Absolutely OOZING contempt for Starmer (and he was unaware of the aid decision and the Trump fawning)
“What does he believe in? Does anyone know? He is like a very boring Blair, he is a void, he believes in nothing but his own career”
Hard to argue (OK I didn’t exactly try hard); nonetheless this illustrates a grave danger for Starmer. He is alienating lefty voters
Fair criticism, but you could ask what did Blair believe in? The third way was actually more just riding the good times financially that just happened to coincide with Labours time in office (up to 2007 of course, but then Brown was in the chair for that).
Absolutely OOZING contempt for Starmer (and he was unaware of the aid decision and the Trump fawning)
“What does he believe in? Does anyone know? He is like a very boring Blair, he is a void, he believes in nothing but his own career”
Hard to argue (OK I didn’t exactly try hard); nonetheless this illustrates a grave danger for Starmer. He is alienating lefty voters
Though if like Blair he holds the redwall and provincial marginal seats he can still win under FPTP even if loses upper middle class progressives in trendy parts of the big cities to the LDs and Greens who like Dodds after her resignation today will have been annoyed by the overseas aid cut.
However Blair did not have Reform breathing down his neck so he could end up losing the former to Farage's party and the Tories and losing some of the latter seats to the LDs and Greens
Anneliese Dodds resigns as international development minister over aid cuts. Remarkably principled to do so, particularly so early into a government. She might have hoped for higher office in time.
Lest we forget she was Sir Keir’s first choice to be Chancellor until she proved herself utterly useless as Shadow Chancellor.
Hmm. Was she worse than Reeves?
She was facing Rishi Sunak at his apotheosis as Chancellor.
Rishi was rather popular for paying people to stay at home.
Dodd's letter is devastating. It's factual, logical and clearly correct in its conclusions. Everyone who thinks seriously about these matters will understand that, including probably Keir Starmer.
And it lacks a counter solution to the problem of needing to find money, fast, to ensure the defence of the realm. As always politicians and ministers need to remember that the money they spend is tax payers, not theirs. Yes its nice to spend tax payers money all round the world, and I am sure it does some good, but there are places where it can be cut. India has a space program yet we still use our overseas aid budget to give money to India. Tough times need tough calls. Why not fight within to do the best you can with 0.3% of GNI. Its not exactly peanuts, is it.
Because there is no sensible trade off between aid and defence where a pound less spent on aid and a pound more on defence will deliver the same result. You might think aid is a complete waste of money but even then it has nothing to do with the defence budget.
Starmer wants to increase defence spending, which requires tax rises that the public have a limited appetite for, so sacrifices the aid budget to provide political cover even though it's a fiscal nonsense and is actually counterproductive to his governments policies. He may not mind too much if Dodd's resignation feeds his narrative of difficult choices being made.
But Dodds' evisceration of the bankruptcy of his decision is on the money and I suspect he knows it
At no point do I suggest that its a trade of for money outcomes - the foreign aid budget is made up of tax payers money and right now there is a need for defence spending. Its not about getting the same result from the money, its doing different things with the money. I also don't believe that aid is a complete waste of money but I do question aid to some countries, notably India. At some point a country and its citizens needs to stand on its own and look after its own. You want a space programme? Fine, but Britain shouldn't then have to pick up the burden of heathcare that the Indian tax payer isn't supporting.
As per my previous post, Britain is not "pick[ing] up the burden of heathcare that the Indian tax payer isn't supporting". How do we put a stop to these zombie ideas!
Absolutely OOZING contempt for Starmer (and he was unaware of the aid decision and the Trump fawning)
“What does he believe in? Does anyone know? He is like a very boring Blair, he is a void, he believes in nothing but his own career”
Hard to argue (OK I didn’t exactly try hard); nonetheless this illustrates a grave danger for Starmer. He is alienating lefty voters
Fair criticism, but you could ask what did Blair believe in? The third way was actually more just riding the good times financially that just happened to coincide with Labours time in office (up to 2007 of course, but then Brown was in the chair for that).
Agreed.
I would argue that Starmer is basically Blair with a crap economy. And less charisma.
Anneliese Dodds resigns as international development minister over aid cuts. Remarkably principled to do so, particularly so early into a government. She might have hoped for higher office in time.
Lest we forget she was Sir Keir’s first choice to be Chancellor until she proved herself utterly useless as Shadow Chancellor.
Hmm. Was she worse than Reeves?
She was facing Rishi Sunak at his apotheosis as Chancellor.
Rishi was rather popular for paying people to stay at home.
Dodd's letter is devastating. It's factual, logical and clearly correct in its conclusions. Everyone who thinks seriously about these matters will understand that, including probably Keir Starmer.
And it lacks a counter solution to the problem of needing to find money, fast, to ensure the defence of the realm. As always politicians and ministers need to remember that the money they spend is tax payers, not theirs. Yes its nice to spend tax payers money all round the world, and I am sure it does some good, but there are places where it can be cut. India has a space program yet we still use our overseas aid budget to give money to India. Tough times need tough calls. Why not fight within to do the best you can with 0.3% of GNI. Its not exactly peanuts, is it.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan, then Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office), Jan 2024:
The British Government stopped providing traditional development aid to India in 2015. Most UK funding to India is in the form of investments in priority areas like climate change. These investments have the dual aims of supporting development and backing private enterprises with the potential to be commercially viable, creating new partners, markets and jobs for the UK as well as India. They also generate returns which the British Government can reinvest in India or elsewhere. To date we have invested £330 million and over £100 million has been returned. We expect to get all our investments back over time.
Invested is a posh way of saying spent. Brown was very keen on calling government spending 'investment'. So we have spent 330 million over 10 years in India.
Absolutely OOZING contempt for Starmer (and he was unaware of the aid decision and the Trump fawning)
“What does he believe in? Does anyone know? He is like a very boring Blair, he is a void, he believes in nothing but his own career”
Hard to argue (OK I didn’t exactly try hard); nonetheless this illustrates a grave danger for Starmer. He is alienating lefty voters
Fair criticism, but you could ask what did Blair believe in? The third way was actually more just riding the good times financially that just happened to coincide with Labours time in office (up to 2007 of course, but then Brown was in the chair for that).
His point was THAT. Starmer is a neo-Blair without the charm, charisma, smile, and good luck - an ambitious and dispiriting pragmatist
Anneliese Dodds resigns as international development minister over aid cuts. Remarkably principled to do so, particularly so early into a government. She might have hoped for higher office in time.
Lest we forget she was Sir Keir’s first choice to be Chancellor until she proved herself utterly useless as Shadow Chancellor.
Hmm. Was she worse than Reeves?
She was facing Rishi Sunak at his apotheosis as Chancellor.
Rishi was rather popular for paying people to stay at home.
Dodd's letter is devastating. It's factual, logical and clearly correct in its conclusions. Everyone who thinks seriously about these matters will understand that, including probably Keir Starmer.
And it lacks a counter solution to the problem of needing to find money, fast, to ensure the defence of the realm. As always politicians and ministers need to remember that the money they spend is tax payers, not theirs. Yes its nice to spend tax payers money all round the world, and I am sure it does some good, but there are places where it can be cut. India has a space program yet we still use our overseas aid budget to give money to India. Tough times need tough calls. Why not fight within to do the best you can with 0.3% of GNI. Its not exactly peanuts, is it.
Because there is no sensible trade off between aid and defence where a pound less spent on aid and a pound more on defence will deliver the same result. You might think aid is a complete waste of money but even then it has nothing to do with the defence budget.
Starmer wants to increase defence spending, which requires tax rises that the public have a limited appetite for, so sacrifices the aid budget to provide political cover even though it's a fiscal nonsense and is actually counterproductive to his governments policies. He may not mind too much if Dodd's resignation feeds his narrative of difficult choices being made.
But Dodds' evisceration of the bankruptcy of his decision is on the money and I suspect he knows it
At no point do I suggest that its a trade of for money outcomes - the foreign aid budget is made up of tax payers money and right now there is a need for defence spending. Its not about getting the same result from the money, its doing different things with the money. I also don't believe that aid is a complete waste of money but I do question aid to some countries, notably India. At some point a country and its citizens needs to stand on its own and look after its own. You want a space programme? Fine, but Britain shouldn't then have to pick up the burden of heathcare that the Indian tax payer isn't supporting.
As per my previous post, Britain is not "pick[ing] up the burden of heathcare that the Indian tax payer isn't supporting". How do we put a stop to these zombie ideas!
