The Conservatives relied upon persuading the elites that they could protect their property; persuading centrists that they could keep the right in check; and persuading the right that they were their least bad option.
But, nobody really believes that radical socialists now threaten property; centrists are furious about the EU, and the right view the Conservatives as being as bad as the rest.
Yes the left is (sadly from my pov) in the doldrums. Eg in all of the mainstream discourse about policies, priorities, problems etc there is hardly a mention these days of what is and always has been my biggest political interest - the reduction of inequality. Nobody seems bothered about it. Or if they are it's just accepted there's no appetite or realistic possibility of doing anything serious in that space. It's afflicted me too if I'm honest. I don't care as much as I used to. If something is not happening it seems a bit pointless to stay invested in it. Then again, tell that to a lifelong Crystal Palace supporter.
The Unherd lot will tell you that (paraphrasing wildly) identity politics is a tool for the corporate west to distract from economic inequality. I'm not necessarily bought into this as a conspiracy, but it certainly has this effect. And thus, the working classes turn away from the left, because the left deals with issues of increasing irrelevance to them.
Trouble is, the antiwoke tendency (as exemplified on UnHerd) is not noticeably supportive of egalitarian policies. My suspicion is they use the "immigration damages the working class" argument as cover for the real objection to it - a belief the west should stay white.
Also as a second distraction from the effects of the post-Thatcher settlement, just like the left version can sometimes be, too. The UK needs a publication, media space, or platform that isn't afraid to reveal the entire scene.
Yes, let's get going on that. You can edit, I'll do the accounts.
The Kinabalu Oracle, available from all good newsagents.
Tommy Robinson is being released from prison next week. That's eleven months early I think
Two tier justice Robinson, a multiple offender who has shown no contrition for his offending gets parole Malkinson and others wrongly convicted serve their full tariff despite being model prisoners, only being released when their convictions are overturned
Tommy many names was jailed for 18 months Malkinson was jailed for 31 months.
That's the fundamental difference as even if both were given identical treatment and released after 40% of their sentence was served Tommy is going to be out 4 to 5 months earlier.
No the fundamental difference is this "Malkinson could have been released after 6½ years but was not due to his maintaining his innocence.[15] He was released in 2020 for good behaviour."
Robinson is a recidivist who has shown no contrition for his offending but is being released after serving a 1/3 of reduced sentence, Malkinson, and others who maintain their innocence, are not eligible for early parole regardless of their risk of reoffending or behaviour in prison, solely because they contest their conviction.
The latter is institutionalized spite by the Criminal Justice system for questioning the process and safety of the conviction.
That is a fiendish conundrum, isn't it. You get early release by admitting guilt. But you won't want to do that if you're innocent.
Seems completely crazy, and would be ludicrously frustrating, on top of a load of other frustrations, for the innocent prisoner
I am sure I have mentioned this before, but another crazy thing for me is the lesser sentence for attempted murder than murder. If a person who has been stabbed is saved by a passing medic while another a street away dies because no one sees him, why should the two assailants be treated any differently? They both had a desire to kill someone, and acted on it. The intention should be judged, not the outcome
Yep you can argue that. It's logical. But think where it goes. Eg I have a skinful and drive my car. Scenario A, the cops stop me and I get done for DUI. Scenario B, I hit and kill someone. My behaviour is equally bad in both scenarios, isn't it, but would we want to see the same punishment?
I see what you mean, but I think there is a decent argument that driving after having a skinful and getting away with it should be punished as if you’d hit and killed someone. The person who did the latter is no worse than the former
There is an element of luck throughout the system. Luck about being caught, luck about the consequences of what a person did, luck about being convicted or not, luck about what the CPS decides to charge and what they can manage to prove beyond reasonable doubt.
Every person who goes over 30 in a residential area, and everyone who jumps a red light can end up unlawfully killing the child who runs into the road.
That's the way it is. If Thomas Cashman, now serving life, minimum 40+ years IIRC (Liverpool, the Olivia aged 9 case) had fired his shot at another house and missed the victim etc the endless work would not have gone into proving the case against him, and at least one crucial witness would have remained silent. It is unlikely he would have been caught. Luck. And bad luck.
Because it’s the twist that most amused the writers of The Simulation
Obvs
Right. But why male models?
Because it’s genuinely funny
The sole purpose of the universe is, now, to amuse
This reminds me vaguely of a theory: the more ridiculous a thing looks, the more likely it is that it was put in place by time travellers coming back from the future to fix things which would have otherwise caused an apocalypse. The stranger things get, the more apocalypses we have been through and had averted by time travellers putting in place bodge jobs. I wish I could remember more of this theory.
The Trump sassytempt is one of the weirdest “narrative loose ends” of recent times. If I were - god forbid - a thriller writer, there’s no way I’d get away with such an insane plot twist, that comes and goes without explanation
Ditto lab leak. For two years almost illegal to mention. Now commonly accepted. But the reaction is “oh well shit happens, move on”. 20 million people died and we just *move on*
I’ve decided the only sane response is to *chuckle knowingly*
Totally. Although the Trump shooting is explained and LabLeak is not commonly accepted.
Observing your tiny mind at work is like staring in a rock pool, watching the anemones and minnows
Again you confuse free-thinking with a lack of discipline.
We forget @MoonRabbit is the other Conservative...
It's one poll and means nothing in isolation. Opinium had a 5-point gap at the weekend. Perhaps of more significance, apart from More In Common, the Conservatives have been below 20% in every poll conducted since the local elections.
The only answer I think is the old cobbler saying "time wounds all heels". While we witter on about what happened 10-15 years ago as though it were still of vital importance, most voters don't. The memory of the Conservatives in office will fade with time and they will then have the opportunity (as in 2005) to go back to the public with a new slate, new faces and new thinking.
Anyone and everyone associated with the 2010-24 period such as Boris, JRM and Badenoch - all of them need to walk away and clear the field for the next generation whoever that may be.
Montie on TV saying that Tories are seriously considering bringing back BoZo
They are so done...
Nothing is surprising about the Tories. The first test for Boris, to prove whether he still has what it takes, would be the challenge of winning some random seat. There is now not a a single seat in the entire country which could be taken for granted by any Tory. If he took it on and succeeded he would be 30% of the way to a position from which political change could occur. It would not be good news, but it would be box office; all PBers would at least secretly rejoice.
(The nearest thing, though not very near, to a safe seat would be Richmond, IMHO. Not impossible....)
Tommy Robinson is being released from prison next week. That's eleven months early I think
Two tier justice Robinson, a multiple offender who has shown no contrition for his offending gets parole Malkinson and others wrongly convicted serve their full tariff despite being model prisoners, only being released when their convictions are overturned
Tommy many names was jailed for 18 months Malkinson was jailed for 31 months.
That's the fundamental difference as even if both were given identical treatment and released after 40% of their sentence was served Tommy is going to be out 4 to 5 months earlier.
No the fundamental difference is this "Malkinson could have been released after 6½ years but was not due to his maintaining his innocence.[15] He was released in 2020 for good behaviour."
Robinson is a recidivist who has shown no contrition for his offending but is being released after serving a 1/3 of reduced sentence, Malkinson, and others who maintain their innocence, are not eligible for early parole regardless of their risk of reoffending or behaviour in prison, solely because they contest their conviction.
The latter is institutionalized spite by the Criminal Justice system for questioning the process and safety of the conviction.
That is a fiendish conundrum, isn't it. You get early release by admitting guilt. But you won't want to do that if you're innocent.
Seems completely crazy, and would be ludicrously frustrating, on top of a load of other frustrations, for the innocent prisoner
I am sure I have mentioned this before, but another crazy thing for me is the lesser sentence for attempted murder than murder. If a person who has been stabbed is saved by a passing medic while another a street away dies because no one sees him, why should the two assailants be treated any differently? They both had a desire to kill someone, and acted on it. The intention should be judged, not the outcome
Yep you can argue that. It's logical. But think where it goes. Eg I have a skinful and drive my car. Scenario A, the cops stop me and I get done for DUI. Scenario B, I hit and kill someone. My behaviour is equally bad in both scenarios, isn't it, but would we want to see the same punishment?
I see what you mean, but I think there is a decent argument that driving after having a skinful and getting away with it should be punished as if you’d hit and killed someone. The person who did the latter is no worse than the former
Trouble with that is that whilst I'm against drink driving, I'd want to distinguish between "had one pint too many, then drove a mile home home in a steady and careful manner" and "downed 15 pints and was then pulled over after been seen driving at 100mph on the wrong side of the road in 30 limit".
Both are wrong. Both have an elevated risk of killing someone, but the second guy is obviously far more of a danger to life than the first. It seems profoundly unfair if we treat them both the same, because their actions *might* have killed someone.
It's a blatant lie that customers won't end up paying for any of this. And there is fuck all reason for a monopoly utility to be paying this sort of cost for a loan - other than that the company is effectively bankrupt.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/may/20/thames-water-chair-mps-bonuses-sir-adrian-montague ..The UK’s largest water company is in a desperate race to raise funds and persuade the water regulator to let it off hundreds of millions of pounds of fines or risk being renationalised. The company won a court battle which allowed it to accept the loan, which comes with an expensive 9.75% interest rate and fees...
Which do you think will cost us more in the long run ? Taking it into public ownership - or handing it over to yet another bunch of foreign venture capitalists ?
..The company, which serves about a quarter of the country’s population, is loaded with £20bn in debt and is now in exclusive discussions with the private equity group KKR over a potential purchase of the business...
The reality is that the taxpayer and the bill payers are largely one and the same. Saving the taxpayer the cost if bailing the company out - at the expense of making customers pay that saving, plus whatever exorbitant dividends the next set of owners award themselves - is the falsest of economies.
I still don't understand why either the tax payers or bill payers need to be even slightly on the hook for this. Some idiots lent a bunch of vultures a load of money, who took the money and ran off with it. This money was secured against the assets of a business. The core business itself is profitable, just not sufficiently profitable to keep up the loan repayments.
The idiots now want the customers of the business and/or the taxpayers to pay them back. In any normal business in this situation you'd summon some administrators, sell the business, and give the idiots pennies in the £ of their back. Or alternatively they could do a debt - equity swap and end up the proud owners.
There is literally zero reason why this can't happen with Thames Water, other than the government and regulator both apparently having decided to bale out the idiots instead.
This. This. A million times this.
We have a process for resolving situations around bankruptcy.
Let Thames slide into administration. Its neither the taxpayers, nor the consumers, responsibility.
Montie on TV saying that Tories are seriously considering bringing back BoZo
They are so done...
Nothing is surprising about the Tories. The first test for Boris, to prove whether he still has what it takes, would be the challenge of winning some random seat. There is now not a a single seat in the entire country which could be taken for granted by any Tory. If he took it on and succeeded he would be 30% of the way to a position from which political change could occur. It would not be good news, but it would be box office; all PBers would at least secretly rejoice.
(The nearest thing, though not very near, to a safe seat would be Richmond, IMHO. Not impossible....)
As I am on Johnson at a range of prices from 6 to 11, my wallet is all in favour. But I know Richmondshire well and wouldn't want the place ruined in this way.
Montie on TV saying that Tories are seriously considering bringing back BoZo
They are so done...
Nothing is surprising about the Tories. The first test for Boris, to prove whether he still has what it takes, would be the challenge of winning some random seat. There is now not a a single seat in the entire country which could be taken for granted by any Tory. If he took it on and succeeded he would be 30% of the way to a position from which political change could occur. It would not be good news, but it would be box office; all PBers would at least secretly rejoice.
(The nearest thing, though not very near, to a safe seat would be Richmond, IMHO. Not impossible....)
They could hand Rishi an Action Man sized revolver and one of those little bottles of whiskey you get in hotel minibars. Promise him a peerage and High Commissioner to India. His Mrs would like that as it's something money can't buy.
The tories could probably hold on to Richmond on a Boris In Wellies campaign.
Re the header article: so are we seeing a fundamental re-alignment of British politics along a Reform / LibDem axis?
FWIW I think there is a 20%+ chance of that being the basic configuration by the next GE. The current direction of travel is to eat up Parties of Government.
But more likely is an unacknowledged Reform/Lab-LD axis, replacing the Tory/Lab-LD axis in most of England now.
Montie on TV saying that Tories are seriously considering bringing back BoZo
They are so done...
Nothing is surprising about the Tories. The first test for Boris, to prove whether he still has what it takes, would be the challenge of winning some random seat. There is now not a a single seat in the entire country which could be taken for granted by any Tory. If he took it on and succeeded he would be 30% of the way to a position from which political change could occur. It would not be good news, but it would be box office; all PBers would at least secretly rejoice.
(The nearest thing, though not very near, to a safe seat would be Richmond, IMHO. Not impossible....)
The problem is Boris did his utmost to kill the Conservatives, as leader.
Not saying it will or should happen but is there, constitutionally, anything preventing the Leader of the Opposition (or opposition party) from being someone not in Parliament?
In Canada, Carney wasn't an MP when he became PM, let alone Liberal Party leader.
Presumably if not an MP, would need someone to deputise for PMQs, answering the Budget etc
Montie on TV saying that Tories are seriously considering bringing back BoZo
They are so done...
Nothing is surprising about the Tories. The first test for Boris, to prove whether he still has what it takes, would be the challenge of winning some random seat. There is now not a a single seat in the entire country which could be taken for granted by any Tory. If he took it on and succeeded he would be 30% of the way to a position from which political change could occur. It would not be good news, but it would be box office; all PBers would at least secretly rejoice.
