half.
The points need to be switched on the railway track to the stitch-up which Trump and Putin are attempting to impose, in some way. The further along it is, the more difficult the direction will be to change.
Zelensky will have to take the best of the options he is offered, even if it means there will be a renewal of the assault by Russia in 2, 4 or 6 years.
https://reuters.screenocean.com/record/1919215
In both Mogadishu and this latest crash, it looks like the wings coming off saved the passengers, as the majority of the fuel was in the wings.
New Zealand has its own Rachel Reeves in the form of Finance Minister Nicola Willis who once claimed to be an economist - the problem being her degree was in English Literature and she did a postgraduate diploma in journalism.
Rather like Reeves, she has gone down the cutting the public sector to grow the economy route with a mix of welfare reduction while trying to encourage rich foreigners like me (apparently) to buy up land and property in Auckland, Hawke’s Bay and Wanaka. She is the Minister for Economic Growth at a time when the Kiwi economy is shrinking.
The main news item, apart from the continuing row over Chinese involvement in the Cook Islands, is or was defence spending. If you think we are bad on defence spending, New Zealand spends just over 1% of its GDP on defence and the recognition in Wellington, as elsewhere, is the party is over. Both National and Labour are making noises, ACT leader David Seymour wants 2% but has no idea how to raise the money and what to spend it on.
That's why I think a lot of the concern about the new minimum wage rate is misplaced - the market wage will still be higher, if the latest pay deals for Sainsbury's etc are anything to go by.
Over the long term, the UK's particular issue with in-work poverty might subside, even as unemplyment related poverty increases. That would make us look more like France.
The three big powers are US, China and EU/UK. Russia is a tiddler and needs a good smack.
Perhaps China is the adult in the room and should be in the talks?
The recognition of irrelevance comes easier to some than to others. The truth is from 1945 to 1989 Europe’s “importance” was as a potential battlefield between Washington and Moscow. Could Europe have emerged as a player in a multipolar world? It still can and the legacy of the new Russian-American rapprochement may either be to improve Sino-European relations or to encourage Europe to move closer.
New Zealand understands irrelevance - the world cares little for Kiribati, Vanuatu or the Cook Islands. History dictates a distance between Wellington and Canberra though IF Dutton becomes the next Australian Prime Minister and Poilievre takes over in Ottawa in the autumn, there will be a degree of political commonality between the three countries which hasn’t existed for a while.
The point people are missing I think, is that Reeves actually is useful to Starmer.
(And inevitably she'll be sacked tomorrow - to prove me wrong)
https://x.com/richardgcorbett/status/1889993596293841080?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
The Yanks liked to pick the military support figures; the EU the whole figures. In truth, both are vital.
‘Why is Labour handling the Trump/Putin Munich moment superbly?’
https://x.com/paulmasonnews/status/1891771758350327836?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
Ahaha. I see full hyperbole is out in force.
If history is kind, it will be all she's remembered for.
"Next!"
But he needs Europe to stand strongly with him
Which might mean that one of the ‘evolutionary’ teams has a good advantage at the start of the season that goes away quickly, or one of the ‘revolutionary’ teams has made a leap over the winter and runs away with it.
The ‘revolutionary’ car will probably require more in-season development than the ‘evolutionary’ car, but the big decision all teams need to make is when to move their limited resources over to the new 2026 car.
A relative of mine got injured after a car crash doing that. Ended up upside down, undid the seatbelt and fell onto his head, injuring his neck.
I don't think any recent leader we have had is evil. I would reserve that word for people like Putin. Maybe Trump - his stuff on vaccines is evil I think
It's just my use of "public school boys" has triggered some deep-seated class insecurities in you and the dumb shmucks who've liked your post.
I'd guess the effective, but politically unfeasible, thing to do would be to send it all to Ukraine/Baltic nations to help build up their capabilities. Plus perhaps some technology to protect our underseas cables from sabotage (but that relies on us actually destroying some Russian ships inside friendly EEZs, which seems unlikely).
If this was the only occurrence she could say “I’m sorry. Clearly a mistake. I’ll make sure it is corrected in the next edition” and people would be fine with that
But it's not really a matter of quantity.
It's a matter of effective second strike and therefore deterrence.
That'll make it harder for them to get support.
Grow up.