So swap out heathcare in India - its still spending that the Indian government could be doing. And arguably it is supporting healthcare by providing resource that the Indian government doesn't have to.
I know you really shouldn’t laugh at your rivals in business because one should always remain humble and magnanimous but this fuck up is epic, I hate to be the Head of Regulatory Affairs trying to explain this to the authorities.
Citigroup credited client’s account with $81tn before error spotted
US bank meant to send $280 but no funds were transferred despite ‘fat finger’ mistake
The US bank Citigroup credited a client’s account with $81tn when it meant to send $280 – before the “fat finger” error was caught.
The mistake was spotted only after two employees had missed it, and a third employee rectified it 90 minutes after it was posted, the Financial Times reported. No funds left the bank.
The bank disclosed the “near miss” to the US Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
A transaction of $81tn (£64tn) would be so huge that it would be unlikely to go through any bank’s systems. It would have certainly gone down as one of the biggest ever fat finger errors, in which the wrong number is entered in a computer system.
Absolutely OOZING contempt for Starmer (and he was unaware of the aid decision and the Trump fawning)
“What does he believe in? Does anyone know? He is like a very boring Blair, he is a void, he believes in nothing but his own career”
Hard to argue (OK I didn’t exactly try hard); nonetheless this illustrates a grave danger for Starmer. He is alienating lefty voters
Phone call with my chiropodist (who usually votes Green):
Really warming to Starmer after long thinking he was a waste of space.
"I'm starting to see where he's coming from and what he's trying to achieve. You know it's strange, he hasn't been in that long but it's already hard to visualise anybody else as PM. He has my vote next time, I think. Yes it's Labour for me. I'm a convert. I might even join the party. Does Monday 3.30 work for you?"
Vance tells the Catholic Prayer Breakfast that when the pandemic first happened in early 2020, his second child was only three weeks old and he went to Dicks and bought 900 rounds of ammunition and two bags of rice at Walmart to "wait it out."
Absolutely OOZING contempt for Starmer (and he was unaware of the aid decision and the Trump fawning)
“What does he believe in? Does anyone know? He is like a very boring Blair, he is a void, he believes in nothing but his own career”
Hard to argue (OK I didn’t exactly try hard); nonetheless this illustrates a grave danger for Starmer. He is alienating lefty voters
Phone call with my chiropodist (who usually votes Green):
Really warming to Starmer after long thinking he was a waste of space.
"I'm starting to see where he's coming from and what he's trying to achieve. You know it's strange, he hasn't been in that long but it's already hard to visualise anybody else as PM. He has my vote next time, I think. Yes it's Labour for me. I'm a convert. I might even join the party. Does Monday 3.30 work for you?"
I said Tuesday would be better.
Difference is you are lying, and I am not
What's more, you KNOW I am not lying. You sense it yourself, it's in all your comments, this throb of disquiet about Starmer's Labour
What's the problem? Starmer has just green-lighted the invasion.
Green-lit, surely?
I was debating that with myself and I chose "lighted" rather than "lit" under the circumstances. I am not sure if "lighted" is even a word. It probably is in Birmingham where I come from.
There are several possible explanations
[1] "Lighted" is an adjective vs "Lit" is a verb. So "she lit the candles and the stage was lighted".
[2] Something that is producing light (or on fire) is "lit". So a torch is lit, a fireplace is lit, a marquee is lit. But something that has light shone upon it is "lighted". So a path is lighted, a stage is lighted.
[3] There is no difference. Both are the past tense and past participle of the verb "light", but "lighted" was more popular in the past and "lit" is more popular now.
I was bought up with the first and second ones but the third one I think reflects popular usage.
Now, shall we have a discussion on the difference between "hung" and "hanged"?
And it's completely wrong. Lighted and Lit are both usable as the past tense and past participle of the verb "to light" AND both can be used as adjectives. Lit is the more contemporary usage and is to be preferred although lighted is not proscriptively deprecated.
What's your position on "by enlargely" ?
I don't know if you know this, but @Dura_Ace's favourite word is "momentarily".
Anneliese Dodds resigns as international development minister over aid cuts. Remarkably principled to do so, particularly so early into a government. She might have hoped for higher office in time.
Lest we forget she was Sir Keir’s first choice to be Chancellor until she proved herself utterly useless as Shadow Chancellor.
Hmm. Was she worse than Reeves?
She was facing Rishi Sunak at his apotheosis as Chancellor.
Rishi was rather popular for paying people to stay at home.
Dodd's letter is devastating. It's factual, logical and clearly correct in its conclusions. Everyone who thinks seriously about these matters will understand that, including probably Keir Starmer.
And it lacks a counter solution to the problem of needing to find money, fast, to ensure the defence of the realm. As always politicians and ministers need to remember that the money they spend is tax payers, not theirs. Yes its nice to spend tax payers money all round the world, and I am sure it does some good, but there are places where it can be cut. India has a space program yet we still use our overseas aid budget to give money to India. Tough times need tough calls. Why not fight within to do the best you can with 0.3% of GNI. Its not exactly peanuts, is it.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan, then Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office), Jan 2024:
The British Government stopped providing traditional development aid to India in 2015. Most UK funding to India is in the form of investments in priority areas like climate change. These investments have the dual aims of supporting development and backing private enterprises with the potential to be commercially viable, creating new partners, markets and jobs for the UK as well as India. They also generate returns which the British Government can reinvest in India or elsewhere. To date we have invested £330 million and over £100 million has been returned. We expect to get all our investments back over time.
Invested is a posh way of saying spent. Brown was very keen on calling government spending 'investment'. So we have spent 330 million over 10 years in India.
We repeatedly talk on PB about the failure of governments and industry to invest. Is it any surprise with attitudes like this?
We have stopped giving money to India. We are definitely not giving money to support Indian healthcare, as one of your later posts claimed. A small amount of money (~0.003% of government expenditure) is invested in specific activities that benefit the UK as well.
One can criticise British aid spending if you want, but we don't need these zombie stories of how India has a space programme but we're still giving them aid.
Anneliese Dodds resigns as international development minister over aid cuts. Remarkably principled to do so, particularly so early into a government. She might have hoped for higher office in time.
Lest we forget she was Sir Keir’s first choice to be Chancellor until she proved herself utterly useless as Shadow Chancellor.
Hmm. Was she worse than Reeves?
She was facing Rishi Sunak at his apotheosis as Chancellor.
Rishi was rather popular for paying people to stay at home.
Dodd's letter is devastating. It's factual, logical and clearly correct in its conclusions. Everyone who thinks seriously about these matters will understand that, including probably Keir Starmer.
And it lacks a counter solution to the problem of needing to find money, fast, to ensure the defence of the realm. As always politicians and ministers need to remember that the money they spend is tax payers, not theirs. Yes its nice to spend tax payers money all round the world, and I am sure it does some good, but there are places where it can be cut. India has a space program yet we still use our overseas aid budget to give money to India. Tough times need tough calls. Why not fight within to do the best you can with 0.3% of GNI. Its not exactly peanuts, is it.
Because there is no sensible trade off between aid and defence where a pound less spent on aid and a pound more on defence will deliver the same result. You might think aid is a complete waste of money but even then it has nothing to do with the defence budget.
Starmer wants to increase defence spending, which requires tax rises that the public have a limited appetite for, so sacrifices the aid budget to provide political cover even though it's a fiscal nonsense and is actually counterproductive to his governments policies. He may not mind too much if Dodd's resignation feeds his narrative of difficult choices being made.
But Dodds' evisceration of the bankruptcy of his decision is on the money and I suspect he knows it
At no point do I suggest that its a trade of for money outcomes - the foreign aid budget is made up of tax payers money and right now there is a need for defence spending. Its not about getting the same result from the money, its doing different things with the money. I also don't believe that aid is a complete waste of money but I do question aid to some countries, notably India. At some point a country and its citizens needs to stand on its own and look after its own. You want a space programme? Fine, but Britain shouldn't then have to pick up the burden of heathcare that the Indian tax payer isn't supporting.
As per my previous post, Britain is not "pick[ing] up the burden of heathcare that the Indian tax payer isn't supporting". How do we put a stop to these zombie ideas!
So swap out heathcare in India - its still spending that the Indian government could be doing. And arguably it is supporting healthcare by providing resource that the Indian government doesn't have to.
If we are investing in activities that support UK jobs, then maybe the Indian government isn't interested in doing that.