(The nearest thing, though not very near, to a safe seat would be Richmond, IMHO. Not impossible....)
The problem is Boris did his utmost to kill the Conservatives, as leader.
Give him an other shot at finishing them off. The Dr Shipman of politics!
Tommy Robinson is being released from prison next week. That's eleven months early I think
Two tier justice Robinson, a multiple offender who has shown no contrition for his offending gets parole Malkinson and others wrongly convicted serve their full tariff despite being model prisoners, only being released when their convictions are overturned
Tommy many names was jailed for 18 months Malkinson was jailed for 31 months.
That's the fundamental difference as even if both were given identical treatment and released after 40% of their sentence was served Tommy is going to be out 4 to 5 months earlier.
No the fundamental difference is this "Malkinson could have been released after 6½ years but was not due to his maintaining his innocence.[15] He was released in 2020 for good behaviour."
Robinson is a recidivist who has shown no contrition for his offending but is being released after serving a 1/3 of reduced sentence, Malkinson, and others who maintain their innocence, are not eligible for early parole regardless of their risk of reoffending or behaviour in prison, solely because they contest their conviction.
The latter is institutionalized spite by the Criminal Justice system for questioning the process and safety of the conviction.
That is a fiendish conundrum, isn't it. You get early release by admitting guilt. But you won't want to do that if you're innocent.
Seems completely crazy, and would be ludicrously frustrating, on top of a load of other frustrations, for the innocent prisoner
I am sure I have mentioned this before, but another crazy thing for me is the lesser sentence for attempted murder than murder. If a person who has been stabbed is saved by a passing medic while another a street away dies because no one sees him, why should the two assailants be treated any differently? They both had a desire to kill someone, and acted on it. The intention should be judged, not the outcome
Yep you can argue that. It's logical. But think where it goes. Eg I have a skinful and drive my car. Scenario A, the cops stop me and I get done for DUI. Scenario B, I hit and kill someone. My behaviour is equally bad in both scenarios, isn't it, but would we want to see the same punishment?
I see what you mean, but I think there is a decent argument that driving after having a skinful and getting away with it should be punished as if you’d hit and killed someone. The person who did the latter is no worse than the former
Trouble with that is that whilst I'm against drink driving, I'd want to distinguish between "had one pint too many, then drove a mile home home in a steady and careful manner" and "downed 15 pints and was then pulled over after been seen driving at 100mph on the wrong side of the road in 30 limit".
Both are wrong. Both have an elevated risk of killing someone, but the second guy is obviously far more of a danger to life than the first. It seems profoundly unfair if we treat them both the same, because their actions *might* have killed someone.
Not saying it will or should happen but is there, constitutionally, anything preventing the Leader of the Opposition (or opposition party) from being someone not in Parliament?
In Canada, Carney wasn't an MP when he became PM, let alone Liberal Party leader.
Presumably if not an MP, would need someone to deputise for PMQs, answering the Budget etc
Nothing constitutionally, no. But party rules tend to require the leader to be an MP.
Because it’s the twist that most amused the writers of The Simulation
Obvs
Right. But why male models?
Because it’s genuinely funny
The sole purpose of the universe is, now, to amuse
This reminds me vaguely of a theory: the more ridiculous a thing looks, the more likely it is that it was put in place by time travellers coming back from the future to fix things which would have otherwise caused an apocalypse. The stranger things get, the more apocalypses we have been through and had averted by time travellers putting in place bodge jobs. I wish I could remember more of this theory.
The Trump sassytempt is one of the weirdest “narrative loose ends” of recent times. If I were - god forbid - a thriller writer, there’s no way I’d get away with such an insane plot twist, that comes and goes without explanation
Ditto lab leak. For two years almost illegal to mention. Now commonly accepted. But the reaction is “oh well shit happens, move on”. 20 million people died and we just *move on*
I’ve decided the only sane response is to *chuckle knowingly*
Totally. Although the Trump shooting is explained and LabLeak is not commonly accepted.
I'd say recent polling is pointing towards a very strong and persistent Lab leak.
Because it’s the twist that most amused the writers of The Simulation
Obvs
Right. But why male models?
Because it’s genuinely funny
The sole purpose of the universe is, now, to amuse
This reminds me vaguely of a theory: the more ridiculous a thing looks, the more likely it is that it was put in place by time travellers coming back from the future to fix things which would have otherwise caused an apocalypse. The stranger things get, the more apocalypses we have been through and had averted by time travellers putting in place bodge jobs. I wish I could remember more of this theory.
The Trump sassytempt is one of the weirdest “narrative loose ends” of recent times. If I were - god forbid - a thriller writer, there’s no way I’d get away with such an insane plot twist, that comes and goes without explanation
Ditto lab leak. For two years almost illegal to mention. Now commonly accepted. But the reaction is “oh well shit happens, move on”. 20 million people died and we just *move on*
I’ve decided the only sane response is to *chuckle knowingly*
Totally. Although the Trump shooting is explained and LabLeak is not commonly accepted.
Observing your tiny mind at work is like staring in a rock pool, watching the anemones and minnows
Again you confuse free-thinking with a lack of discipline.
Don't worry, my attention doesn't last for long. After a while the rockpool of your tiny mind begins to bore. I prod the anenome to see if it will move. I throw in a pebble to disturb the sticklebacks. They do what they always do, because they cannot do anything else
Not saying it will or should happen but is there, constitutionally, anything preventing the Leader of the Opposition (or opposition party) from being someone not in Parliament?
In Canada, Carney wasn't an MP when he became PM, let alone Liberal Party leader.
Presumably if not an MP, would need someone to deputise for PMQs, answering the Budget etc
Not in terms of British constitution. The issue is Conservative internal rules, and there are pretty powerful people who'd fight a change that would open the door to Johnson.
Not saying it will or should happen but is there, constitutionally, anything preventing the Leader of the Opposition (or opposition party) from being someone not in Parliament?
In Canada, Carney wasn't an MP when he became PM, let alone Liberal Party leader.
Presumably if not an MP, would need someone to deputise for PMQs, answering the Budget etc
Deputy Leader Jenrick would do all that in chamber for out of commons Boris. You can see it happening.
Tommy Robinson is being released from prison next week. That's eleven months early I think
Two tier justice Robinson, a multiple offender who has shown no contrition for his offending gets parole Malkinson and others wrongly convicted serve their full tariff despite being model prisoners, only being released when their convictions are overturned
Tommy many names was jailed for 18 months Malkinson was jailed for 31 months.
That's the fundamental difference as even if both were given identical treatment and released after 40% of their sentence was served Tommy is going to be out 4 to 5 months earlier.
No the fundamental difference is this "Malkinson could have been released after 6½ years but was not due to his maintaining his innocence.[15] He was released in 2020 for good behaviour."
Robinson is a recidivist who has shown no contrition for his offending but is being released after serving a 1/3 of reduced sentence, Malkinson, and others who maintain their innocence, are not eligible for early parole regardless of their risk of reoffending or behaviour in prison, solely because they contest their conviction.
The latter is institutionalized spite by the Criminal Justice system for questioning the process and safety of the conviction.
That is a fiendish conundrum, isn't it. You get early release by admitting guilt. But you won't want to do that if you're innocent.
Seems completely crazy, and would be ludicrously frustrating, on top of a load of other frustrations, for the innocent prisoner
I am sure I have mentioned this before, but another crazy thing for me is the lesser sentence for attempted murder than murder. If a person who has been stabbed is saved by a passing medic while another a street away dies because no one sees him, why should the two assailants be treated any differently? They both had a desire to kill someone, and acted on it. The intention should be judged, not the outcome
Yep you can argue that. It's logical. But think where it goes. Eg I have a skinful and drive my car. Scenario A, the cops stop me and I get done for DUI. Scenario B, I hit and kill someone. My behaviour is equally bad in both scenarios, isn't it, but would we want to see the same punishment?
I see what you mean, but I think there is a decent argument that driving after having a skinful and getting away with it should be punished as if you’d hit and killed someone. The person who did the latter is no worse than the former
Trouble with that is that whilst I'm against drink driving, I'd want to distinguish between "had one pint too many, then drove a mile home home in a steady and careful manner" and "downed 15 pints and was then pulled over after been seen driving at 100mph on the wrong side of the road in 30 limit".
Both are wrong. Both have an elevated risk of killing someone, but the second guy is obviously far more of a danger to life than the first. It seems profoundly unfair if we treat them both the same, because their actions *might* have killed someone.
If you drink and drive, you're a bloody idiot.
Definitely. That doesn't mean there aren't different degrees of idiocy, and I'm not sure it would be wise or helpful to band them together in a one size fit all sort of a way.
Montie on TV saying that Tories are seriously considering bringing back BoZo
They are so done...
Nothing is surprising about the Tories. The first test for Boris, to prove whether he still has what it takes, would be the challenge of winning some random seat. There is now not a a single seat in the entire country which could be taken for granted by any Tory. If he took it on and succeeded he would be 30% of the way to a position from which political change could occur. It would not be good news, but it would be box office; all PBers would at least secretly rejoice.
(The nearest thing, though not very near, to a safe seat would be Richmond, IMHO. Not impossible....)
They could hand Rishi an Action Man sized revolver and one of those little bottles of whiskey you get in hotel minibars. Promise him a peerage and High Commissioner to India. His Mrs would like that as it's something money can't buy.
The tories could probably hold on to Richmond on a Boris In Wellies campaign.
I bet it is something that money can buy.
I think it's more realistic he becomes the candidate for London Mayor. The reasons are numerous. Londoners don't particularly like Brexit, but the provinces don't particularly like the Boriswave, so he starts with a handicap in both.
If he gets a meaningful amount more votes than angry Susan did, they can count it as something of a victory - enough for a tilt at becoming an MP. And if Labour are stupid enough to select James Corden, and Reform have the SAS man, suddently Boris starts looking like the serious option.
Re the header article: so are we seeing a fundamental re-alignment of British politics along a Reform / LibDem axis?
FWIW I think there is a 20%+ chance of that being the basic configuration by the next GE. The current direction of travel is to eat up Parties of Government.
But more likely is an unacknowledged Reform/Lab-LD axis, replacing the Tory/Lab-LD axis in most of England now.
Yes, a soft Lab / LD coalition vs Reform does seem likely to be the main event at the next GE.
Montie on TV saying that Tories are seriously considering bringing back BoZo
They are so done...
Nothing is surprising about the Tories. The first test for Boris, to prove whether he still has what it takes, would be the challenge of winning some random seat. There is now not a a single seat in the entire country which could be taken for granted by any Tory. If he took it on and succeeded he would be 30% of the way to a position from which political change could occur. It would not be good news, but it would be box office; all PBers would at least secretly rejoice.
(The nearest thing, though not very near, to a safe seat would be Richmond, IMHO. Not impossible....)
They could hand Rishi an Action Man sized revolver and one of those little bottles of whiskey you get in hotel minibars. Promise him a peerage and High Commissioner to India. His Mrs would like that as it's something money can't buy.
The tories could probably hold on to Richmond on a Boris In Wellies campaign.
How would the Tories plan to make him High Commissioner exactly?
They could make him a peer, but it'd be a major slap in the face not to give an ex-PM a peerage if they wanted it (some haven't wanted to be a working peer and Truss is Truss).
Montie on TV saying that Tories are seriously considering bringing back BoZo
They are so done...
Nothing is surprising about the Tories. The first test for Boris, to prove whether he still has what it takes, would be the challenge of winning some random seat. There is now not a a single seat in the entire country which could be taken for granted by any Tory. If he took it on and succeeded he would be 30% of the way to a position from which political change could occur. It would not be good news, but it would be box office; all PBers would at least secretly rejoice.
(The nearest thing, though not very near, to a safe seat would be Richmond, IMHO. Not impossible....)
They could hand Rishi an Action Man sized revolver and one of those little bottles of whiskey you get in hotel minibars. Promise him a peerage and High Commissioner to India. His Mrs would like that as it's something money can't buy.
The tories could probably hold on to Richmond on a Boris In Wellies campaign.
I don't have my copy of the Brandreth diaries to hand, so I'm paraphrasing here. But after telling his wife that he was going for the Chester nomination:
Her first response was to say 'That's f&#@ing miles away'. There hasn't been a second response.
Apparently the FA Cup final and Eurovision Song Contest have only been on the same day twice in the last decade or so
Sir Keir Starmer is looking forward to Eurovision. Having just returned from a European summit in Albania, the prime minister will sit down on Saturday with his family for what has become something of a tradition. “That will be a must,” he says. “It’s always the same, the FA Cup, then Eurovision. All the family watch it.”
I noticed that. But it needs a probe. What does the data say? If Eurovision is usually a week or two *after* the cup final then SKS has a viable defence. Because he doesn't actually say they watch them on the same day, does he? He could have meant they always sit down and watch the cup final (as a family) and then on a subsequent Saturday they come together for Eurovision. That works. He deserves (and should get) the benefit of the doubt there. Otoh, if Eurovision is often before the cup final, that's damning and we might have a genuine 'gate' on our hands.
You just don't expect this kind of casual relationship with the truth from Mr Integrity
Thing is, to be Mr Integrity after Boris Johnson you only need to tell the truth sometimes.
