This feels a bit like self-employed Times/Spectator writers trying to make lanyards a thing when to a vast proportion of people employed by others, they’re just a routine part of daily working life.
They never used to be..the civil service is not a template for the rest of the workforce..🧐🥴
They became more common with electronic access systems. I see them used in universities, but also in schools. I’ve seen them used in the civil surface, but also in private sector companies.
Are they not also now quite routine for children at school?
Have you noticed how quiet it is out and about. My local pub seems to have had business fall off a cliff since the start of April. My local coffee shop is quiet when it used to be packed. Seaside resorts are noticeably quieter. Something is brewing out there and it aint good.
Warm weather and people without children taking cheap foreign holidays before the school term ends and prices rocket for six weeks.
But yes, I have noticed it's quieter out, but that is my rationalisation for it.
Indeed. But this has been going on a while now. The woman at my local pub when i mentioned how quiet it was started ranting about Starmer for a couple of minutes. He really is universally hated.
Tories would be fools to fall for Boris Johnson again, writes Jenni Russell in The Times
While Johnson dithers, wondering not what he could do for his country but what his country might do for him, the Tories must decide how to react; they would be culpable fools to fall for this hollow man a second time. The idea that Johnson is the route to Tory recovery is preposterous. He’s the root cause of their current collapse. He broke their brand. He promised to cut immigration only to drive it up by millions. He promised post-Brexit prosperity but made the country poorer. He promised levelling up but couldn’t be bothered, so delivered levelling down. He wrecked his party, expelling so many decent principled Tories that his successor was the catastrophic Truss. He pioneered the recklessness she tried to imitate. He modelled deception, charm and carelessness as a route to highest office. His betrayals have deepened the despairing political cynicism that pervades Britain now. The country has been damaged in every way by his legacy.
If some inattentive voters have forgotten or forgiven this, Reform haven’t; a party led by Boris would be pulverised on his record. This is not 2016, and Johnson is yesterday’s man. This is no time for a dilettante. Britons are angry, scared and furious at politicians’ paralysis as their lives and prospects get worse. They’re looking for conviction, action, dynamism, and leaders who mean to do what they say.
He wrecked his party, expelling so many decent principled Tories that his successor was the catastrophic Truss.
Can she name any of these people who she says were expelled ?
By "decent, principled Tories" I assume she means the ones who refused to implement the largest democratic vote in British history, despite having run on a manifesto that both called for that vote and promised to implement it?
Their decency is in her imagination, and their principles were dishonesty, anti-democracy and contempt for the voters who paid their salaries.
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Not since we voted to impose economic sanctions on ourselves in 2016 and that was reinforced when we voted Ronald MacDonald as PM in 2019.
Thankfully we've now got Sir Statesmanlike restoring our global reputation one compo cheque at a time.
He's merely signing the cheques. Your chaps filled in the bearer names and figures in GBP.
Have you noticed how quiet it is out and about. My local pub seems to have had business fall off a cliff since the start of April. My local coffee shop is quiet when it used to be packed. Seaside resorts are noticeably quieter. Something is brewing out there and it aint good.
Warm weather and people without children taking cheap foreign holidays before the school term ends and prices rocket for six weeks.
But yes, I have noticed it's quieter out, but that is my rationalisation for it.
Indeed. But this has been going on a while now. The woman at my local pub when i mentioned how quiet it was started ranting about Starmer for a couple of minutes. He really is universally hated.
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
As soon as I saw the header this morning I knew you'd be regurgitating that polling stat.
All it does is demonstrate how poor Kemi Badenoch is.
or how tory leaning voters wont vote for a party led by a black woman
I paid zero attention to it at the time because why the fuck would anybody be interested in Gurning Nobody vs Whey Faced Psychopath but exactly how did Kemical Kastration beat Jenners in the membership vote? What the fuck did she promise the stupid old c-nts?
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
I lived in Havering most of my life and I think people who still do would vote to Leave London if there were a referendum on it.