I know. Instead of you making these vague, outdated claims, why don't you you give some actual examples that you think are a waste.
Absolutely OOZING contempt for Starmer (and he was unaware of the aid decision and the Trump fawning)
“What does he believe in? Does anyone know? He is like a very boring Blair, he is a void, he believes in nothing but his own career”
Hard to argue (OK I didn’t exactly try hard); nonetheless this illustrates a grave danger for Starmer. He is alienating lefty voters
Phone call with my chiropodist (who usually votes Green):
Really warming to Starmer after long thinking he was a waste of space.
"I'm starting to see where he's coming from and what he's trying to achieve. You know it's strange, he hasn't been in that long but it's already hard to visualise anybody else as PM. He has my vote next time, I think. Yes it's Labour for me. I'm a convert. I might even join the party. Does Monday 3.30 work for you?"
I said Tuesday would be better.
Difference is you are lying, and I am not
What's more, you KNOW I am not lying. You sense it yourself, it's in all your comments, this throb of disquiet about Starmer's Labour
But you are very very loyal, my friend is not
I'd imagine you are. If not, your friend sounds like a self-indulgent phony. Please note this doesn't mean he's not a great guy and a worthy friend.
As for "loyalty", yes I have some, it's an attribute not a fault, but you'll notice I am not happy with the Trump fluffing. I disagree with my fellow PB Labourites on this one.
Absolutely OOZING contempt for Starmer (and he was unaware of the aid decision and the Trump fawning)
“What does he believe in? Does anyone know? He is like a very boring Blair, he is a void, he believes in nothing but his own career”
Hard to argue (OK I didn’t exactly try hard); nonetheless this illustrates a grave danger for Starmer. He is alienating lefty voters
The meeting with Trump has probably sealed Streeting's fate at the next GE tbh.
Labour look increasingly likely to be destroyed as an electoral force as a result of demographics.
I don't understand your conclusion here. Care to elaborate?
Put simply, the working class vote which used to form the bulk of their support is now splintering along ethnic lines.
Unless Reform collapse (which is possible), they will continue to lose votes in all directions - a few percent to Reform here, a few percent to the Lib Dems there, and they'll end up looking like a wasted vote for people who used to see them as the default alternative to the Tories.
I know you really shouldn’t laugh at your rivals in business because one should always remain humble and magnanimous but this fuck up is epic, I hate to be the Head of Regulatory Affairs trying to explain this to the authorities.
Citigroup credited client’s account with $81tn before error spotted
US bank meant to send $280 but no funds were transferred despite ‘fat finger’ mistake
The US bank Citigroup credited a client’s account with $81tn when it meant to send $280 – before the “fat finger” error was caught.
The mistake was spotted only after two employees had missed it, and a third employee rectified it 90 minutes after it was posted, the Financial Times reported. No funds left the bank.
The bank disclosed the “near miss” to the US Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
A transaction of $81tn (£64tn) would be so huge that it would be unlikely to go through any bank’s systems. It would have certainly gone down as one of the biggest ever fat finger errors, in which the wrong number is entered in a computer system.
How precisely is 81 trillion a fat-fingered 280 dollars? You'd need to drop your prosthetic leg, never mind a fat finger, on the keyboard to get the wrong digits in the wrong order with a bunch of trailing zeros.
One that I am familiar with is when the employee meant to pay somebody in Indian rupees but paid them in pounds with the rupees amount.
At the time I think it was 100 rupees to 1 pound.
To compound the error they put the numbers after the decimal point.
Fortunately this bank has excellent controls in place to stop a near quarter of a billion pound fuck up.
We had a "large UK bank" client that accidentally processed an FX trade of several 10s of millions of dollars, because someone had failed to wire up the "test only" checkbox. The tester checked it correctly, but it did nothing. Their boss panicked and executed the reverse trade and it made a small amount of money so everyone was "happy". Narrator: This was not the correct way to handle this issue.
That one really happened, but there's also a (probably) apocryphal story of a similar checkbox issue on a metals trading desk where the "virtual trade" checkbox was ignored and a shipment of the actual metal was despatched to some port in London.
The number of people who claim to know a guy, who knows a guy, who once accidentally ended up seeing a contract out and having something like cocoa delivered to the office is truly incredible.
There was that guy working for the Hong Kong outfit LGM who forgot to sell his client's Endemol shares when they were taken over by Telefonica. Luckily the firm covered the £4 million loss under the old pals' act and Jacob Rees-Mogg went on to have his own fly on the wall show.
Leon has full blown Starmer derangement syndrome. It’s bordering on obsession. It may be unrequited love. He did vote for him after all. Weird.
Yes of course. So much so I made four comments in << checks PB >> about four hours
Well I’m on here less than you and you definitely feel the need regularly to impress on the world your misgivings about Starmer. It’s a bit weird.
What? This is a politics website where we discuss politics and Britain is, politically, led by a charmless, careerist nerd with no ideas and fewer ideals. What else are we meant to discuss?
If you prefer I can talk about REDACTED or REDACTED or NOT ALLOWED but hey
The fact quite a few of you have reacted allergically to my true story tells me it drills into a living nerve
Starmer is a mediocrity. But he’s up against Badenoch and Farage.
So long as that remains the case, he wins.
Starmer is not my favourite politician, but he is much better than what went before, he is light years ahead of the current alternatives and is infinitely better than Trump (and most of his peers).
I appreciate that he works with smart people, takes their advice and is not all show. He did what had to be done this week and executed it well.
To add to Sean_F's comment about Lincoln: Beginning in 1776, US states, one after another, banned slavery. The first was Vermont. The largest ban came when the US was still under the Articles of Confederation, with the Northwest Ordinance, in 1787, which banned slavery in the land that became the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Ordinance
It was reasonable to think that, by a continuation of this gradual process, slavery could be banned peacefully in the rest of the US. (And it might have been had it not been for the rise of cotton, which, like sugar before it, was hard to produce with free labor.)
So Lincoln was pursuing two great moral objectives, the end to slavery -- and peace.
Absolutely OOZING contempt for Starmer (and he was unaware of the aid decision and the Trump fawning)
“What does he believe in? Does anyone know? He is like a very boring Blair, he is a void, he believes in nothing but his own career”
Hard to argue (OK I didn’t exactly try hard); nonetheless this illustrates a grave danger for Starmer. He is alienating lefty voters
The meeting with Trump has probably sealed Streeting's fate at the next GE tbh.
Labour look increasingly likely to be destroyed as an electoral force as a result of demographics.
I don't understand your conclusion here. Care to elaborate?
Put simply, the working class vote which used to form the bulk of their support is now splintering along ethnic lines.
Unless Reform collapse (which is possible), they will continue to lose votes in all directions - a few percent to Reform here, a few percent to the Lib Dems there, and they'll end up looking like a wasted vote for people who used to see them as the default alternative to the Tories.
I see. Thanks for the clarification. That I couldn't work out what you meant suggests perhaps that these are weak effects, but of course they all add up.
Anything along the lines of Religious or Ethnic splits in UK politics would be really unwelcome of course.
Starmer is a mediocrity. But he’s up against Badenoch and Farage.
So long as that remains the case, he wins.
Starmer is not my favourite politician, but he is much better than what went before, he is light years ahead of the current alternatives and is infinitely better than Trump (and most of his peers).
I appreciate that he works with smart people, takes their advice and is not all show. He did what had to be done this week and executed it well.
Starmer is at his best when he’s executing a singular goal. He does very well at that.
Like winning the leadership. Then winning power.
He’s not so good at the grand vision stuff - but are Kemi or Farage really?
Absolutely OOZING contempt for Starmer (and he was unaware of the aid decision and the Trump fawning)
“What does he believe in? Does anyone know? He is like a very boring Blair, he is a void, he believes in nothing but his own career”
Hard to argue (OK I didn’t exactly try hard); nonetheless this illustrates a grave danger for Starmer. He is alienating lefty voters
Phone call with my chiropodist (who usually votes Green):
Really warming to Starmer after long thinking he was a waste of space.
"I'm starting to see where he's coming from and what he's trying to achieve. You know it's strange, he hasn't been in that long but it's already hard to visualise anybody else as PM. He has my vote next time, I think. Yes it's Labour for me. I'm a convert. I might even join the party. Does Monday 3.30 work for you?"
I said Tuesday would be better.
Was that to give him an extra day to change his mind about joining Labour?
Anneliese Dodds resigns as international development minister over aid cuts. Remarkably principled to do so, particularly so early into a government. She might have hoped for higher office in time.