Anyway, what about this data dive to see which of the cup final and eurovision usually comes first? Do people want me to do it?
tbh I'm not sure Starmer actually is saying the FA Cup Final and Eurovision are always on the same day or that Eurovision comes first, just that they do this year. The only doubt is whether he watches them, and as a season ticket holder, we can assume he watches the FA Cup. So the only question is whether Starmer's claim to watch Eurovision is more convincing than his predecessors wandering into Greggs.
Not saying it will or should happen but is there, constitutionally, anything preventing the Leader of the Opposition (or opposition party) from being someone not in Parliament?
In Canada, Carney wasn't an MP when he became PM, let alone Liberal Party leader.
Presumably if not an MP, would need someone to deputise for PMQs, answering the Budget etc
The *obvious* seat for Bozza is Richmond. Sadly for Alex he will quickly realise that its Richmond *Yorkshire* and not Richmond London. Cripes!
The Bozza schtick would be fascinating to see in 2025. Two obvious policy directions:
After the Starmer Gimp comment yesterday he'd clearly be banging a Defend Brexit drum. There's a problem. He thinks his Brexit deal was brilliant. The country has seen the opposite and besides which Farage can outflank him on every issue. His other obvious play is the return of Levelling Up. We're going to spend £400 billion in YOUR town. Again the problem is that he didn't spend the promised cash last time and won't be able to show where it would come from this time. And besides which Farage would promise to actually sort your town by rounding up the forrin AND sticking a lick of paint on things with money saved from asylum bills.
Its insanity for the Tories to consider it. But when you are desperate and stupid, why not.
I have a standing bet with another PBer that Boris will return in time for the next election.
But I can’t remember which PBer. Think it was £100.
It's a good option for the tories if they can engineer it. It's only a matter of not very much time before they lead KB off to the headsman's block. Who the fuck else have they got? Nobody's Gonna Break My Stride? Fucking Rat Eyes? Bobby J would be an upgrade on Kemi but he doesn't have Johnson's kavorka. Possible Argos Vance to Johnson's Home Bargains Trump.
We forget @MoonRabbit is the other Conservative...
It's one poll and means nothing in isolation. Opinium had a 5-point gap at the weekend. Perhaps of more significance, apart from More In Common, the Conservatives have been below 20% in every poll conducted since the local elections.
The only answer I think is the old cobbler saying "time wounds all heels". While we witter on about what happened 10-15 years ago as though it were still of vital importance, most voters don't. The memory of the Conservatives in office will fade with time and they will then have the opportunity (as in 2005) to go back to the public with a new slate, new faces and new thinking.
Anyone and everyone associated with the 2010-24 period such as Boris, JRM and Badenoch - all of them need to walk away and clear the field for the next generation whoever that may be.
Voters still remember when Conservative governments managed the economy well - less than a decade ago - is why to peel away from the Conservative Party to Reform right now, is hasty and stupid. Reform have zero credibility for being trusted with the UK economy.
“Vote Conservative for strong economy and looking after the pounds in your pocket. Labour, for all their good intentions will wreck the economy, they have huge black holes in their economic plans they can’t explain.” < this is exactly how the Conservative Party had so many more years in office over the last century,
Exactly like Labour struggled in 20th century, Reform will have a huge problem rebutting this. Kemi will absolutely shred Reform at the next General Election. Conservatives have pragmatism and real economic credibility - Reform are ideological purists with nothing but £100B+ black hole in their economic credibility.
The Conservatives relied upon persuading the elites that they could protect their property; persuading centrists that they could keep the right in check; and persuading the right that they were their least bad option.
But, nobody really believes that radical socialists now threaten property; centrists are furious about the EU, and the right view the Conservatives as being as bad as the rest.
Yes the left is (sadly from my pov) in the doldrums. Eg in all of the mainstream discourse about policies, priorities, problems etc there is hardly a mention these days of what is and always has been my biggest political interest - the reduction of inequality. Nobody seems bothered about it. Or if they are it's just accepted there's no appetite or realistic possibility of doing anything serious in that space. It's afflicted me too if I'm honest. I don't care as much as I used to. If something is not happening it seems a bit pointless to stay invested in it. Then again, tell that to a lifelong Crystal Palace supporter.
The Unherd lot will tell you that (paraphrasing wildly) identity politics is a tool for the corporate west to distract from economic inequality. I'm not necessarily bought into this as a conspiracy, but it certainly has this effect. And thus, the working classes turn away from the left, because the left deals with issues of increasing irrelevance to them.
Is there any "Unherd lot"?
They have been suffering, but still have a diversish bunch of writers.
Re Boris: I think it was Max Hastings that said that the more you got to know Boris, the less you liked him. (With the implication that Johnson was /very/ good at making that positive first impression & that it was all downhill from there onwards.)
Now that the country has had extensive experience of Borisness, are they more or less likely to vote for him? Reform will point (justifiably) to the Boriswave, Lab/LDs to the terrible Brexit deal. It seems he has nothing to offer any voting group except for the diehard Tory one, which current polls suggest isn’t large enough to carry the day, even in a five way contest.
Apparently the FA Cup final and Eurovision Song Contest have only been on the same day twice in the last decade or so
Sir Keir Starmer is looking forward to Eurovision. Having just returned from a European summit in Albania, the prime minister will sit down on Saturday with his family for what has become something of a tradition. “That will be a must,” he says. “It’s always the same, the FA Cup, then Eurovision. All the family watch it.”
I noticed that. But it needs a probe. What does the data say? If Eurovision is usually a week or two *after* the cup final then SKS has a viable defence. Because he doesn't actually say they watch them on the same day, does he? He could have meant they always sit down and watch the cup final (as a family) and then on a subsequent Saturday they come together for Eurovision. That works. He deserves (and should get) the benefit of the doubt there. Otoh, if Eurovision is often before the cup final, that's damning and we might have a genuine 'gate' on our hands.
You just don't expect this kind of casual relationship with the truth from Mr Integrity
Thing is, to be Mr Integrity after Boris Johnson you only need to tell the truth sometimes.
Anyway, what about this data dive to see which of the cup final and eurovision usually comes first? Do people want me to do it?
tbh I'm not sure Starmer actually is saying the FA Cup Final and Eurovision are always on the same day or that Eurovision comes first, just that they do this year. The only doubt is whether he watches them, and as a season ticket holder, we can assume he watches the FA Cup. So the only question is whether Starmer's claim to watch Eurovision is more convincing than his predecessors wandering into Greggs.
It won't bring him down but he does say he watches the cup final then eurovision. I think that's what the storm is about.
I was going to deep dive and see which one has normally come first in (say) the last 20 years, but I sense a general waning of interest on the board.
We forget @MoonRabbit is the other Conservative...
It's one poll and means nothing in isolation. Opinium had a 5-point gap at the weekend. Perhaps of more significance, apart from More In Common, the Conservatives have been below 20% in every poll conducted since the local elections.
The only answer I think is the old cobbler saying "time wounds all heels". While we witter on about what happened 10-15 years ago as though it were still of vital importance, most voters don't. The memory of the Conservatives in office will fade with time and they will then have the opportunity (as in 2005) to go back to the public with a new slate, new faces and new thinking.
Anyone and everyone associated with the 2010-24 period such as Boris, JRM and Badenoch - all of them need to walk away and clear the field for the next generation whoever that may be.
Voters still remember when Conservative governments managed the economy well - less than a decade ago - is why to peel away from the Conservative Party to Reform right now, is hasty and stupid. Reform have zero credibility for being trusted with the UK economy.
“Vote Conservative for strong economy and looking after the pounds in your pocket. Labour, for all their good intentions will wreck the economy, they have huge black holes in their economic plans they can’t explain.” < this is exactly how the Conservative Party had so many more years in office over the last century,
Exactly like Labour struggled in 20th century, Reform will have a huge problem rebutting this. Kemi will absolutely shred Reform at the next General Election. Conservatives have pragmatism and real economic credibility - Reform are ideological purists with nothing but £100B+ black hole in their economic credibility.
This is wishful thinking. Populism is resurgent across the West right now & Farage knows how to ride that train.
The voters gave the Conservatives a fair shake & were disappointed, so they turned to Labour who (so far) have not covered themselves in glory. Current polling suggests that they‘re far more likely to turn to Farage/Reform than they are to give the current Conservatives another chance.
2-party FPTP systems are ruthless engines of destruction for parties that fall out of favour.
Tommy Robinson is being released from prison next week. That's eleven months early I think
Two tier justice Robinson, a multiple offender who has shown no contrition for his offending gets parole Malkinson and others wrongly convicted serve their full tariff despite being model prisoners, only being released when their convictions are overturned
Tommy many names was jailed for 18 months Malkinson was jailed for 31 months.
That's the fundamental difference as even if both were given identical treatment and released after 40% of their sentence was served Tommy is going to be out 4 to 5 months earlier.
No the fundamental difference is this "Malkinson could have been released after 6½ years but was not due to his maintaining his innocence.[15] He was released in 2020 for good behaviour."
Robinson is a recidivist who has shown no contrition for his offending but is being released after serving a 1/3 of reduced sentence, Malkinson, and others who maintain their innocence, are not eligible for early parole regardless of their risk of reoffending or behaviour in prison, solely because they contest their conviction.
The latter is institutionalized spite by the Criminal Justice system for questioning the process and safety of the conviction.
That is a fiendish conundrum, isn't it. You get early release by admitting guilt. But you won't want to do that if you're innocent.
Seems completely crazy, and would be ludicrously frustrating, on top of a load of other frustrations, for the innocent prisoner
I am sure I have mentioned this before, but another crazy thing for me is the lesser sentence for attempted murder than murder. If a person who has been stabbed is saved by a passing medic while another a street away dies because no one sees him, why should the two assailants be treated any differently? They both had a desire to kill someone, and acted on it. The intention should be judged, not the outcome
Yep you can argue that. It's logical. But think where it goes. Eg I have a skinful and drive my car. Scenario A, the cops stop me and I get done for DUI. Scenario B, I hit and kill someone. My behaviour is equally bad in both scenarios, isn't it, but would we want to see the same punishment?
I see what you mean, but I think there is a decent argument that driving after having a skinful and getting away with it should be punished as if you’d hit and killed someone. The person who did the latter is no worse than the former
Trouble with that is that whilst I'm against drink driving, I'd want to distinguish between "had one pint too many, then drove a mile home home in a steady and careful manner" and "downed 15 pints and was then pulled over after been seen driving at 100mph on the wrong side of the road in 30 limit".
Both are wrong. Both have an elevated risk of killing someone, but the second guy is obviously far more of a danger to life than the first. It seems profoundly unfair if we treat them both the same, because their actions *might* have killed someone.
If you drink and drive, you're a bloody idiot.
Definitely. That doesn't mean there aren't different degrees of idiocy, and I'm not sure it would be wise or helpful to band them together in a one size fit all sort of a way.
I agree with the point you are making, but to be pedantic someone who is so drunk they can't or can barely drive is probably less dangerous than someone who has had 3 or 4 pints and thinks they are Sterling Moss.
I like the analogy from the Big Bang Theory where someone said there was no difference between levels of wrongness to which the response was it was less wrong to say a tomato was a vegetable than to say the Golden Gate bridge was a vegetable.
Tommy Robinson is being released from prison next week. That's eleven months early I think
Two tier justice Robinson, a multiple offender who has shown no contrition for his offending gets parole Malkinson and others wrongly convicted serve their full tariff despite being model prisoners, only being released when their convictions are overturned
Tommy many names was jailed for 18 months Malkinson was jailed for 31 months.
That's the fundamental difference as even if both were given identical treatment and released after 40% of their sentence was served Tommy is going to be out 4 to 5 months earlier.
No the fundamental difference is this "Malkinson could have been released after 6½ years but was not due to his maintaining his innocence.[15] He was released in 2020 for good behaviour."
Robinson is a recidivist who has shown no contrition for his offending but is being released after serving a 1/3 of reduced sentence, Malkinson, and others who maintain their innocence, are not eligible for early parole regardless of their risk of reoffending or behaviour in prison, solely because they contest their conviction.
The latter is institutionalized spite by the Criminal Justice system for questioning the process and safety of the conviction.
That is a fiendish conundrum, isn't it. You get early release by admitting guilt. But you won't want to do that if you're innocent.
Seems completely crazy, and would be ludicrously frustrating, on top of a load of other frustrations, for the innocent prisoner
I am sure I have mentioned this before, but another crazy thing for me is the lesser sentence for attempted murder than murder. If a person who has been stabbed is saved by a passing medic while another a street away dies because no one sees him, why should the two assailants be treated any differently? They both had a desire to kill someone, and acted on it. The intention should be judged, not the outcome
Yep you can argue that. It's logical. But think where it goes. Eg I have a skinful and drive my car. Scenario A, the cops stop me and I get done for DUI. Scenario B, I hit and kill someone. My behaviour is equally bad in both scenarios, isn't it, but would we want to see the same punishment?
I see what you mean, but I think there is a decent argument that driving after having a skinful and getting away with it should be punished as if you’d hit and killed someone. The person who did the latter is no worse than the former
Trouble with that is that whilst I'm against drink driving, I'd want to distinguish between "had one pint too many, then drove a mile home home in a steady and careful manner" and "downed 15 pints and was then pulled over after been seen driving at 100mph on the wrong side of the road in 30 limit".
Both are wrong. Both have an elevated risk of killing someone, but the second guy is obviously far more of a danger to life than the first. It seems profoundly unfair if we treat them both the same, because their actions *might* have killed someone.
If you drink and drive, you're a bloody idiot.