I think that is correct. Whether they'd want to join Essex is something I'm less clear on.
At least Essex people would have something to join. Parts of 'London' still have a Middlesex identity, 60 years after its total obliteration, but there is nothing left except a not very good cricket team and John Betjeman:
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
What is going to happen with energy today? We're already at 120%, exporting to the continent and the sun is barely up yet.
I guess we'll be paying lots of turbines to turn off. What a waste.
And we’re still burning gas, presumably down South because the grid can’t get the electricity from the wind farms quickly enough.
0.41gw going into pumped storage.
We’re also, oddly, buying electricity from France up the interconnector at the moment.
Another good illustration of getting stuff built rather than messing around with planning enquiries and legal challenges for half a decade.
Far more grid infrastructure could be built by now if that were the case.
Sure you would love a tower in your garden
I live in West Yorkshir, Malc. Pylons have crisscrossed the landscape for decades.
It's a complete non issue for 95% - Farage and other bits of the political and media Right scraping around for a marketing narrative, since they have no credible policies.
Not so long ago RefUK were in support of meeting net-zero.
I think because that is how the Right frame it themselves - it's an arm of both Nimbyism and the Reform narrative, plus their media drone on about it endlessly.
For the MP you link, Adrian Ramsey, TBF to him he is asking for alternatives to be considered ie an offshore grid and buried cables, in advance of pylon lines. I don't see either of those as viable - one for national secutity and fishing reasons, the other because of cost and maintainability.
I grew up with a pylon in our family paddock in Derbyshire, and I don't see any problem.
I'd much rather a pylon than a turbine. The visual impact of something white and moving is 10x worse, and then you've got all the vehicle tracks trashing the moor.
What's weird is that they bury the cables running off the hill from the turbines. In my view the hill is already bespoiled by the turbines, so it's a massive cost for not much gain. I apply the same logic for running the Beauly-Denny line down the A9 corridor - it's already got a dual carriageway running down it, so there shouldn't be planning worries (in terms of landscape) if there is already significant infrastructure in place.
Like everything, infrastructure in the UK has a much bigger visual impact than elsewhere because of our lack of trees. The 275kv/400kv lines running through the north-east of Scotland make scarcely any impact all where they run through wooded areas.
What is going to happen with energy today? We're already at 120%, exporting to the continent and the sun is barely up yet.
I guess we'll be paying lots of turbines to turn off. What a waste.
And we’re still burning gas, presumably down South because the grid can’t get the electricity from the wind farms quickly enough.
0.41gw going into pumped storage.
We’re also, oddly, buying electricity from France up the interconnector at the moment.
Another good illustration of getting stuff built rather than messing around with planning enquiries and legal challenges for half a decade.
Far more grid infrastructure could be built by now if that were the case.
Sure you would love a tower in your garden
I live in West Yorkshir, Malc. Pylons have crisscrossed the landscape for decades.
It's a complete non issue for 95% - Farage and other bits of the political and media Right scraping around for a marketing narrative, since they have no credible policies.
Not so long ago RefUK were in support of meeting net-zero.
I think because that is how the Right frame it themselves - it's an arm of both Nimbyism and the Reform narrative, plus their media drone on about it endlessly.
For the MP you link, Adrian Ramsey, TBF to him he is asking for alternatives to be considered ie an offshore grid and buried cables, in advance of pylon lines. I don't see either of those as viable - one for national secutity and fishing reasons, the other because of cost and maintainability.
I grew up with a pylon in our family paddock in Derbyshire, and I don't see any problem.
Reform are proposing underground cables too.
The Greens also campaign against solar at a local level, in the wrong area is the Lib Dem style of excuse.
This is my photo for today. It is an uncontrolled crossing on the Colchester Road in London, taken by the Ranty Highwayman (he is a highway designer) on his walk from J28 on the M25 to Marble Arch, as part of "May the month for walking" - surveying the infra as he went (including suggestions and context). This one has 35k vehicles per day, and a 50mph limit. It's a good way to get a top slice view; I used to enjoy walking half way across London, but I did it for architectural interest.