Lest we forget she was Sir Keir’s first choice to be Chancellor until she proved herself utterly useless as Shadow Chancellor.
Hmm. Was she worse than Reeves?
She was facing Rishi Sunak at his apotheosis as Chancellor.
Rishi was rather popular for paying people to stay at home.
Dodd's letter is devastating. It's factual, logical and clearly correct in its conclusions. Everyone who thinks seriously about these matters will understand that, including probably Keir Starmer.
And it lacks a counter solution to the problem of needing to find money, fast, to ensure the defence of the realm. As always politicians and ministers need to remember that the money they spend is tax payers, not theirs. Yes its nice to spend tax payers money all round the world, and I am sure it does some good, but there are places where it can be cut. India has a space program yet we still use our overseas aid budget to give money to India. Tough times need tough calls. Why not fight within to do the best you can with 0.3% of GNI. Its not exactly peanuts, is it.
Because there is no sensible trade off between aid and defence where a pound less spent on aid and a pound more on defence will deliver the same result. You might think aid is a complete waste of money but even then it has nothing to do with the defence budget.
Starmer wants to increase defence spending, which requires tax rises that the public have a limited appetite for, so sacrifices the aid budget to provide political cover even though it's a fiscal nonsense and is actually counterproductive to his governments policies. He may not mind too much if Dodd's resignation feeds his narrative of difficult choices being made.
But Dodds' evisceration of the bankruptcy of his decision is on the money and I suspect he knows it
At no point do I suggest that its a trade of for money outcomes - the foreign aid budget is made up of tax payers money and right now there is a need for defence spending. Its not about getting the same result from the money, its doing different things with the money. I also don't believe that aid is a complete waste of money but I do question aid to some countries, notably India. At some point a country and its citizens needs to stand on its own and look after its own. You want a space programme? Fine, but Britain shouldn't then have to pick up the burden of heathcare that the Indian tax payer isn't supporting.
Going back to your point about lack of counter solution. Spending significantly more money on defence in practice requires additional tax. It's the serious choice vand the one the government will actually be following. A theoretical counter solution would be to reduce other spending generally and divert the savings to defence. Although this doesn't work in practice Dodds does allow this option as one she would support if Aid was contributing its share of the cuts.
But what is actually happening is Aid is being given up as a sacrificial lamb to provide political cover for tax increases allowing bigger defence budgets. Dodds doesn't support that on the principle. She's clearly right.
Leon has full blown Starmer derangement syndrome. It’s bordering on obsession. It may be unrequited love. He did vote for him after all. Weird.
Yes of course. So much so I made four comments in << checks PB >> about four hours
Well I’m on here less than you and you definitely feel the need regularly to impress on the world your misgivings about Starmer. It’s a bit weird.
What? This is a politics website where we discuss politics and Britain is, politically, led by a charmless, careerist nerd with no ideas and fewer ideals. What else are we meant to discuss?
If you prefer I can talk about REDACTED or REDACTED or NOT ALLOWED but hey
The fact quite a few of you have reacted allergically to my true story tells me it drills into a living nerve
Personally I’m more interested in your thoughts on AI , your insight into Starmer is a tad repetitive. Almost a campaign. And who likes to preached to? If you touched a nerve, it’s the oh god he’s off again nerve. You have more to offer.
Leon has full blown Starmer derangement syndrome. It’s bordering on obsession. It may be unrequited love. He did vote for him after all. Weird.
Yes of course. So much so I made four comments in << checks PB >> about four hours
Well I’m on here less than you and you definitely feel the need regularly to impress on the world your misgivings about Starmer. It’s a bit weird.
What? This is a politics website where we discuss politics and Britain is, politically, led by a charmless, careerist nerd with no ideas and fewer ideals. What else are we meant to discuss?
If you prefer I can talk about REDACTED or REDACTED or NOT ALLOWED but hey
The fact quite a few of you have reacted allergically to my true story tells me it drills into a living nerve
Personally I’m more interested in your thoughts on AI , your insight into Starmer is a tad repetitive. Almost a campaign. And who likes to preached to? If you touched a nerve, it’s the oh god he’s off again nerve. You have more to offer.
Leon has full blown Starmer derangement syndrome. It’s bordering on obsession. It may be unrequited love. He did vote for him after all. Weird.
Yes of course. So much so I made four comments in << checks PB >> about four hours
Well I’m on here less than you and you definitely feel the need regularly to impress on the world your misgivings about Starmer. It’s a bit weird.
What? This is a politics website where we discuss politics and Britain is, politically, led by a charmless, careerist nerd with no ideas and fewer ideals. What else are we meant to discuss?
If you prefer I can talk about REDACTED or REDACTED or NOT ALLOWED but hey
The fact quite a few of you have reacted allergically to my true story tells me it drills into a living nerve
Personally I’m more interested in your thoughts on AI , your insight into Starmer is a tad repetitive. Almost a campaign. And who likes to preached to? If you touched a nerve, it’s the oh god he’s off again nerve. You have more to offer.
I know you really shouldn’t laugh at your rivals in business because one should always remain humble and magnanimous but this fuck up is epic, I hate to be the Head of Regulatory Affairs trying to explain this to the authorities.
Citigroup credited client’s account with $81tn before error spotted
US bank meant to send $280 but no funds were transferred despite ‘fat finger’ mistake
The US bank Citigroup credited a client’s account with $81tn when it meant to send $280 – before the “fat finger” error was caught.
The mistake was spotted only after two employees had missed it, and a third employee rectified it 90 minutes after it was posted, the Financial Times reported. No funds left the bank.
The bank disclosed the “near miss” to the US Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
A transaction of $81tn (£64tn) would be so huge that it would be unlikely to go through any bank’s systems. It would have certainly gone down as one of the biggest ever fat finger errors, in which the wrong number is entered in a computer system.
How precisely is 81 trillion a fat-fingered 280 dollars? You'd need to drop your prosthetic leg, never mind a fat finger, on the keyboard to get the wrong digits in the wrong order with a bunch of trailing zeros.
One that I am familiar with is when the employee meant to pay somebody in Indian rupees but paid them in pounds with the rupees amount.
At the time I think it was 100 rupees to 1 pound.
To compound the error they put the numbers after the decimal point.
Fortunately this bank has excellent controls in place to stop a near quarter of a billion pound fuck up.
We had a "large UK bank" client that accidentally processed an FX trade of several 10s of millions of dollars, because someone had failed to wire up the "test only" checkbox. The tester checked it correctly, but it did nothing. Their boss panicked and executed the reverse trade and it made a small amount of money so everyone was "happy". Narrator: This was not the correct way to handle this issue.
That one really happened, but there's also a (probably) apocryphal story of a similar checkbox issue on a metals trading desk where the "virtual trade" checkbox was ignored and a shipment of the actual metal was despatched to some port in London.
Why wasn't it the correct way, please? Asking out of curiosity ...
Because the person concerned wasn't authorised to execute a trade on behalf of the bank. So you don't fix the problem by exploiting a back door to do the same unauthorized thing again, deliberately. The regulator wouldn't be happy.
Absolutely OOZING contempt for Starmer (and he was unaware of the aid decision and the Trump fawning)
“What does he believe in? Does anyone know? He is like a very boring Blair, he is a void, he believes in nothing but his own career”
Hard to argue (OK I didn’t exactly try hard); nonetheless this illustrates a grave danger for Starmer. He is alienating lefty voters
The meeting with Trump has probably sealed Streeting's fate at the next GE tbh.
Labour look increasingly likely to be destroyed as an electoral force as a result of demographics.
I don't understand your conclusion here. Care to elaborate?
Put simply, the working class vote which used to form the bulk of their support is now splintering along ethnic lines.
Unless Reform collapse (which is possible), they will continue to lose votes in all directions - a few percent to Reform here, a few percent to the Lib Dems there, and they'll end up looking like a wasted vote for people who used to see them as the default alternative to the Tories.
You may of course be right, although I suspect hopium is playing a major part in your analysis.
I know you really shouldn’t laugh at your rivals in business because one should always remain humble and magnanimous but this fuck up is epic, I hate to be the Head of Regulatory Affairs trying to explain this to the authorities.
Citigroup credited client’s account with $81tn before error spotted
US bank meant to send $280 but no funds were transferred despite ‘fat finger’ mistake
The US bank Citigroup credited a client’s account with $81tn when it meant to send $280 – before the “fat finger” error was caught.