Definitely. That doesn't mean there aren't different degrees of idiocy, and I'm not sure it would be wise or helpful to band them together in a one size fit all sort of a way.
I think the proposition (isam) was more that if you're stopped and found to be pie-eyed at the wheel, ie totally blotto not just a bit tipsy, the punishment should be similar to if you'd hit and killed somebody, because it's only pure luck that you didn't.
We forget @MoonRabbit is the other Conservative...
It's one poll and means nothing in isolation. Opinium had a 5-point gap at the weekend. Perhaps of more significance, apart from More In Common, the Conservatives have been below 20% in every poll conducted since the local elections.
The only answer I think is the old cobbler saying "time wounds all heels". While we witter on about what happened 10-15 years ago as though it were still of vital importance, most voters don't. The memory of the Conservatives in office will fade with time and they will then have the opportunity (as in 2005) to go back to the public with a new slate, new faces and new thinking.
Anyone and everyone associated with the 2010-24 period such as Boris, JRM and Badenoch - all of them need to walk away and clear the field for the next generation whoever that may be.
Voters still remember when Conservative governments managed the economy well - less than a decade ago - is why to peel away from the Conservative Party to Reform right now, is hasty and stupid. Reform have zero credibility for being trusted with the UK economy.
“Vote Conservative for strong economy and looking after the pounds in your pocket. Labour, for all their good intentions will wreck the economy, they have huge black holes in their economic plans they can’t explain.” < this is exactly how the Conservative Party had so many more years in office over the last century,
Exactly like Labour struggled in 20th century, Reform will have a huge problem rebutting this. Kemi will absolutely shred Reform at the next General Election. Conservatives have pragmatism and real economic credibility - Reform are ideological purists with nothing but £100B+ black hole in their economic credibility.
I truly respect the gargantuan levels of hopium on display in this post.
Voters do not remember the Tories managing the economy well. Brexit then Boris then Starmer then the Nigel surge - all demonstrates that people are absolutely sick of being told they are actually well off in a well managed economy actually. Its broken, they're broke, and they're demanding action.
Tories can't credibly claim looking after the pound in our pocket. Truss trashed the remaining shreds of credibility, and can I also refer you to the debt mountain you added post Brexit?
Kemi won't be leader at the next GE. But I'll indulge you so assume for a minute she is - as a politician she is brittle, narrow and argumentative. She is not going to shred Farage.
Reform are ideological purists? Farage is calling for the renationalisation of steel and wants PR. That's flexibility. Your lot? Did you hear Kemi yesterday? Or indeed any day?
Sorry MoonRabbit, you're clinging onto an imagined version of reality. In the real world your party is sinking into the abyss. And you are to blame - until you can identify reality you have zero hope of turning things around.
Tommy Robinson is being released from prison next week. That's eleven months early I think
Two tier justice Robinson, a multiple offender who has shown no contrition for his offending gets parole Malkinson and others wrongly convicted serve their full tariff despite being model prisoners, only being released when their convictions are overturned
Tommy many names was jailed for 18 months Malkinson was jailed for 31 months.
That's the fundamental difference as even if both were given identical treatment and released after 40% of their sentence was served Tommy is going to be out 4 to 5 months earlier.
No the fundamental difference is this "Malkinson could have been released after 6½ years but was not due to his maintaining his innocence.[15] He was released in 2020 for good behaviour."
Robinson is a recidivist who has shown no contrition for his offending but is being released after serving a 1/3 of reduced sentence, Malkinson, and others who maintain their innocence, are not eligible for early parole regardless of their risk of reoffending or behaviour in prison, solely because they contest their conviction.
The latter is institutionalized spite by the Criminal Justice system for questioning the process and safety of the conviction.
That is a fiendish conundrum, isn't it. You get early release by admitting guilt. But you won't want to do that if you're innocent.
Seems completely crazy, and would be ludicrously frustrating, on top of a load of other frustrations, for the innocent prisoner
I am sure I have mentioned this before, but another crazy thing for me is the lesser sentence for attempted murder than murder. If a person who has been stabbed is saved by a passing medic while another a street away dies because no one sees him, why should the two assailants be treated any differently? They both had a desire to kill someone, and acted on it. The intention should be judged, not the outcome
Yep you can argue that. It's logical. But think where it goes. Eg I have a skinful and drive my car. Scenario A, the cops stop me and I get done for DUI. Scenario B, I hit and kill someone. My behaviour is equally bad in both scenarios, isn't it, but would we want to see the same punishment?
I see what you mean, but I think there is a decent argument that driving after having a skinful and getting away with it should be punished as if you’d hit and killed someone. The person who did the latter is no worse than the former
Trouble with that is that whilst I'm against drink driving, I'd want to distinguish between "had one pint too many, then drove a mile home home in a steady and careful manner" and "downed 15 pints and was then pulled over after been seen driving at 100mph on the wrong side of the road in 30 limit".
Both are wrong. Both have an elevated risk of killing someone, but the second guy is obviously far more of a danger to life than the first. It seems profoundly unfair if we treat them both the same, because their actions *might* have killed someone.
How do you drive home "in a steady and careful" manner after one pint, never mind "one pint too many"?
The research data shows that you are "6x more likely to be involved in a fatal crash, if you have 50-80 mg alcohol per 100ml blood, compared to 0ml".
We forget @MoonRabbit is the other Conservative...
It's one poll and means nothing in isolation. Opinium had a 5-point gap at the weekend. Perhaps of more significance, apart from More In Common, the Conservatives have been below 20% in every poll conducted since the local elections.
The only answer I think is the old cobbler saying "time wounds all heels". While we witter on about what happened 10-15 years ago as though it were still of vital importance, most voters don't. The memory of the Conservatives in office will fade with time and they will then have the opportunity (as in 2005) to go back to the public with a new slate, new faces and new thinking.
Anyone and everyone associated with the 2010-24 period such as Boris, JRM and Badenoch - all of them need to walk away and clear the field for the next generation whoever that may be.
Voters still remember when Conservative governments managed the economy well - less than a decade ago - is why to peel away from the Conservative Party to Reform right now, is hasty and stupid. Reform have zero credibility for being trusted with the UK economy.
“Vote Conservative for strong economy and looking after the pounds in your pocket. Labour, for all their good intentions will wreck the economy, they have huge black holes in their economic plans they can’t explain.” < this is exactly how the Conservative Party had so many more years in office over the last century,
Exactly like Labour struggled in 20th century, Reform will have a huge problem rebutting this. Kemi will absolutely shred Reform at the next General Election. Conservatives have pragmatism and real economic credibility - Reform are ideological purists with nothing but £100B+ black hole in their economic credibility.
"Conservatives have ... real economic credibility" Really?
Because it’s the twist that most amused the writers of The Simulation
Obvs
Right. But why male models?
Because it’s genuinely funny
The sole purpose of the universe is, now, to amuse
This reminds me vaguely of a theory: the more ridiculous a thing looks, the more likely it is that it was put in place by time travellers coming back from the future to fix things which would have otherwise caused an apocalypse. The stranger things get, the more apocalypses we have been through and had averted by time travellers putting in place bodge jobs. I wish I could remember more of this theory.
The Trump sassytempt is one of the weirdest “narrative loose ends” of recent times. If I were - god forbid - a thriller writer, there’s no way I’d get away with such an insane plot twist, that comes and goes without explanation
Ditto lab leak. For two years almost illegal to mention. Now commonly accepted. But the reaction is “oh well shit happens, move on”. 20 million people died and we just *move on*
I’ve decided the only sane response is to *chuckle knowingly*
Totally. Although the Trump shooting is explained and LabLeak is not commonly accepted.
Observing your tiny mind at work is like staring in a rock pool, watching the anemones and minnows
Again you confuse free-thinking with a lack of discipline.
Don't worry, my attention doesn't last for long. After a while the rockpool of your tiny mind begins to bore. I prod the anenome to see if it will move. I throw in a pebble to disturb the sticklebacks. They do what they always do, because they cannot do anything else
The Conservatives relied upon persuading the elites that they could protect their property; persuading centrists that they could keep the right in check; and persuading the right that they were their least bad option.
But, nobody really believes that radical socialists now threaten property; centrists are furious about the EU, and the right view the Conservatives as being as bad as the rest.
Yes the left is (sadly from my pov) in the doldrums. Eg in all of the mainstream discourse about policies, priorities, problems etc there is hardly a mention these days of what is and always has been my biggest political interest - the reduction of inequality. Nobody seems bothered about it. Or if they are it's just accepted there's no appetite or realistic possibility of doing anything serious in that space. It's afflicted me too if I'm honest. I don't care as much as I used to. If something is not happening it seems a bit pointless to stay invested in it. Then again, tell that to a lifelong Crystal Palace supporter.
The Unherd lot will tell you that (paraphrasing wildly) identity politics is a tool for the corporate west to distract from economic inequality. I'm not necessarily bought into this as a conspiracy, but it certainly has this effect. And thus, the working classes turn away from the left, because the left deals with issues of increasing irrelevance to them.
Is there any "Unherd lot"?
They have been suffering, but still have a diversish bunch of writers.
I'd say archetypically, they are leftish economically (sometimes extremely so), rightish culturally. But like any group of writers there is a diversity of opinion and of clarity of thought. Hard to know what the readership is, but extrapolating from comments I would say there is rather less enthusiasm for socialism among the readers than among the writers.
The Conservatives relied upon persuading the elites that they could protect their property; persuading centrists that they could keep the right in check; and persuading the right that they were their least bad option.
But, nobody really believes that radical socialists now threaten property; centrists are furious about the EU, and the right view the Conservatives as being as bad as the rest.
Yes the left is (sadly from my pov) in the doldrums. Eg in all of the mainstream discourse about policies, priorities, problems etc there is hardly a mention these days of what is and always has been my biggest political interest - the reduction of inequality. Nobody seems bothered about it. Or if they are it's just accepted there's no appetite or realistic possibility of doing anything serious in that space. It's afflicted me too if I'm honest. I don't care as much as I used to. If something is not happening it seems a bit pointless to stay invested in it. Then again, tell that to a lifelong Crystal Palace supporter.
The Unherd lot will tell you that (paraphrasing wildly) identity politics is a tool for the corporate west to distract from economic inequality. I'm not necessarily bought into this as a conspiracy, but it certainly has this effect. And thus, the working classes turn away from the left, because the left deals with issues of increasing irrelevance to them.
Is there any "Unherd lot"?
They have been suffering, but still have a diversish bunch of writers.
I'd say archetypically, they are leftish economically (sometimes extremely so), rightish culturally. But like any group of writers there is a diversity of opinion and of clarity of thought. Hard to know what the readership is, but extrapolating from comments I would say there is rather less enthusiasm for socialism among the readers than among the writers.
Tommy Robinson is being released from prison next week. That's eleven months early I think
Two tier justice Robinson, a multiple offender who has shown no contrition for his offending gets parole Malkinson and others wrongly convicted serve their full tariff despite being model prisoners, only being released when their convictions are overturned
Tommy many names was jailed for 18 months Malkinson was jailed for 31 months.
That's the fundamental difference as even if both were given identical treatment and released after 40% of their sentence was served Tommy is going to be out 4 to 5 months earlier.
No the fundamental difference is this "Malkinson could have been released after 6½ years but was not due to his maintaining his innocence.[15] He was released in 2020 for good behaviour."
Robinson is a recidivist who has shown no contrition for his offending but is being released after serving a 1/3 of reduced sentence, Malkinson, and others who maintain their innocence, are not eligible for early parole regardless of their risk of reoffending or behaviour in prison, solely because they contest their conviction.
The latter is institutionalized spite by the Criminal Justice system for questioning the process and safety of the conviction.
That is a fiendish conundrum, isn't it. You get early release by admitting guilt. But you won't want to do that if you're innocent.
Seems completely crazy, and would be ludicrously frustrating, on top of a load of other frustrations, for the innocent prisoner
I am sure I have mentioned this before, but another crazy thing for me is the lesser sentence for attempted murder than murder. If a person who has been stabbed is saved by a passing medic while another a street away dies because no one sees him, why should the two assailants be treated any differently? They both had a desire to kill someone, and acted on it. The intention should be judged, not the outcome
Yep you can argue that. It's logical. But think where it goes. Eg I have a skinful and drive my car. Scenario A, the cops stop me and I get done for DUI. Scenario B, I hit and kill someone. My behaviour is equally bad in both scenarios, isn't it, but would we want to see the same punishment?
I see what you mean, but I think there is a decent argument that driving after having a skinful and getting away with it should be punished as if you’d hit and killed someone. The person who did the latter is no worse than the former
Trouble with that is that whilst I'm against drink driving, I'd want to distinguish between "had one pint too many, then drove a mile home home in a steady and careful manner" and "downed 15 pints and was then pulled over after been seen driving at 100mph on the wrong side of the road in 30 limit".
Both are wrong. Both have an elevated risk of killing someone, but the second guy is obviously far more of a danger to life than the first. It seems profoundly unfair if we treat them both the same, because their actions *might* have killed someone.
If you drink and drive, you're a bloody idiot.
Definitely. That doesn't mean there aren't different degrees of idiocy, and I'm not sure it would be wise or helpful to band them together in a one size fit all sort of a way.
I agree with the point you are making, but to be pedantic someone who is so drunk they can't or can barely drive is probably less dangerous than someone who has had 3 or 4 pints and thinks they are Sterling Moss.
I like the analogy from the Big Bang Theory where someone said there was no difference between levels of wrongness to which the response was it was less wrong to say a tomato was a vegetable than to say the Golden Gate bridge was a vegetable.