"Just down from the sub station access is an uncontrolled crossing of the Colchester Road between Painesbrook Park and St. Neots Park (above). As well as the parks and people living both sides of the A12, there are primary schools here and Harold Wood station to the south, and as such, there are often people trying to cross here with over 35,000 vehicles a day and a 50mph speed limit."
This feels a bit like self-employed Times/Spectator writers trying to make lanyards a thing when to a vast proportion of people employed by others, they’re just a routine part of daily working life.
They never used to be..the civil service is not a template for the rest of the workforce..🧐🥴
Really. I haven't worked for about 15 years, yet they were very common then. Being a one man band obviously I didn't have one, but I have dozens of them from conferences and big companies that I visited. Everywhere I visited I had to sign in and was given a lanyard or visitors badge. All of these were large commercial organisations. Invariably I was supposed to return them on leaving, but often forgot.
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
I find these sort of charts incredibly annoying because they are misleading, gdp per capita is a useful measure for individual countries to use to see if on the whole they are getting better. Between countries however I think they are actually not only useless but detrimental.
My reasoning for this is that is for instance you use the basket of goods we use to calculate cpih you may well find
Country A gdp per capita 50000$ basket of goods value = 1000$ Country B gdp per capita 100000$ basket of goods value = 3000$
So by purely gdp per capita measures people in country B are twice as well off whereas in reality because they have a cost of living 3 times higher
Therefore for how far the working wage goes
Country A realistically is 50 Country B realistically is 33.33
"I accused men of being responsible for a social breakdown which is costing us all, as taxpayers, £9.1 billion per year, and which is producing a generation of ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate children.
"With £90 billion currently spent on welfare, the great economic issues of our time are social. They are moral. And yet the Government is virtually incapacitated from utterance by its own bumbling.
"The modern British male is useless. If he is blue collar, he is likely to be drunk, criminal, aimless, feckless and hopeless, and perhaps claiming to suffer from low self-esteem brought on by unemployment. If he is white collar, he is likely to be little better.
"Something must be found, first, to restore women's desire to be married. That means addressing the feebleness of the modern Briton, his reluctance or inability to take control of his woman and be head of a household."
- Boris: "The male sex is to blame for the appalling proliferation of single mothers", The Spectator, 19 August 1995.
"I accused men of being responsible for a social breakdown which is costing us all, as taxpayers, £9.1 billion per year, and which is producing a generation of ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate children.
"With £90 billion currently spent on welfare, the great economic issues of our time are social. They are moral. And yet the Government is virtually incapacitated from utterance by its own bumbling.
"The modern British male is useless. If he is blue collar, he is likely to be drunk, criminal, aimless, feckless and hopeless, and perhaps claiming to suffer from low self-esteem brought on by unemployment. If he is white collar, he is likely to be little better.
"Something must be found, first, to restore women's desire to be married. That means addressing the feebleness of the modern Briton, his reluctance or inability to take control of his woman and be head of a household."
- Boris: "The male sex is to blame for the appalling proliferation of single mothers", The Spectator, 19 August 1995.
Was he talking about himself there and projecting?
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
I find these sort of charts incredibly annoying because they are misleading, gdp per capita is a useful measure for individual countries to use to see if on the whole they are getting better. Between countries however I think they are actually not only useless but detrimental.
My reasoning for this is that is for instance you use the basket of goods we use to calculate cpih you may well find
Country A gdp per capita 50000$ basket of goods value = 1000$ Country B gdp per capita 100000$ basket of goods value = 3000$
So by purely gdp per capita measures people in country B are twice as well off whereas in reality because they have a cost of living 3 times higher
Therefore for how far the working wage goes
Country A realistically is 50 Country B realistically is 33.33
Even then, it's not particularly useful because GDP per capita does not correlate 1:1 with median income (PPP), which probably gives us a better feel for how the average person is getting on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income
We are still waiting for the Foreign Student Lists from Harvard so that we can determine, after a ridiculous expenditure of BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, how many radicalized lunatics, troublemakers all, should not be let back into our Country. Harvard is very slow in the presentation of these documents, and probably for good reason! The best thing Harvard has going for it is that they have shopped around and found the absolute best Judge (for them!) - But have no fear, the Government will, in the end, WIN!