The mistake was spotted only after two employees had missed it, and a third employee rectified it 90 minutes after it was posted, the Financial Times reported. No funds left the bank.
The bank disclosed the “near miss” to the US Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
A transaction of $81tn (£64tn) would be so huge that it would be unlikely to go through any bank’s systems. It would have certainly gone down as one of the biggest ever fat finger errors, in which the wrong number is entered in a computer system.
How precisely is 81 trillion a fat-fingered 280 dollars? You'd need to drop your prosthetic leg, never mind a fat finger, on the keyboard to get the wrong digits in the wrong order with a bunch of trailing zeros.
One that I am familiar with is when the employee meant to pay somebody in Indian rupees but paid them in pounds with the rupees amount.
At the time I think it was 100 rupees to 1 pound.
To compound the error they put the numbers after the decimal point.
Fortunately this bank has excellent controls in place to stop a near quarter of a billion pound fuck up.
We had a "large UK bank" client that accidentally processed an FX trade of several 10s of millions of dollars, because someone had failed to wire up the "test only" checkbox. The tester checked it correctly, but it did nothing. Their boss panicked and executed the reverse trade and it made a small amount of money so everyone was "happy". Narrator: This was not the correct way to handle this issue.
That one really happened, but there's also a (probably) apocryphal story of a similar checkbox issue on a metals trading desk where the "virtual trade" checkbox was ignored and a shipment of the actual metal was despatched to some port in London.
Why wasn't it the correct way, please? Asking out of curiosity ...
Because the person concerned wasn't authorised to execute a trade on behalf of the bank. So you don't fix the problem by exploiting a back door to do the same unauthorized thing again, deliberately. The regulator wouldn't be happy.
I know you really shouldn’t laugh at your rivals in business because one should always remain humble and magnanimous but this fuck up is epic, I hate to be the Head of Regulatory Affairs trying to explain this to the authorities.
Citigroup credited client’s account with $81tn before error spotted
US bank meant to send $280 but no funds were transferred despite ‘fat finger’ mistake
The US bank Citigroup credited a client’s account with $81tn when it meant to send $280 – before the “fat finger” error was caught.
The mistake was spotted only after two employees had missed it, and a third employee rectified it 90 minutes after it was posted, the Financial Times reported. No funds left the bank.
The bank disclosed the “near miss” to the US Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
A transaction of $81tn (£64tn) would be so huge that it would be unlikely to go through any bank’s systems. It would have certainly gone down as one of the biggest ever fat finger errors, in which the wrong number is entered in a computer system.
How precisely is 81 trillion a fat-fingered 280 dollars? You'd need to drop your prosthetic leg, never mind a fat finger, on the keyboard to get the wrong digits in the wrong order with a bunch of trailing zeros.
One that I am familiar with is when the employee meant to pay somebody in Indian rupees but paid them in pounds with the rupees amount.
At the time I think it was 100 rupees to 1 pound.
To compound the error they put the numbers after the decimal point.
Fortunately this bank has excellent controls in place to stop a near quarter of a billion pound fuck up.
We had a "large UK bank" client that accidentally processed an FX trade of several 10s of millions of dollars, because someone had failed to wire up the "test only" checkbox. The tester checked it correctly, but it did nothing. Their boss panicked and executed the reverse trade and it made a small amount of money so everyone was "happy". Narrator: This was not the correct way to handle this issue.
That one really happened, but there's also a (probably) apocryphal story of a similar checkbox issue on a metals trading desk where the "virtual trade" checkbox was ignored and a shipment of the actual metal was despatched to some port in London.
Why wasn't it the correct way, please? Asking out of curiosity ...
Because the person concerned wasn't authorised to execute a trade on behalf of the bank. So you don't fix the problem by exploiting a back door to do the same unauthorized thing again, deliberately. The regulator wouldn't be happy.
Time to stop recruiting from the Post Office and Fujitsu.
Starmer is a mediocrity. But he’s up against Badenoch and Farage.
So long as that remains the case, he wins.
On some polls Tories and Reform combined are already heading for a majority
What did the polls say in March 2020?
Labour has lost support since the election no question but am I the only one that thinks their current numbers are actually holding up quite well? In recent elections they’ve tended to increase their share during the campaign.
Starmer is a mediocrity. But he’s up against Badenoch and Farage.
So long as that remains the case, he wins.
On some polls Tories and Reform combined are already heading for a majority
What did the polls say in March 2020?
Labour has lost support since the election no question but am I the only one that thinks their current numbers are actually holding up quite well? In recent elections they’ve tended to increase their share during the campaign.
Their numbers are terrible.
But the Tories’ numbers are just as bad, if not worse.
Absolutely OOZING contempt for Starmer (and he was unaware of the aid decision and the Trump fawning)
“What does he believe in? Does anyone know? He is like a very boring Blair, he is a void, he believes in nothing but his own career”
Hard to argue (OK I didn’t exactly try hard); nonetheless this illustrates a grave danger for Starmer. He is alienating lefty voters
Phone call with my chiropodist (who usually votes Green):
Really warming to Starmer after long thinking he was a waste of space.
"I'm starting to see where he's coming from and what he's trying to achieve. You know it's strange, he hasn't been in that long but it's already hard to visualise anybody else as PM. He has my vote next time, I think. Yes it's Labour for me. I'm a convert. I might even join the party. Does Monday 3.30 work for you?"
I said Tuesday would be better.
Difference is you are lying, and I am not
What's more, you KNOW I am not lying. You sense it yourself, it's in all your comments, this throb of disquiet about Starmer's Labour
But you are very very loyal, my friend is not
I'd imagine you are. If not, your friend sounds like a self-indulgent phony. Please note this doesn't mean he's not a great guy and a worthy friend.
As for "loyalty", yes I have some, it's an attribute not a fault, but you'll notice I am not happy with the Trump fluffing. I disagree with my fellow PB Labourites on this one.
Yes it is noticeable that you have condemned out of hand Starmer's behaviour and have said, as PB's pre-eminent and faux lefty, and in contradistinction to PB proper lefties, that he is a tosser and you are sickened by him and the whole Trump love in.
Leon has full blown Starmer derangement syndrome. It’s bordering on obsession. It may be unrequited love. He did vote for him after all. Weird.
Not really weird, they are both boring, sixty something North London elite wishing they were that bit more interesting after all.
Does Starmer wish he was more interesting?
I suspect that, for some, Starmer's refusal to sex himself up much is why they hate him so.
Conversely for me it's one of his biggest attractions. I'm heartily sick of colourful personas in politics. I don't trust that and I don't value it. If I want to be entertained or amused or pumped up there's no end of things I can tune into.
Starmer is a mediocrity. But he’s up against Badenoch and Farage.
So long as that remains the case, he wins.
On some polls Tories and Reform combined are already heading for a majority
I suspect because of what is happening in America/Ukraine, Nigel Trump could start to suffer. The question is who benefits? Badenoch for her claimed foreign and defence policy success or Starmer for his brown nosing Tango's diapers.
Starmer is a mediocrity. But he’s up against Badenoch and Farage.
So long as that remains the case, he wins.
These days there’s a lot more wishcasting involved than actual betting.
Starmer gets re-elected if he does one of these three things IMHO:
Immigration comes down
NHS waiting lists are significantly lower/the NHS feels “fixed”
Economy has grown
His best chance ironically is the first.
You can make an analogy with inflation.
The 2% inflation target would equate to immigration in the tens of thousands. After the equivalent of 25% inflation for years, it will take more than bringing it down to 10% to solve the problem.
Electorally you won't get a thank you note in any case. The best you can hope for is to reduce the salience of it as an issue.
President @realDonaldTrump called me for a 15-minute phone call earlier today.. he was on very upbeat form, excited for his historic second UK State Visit (first US President to ever have 2, and at invitation of 2 Monarchs) and sounding very positive re Britain. Great to hear. 👍
Can someone please make a tv drama that isn’t “quite disappointing”
I am now on my third in a row
Mussolini - Sky Fallout - HBO? Day of the Jackal - Sky/USA
They’re all…. Ok. Just about bearable. Nice acting. Meh scripts. Serious flaws in plotting
Is this it? Is the golden age truly over? Sad
Did it ever exist, or did everyone wear rose tinted glasses? What would be your iconic dramas of the “golden age”?