That's a good point on the driving. Devil in the detail here as usual. If we're to punish the DUI driver for what could have happened (ie for the behaviour not the result of it) it becomes quite a complex assessment. So although it has a certain moral logic it's probably not practical.
We forget @MoonRabbit is the other Conservative...
It's one poll and means nothing in isolation. Opinium had a 5-point gap at the weekend. Perhaps of more significance, apart from More In Common, the Conservatives have been below 20% in every poll conducted since the local elections.
The only answer I think is the old cobbler saying "time wounds all heels". While we witter on about what happened 10-15 years ago as though it were still of vital importance, most voters don't. The memory of the Conservatives in office will fade with time and they will then have the opportunity (as in 2005) to go back to the public with a new slate, new faces and new thinking.
Anyone and everyone associated with the 2010-24 period such as Boris, JRM and Badenoch - all of them need to walk away and clear the field for the next generation whoever that may be.
Voters still remember when Conservative governments managed the economy well - less than a decade ago - is why to peel away from the Conservative Party to Reform right now, is hasty and stupid. Reform have zero credibility for being trusted with the UK economy.
“Vote Conservative for strong economy and looking after the pounds in your pocket. Labour, for all their good intentions will wreck the economy, they have huge black holes in their economic plans they can’t explain.” < this is exactly how the Conservative Party had so many more years in office over the last century,
Exactly like Labour struggled in 20th century, Reform will have a huge problem rebutting this. Kemi will absolutely shred Reform at the next General Election. Conservatives have pragmatism and real economic credibility - Reform are ideological purists with nothing but £100B+ black hole in their economic credibility.
This is wishful thinking. Populism is resurgent across the West right now & Farage knows how to ride that train.
The voters gave the Conservatives a fair shake & were disappointed, so they turned to Labour who (so far) have not covered themselves in glory. Current polling suggests that they‘re far more likely to turn to Farage/Reform than they are to give the current Conservatives another chance.
2-party FPTP systems are ruthless engines of destruction for parties that fall out of favour.
I reject your analysis. The polls say as much about the shake down end of this race, as a horse leading by a few lengths one fifth into a race.
When it comes to the run in, lack of any economic credibility, hundreds of billions of pounds of black hole, is a total Achilles heel torpedoing chances of Reform adding much to their current number of MPs. Conservative Partys economic pragmatism and historical credibility at running the economy will see them shred Reform in a General Election campaign.
The Conservatives relied upon persuading the elites that they could protect their property; persuading centrists that they could keep the right in check; and persuading the right that they were their least bad option.
But, nobody really believes that radical socialists now threaten property; centrists are furious about the EU, and the right view the Conservatives as being as bad as the rest.
Yes the left is (sadly from my pov) in the doldrums. Eg in all of the mainstream discourse about policies, priorities, problems etc there is hardly a mention these days of what is and always has been my biggest political interest - the reduction of inequality. Nobody seems bothered about it. Or if they are it's just accepted there's no appetite or realistic possibility of doing anything serious in that space. It's afflicted me too if I'm honest. I don't care as much as I used to. If something is not happening it seems a bit pointless to stay invested in it. Then again, tell that to a lifelong Crystal Palace supporter.
The Unherd lot will tell you that (paraphrasing wildly) identity politics is a tool for the corporate west to distract from economic inequality. I'm not necessarily bought into this as a conspiracy, but it certainly has this effect. And thus, the working classes turn away from the left, because the left deals with issues of increasing irrelevance to them.
Is there any "Unherd lot"?
They have been suffering, but still have a diversish bunch of writers.
I'd say archetypically, they are leftish economically (sometimes extremely so), rightish culturally. But like any group of writers there is a diversity of opinion and of clarity of thought. Hard to know what the readership is, but extrapolating from comments I would say there is rather less enthusiasm for socialism among the readers than among the writers.
Hang on: not all writers have clarity of thought.
I mean, have you read the latest John Gray
I've never been a fan of his, I'm afraid. What's his latest thesis ?
Re the header article: so are we seeing a fundamental re-alignment of British politics along a Reform / LibDem axis?
LibDem / Green electoral pact needed.
“NIMBYs of the world unite - you have nothing to lose but your economic growth.” ?
That versus "Better off after Brexit? Love Trump? You'll love Reform!"
FPTP systems usually force the median voter to vote for their second least favourite option. Looks like we might be being given a choice between zero economic growth due to rampant NIMBYism /or/ a government of all the talents led by Farage.
Really not looking forward to that one personally.
Less than one week after telling Liz Savile Roberts that an opinion he holds for more than a week is that she talks rubbish, Slalom swerves and apologises..
The Conservatives relied upon persuading the elites that they could protect their property; persuading centrists that they could keep the right in check; and persuading the right that they were their least bad option.
But, nobody really believes that radical socialists now threaten property; centrists are furious about the EU, and the right view the Conservatives as being as bad as the rest.
Yes the left is (sadly from my pov) in the doldrums. Eg in all of the mainstream discourse about policies, priorities, problems etc there is hardly a mention these days of what is and always has been my biggest political interest - the reduction of inequality. Nobody seems bothered about it. Or if they are it's just accepted there's no appetite or realistic possibility of doing anything serious in that space. It's afflicted me too if I'm honest. I don't care as much as I used to. If something is not happening it seems a bit pointless to stay invested in it. Then again, tell that to a lifelong Crystal Palace supporter.
The Unherd lot will tell you that (paraphrasing wildly) identity politics is a tool for the corporate west to distract from economic inequality. I'm not necessarily bought into this as a conspiracy, but it certainly has this effect. And thus, the working classes turn away from the left, because the left deals with issues of increasing irrelevance to them.
Is there any "Unherd lot"?
They have been suffering, but still have a diversish bunch of writers.
I'd say archetypically, they are leftish economically (sometimes extremely so), rightish culturally. But like any group of writers there is a diversity of opinion and of clarity of thought. Hard to know what the readership is, but extrapolating from comments I would say there is rather less enthusiasm for socialism among the readers than among the writers.
Yes, BTL on there is alt.right central. Lots of racists-with-a-vocab.
A looooong time ago, myself and a friend were out on the lash with some colleagues. Our boss - heavily drunk - tried to drive home. We took his keys off him and called him a taxi, returning his keys the next morning. He called us into his office and give us the bollocking from Hell.
Montie on TV saying that Tories are seriously considering bringing back BoZo
They are so done...
Nothing is surprising about the Tories. The first test for Boris, to prove whether he still has what it takes, would be the challenge of winning some random seat. There is now not a a single seat in the entire country which could be taken for granted by any Tory. If he took it on and succeeded he would be 30% of the way to a position from which political change could occur. It would not be good news, but it would be box office; all PBers would at least secretly rejoice.
(The nearest thing, though not very near, to a safe seat would be Richmond, IMHO. Not impossible....)
The problem is Boris did his utmost to kill the Conservatives, as leader.
Give him an other shot at finishing them off. The Dr Shipman of politics!
That’s the ‘assisted’ suicide bill. Dr S would be proud, a pioneer.
Re the header article: so are we seeing a fundamental re-alignment of British politics along a Reform / LibDem axis?
Possibly. But it's hard to see what future Reform have beyond Farage, so presumably the Tories will languish and then rise again at some point or another? Or a new right-wing party that isn't the Farage Party will appear after Nigel has left the stage?
We forget @MoonRabbit is the other Conservative...
It's one poll and means nothing in isolation. Opinium had a 5-point gap at the weekend. Perhaps of more significance, apart from More In Common, the Conservatives have been below 20% in every poll conducted since the local elections.
The only answer I think is the old cobbler saying "time wounds all heels". While we witter on about what happened 10-15 years ago as though it were still of vital importance, most voters don't. The memory of the Conservatives in office will fade with time and they will then have the opportunity (as in 2005) to go back to the public with a new slate, new faces and new thinking.
Anyone and everyone associated with the 2010-24 period such as Boris, JRM and Badenoch - all of them need to walk away and clear the field for the next generation whoever that may be.
Voters still remember when Conservative governments managed the economy well - less than a decade ago - is why to peel away from the Conservative Party to Reform right now, is hasty and stupid. Reform have zero credibility for being trusted with the UK economy.
“Vote Conservative for strong economy and looking after the pounds in your pocket. Labour, for all their good intentions will wreck the economy, they have huge black holes in their economic plans they can’t explain.” < this is exactly how the Conservative Party had so many more years in office over the last century,
Exactly like Labour struggled in 20th century, Reform will have a huge problem rebutting this. Kemi will absolutely shred Reform at the next General Election. Conservatives have pragmatism and real economic credibility - Reform are ideological purists with nothing but £100B+ black hole in their economic credibility.
Only very old voters. I'm in my mid-50s and I don't remember the Tories ever managing the economy well. Late Major perhaps - but they were recovering from their own previous screw-up. Only Labour has managed the economy well in my adult lifetime (in 1997-2007). The only period when the Conservatives were not a liability was the Coalition, which was not exactly glorious, and ruling alone since then was a continuous shit show.
The Conservatives relied upon persuading the elites that they could protect their property; persuading centrists that they could keep the right in check; and persuading the right that they were their least bad option.
But, nobody really believes that radical socialists now threaten property; centrists are furious about the EU, and the right view the Conservatives as being as bad as the rest.
Yes the left is (sadly from my pov) in the doldrums. Eg in all of the mainstream discourse about policies, priorities, problems etc there is hardly a mention these days of what is and always has been my biggest political interest - the reduction of inequality. Nobody seems bothered about it. Or if they are it's just accepted there's no appetite or realistic possibility of doing anything serious in that space. It's afflicted me too if I'm honest. I don't care as much as I used to. If something is not happening it seems a bit pointless to stay invested in it. Then again, tell that to a lifelong Crystal Palace supporter.
The Unherd lot will tell you that (paraphrasing wildly) identity politics is a tool for the corporate west to distract from economic inequality. I'm not necessarily bought into this as a conspiracy, but it certainly has this effect. And thus, the working classes turn away from the left, because the left deals with issues of increasing irrelevance to them.
Is there any "Unherd lot"?
They have been suffering, but still have a diversish bunch of writers.
I'd say archetypically, they are leftish economically (sometimes extremely so), rightish culturally. But like any group of writers there is a diversity of opinion and of clarity of thought. Hard to know what the readership is, but extrapolating from comments I would say there is rather less enthusiasm for socialism among the readers than among the writers.
Hang on: not all writers have clarity of thought.
I mean, have you read the latest John Gray
No, that's what I mean - there is diversity of clarity of thought: some writers manage to tell an interesting and coherent story, others, er, don't.
We forget @MoonRabbit is the other Conservative...
It's one poll and means nothing in isolation. Opinium had a 5-point gap at the weekend. Perhaps of more significance, apart from More In Common, the Conservatives have been below 20% in every poll conducted since the local elections.
The only answer I think is the old cobbler saying "time wounds all heels". While we witter on about what happened 10-15 years ago as though it were still of vital importance, most voters don't. The memory of the Conservatives in office will fade with time and they will then have the opportunity (as in 2005) to go back to the public with a new slate, new faces and new thinking.
Anyone and everyone associated with the 2010-24 period such as Boris, JRM and Badenoch - all of them need to walk away and clear the field for the next generation whoever that may be.
Voters still remember when Conservative governments managed the economy well - less than a decade ago - is why to peel away from the Conservative Party to Reform right now, is hasty and stupid. Reform have zero credibility for being trusted with the UK economy.
“Vote Conservative for strong economy and looking after the pounds in your pocket. Labour, for all their good intentions will wreck the economy, they have huge black holes in their economic plans they can’t explain.” < this is exactly how the Conservative Party had so many more years in office over the last century,
Exactly like Labour struggled in 20th century, Reform will have a huge problem rebutting this. Kemi will absolutely shred Reform at the next General Election. Conservatives have pragmatism and real economic credibility - Reform are ideological purists with nothing but £100B+ black hole in their economic credibility.
This is wishful thinking. Populism is resurgent across the West right now & Farage knows how to ride that train.
The voters gave the Conservatives a fair shake & were disappointed, so they turned to Labour who (so far) have not covered themselves in glory. Current polling suggests that they‘re far more likely to turn to Farage/Reform than they are to give the current Conservatives another chance.
2-party FPTP systems are ruthless engines of destruction for parties that fall out of favour.
I reject your analysis. The polls say as much about the shake down end of this race, as a horse leading by a few lengths one fifth into a race.
When it comes to the run in, lack of any economic credibility, hundreds of billions of pounds of black hole, is a total Achilles heel torpedoing chances of Reform adding much to their current number of MPs. Conservative Partys economic pragmatism and historical credibility at running the economy will see them shred Reform in a General Election campaign.
This is what Remain thought about the Leave campaign.
An angry population will vote for whomever offers a combination of the most attractive sweeteners combined with giving them someone to blame; populist movements are good at exactly that thing & Reform could well ride that wave into government.
If we see Reform led councils collapsing early & often then people might open their eyes to the likely economic competence of a future Reform government, but without that concrete example I suspect the voters will weigh such warnings about as heavily as they did “project fear”. You can be right, but it doesn’t mean the voters will listen to you.
A looooong time ago, myself and a friend were out on the lash with some colleagues. Our boss - heavily drunk - tried to drive home. We took his keys off him and called him a taxi, returning his keys the next morning. He called us into his office and give us the bollocking from Hell.