/kamski-pyramids mode on/ Dramas are all shit. They're neither funny nor true. What's the point? Their aim is to fill you with all sorts of unpleasant negative emotions. Who enjoys that? Best case scenario is that you put your emotional guard up so much that you don't feel anything. You may as well go and wash the dishes. In fact, that's what I tend to do. Even if I'm not actually in my own house. I've been known to leave a cinema mid-film to go home and wash the dishes because the process of watching a drama is so unpleasant. (This is not persiflage). And they're not credible. Nothing is that serious all the time. /kamski-pyramids mode off/
I may watch that Toxic Town, though, because part of it was filmed on a road near where I live. I watched it happen. Someone will run out of a house and across a street shouting and a car will go on fire, and I will say, "ooh, look, it's Arnesby Avenue."
Anyway: if you want to reveal some sort of truth about the human condition, do it through comedy.
Starmer is a mediocrity. But he’s up against Badenoch and Farage.
So long as that remains the case, he wins.
These days there’s a lot more wishcasting involved than actual betting.
Starmer gets re-elected if he does one of these three things IMHO:
Immigration comes down
NHS waiting lists are significantly lower/the NHS feels “fixed”
Economy has grown
His best chance ironically is the first.
You can make an analogy with inflation.
The 2% inflation target would equate to immigration in the tens of thousands. After the equivalent of 25% inflation for years, it will take more than bringing it down to 10% to solve the problem.
Electorally you won't get a thank you note in any case. The best you can hope for is to reduce the salience of it as an issue.
Has anyone traced Farage this week? He seems remarkably quiet. Easy ride with Ferrari next Monday.
Just heard that plod are now involved with the Starmer Broadcasting Corporation's Gaza doc.
Absolutely OOZING contempt for Starmer (and he was unaware of the aid decision and the Trump fawning)
“What does he believe in? Does anyone know? He is like a very boring Blair, he is a void, he believes in nothing but his own career”
Hard to argue (OK I didn’t exactly try hard); nonetheless this illustrates a grave danger for Starmer. He is alienating lefty voters
Phone call with my chiropodist (who usually votes Green):
Really warming to Starmer after long thinking he was a waste of space.
"I'm starting to see where he's coming from and what he's trying to achieve. You know it's strange, he hasn't been in that long but it's already hard to visualise anybody else as PM. He has my vote next time, I think. Yes it's Labour for me. I'm a convert. I might even join the party. Does Monday 3.30 work for you?"
I said Tuesday would be better.
Difference is you are lying, and I am not
What's more, you KNOW I am not lying. You sense it yourself, it's in all your comments, this throb of disquiet about Starmer's Labour
But you are very very loyal, my friend is not
I'd imagine you are. If not, your friend sounds like a self-indulgent phony. Please note this doesn't mean he's not a great guy and a worthy friend.
As for "loyalty", yes I have some, it's an attribute not a fault, but you'll notice I am not happy with the Trump fluffing. I disagree with my fellow PB Labourites on this one.
Yes it is noticeable that you have condemned out of hand Starmer's behaviour and have said, as PB's pre-eminent and faux lefty, and in contradistinction to PB proper lefties, that he is a tosser and you are sickened by him and the whole Trump love in.
Well done you.
Hated it. Can't pretend otherwise.
You'd have been impressed, though, I'd imagine? Bit of the old Realpolitik, we have interests not friends etc etc.
President @realDonaldTrump called me for a 15-minute phone call earlier today.. he was on very upbeat form, excited for his historic second UK State Visit (first US President to ever have 2, and at invitation of 2 Monarchs) and sounding very positive re Britain. Great to hear. 👍
Starmer is a mediocrity. But he’s up against Badenoch and Farage.
So long as that remains the case, he wins.
On some polls Tories and Reform combined are already heading for a majority
Tories and Reform aren't a party though.
If they were, all the polling of their supporters' second choices, suggests they'd be nowhere near their combined total.
EC gives the Tories 142 MPs and Reform 192 on its poll average seat forecast still as separate parties, so 334 combined and a majority if Badenoch backed Farage over Starmer
President @realDonaldTrump called me for a 15-minute phone call earlier today.. he was on very upbeat form, excited for his historic second UK State Visit (first US President to ever have 2, and at invitation of 2 Monarchs) and sounding very positive re Britain. Great to hear. 👍
Starmer is a mediocrity. But he’s up against Badenoch and Farage.
So long as that remains the case, he wins.
These days there’s a lot more wishcasting involved than actual betting.
Starmer gets re-elected if he does one of these three things IMHO:
Immigration comes down
NHS waiting lists are significantly lower/the NHS feels “fixed”
Economy has grown
His best chance ironically is the first.
Perhaps. I think he needs at least one-and-a-half.
And the problem with immigration is that it is like inflation: there is quite a lag from 'coming down' to 'not being perceived as a problem any more'. Immigration could stop tomorrow and people would go on thinking 'there's a lot of illegal immigrants hanging around the city centre and also there's no housing available' for quite some time yet.
President @realDonaldTrump called me for a 15-minute phone call earlier today.. he was on very upbeat form, excited for his historic second UK State Visit (first US President to ever have 2, and at invitation of 2 Monarchs) and sounding very positive re Britain. Great to hear. 👍
"Hard to think of how the Prime Minister’s trip White House trip could have gone any better… full love-bomb from President Trump, including very positive words re UK/US trade deal, and very smart to play the 2nd State Visit card.. @Keir_Starmer has had his best week in office."
President @realDonaldTrump called me for a 15-minute phone call earlier today.. he was on very upbeat form, excited for his historic second UK State Visit (first US President to ever have 2, and at invitation of 2 Monarchs) and sounding very positive re Britain. Great to hear. 👍
President @realDonaldTrump called me for a 15-minute phone call earlier today.. he was on very upbeat form, excited for his historic second UK State Visit (first US President to ever have 2, and at invitation of 2 Monarchs) and sounding very positive re Britain. Great to hear. 👍
"Hard to think of how the Prime Minister’s trip White House trip could have gone any better… full love-bomb from President Trump, including very positive words re UK/US trade deal, and very smart to play the 2nd State Visit card.. @Keir_Starmer has had his best week in office."
Absolutely OOZING contempt for Starmer (and he was unaware of the aid decision and the Trump fawning)
“What does he believe in? Does anyone know? He is like a very boring Blair, he is a void, he believes in nothing but his own career”
Hard to argue (OK I didn’t exactly try hard); nonetheless this illustrates a grave danger for Starmer. He is alienating lefty voters
Phone call with my chiropodist (who usually votes Green):
Really warming to Starmer after long thinking he was a waste of space.
"I'm starting to see where he's coming from and what he's trying to achieve. You know it's strange, he hasn't been in that long but it's already hard to visualise anybody else as PM. He has my vote next time, I think. Yes it's Labour for me. I'm a convert. I might even join the party. Does Monday 3.30 work for you?"
I said Tuesday would be better.
Difference is you are lying, and I am not
What's more, you KNOW I am not lying. You sense it yourself, it's in all your comments, this throb of disquiet about Starmer's Labour
But you are very very loyal, my friend is not
I'd imagine you are. If not, your friend sounds like a self-indulgent phony. Please note this doesn't mean he's not a great guy and a worthy friend.
As for "loyalty", yes I have some, it's an attribute not a fault, but you'll notice I am not happy with the Trump fluffing. I disagree with my fellow PB Labourites on this one.
Yes it is noticeable that you have condemned out of hand Starmer's behaviour and have said, as PB's pre-eminent and faux lefty, and in contradistinction to PB proper lefties, that he is a tosser and you are sickened by him and the whole Trump love in.
Well done you.
I am with Kinabalu. Starmer has soiled himself. The saving grace is all of the alternative PMs would have been just as bad, and Farage would have gilded the lily with an additional offer of felatio.
The immigration numbers in a few months will presumably show a large drop, which is mostly thanks to Rishi Sunak but Labour is in office.
I wonder what level it needs to come down to for the average voter to go “this Starmer bloke seems to control the borders better than the others”.
The average voter probably won't get there. But if it moves 3-4% of them which is plausuble that is a big win in a divided field.
And of course, they only really need to get through to people by 2029, so every little bump helps.
After the turbulence of 5 PM's in less than 7 years, and Covid, I doubt they'll need to do much more than make small improvements, in a relatively dull way, for middle of the road voters to give them another term.
President @realDonaldTrump called me for a 15-minute phone call earlier today.. he was on very upbeat form, excited for his historic second UK State Visit (first US President to ever have 2, and at invitation of 2 Monarchs) and sounding very positive re Britain. Great to hear. 👍
Absolutely OOZING contempt for Starmer (and he was unaware of the aid decision and the Trump fawning)
“What does he believe in? Does anyone know? He is like a very boring Blair, he is a void, he believes in nothing but his own career”
Hard to argue (OK I didn’t exactly try hard); nonetheless this illustrates a grave danger for Starmer. He is alienating lefty voters
Phone call with my chiropodist (who usually votes Green):
Really warming to Starmer after long thinking he was a waste of space.
"I'm starting to see where he's coming from and what he's trying to achieve. You know it's strange, he hasn't been in that long but it's already hard to visualise anybody else as PM. He has my vote next time, I think. Yes it's Labour for me. I'm a convert. I might even join the party. Does Monday 3.30 work for you?"
I said Tuesday would be better.
Difference is you are lying, and I am not
What's more, you KNOW I am not lying. You sense it yourself, it's in all your comments, this throb of disquiet about Starmer's Labour
But you are very very loyal, my friend is not
I'd imagine you are. If not, your friend sounds like a self-indulgent phony. Please note this doesn't mean he's not a great guy and a worthy friend.
As for "loyalty", yes I have some, it's an attribute not a fault, but you'll notice I am not happy with the Trump fluffing. I disagree with my fellow PB Labourites on this one.
Yes it is noticeable that you have condemned out of hand Starmer's behaviour and have said, as PB's pre-eminent and faux lefty, and in contradistinction to PB proper lefties, that he is a tosser and you are sickened by him and the whole Trump love in.
Well done you.
I am with Kinabalu. Starmer has soiled himself. The saving grace is all of the alternative PMs would have been just as bad, and Farage would have gilded the lily with an additional offer of felatio.
I disagree, actually. Despite what I said about Piers, I do agree that it's hard to see how it could have gone any better - either for the PM or the country. I suppose the only way it could have been improved would have been if the Chagos deal had been quietly torpedoed.
President @realDonaldTrump called me for a 15-minute phone call earlier today.. he was on very upbeat form, excited for his historic second UK State Visit (first US President to ever have 2, and at invitation of 2 Monarchs) and sounding very positive re Britain. Great to hear. 👍
Absolutely OOZING contempt for Starmer (and he was unaware of the aid decision and the Trump fawning)
“What does he believe in? Does anyone know? He is like a very boring Blair, he is a void, he believes in nothing but his own career”
Hard to argue (OK I didn’t exactly try hard); nonetheless this illustrates a grave danger for Starmer. He is alienating lefty voters
Phone call with my chiropodist (who usually votes Green):
Really warming to Starmer after long thinking he was a waste of space.
"I'm starting to see where he's coming from and what he's trying to achieve. You know it's strange, he hasn't been in that long but it's already hard to visualise anybody else as PM. He has my vote next time, I think. Yes it's Labour for me. I'm a convert. I might even join the party. Does Monday 3.30 work for you?"
I said Tuesday would be better.
Difference is you are lying, and I am not
What's more, you KNOW I am not lying. You sense it yourself, it's in all your comments, this throb of disquiet about Starmer's Labour
But you are very very loyal, my friend is not
I'd imagine you are. If not, your friend sounds like a self-indulgent phony. Please note this doesn't mean he's not a great guy and a worthy friend.
As for "loyalty", yes I have some, it's an attribute not a fault, but you'll notice I am not happy with the Trump fluffing. I disagree with my fellow PB Labourites on this one.
Yes it is noticeable that you have condemned out of hand Starmer's behaviour and have said, as PB's pre-eminent and faux lefty, and in contradistinction to PB proper lefties, that he is a tosser and you are sickened by him and the whole Trump love in.
Well done you.
Hated it. Can't pretend otherwise.
You'd have been impressed, though, I'd imagine? Bit of the old Realpolitik, we have interests not friends etc etc.
Absolutely. Unless he and his party had spent the previous 10 years positioning himself as above, and condemning such behaviour, and as being true to his values. Which he transparently was not yesterday, and was sufficient to be very unimpressive to me.
“The Prime Minister has been very clear that we are in a new era in which we must spend more money at home on the defence and security of the British people, investing in our forces and industry, rather than spending it abroad. Anneliese clearly disagrees - it is typically honourable that she has chosen to resign on that point of principle.”
President @realDonaldTrump called me for a 15-minute phone call earlier today.. he was on very upbeat form, excited for his historic second UK State Visit (first US President to ever have 2, and at invitation of 2 Monarchs) and sounding very positive re Britain. Great to hear. 👍
Finished my Speed Awareness Course. Is everyone aware that penalty points are now banded. So in a 20 zone, 21 to 31 leads to 3 points (minimum). 31 to 41 is 6 points (minimum) and 41 plus is a 6 to 9 point penalty.
Finished my Speed Awareness Course. Is everyone aware that penalty points are now banded. So in a 20 zone, 21 to 31 leads to 3 points (minimum). 31 to 41 is 6 points (minimum) and 41 plus is a 6 to 9 point penalty.
Captain America: Brave New World is still decaying. My pred for a 400-500mill world wide gross still holds, but it will be down at the bottom of that and I'm worried it'll be less.
Absolutely OOZING contempt for Starmer (and he was unaware of the aid decision and the Trump fawning)
“What does he believe in? Does anyone know? He is like a very boring Blair, he is a void, he believes in nothing but his own career”
Hard to argue (OK I didn’t exactly try hard); nonetheless this illustrates a grave danger for Starmer. He is alienating lefty voters
Phone call with my chiropodist (who usually votes Green):
Really warming to Starmer after long thinking he was a waste of space.
"I'm starting to see where he's coming from and what he's trying to achieve. You know it's strange, he hasn't been in that long but it's already hard to visualise anybody else as PM. He has my vote next time, I think. Yes it's Labour for me. I'm a convert. I might even join the party. Does Monday 3.30 work for you?"
I said Tuesday would be better.
Difference is you are lying, and I am not
What's more, you KNOW I am not lying. You sense it yourself, it's in all your comments, this throb of disquiet about Starmer's Labour
But you are very very loyal, my friend is not
I'd imagine you are. If not, your friend sounds like a self-indulgent phony. Please note this doesn't mean he's not a great guy and a worthy friend.
As for "loyalty", yes I have some, it's an attribute not a fault, but you'll notice I am not happy with the Trump fluffing. I disagree with my fellow PB Labourites on this one.
Yes it is noticeable that you have condemned out of hand Starmer's behaviour and have said, as PB's pre-eminent and faux lefty, and in contradistinction to PB proper lefties, that he is a tosser and you are sickened by him and the whole Trump love in.
Well done you.
I am with Kinabalu. Starmer has soiled himself. The saving grace is all of the alternative PMs would have been just as bad, and Farage would have gilded the lily with an additional offer of felatio.
Absolutely OOZING contempt for Starmer (and he was unaware of the aid decision and the Trump fawning)
“What does he believe in? Does anyone know? He is like a very boring Blair, he is a void, he believes in nothing but his own career”
Hard to argue (OK I didn’t exactly try hard); nonetheless this illustrates a grave danger for Starmer. He is alienating lefty voters
Phone call with my chiropodist (who usually votes Green):
Really warming to Starmer after long thinking he was a waste of space.
"I'm starting to see where he's coming from and what he's trying to achieve. You know it's strange, he hasn't been in that long but it's already hard to visualise anybody else as PM. He has my vote next time, I think. Yes it's Labour for me. I'm a convert. I might even join the party. Does Monday 3.30 work for you?"
I said Tuesday would be better.
Difference is you are lying, and I am not
What's more, you KNOW I am not lying. You sense it yourself, it's in all your comments, this throb of disquiet about Starmer's Labour
But you are very very loyal, my friend is not
I'd imagine you are. If not, your friend sounds like a self-indulgent phony. Please note this doesn't mean he's not a great guy and a worthy friend.
As for "loyalty", yes I have some, it's an attribute not a fault, but you'll notice I am not happy with the Trump fluffing. I disagree with my fellow PB Labourites on this one.
Yes it is noticeable that you have condemned out of hand Starmer's behaviour and have said, as PB's pre-eminent and faux lefty, and in contradistinction to PB proper lefties, that he is a tosser and you are sickened by him and the whole Trump love in.
Well done you.
I am with Kinabalu. Starmer has soiled himself. The saving grace is all of the alternative PMs would have been just as bad, and Farage would have gilded the lily with an additional offer of felatio.