My contract was not renewed...
Hope you told your boss he was a stupid, selfish bastard on the way out of the door?
The key point in the tweet in the title is that the Tories are in 4th place "for the first time since 2019".
Does anybody remember what happened in the final month of that turbulent year?
Polling fluctuations at the start of a Parliament mean f-all in predicting the outcome of the next election to anybody except a few political obsessives, especially the case now when it is almost certain that we are in for a >4 year Parliament.
I realise that undermines about 70% of the comments on here over the next few years, no doubt including some of my own, but it's a key point and can't be stated often enough.
Or at any rate it isn't being stated nearly often enough.
Re the header article: so are we seeing a fundamental re-alignment of British politics along a Reform / LibDem axis?
LibDem / Green electoral pact needed.
“NIMBYs of the world unite - you have nothing to lose but your economic growth.” ?
That versus "Better off after Brexit? Love Trump? You'll love Reform!"
FPTP systems usually force the median voter to vote for their second least favourite option. Looks like we might be being given a choice between zero economic growth due to rampant NIMBYism /or/ a government of all the talents led by Farage.
Really not looking forward to that one personally.
A non too inspired choice and for a large portion of the country a result that would be the polar opposite of what they want. How does the winning party reconcile that ?
If the Lib Dem’s were sensible (a big ask, admittedly) they’d be looking at how they can expand their offer to appeal to other parts of the country as well. What can they offer the North East, or Lincolnshire, or other Reform friendly areas. These are not areas, in my view, that are diehard Reform. It is just NOTA and part of the appeal of Reform is, at least, Reform talk to these areas.
The Lib Dem’s will also benefit from more donations as power starts to look likely, if the trajectory continues and Farage is equally loved and loathed. I’d vote Reform at a local level but I’d never vote for PM Farage. I suspect I’m not alone.
A looooong time ago, myself and a friend were out on the lash with some colleagues. Our boss - heavily drunk - tried to drive home. We took his keys off him and called him a taxi, returning his keys the next morning. He called us into his office and give us the bollocking from Hell.
My contract was not renewed...
Hope you told your boss he was a stupid, selfish bastard on the way out of the door?
Nah. Never burn bridges. The contract was not renewed a few weeks after, and the company had a weird thing that contractors who worked for them for a set period became permanent - and my time was approaching that limit. So the incident and non-renewal might not be connected.
What got me was the dressing-down he gave us. As if we had been in the wrong, not him.
I had not even been particularly drunk, as I was on painkillers at the time. I was the sober one.
The Conservatives relied upon persuading the elites that they could protect their property; persuading centrists that they could keep the right in check; and persuading the right that they were their least bad option.
But, nobody really believes that radical socialists now threaten property; centrists are furious about the EU, and the right view the Conservatives as being as bad as the rest.
Yes the left is (sadly from my pov) in the doldrums. Eg in all of the mainstream discourse about policies, priorities, problems etc there is hardly a mention these days of what is and always has been my biggest political interest - the reduction of inequality. Nobody seems bothered about it. Or if they are it's just accepted there's no appetite or realistic possibility of doing anything serious in that space. It's afflicted me too if I'm honest. I don't care as much as I used to. If something is not happening it seems a bit pointless to stay invested in it. Then again, tell that to a lifelong Crystal Palace supporter.
The Unherd lot will tell you that (paraphrasing wildly) identity politics is a tool for the corporate west to distract from economic inequality. I'm not necessarily bought into this as a conspiracy, but it certainly has this effect. And thus, the working classes turn away from the left, because the left deals with issues of increasing irrelevance to them.
Is there any "Unherd lot"?
They have been suffering, but still have a diversish bunch of writers.
I'd say archetypically, they are leftish economically (sometimes extremely so), rightish culturally. But like any group of writers there is a diversity of opinion and of clarity of thought. Hard to know what the readership is, but extrapolating from comments I would say there is rather less enthusiasm for socialism among the readers than among the writers.
It was founded by Tim Montgomerie, as a vehicle after he left ConHome iirc, and Monty started as a colleague of IDS around the socially-aware Conservative beat and the Centre for Social Justice think tank.
But Monty left in 2018, and it is now owned - like the Spectator and GB News - by Sir Paul Roderick Clucas Marshall (brilliant name - Clucas must have a story).
As we know, Monty has gone Reform, and IDS is rather more crusty than he was.
To me they seem to have a bit more US-Right related content, but have not lost a lot of writers, and do have writers from other streams.
A looooong time ago, myself and a friend were out on the lash with some colleagues. Our boss - heavily drunk - tried to drive home. We took his keys off him and called him a taxi, returning his keys the next morning. He called us into his office and give us the bollocking from Hell.
My contract was not renewed...
Hope you told your boss he was a stupid, selfish bastard on the way out of the door?
Nah. Never burn bridges. The contract was not renewed a few weeks after, and the company had a weird thing that contractors who worked for them for a set period became permanent - and my time was approaching that limit. So the incident and non-renewal might not be connected.
What got me was the dressing-down he gave us. As if we had been in the wrong, not him.
I had not even been particularly drunk, as I was on painkillers at the time. I was the sober one.
A less effective, but potentially less personally costly, Plan B, is call 999, and tell them the number plate and where he is going. Sometimes people listen to cops more.
I don't normally talk to people, but when I mentioned to somebody that he had blocked the mobility aid hospital entrance with his car, and that all the people would have to go back 100m+ down the pavement and come back up the main driveway road, I got a right mouthful.
A looooong time ago, myself and a friend were out on the lash with some colleagues. Our boss - heavily drunk - tried to drive home. We took his keys off him and called him a taxi, returning his keys the next morning. He called us into his office and give us the bollocking from Hell.
My contract was not renewed...
Hope you told your boss he was a stupid, selfish bastard on the way out of the door?
Nah. Never burn bridges. The contract was not renewed a few weeks after, and the company had a weird thing that contractors who worked for them for a set period became permanent - and my time was approaching that limit. So the incident and non-renewal might not be connected.
What got me was the dressing-down he gave us. As if we had been in the wrong, not him.
I had not even been particularly drunk, as I was on painkillers at the time. I was the sober one.
I 100% follow the principle of never burning bridges, but if there ever was a time to do so, your story seems like it.
The key point in the tweet in the title is that the Tories are in 4th place "for the first time since 2019".
Does anybody remember what happened in the final month of that turbulent year?
Polling fluctuations at the start of a Parliament mean f-all in predicting the outcome of the next election to anybody except a few political obsessives, especially the case now when it is almost certain that we are in for a >4 year Parliament.
I realise that undermines about 70% of the comments on here over the next few years, no doubt including some of my own, but it's a key point and can't be stated often enough.
Or at any rate it isn't being stated nearly often enough.
The Tories could win in 2029 - if Reform are bankrupted by Lowe, Labour massively screw up, and new Tory leader Tugenhat finds a vibe shift that actually looks stable.
Those things are very unlikely to happen but of course its possible.
The point about 2019 is that there was a burning platform at the start of the year due to collapse which would propel a populist government with an exciting and charismatic leader into office. In 2025 the platform is on fire under the Tories and the exciting and charismatic leader is Farage...
A looooong time ago, myself and a friend were out on the lash with some colleagues. Our boss - heavily drunk - tried to drive home. We took his keys off him and called him a taxi, returning his keys the next morning. He called us into his office and give us the bollocking from Hell.
My contract was not renewed...
Hope you told your boss he was a stupid, selfish bastard on the way out of the door?
Nah. Never burn bridges. The contract was not renewed a few weeks after, and the company had a weird thing that contractors who worked for them for a set period became permanent - and my time was approaching that limit. So the incident and non-renewal might not be connected.
What got me was the dressing-down he gave us. As if we had been in the wrong, not him.
A lot of drunks and drunk/drugged drivers think they're doing nothing wrong as it's like second nature to them.
My attitude is, who cares if the idiot killed himself, but suppose he took a family out with him?
I knew someone who crashed his car while drunk driving and killed himself (that's his problem) but also took out an innocent woman who was driving on safely and doing nothing wrong.
Tommy Robinson is being released from prison next week. That's eleven months early I think
Two tier justice Robinson, a multiple offender who has shown no contrition for his offending gets parole Malkinson and others wrongly convicted serve their full tariff despite being model prisoners, only being released when their convictions are overturned
Tommy many names was jailed for 18 months Malkinson was jailed for 31 months.
That's the fundamental difference as even if both were given identical treatment and released after 40% of their sentence was served Tommy is going to be out 4 to 5 months earlier.
No the fundamental difference is this "Malkinson could have been released after 6½ years but was not due to his maintaining his innocence.[15] He was released in 2020 for good behaviour."
Robinson is a recidivist who has shown no contrition for his offending but is being released after serving a 1/3 of reduced sentence, Malkinson, and others who maintain their innocence, are not eligible for early parole regardless of their risk of reoffending or behaviour in prison, solely because they contest their conviction.
The latter is institutionalized spite by the Criminal Justice system for questioning the process and safety of the conviction.
That is a fiendish conundrum, isn't it. You get early release by admitting guilt. But you won't want to do that if you're innocent.
Seems completely crazy, and would be ludicrously frustrating, on top of a load of other frustrations, for the innocent prisoner
I am sure I have mentioned this before, but another crazy thing for me is the lesser sentence for attempted murder than murder. If a person who has been stabbed is saved by a passing medic while another a street away dies because no one sees him, why should the two assailants be treated any differently? They both had a desire to kill someone, and acted on it. The intention should be judged, not the outcome
Yep you can argue that. It's logical. But think where it goes. Eg I have a skinful and drive my car. Scenario A, the cops stop me and I get done for DUI. Scenario B, I hit and kill someone. My behaviour is equally bad in both scenarios, isn't it, but would we want to see the same punishment?
I see what you mean, but I think there is a decent argument that driving after having a skinful and getting away with it should be punished as if you’d hit and killed someone. The person who did the latter is no worse than the former
Trouble with that is that whilst I'm against drink driving, I'd want to distinguish between "had one pint too many, then drove a mile home home in a steady and careful manner" and "downed 15 pints and was then pulled over after been seen driving at 100mph on the wrong side of the road in 30 limit".
Both are wrong. Both have an elevated risk of killing someone, but the second guy is obviously far more of a danger to life than the first. It seems profoundly unfair if we treat them both the same, because their actions *might* have killed someone.
I meant if both drivers had drunk the same amount. But I do think that zero tolerance for drink driving, as far as is possible, should be the way. I occasionally used to drive to the pub on a Sat night and have three lager shandies over three hours then drive home, but I still felt a bit looser than when I drove completely sober.
We forget @MoonRabbit is the other Conservative...
It's one poll and means nothing in isolation. Opinium had a 5-point gap at the weekend. Perhaps of more significance, apart from More In Common, the Conservatives have been below 20% in every poll conducted since the local elections.
The only answer I think is the old cobbler saying "time wounds all heels". While we witter on about what happened 10-15 years ago as though it were still of vital importance, most voters don't. The memory of the Conservatives in office will fade with time and they will then have the opportunity (as in 2005) to go back to the public with a new slate, new faces and new thinking.
Anyone and everyone associated with the 2010-24 period such as Boris, JRM and Badenoch - all of them need to walk away and clear the field for the next generation whoever that may be.
Voters still remember when Conservative governments managed the economy well - less than a decade ago - is why to peel away from the Conservative Party to Reform right now, is hasty and stupid. Reform have zero credibility for being trusted with the UK economy.
“Vote Conservative for strong economy and looking after the pounds in your pocket. Labour, for all their good intentions will wreck the economy, they have huge black holes in their economic plans they can’t explain.” < this is exactly how the Conservative Party had so many more years in office over the last century,
Exactly like Labour struggled in 20th century, Reform will have a huge problem rebutting this. Kemi will absolutely shred Reform at the next General Election. Conservatives have pragmatism and real economic credibility - Reform are ideological purists with nothing but £100B+ black hole in their economic credibility.
Only very old voters. I'm in my mid-50s and I don't remember the Tories ever managing the economy well. Late Major perhaps - but they were recovering from their own previous screw-up. Only Labour has managed the economy well in my adult lifetime (in 1997-2007). The only period when the Conservatives were not a liability was the Coalition, which was not exactly glorious, and ruling alone since then was a continuous shit show.
Labour's management of the economy was absolutely disastrous right from the get-go in 1997.
A looooong time ago, myself and a friend were out on the lash with some colleagues. Our boss - heavily drunk - tried to drive home. We took his keys off him and called him a taxi, returning his keys the next morning. He called us into his office and give us the bollocking from Hell.
My contract was not renewed...
Hope you told your boss he was a stupid, selfish bastard on the way out of the door?
Nah. Never burn bridges. The contract was not renewed a few weeks after, and the company had a weird thing that contractors who worked for them for a set period became permanent - and my time was approaching that limit. So the incident and non-renewal might not be connected.
What got me was the dressing-down he gave us. As if we had been in the wrong, not him.
A lot of drunks and drunk/drugged drivers think they're doing nothing wrong as it's like second nature to them.
My attitude is, who cares if the idiot killed himself, but suppose he took a family out with him?
I knew someone who crashed his car while drunk driving and killed himself (that's his problem) but also took out an innocent woman who was driving on safely and doing nothing wrong.
I think DUI is one of those that got past the "don't shop your friends" point, which is very good. I think there's some slippage - remembering for example the Cardiff 2023 (?) "lost VW" crash where the driver and passengers were all drunk, and we now have the issue alongside that drugging and driving is acceptable in some circles and demographics.
Tommy Robinson is being released from prison next week. That's eleven months early I think
Two tier justice Robinson, a multiple offender who has shown no contrition for his offending gets parole Malkinson and others wrongly convicted serve their full tariff despite being model prisoners, only being released when their convictions are overturned
Tommy many names was jailed for 18 months Malkinson was jailed for 31 months.
That's the fundamental difference as even if both were given identical treatment and released after 40% of their sentence was served Tommy is going to be out 4 to 5 months earlier.
No the fundamental difference is this "Malkinson could have been released after 6½ years but was not due to his maintaining his innocence.[15] He was released in 2020 for good behaviour."
Robinson is a recidivist who has shown no contrition for his offending but is being released after serving a 1/3 of reduced sentence, Malkinson, and others who maintain their innocence, are not eligible for early parole regardless of their risk of reoffending or behaviour in prison, solely because they contest their conviction.
The latter is institutionalized spite by the Criminal Justice system for questioning the process and safety of the conviction.
That is a fiendish conundrum, isn't it. You get early release by admitting guilt. But you won't want to do that if you're innocent.
Seems completely crazy, and would be ludicrously frustrating, on top of a load of other frustrations, for the innocent prisoner
I am sure I have mentioned this before, but another crazy thing for me is the lesser sentence for attempted murder than murder. If a person who has been stabbed is saved by a passing medic while another a street away dies because no one sees him, why should the two assailants be treated any differently? They both had a desire to kill someone, and acted on it. The intention should be judged, not the outcome
Yep you can argue that. It's logical. But think where it goes. Eg I have a skinful and drive my car. Scenario A, the cops stop me and I get done for DUI. Scenario B, I hit and kill someone. My behaviour is equally bad in both scenarios, isn't it, but would we want to see the same punishment?
I see what you mean, but I think there is a decent argument that driving after having a skinful and getting away with it should be punished as if you’d hit and killed someone. The person who did the latter is no worse than the former
Trouble with that is that whilst I'm against drink driving, I'd want to distinguish between "had one pint too many, then drove a mile home home in a steady and careful manner" and "downed 15 pints and was then pulled over after been seen driving at 100mph on the wrong side of the road in 30 limit".
Both are wrong. Both have an elevated risk of killing someone, but the second guy is obviously far more of a danger to life than the first. It seems profoundly unfair if we treat them both the same, because their actions *might* have killed someone.
If you drink and drive, you're a bloody idiot.
Definitely. That doesn't mean there aren't different degrees of idiocy, and I'm not sure it would be wise or helpful to band them together in a one size fit all sort of a way.
I think the proposition (isam) was more that if you're stopped and found to be pie-eyed at the wheel, ie totally blotto not just a bit tipsy, the punishment should be similar to if you'd hit and killed somebody, because it's only pure luck that you didn't.
The Conservatives relied upon persuading the elites that they could protect their property; persuading centrists that they could keep the right in check; and persuading the right that they were their least bad option.
But, nobody really believes that radical socialists now threaten property; centrists are furious about the EU, and the right view the Conservatives as being as bad as the rest.
Yes the left is (sadly from my pov) in the doldrums. Eg in all of the mainstream discourse about policies, priorities, problems etc there is hardly a mention these days of what is and always has been my biggest political interest - the reduction of inequality. Nobody seems bothered about it. Or if they are it's just accepted there's no appetite or realistic possibility of doing anything serious in that space. It's afflicted me too if I'm honest. I don't care as much as I used to. If something is not happening it seems a bit pointless to stay invested in it. Then again, tell that to a lifelong Crystal Palace supporter.
The Unherd lot will tell you that (paraphrasing wildly) identity politics is a tool for the corporate west to distract from economic inequality. I'm not necessarily bought into this as a conspiracy, but it certainly has this effect. And thus, the working classes turn away from the left, because the left deals with issues of increasing irrelevance to them.
Is there any "Unherd lot"?
They have been suffering, but still have a diversish bunch of writers.
I'd say archetypically, they are leftish economically (sometimes extremely so), rightish culturally. But like any group of writers there is a diversity of opinion and of clarity of thought. Hard to know what the readership is, but extrapolating from comments I would say there is rather less enthusiasm for socialism among the readers than among the writers.
A looooong time ago, myself and a friend were out on the lash with some colleagues. Our boss - heavily drunk - tried to drive home. We took his keys off him and called him a taxi, returning his keys the next morning. He called us into his office and give us the bollocking from Hell.
My contract was not renewed...
No one like people shouting "You're a taxi" at them
What's his point? He objects to Muslim Women not being kept in their place?
(He's a bit of a Rupert Lowe type, btw.)
PS: Reading his responses on the thread, he's quite the knuckledragger.
He's doing the usual tactic - try and demonise all the Muslims, including in his case the women as he is anti-woman as well, by taking a particular allegation and smearing it more generally.
In this case the new female Muslim Mayor of Rotherham is a Magistrate, has a career working at a Domestic Violence charity, and is Chair of UNISON Sheffield.
I have a standing bet with another PBer that Boris will return in time for the next election.
But I can’t remember which PBer. Think it was £100.
I'm not aware of a PBer with the user name £100.
I think £100 may be right. Certainly l, figures like Tugendhat are too nice / bright for the more Tories, and figures like Badenoch and Jenrick are relatable enougb.
Full steam ahead, therefore, for more corruption with Boris.
The key point in the tweet in the title is that the Tories are in 4th place "for the first time since 2019".
Does anybody remember what happened in the final month of that turbulent year?
Polling fluctuations at the start of a Parliament mean f-all in predicting the outcome of the next election to anybody except a few political obsessives, especially the case now when it is almost certain that we are in for a >4 year Parliament.
I realise that undermines about 70% of the comments on here over the next few years, no doubt including some of my own, but it's a key point and can't be stated often enough.
Or at any rate it isn't being stated nearly often enough.
The Tories could win in 2029 - if Reform are bankrupted by Lowe, Labour massively screw up, and new Tory leader Tugenhat finds a vibe shift that actually looks stable.
Those things are very unlikely to happen but of course its possible.
The point about 2019 is that there was a burning platform at the start of the year due to collapse which would propel a populist government with an exciting and charismatic leader into office. In 2025 the platform is on fire under the Tories and the exciting and charismatic leader is Farage...
Another big difference with 2019 is incumbency. It is much harder to drift into irrelevance when you're running the show, providing the PM, and what you do is important and newsworthy simply because it's your hand on the tiller.
As you say, there are ways back - plenty that can happen over the coming years to put the Tories back in contention. They are a rounding error behind the Lib Dems in one poll, and that may well be an outlier. But if it starts being a regular thing, then the narrative gets terribly stuck with RefUK being the right wing choice, the Lib Dems the moderate alternative to the Government, and really what are the Tories bringing to the table?
What a garbled mess below - figures like Tugendhat are too nice and bright for the modern Tories, and figures like Badenoch and Jenrick not relatable enough, that should say there.
We forget @MoonRabbit is the other Conservative...
It's one poll and means nothing in isolation. Opinium had a 5-point gap at the weekend. Perhaps of more significance, apart from More In Common, the Conservatives have been below 20% in every poll conducted since the local elections.
The only answer I think is the old cobbler saying "time wounds all heels". While we witter on about what happened 10-15 years ago as though it were still of vital importance, most voters don't. The memory of the Conservatives in office will fade with time and they will then have the opportunity (as in 2005) to go back to the public with a new slate, new faces and new thinking.
Anyone and everyone associated with the 2010-24 period such as Boris, JRM and Badenoch - all of them need to walk away and clear the field for the next generation whoever that may be.
Voters still remember when Conservative governments managed the economy well - less than a decade ago - is why to peel away from the Conservative Party to Reform right now, is hasty and stupid. Reform have zero credibility for being trusted with the UK economy.
“Vote Conservative for strong economy and looking after the pounds in your pocket. Labour, for all their good intentions will wreck the economy, they have huge black holes in their economic plans they can’t explain.” < this is exactly how the Conservative Party had so many more years in office over the last century,
Exactly like Labour struggled in 20th century, Reform will have a huge problem rebutting this. Kemi will absolutely shred Reform at the next General Election. Conservatives have pragmatism and real economic credibility - Reform are ideological purists with nothing but £100B+ black hole in their economic credibility.
This is wishful thinking. Populism is resurgent across the West right now & Farage knows how to ride that train.
The voters gave the Conservatives a fair shake & were disappointed, so they turned to Labour who (so far) have not covered themselves in glory. Current polling suggests that they‘re far more likely to turn to Farage/Reform than they are to give the current Conservatives another chance.
2-party FPTP systems are ruthless engines of destruction for parties that fall out of favour.
I reject your analysis. The polls say as much about the shake down end of this race, as a horse leading by a few lengths one fifth into a race.
When it comes to the run in, lack of any economic credibility, hundreds of billions of pounds of black hole, is a total Achilles heel torpedoing chances of Reform adding much to their current number of MPs. Conservative Partys economic pragmatism and historical credibility at running the economy will see them shred Reform in a General Election campaign.
This is what Remain thought about the Leave campaign.
An angry population will vote for whomever offers a combination of the most attractive sweeteners combined with giving them someone to blame; populist movements are good at exactly that thing & Reform could well ride that wave into government.
If we see Reform led councils collapsing early & often then people might open their eyes to the likely economic competence of a future Reform government, but without that concrete example I suspect the voters will weigh such warnings about as heavily as they did “project fear”. You can be right, but it doesn’t mean the voters will listen to you.
Firstly, you are comparing a Brexit referendum with a general election? Many voters skipped Brexit referendum, or voted leave on basis it wasn’t an election choosing a party to look after the economy. How leave areas returned MPs for hard left Corbyn in 2017 is substantial psephological evidence. That alone shredded your post.
But, secondly, this isn’t two party politics. It won’t be Labour and Conservative squabbling over whose manifesto is greatest threat with Black Holes in the budgets, at the March April campaign 2029, a lot of both main parties air time and budget will be spent pointing out to voters that, from migration, economics, health, education, through to foreign affairs, Reform do not have a sane, workable, non ruinous policy to take to serious UK voters.
A looooong time ago, myself and a friend were out on the lash with some colleagues. Our boss - heavily drunk - tried to drive home. We took his keys off him and called him a taxi, returning his keys the next morning. He called us into his office and give us the bollocking from Hell.
My contract was not renewed...
Hope you told your boss he was a stupid, selfish bastard on the way out of the door?
Nah. Never burn bridges. The contract was not renewed a few weeks after, and the company had a weird thing that contractors who worked for them for a set period became permanent - and my time was approaching that limit. So the incident and non-renewal might not be connected.
What got me was the dressing-down he gave us. As if we had been in the wrong, not him.
A lot of drunks and drunk/drugged drivers think they're doing nothing wrong as it's like second nature to them.
My attitude is, who cares if the idiot killed himself, but suppose he took a family out with him?
I knew someone who crashed his car while drunk driving and killed himself (that's his problem) but also took out an innocent woman who was driving on safely and doing nothing wrong.
I think DUI is one of those that got past the "don't shop your friends" point, which is very good. I think there's some slippage - remembering for example the Cardiff 2023 (?) "lost VW" crash where the driver and passengers were all drunk, and we now have the issue alongside that drugging and driving is acceptable in some circles and demographics.
There needs to be some sort of public information campaign on drugs. They can stay in your system much longer. And that "certain demographic" is often the people doing the school run.
The other issue is that by doing drugs, you're already breaking the law. For some people, the driving on top isn't an escalation of the wrongdoing.
We forget @MoonRabbit is the other Conservative...
It's one poll and means nothing in isolation. Opinium had a 5-point gap at the weekend. Perhaps of more significance, apart from More In Common, the Conservatives have been below 20% in every poll conducted since the local elections.
The only answer I think is the old cobbler saying "time wounds all heels". While we witter on about what happened 10-15 years ago as though it were still of vital importance, most voters don't. The memory of the Conservatives in office will fade with time and they will then have the opportunity (as in 2005) to go back to the public with a new slate, new faces and new thinking.
Anyone and everyone associated with the 2010-24 period such as Boris, JRM and Badenoch - all of them need to walk away and clear the field for the next generation whoever that may be.
Voters still remember when Conservative governments managed the economy well - less than a decade ago - is why to peel away from the Conservative Party to Reform right now, is hasty and stupid. Reform have zero credibility for being trusted with the UK economy.
“Vote Conservative for strong economy and looking after the pounds in your pocket. Labour, for all their good intentions will wreck the economy, they have huge black holes in their economic plans they can’t explain.” < this is exactly how the Conservative Party had so many more years in office over the last century,
Exactly like Labour struggled in 20th century, Reform will have a huge problem rebutting this. Kemi will absolutely shred Reform at the next General Election. Conservatives have pragmatism and real economic credibility - Reform are ideological purists with nothing but £100B+ black hole in their economic credibility.
This is wishful thinking. Populism is resurgent across the West right now & Farage knows how to ride that train.
The voters gave the Conservatives a fair shake & were disappointed, so they turned to Labour who (so far) have not covered themselves in glory. Current polling suggests that they‘re far more likely to turn to Farage/Reform than they are to give the current Conservatives another chance.
2-party FPTP systems are ruthless engines of destruction for parties that fall out of favour.
I reject your analysis. The polls say as much about the shake down end of this race, as a horse leading by a few lengths one fifth into a race.