Yes but Kinabalu is going to vote Lab at the next election so Starmer is able to take him for a fool, to use and abuse him. Kini has all kinds of problems but isn't a fool and hence his hurt. Because it's not as though he is going to jump to Reform.
Finished my Speed Awareness Course. Is everyone aware that penalty points are now banded. So in a 20 zone, 21 to 31 leads to 3 points (minimum). 31 to 41 is 6 points (minimum) and 41 plus is a 6 to 9 point penalty.
Comments
However Blair did not have Reform breathing down his neck so he could end up losing the former to Farage's party and the Tories and losing some of the latter seats to the LDs and Greens
I would argue that Starmer is basically Blair with a crap economy. And less charisma.
Really warming to Starmer after long thinking he was a waste of space.
"I'm starting to see where he's coming from and what he's trying to achieve. You know it's strange, he hasn't been in that long but it's already hard to visualise anybody else as PM. He has my vote next time, I think. Yes it's Labour for me. I'm a convert. I might even join the party. Does Monday 3.30 work for you?"
I said Tuesday would be better.
Vance tells the Catholic Prayer Breakfast that when the pandemic first happened in early 2020, his second child was only three weeks old and he went to Dicks and bought 900 rounds of ammunition and two bags of rice at Walmart to "wait it out."
What's more, you KNOW I am not lying. You sense it yourself, it's in all your comments, this throb of disquiet about Starmer's Labour
But you are very very loyal, my friend is not
Edit: Bert from Twickenham says he's committed a pound. So it's still momentum. Bert and perhaps 26 others rallying around the LD cause.
We have stopped giving money to India. We are definitely not giving money to support Indian healthcare, as one of your later posts claimed. A small amount of money (~0.003% of government expenditure) is invested in specific activities that benefit the UK as well.
One can criticise British aid spending if you want, but we don't need these zombie stories of how India has a space programme but we're still giving them aid.
But he’s up against Badenoch and Farage.
So long as that remains the case, he wins.
I know. Instead of you making these vague, outdated claims, why don't you you give some actual examples that you think are a waste.
As for "loyalty", yes I have some, it's an attribute not a fault, but you'll notice I am not happy with the Trump fluffing. I disagree with my fellow PB Labourites on this one.
Unless Reform collapse (which is possible), they will continue to lose votes in all directions - a few percent to Reform here, a few percent to the Lib Dems there, and they'll end up looking like a wasted vote for people who used to see them as the default alternative to the Tories.
If you prefer I can talk about REDACTED or REDACTED or NOT ALLOWED but hey
The fact quite a few of you have reacted allergically to my true story tells me it drills into a living nerve
I did. And I would do so again. He’s quite evidently the best PM we could have chosen.
I suspect that, for some, Starmer's refusal to sex himself up much is why they hate him so.
I appreciate that he works with smart people, takes their advice and is not all show. He did what had to be done this week and executed it well.
Starmer gets re-elected if he does one of these three things IMHO:
Immigration comes down
NHS waiting lists are significantly lower/the NHS feels “fixed”
Economy has grown
His best chance ironically is the first.
It was reasonable to think that, by a continuation of this gradual process, slavery could be banned peacefully in the rest of the US. (And it might have been had it not been for the rise of cotton, which, like sugar before it, was hard to produce with free labor.)
So Lincoln was pursuing two great moral objectives, the end to slavery -- and peace.
Anything along the lines of Religious or Ethnic splits in UK politics would be really unwelcome of course.
Like winning the leadership. Then winning power.
He’s not so good at the grand vision stuff - but are Kemi or Farage really?
But what is actually happening is Aid is being given up as a sacrificial lamb to provide political cover for tax increases allowing bigger defence budgets. Dodds doesn't support that on the principle. She's clearly right.
Trend on Betfair of McLarens shortening, Ferrari fairly steady, Verstappen getting longer odds, continues.
I am now on my third in a row
Mussolini - Sky
Fallout - HBO?
Day of the Jackal - Sky/USA
They’re all…. Ok. Just about bearable. Nice acting. Meh scripts. Serious flaws in plotting
Is this it? Is the golden age truly over? Sad
Labour has lost support since the election no question but am I the only one that thinks their current numbers are actually holding up quite well? In recent elections they’ve tended to increase their share during the campaign.
https://www.threads.net/@jonathanpienews/post/DGnsqFGi1lK?xmt=AQGzKkts0tzu-QPO3DGBQEL8BB5id7Qsqv3dwtx873NbFg
I wonder what level it needs to come down to for the average voter to go “this Starmer bloke seems to control the borders better than the others”.
But the Tories’ numbers are just as bad, if not worse.
Well done you.
With many anomalies I’d date it roughly from the first season of sopranos to the last season of succession (fittingly, two of the best of all)
I hope I’m wrong and it revives but three modest duds in a row is not good and one got many awards
1923
White Lotus
Zero Day
Prime Target
On Call
Paradise
High Potential
🫡
The 2% inflation target would equate to immigration in the tens of thousands. After the equivalent of 25% inflation for years, it will take more than bringing it down to 10% to solve the problem.
Electorally you won't get a thank you note in any case. The best you can hope for is to reduce the salience of it as an issue.
If they were, all the polling of their supporters' second choices, suggests they'd be nowhere near their combined total.
So that’s a perfect quarter century, if that was the golden age. Neat
https://x.com/piersmorgan/status/1895491119901016110
So Piers is now a Sir Keir fan.
Dramas are all shit. They're neither funny nor true. What's the point? Their aim is to fill you with all sorts of unpleasant negative emotions. Who enjoys that? Best case scenario is that you put your emotional guard up so much that you don't feel anything. You may as well go and wash the dishes. In fact, that's what I tend to do. Even if I'm not actually in my own house. I've been known to leave a cinema mid-film to go home and wash the dishes because the process of watching a drama is so unpleasant. (This is not persiflage). And they're not credible. Nothing is that serious all the time.
/kamski-pyramids mode off/
I may watch that Toxic Town, though, because part of it was filmed on a road near where I live. I watched it happen. Someone will run out of a house and across a street shouting and a car will go on fire, and I will say, "ooh, look, it's Arnesby Avenue."
Anyway: if you want to reveal some sort of truth about the human condition, do it through comedy.
Just heard that plod are now involved with the Starmer Broadcasting Corporation's Gaza doc.
Starmer fans please explain.
You'd have been impressed, though, I'd imagine? Bit of the old Realpolitik, we have interests not friends etc etc.
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
And the problem with immigration is that it is like inflation: there is quite a lag from 'coming down' to 'not being perceived as a problem any more'. Immigration could stop tomorrow and people would go on thinking 'there's a lot of illegal immigrants hanging around the city centre and also there's no housing available' for quite some time yet.
Paradise improves as it goes along. Not great, but intermittently very good.
"Hard to think of how the Prime Minister’s trip White House trip could have gone any better… full love-bomb from President Trump, including very positive words re UK/US trade deal, and very smart to play the 2nd State Visit card..
@Keir_Starmer has had his best week in office."
Paradise
Fargo (latest season)
The Kominsky Method
Platonic
Squid Game II
Shrinking
Slow Horses (ofc)
Presumed Innocent (-ish)
Bad Monkey
But many absolutely are meh vs days of old.
Succession still the last standout drama for me.
After the turbulence of 5 PM's in less than 7 years, and Covid, I doubt they'll need to do much more than make small improvements, in a relatively dull way, for middle of the road voters to give them another term.
I suppose the only way it could have been improved would have been if the Chagos deal had been quietly torpedoed.
Read the threads this morning.
https://x.com/alexwickham/status/1895485980527792152
No10 source on Dodds:
“The Prime Minister has been very clear that we are in a new era in which we must spend more money at home on the defence and security of the British people, investing in our forces and industry, rather than spending it abroad. Anneliese clearly disagrees - it is typically honourable that she has chosen to resign on that point of principle.”
Finished my Speed Awareness Course. Is everyone aware that penalty points are now banded. So in a 20 zone, 21 to 31 leads to 3 points (minimum). 31 to 41 is 6 points (minimum) and 41 plus is a 6 to 9 point penalty.
F***!
https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/custom-comparisons-extended/Captain-America-Brave-New-World-(2025)/Captain-America-The-Winter-Soldier/Captain-America-The-First-Avenger#tab=day_by_day_comparison
Beth: blond armed bastard.
Yellowstone men: square chinned, hairy chests, with fine morals
Succession men: chinless nepo babies with dick pics