When it comes to the run in, lack of any economic credibility, hundreds of billions of pounds of black hole, is a total Achilles heel torpedoing chances of Reform adding much to their current number of MPs. Conservative Partys economic pragmatism and historical credibility at running the economy will see them shred Reform in a General Election campaign.
This is what Remain thought about the Leave campaign.
An angry population will vote for whomever offers a combination of the most attractive sweeteners combined with giving them someone to blame; populist movements are good at exactly that thing & Reform could well ride that wave into government.
If we see Reform led councils collapsing early & often then people might open their eyes to the likely economic competence of a future Reform government, but without that concrete example I suspect the voters will weigh such warnings about as heavily as they did “project fear”. You can be right, but it doesn’t mean the voters will listen to you.
Firstly, you are comparing a Brexit referendum with a general election? Many voters skipped Brexit referendum, or voted leave on basis it wasn’t an election choosing a party to look after the economy. How leave areas returned MPs for hard left Corbyn in 2017 is substantial psephological evidence. That alone shredded your post.
But, secondly, this isn’t two party politics. It won’t be Labour and Conservative squabbling over whose manifesto is greatest threat with Black Holes in the budgets, at the March April campaign 2029, a lot of both main parties air time and budget will be spent pointing out to voters that, from migration, economics, health, education, through to foreign affairs, Reform do not have a sane, workable, non ruinous policy to take to serious UK voters.
What will be quite bizarre especially if Reform are still leading the polls in the run up to the GE, is the Labour and Tory parties not allowing Farage airtime on debates because Reform only have five seats in the HofC. They will surely try it though
Comments
They are so done...
Every person who goes over 30 in a residential area, and everyone who jumps a red light can end up unlawfully killing the child who runs into the road.
That's the way it is. If Thomas Cashman, now serving life, minimum 40+ years IIRC (Liverpool, the Olivia aged 9 case) had fired his shot at another house and missed the victim etc the endless work would not have gone into proving the case against him, and at least one crucial witness would have remained silent. It is unlikely he would have been caught. Luck. And bad luck.
I love these local Tory fayres.
Oh you're out of money? That's sad, goodbye.
Shareholders and bond holders wiped out. Buyer beware, should have done better due diligence.
Assets go to highest bidder, and if no bidders then a newco, to ensure continuity of supplies.
Customers don't lose out. Services aren't interrupted.
Privatise the gains, privatise the losses. There is zero reason for the taxpayer or consumer to foot private losses.
We forget @MoonRabbit is the other Conservative...
It's one poll and means nothing in isolation. Opinium had a 5-point gap at the weekend. Perhaps of more significance, apart from More In Common, the Conservatives have been below 20% in every poll conducted since the local elections.
The only answer I think is the old cobbler saying "time wounds all heels". While we witter on about what happened 10-15 years ago as though it were still of vital importance, most voters don't. The memory of the Conservatives in office will fade with time and they will then have the opportunity (as in 2005) to go back to the public with a new slate, new faces and new thinking.
Anyone and everyone associated with the 2010-24 period such as Boris, JRM and Badenoch - all of them need to walk away and clear the field for the next generation whoever that may be.
(The nearest thing, though not very near, to a safe seat would be Richmond, IMHO. Not impossible....)
Both are wrong. Both have an elevated risk of killing someone, but the second guy is obviously far more of a danger to life than the first. It seems profoundly unfair if we treat them both the same, because their actions *might* have killed someone.
We have a process for resolving situations around bankruptcy.
Let Thames slide into administration. Its neither the taxpayers, nor the consumers, responsibility.
The tories could probably hold on to Richmond on a Boris In Wellies campaign.
But more likely is an unacknowledged Reform/Lab-LD axis, replacing the Tory/Lab-LD axis in most of England now.
In Canada, Carney wasn't an MP when he became PM, let alone Liberal Party leader.
Presumably if not an MP, would need someone to deputise for PMQs, answering the Budget etc
But I can’t remember which PBer.
Think it was £100.
Then I yawn and run on, down the beach
I think it's all a bit fanciful.
Personally, I don’t want him back in any form.
Not even for entertainment value.
The man has been entirely destructive to British public life.
I think it's more realistic he becomes the candidate for London Mayor. The reasons are numerous. Londoners don't particularly like Brexit, but the provinces don't particularly like the Boriswave, so he starts with a handicap in both.
If he gets a meaningful amount more votes than angry Susan did, they can count it as something of a victory - enough for a tilt at becoming an MP. And if Labour are stupid enough to select James Corden, and Reform have the SAS man, suddently Boris starts looking like the serious option.
They could make him a peer, but it'd be a major slap in the face not to give an ex-PM a peerage if they wanted it (some haven't wanted to be a working peer and Truss is Truss).
Her first response was to say 'That's f&#@ing miles away'. There hasn't been a second response.
Carrie, I suspect, will be of similar mind.
The Bozza schtick would be fascinating to see in 2025. Two obvious policy directions:
After the Starmer Gimp comment yesterday he'd clearly be banging a Defend Brexit drum. There's a problem. He thinks his Brexit deal was brilliant. The country has seen the opposite and besides which Farage can outflank him on every issue.
His other obvious play is the return of Levelling Up. We're going to spend £400 billion in YOUR town. Again the problem is that he didn't spend the promised cash last time and won't be able to show where it would come from this time. And besides which Farage would promise to actually sort your town by rounding up the forrin AND sticking a lick of paint on things with money saved from asylum bills.
Its insanity for the Tories to consider it. But when you are desperate and stupid, why not.
Unless Kemi wants to grow a spine and bar him?
“Vote Conservative for strong economy and looking after the pounds in your pocket. Labour, for all their good intentions will wreck the economy, they have huge black holes in their economic plans they can’t explain.” < this is exactly how the Conservative Party had so many more years in office over the last century,
Exactly like Labour struggled in 20th century, Reform will have a huge problem rebutting this. Kemi will absolutely shred Reform at the next General Election. Conservatives have pragmatism and real economic credibility - Reform are ideological purists with nothing but £100B+ black hole in their economic credibility.
They have been suffering, but still have a diversish bunch of writers.
Now that the country has had extensive experience of Borisness, are they more or less likely to vote for him? Reform will point (justifiably) to the Boriswave, Lab/LDs to the terrible Brexit deal. It seems he has nothing to offer any voting group except for the diehard Tory one, which current polls suggest isn’t large enough to carry the day, even in a five way contest.
I was going to deep dive and see which one has normally come first in (say) the last 20 years, but I sense a general waning of interest on the board.
The voters gave the Conservatives a fair shake & were disappointed, so they turned to Labour who (so far) have not covered themselves in glory. Current polling suggests that they‘re far more likely to turn to Farage/Reform than they are to give the current Conservatives another chance.
2-party FPTP systems are ruthless engines of destruction for parties that fall out of favour.
I like the analogy from the Big Bang Theory where someone said there was no difference between levels of wrongness to which the response was it was less wrong to say a tomato was a vegetable than to say the Golden Gate bridge was a vegetable.
Voters do not remember the Tories managing the economy well. Brexit then Boris then Starmer then the Nigel surge - all demonstrates that people are absolutely sick of being told they are actually well off in a well managed economy actually. Its broken, they're broke, and they're demanding action.
Tories can't credibly claim looking after the pound in our pocket. Truss trashed the remaining shreds of credibility, and can I also refer you to the debt mountain you added post Brexit?
Kemi won't be leader at the next GE. But I'll indulge you so assume for a minute she is - as a politician she is brittle, narrow and argumentative. She is not going to shred Farage.
Reform are ideological purists? Farage is calling for the renationalisation of steel and wants PR. That's flexibility. Your lot? Did you hear Kemi yesterday? Or indeed any day?
Sorry MoonRabbit, you're clinging onto an imagined version of reality. In the real world your party is sinking into the abyss. And you are to blame - until you can identify reality you have zero hope of turning things around.
The research data shows that you are "6x more likely to be involved in a fatal crash, if you have 50-80 mg alcohol per 100ml blood, compared to 0ml".
That is, below the legal limit, which is 80mg/ml.
https://www.brake.org.uk/get-involved/take-action/mybrake/knowledge-centre/drink-driving
He got 53 of the 87 votes - all the LDs, Independents, Labour, all bar one Conservative (who didn't vote), Labour and Green backed him.
The MK councillors abstained as did 22 of the Reform Group while two other Reform members didn't vote.
Nine Councillors were absent.
Really?
Hard to know what the readership is, but extrapolating from comments I would say there is rather less enthusiasm for socialism among the readers than among the writers.
I mean, have you read the latest John Gray
When it comes to the run in, lack of any economic credibility, hundreds of billions of pounds of black hole, is a total Achilles heel torpedoing chances of Reform adding much to their current number of MPs. Conservative Partys economic pragmatism and historical credibility at running the economy will see them shred Reform in a General Election campaign.
Really not looking forward to that one personally.
My contract was not renewed...
An angry population will vote for whomever offers a combination of the most attractive sweeteners combined with giving them someone to blame; populist movements are good at exactly that thing & Reform could well ride that wave into government.
If we see Reform led councils collapsing early & often then people might open their eyes to the likely economic competence of a future Reform government, but without that concrete example I suspect the voters will weigh such warnings about as heavily as they did “project fear”. You can be right, but it doesn’t mean the voters will listen to you.
Does anybody remember what happened in the final month of that turbulent year?
Polling fluctuations at the start of a Parliament mean f-all in predicting the outcome of the next election to anybody except a few political obsessives, especially the case now when it is almost certain that we are in for a >4 year Parliament.
I realise that undermines about 70% of the comments on here over the next few years, no doubt including some of my own, but it's a key point and can't be stated often enough.
Or at any rate it isn't being stated nearly often enough.
If the Lib Dem’s were sensible (a big ask, admittedly) they’d be looking at how they can expand their offer to appeal to other parts of the country as well. What can they offer the North East, or Lincolnshire, or other Reform friendly areas. These are not areas, in my view, that are diehard Reform. It is just NOTA and part of the appeal of Reform is, at least, Reform talk to these areas.
The Lib Dem’s will also benefit from more donations as power starts to look likely, if the trajectory continues and Farage is equally loved and loathed. I’d vote Reform at a local level but I’d never vote for PM Farage. I suspect I’m not alone.
What got me was the dressing-down he gave us. As if we had been in the wrong, not him.
I had not even been particularly drunk, as I was on painkillers at the time. I was the sober one.
But Monty left in 2018, and it is now owned - like the Spectator and GB News - by Sir Paul Roderick Clucas Marshall (brilliant name - Clucas must have a story).
As we know, Monty has gone Reform, and IDS is rather more crusty than he was.
To me they seem to have a bit more US-Right related content, but have not lost a lot of writers, and do have writers from other streams.
If the Corbynites win the leadership election I doubt it would be viable.
The calls for PR may get louder abd louder.
I don't normally talk to people, but when I mentioned to somebody that he had blocked the mobility aid hospital entrance with his car, and that all the people would have to go back 100m+ down the pavement and come back up the main driveway road, I got a right mouthful.
Those things are very unlikely to happen but of course its possible.
The point about 2019 is that there was a burning platform at the start of the year due to collapse which would propel a populist government with an exciting and charismatic leader into office. In 2025 the platform is on fire under the Tories and the exciting and charismatic leader is Farage...
My attitude is, who cares if the idiot killed himself, but suppose he took a family out with him?
I knew someone who crashed his car while drunk driving and killed himself (that's his problem) but also took out an innocent woman who was driving on safely and doing nothing wrong.
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2025/04/27/hyperliberalism/
He's doing the usual tactic - try and demonise all the Muslims, including in his case the women as he is anti-woman as well, by taking a particular allegation and smearing it more generally.
In this case the new female Muslim Mayor of Rotherham is a Magistrate, has a career working at a Domestic Violence charity, and is Chair of UNISON Sheffield.
Quite fitting that he apologised six days after snapping at the accusation that he never holds an opinion for longer than a week
Starmer says sorry to Plaid Cymru MP Liz Savile Roberts for saying a belief he holds for more than a week is "the belief that she talks rubbish."
https://x.com/guidofawkes/status/1924808027321901168?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
Full steam ahead, therefore, for more corruption with Boris.
As you say, there are ways back - plenty that can happen over the coming years to put the Tories back in contention. They are a rounding error behind the Lib Dems in one poll, and that may well be an outlier. But if it starts being a regular thing, then the narrative gets terribly stuck with RefUK being the right wing choice, the Lib Dems the moderate alternative to the Government, and really what are the Tories bringing to the table?
Boris Johnson got elected leader of the Conservative Party.
The Conservative Party's recovery in the polls started immediately after he got elected leader.
A hell of a lot hinges on the Polanski-Corbyn-Sultana axis. There’s nothing else stopping Labour from hitting Tory style numbers.
"You know how it goes: all you want to do is start your holiday, but you get off the plane to never-ending queues at passport control.
My deal with the EU means more Brits will be able to sail through the e-Gates instead.
Getting you to the beach sooner."
But, secondly, this isn’t two party politics. It won’t be Labour and Conservative squabbling over whose manifesto is greatest threat with Black Holes in the budgets, at the March April campaign 2029, a lot of both main parties air time and budget will be spent pointing out to voters that, from migration, economics, health, education, through to foreign affairs, Reform do not have a sane, workable, non ruinous policy to take to serious UK voters.
The other issue is that by doing drugs, you're already breaking the law. For some people, the driving on top isn't an escalation of the wrongdoing.