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
I find these sort of charts incredibly annoying because they are misleading, gdp per capita is a useful measure for individual countries to use to see if on the whole they are getting better. Between countries however I think they are actually not only useless but detrimental.
My reasoning for this is that is for instance you use the basket of goods we use to calculate cpih you may well find
Country A gdp per capita 50000$ basket of goods value = 1000$ Country B gdp per capita 100000$ basket of goods value = 3000$
So by purely gdp per capita measures people in country B are twice as well off whereas in reality because they have a cost of living 3 times higher
Therefore for how far the working wage goes
Country A realistically is 50 Country B realistically is 33.33
Consumption per capita is an alternate measure.
This is the ONS data for 2020, unfortunately nothing post covid and Ukraine:
Germany 124 UK 113 France 110 Italy 96 Spain 85 Czechia 83 Poland 83 Romania 80 Slovakia 71 Hungary 70 Bulgaria 61
What these various lists show is that if eastern European countries are going to 'overtake' the UK they will do so after already overtaking Spain, Italy and France and only shortly before they overtake Germany.
Have you noticed how quiet it is out and about. My local pub seems to have had business fall off a cliff since the start of April. My local coffee shop is quiet when it used to be packed. Seaside resorts are noticeably quieter. Something is brewing out there and it aint good.
Warm weather and people without children taking cheap foreign holidays before the school term ends and prices rocket for six weeks.
But yes, I have noticed it's quieter out, but that is my rationalisation for it.
Indeed. But this has been going on a while now. The woman at my local pub when i mentioned how quiet it was started ranting about Starmer for a couple of minutes. He really is universally hated.
Have you noticed how quiet it is out and about. My local pub seems to have had business fall off a cliff since the start of April. My local coffee shop is quiet when it used to be packed. Seaside resorts are noticeably quieter. Something is brewing out there and it aint good.
Warm weather and people without children taking cheap foreign holidays before the school term ends and prices rocket for six weeks.
But yes, I have noticed it's quieter out, but that is my rationalisation for it.
Indeed. But this has been going on a while now. The woman at my local pub when i mentioned how quiet it was started ranting about Starmer for a couple of minutes. He really is universally hated.
Antipathy towards Keir Starmer is not going to stop people going out for a bevy.
We are still waiting for the Foreign Student Lists from Harvard so that we can determine, after a ridiculous expenditure of BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, how many radicalized lunatics, troublemakers all, should not be let back into our Country. Harvard is very slow in the presentation of these documents, and probably for good reason! The best thing Harvard has going for it is that they have shopped around and found the absolute best Judge (for them!) - But have no fear, the Government will, in the end, WIN!
What is odd about Trump is that for all his MAGA rhetoric, he seems to be working from a list of all America's advantages, all the things that did make America great, and setting out to destroy them. Today it is the inwards brain drain of the world's best minds to American universities.
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
I find these sort of charts incredibly annoying because they are misleading, gdp per capita is a useful measure for individual countries to use to see if on the whole they are getting better. Between countries however I think they are actually not only useless but detrimental.
My reasoning for this is that is for instance you use the basket of goods we use to calculate cpih you may well find
Country A gdp per capita 50000$ basket of goods value = 1000$ Country B gdp per capita 100000$ basket of goods value = 3000$
So by purely gdp per capita measures people in country B are twice as well off whereas in reality because they have a cost of living 3 times higher
Therefore for how far the working wage goes
Country A realistically is 50 Country B realistically is 33.33
Is there a gap in the market for PPP adjusted GDP per capita?
We are still waiting for the Foreign Student Lists from Harvard so that we can determine, after a ridiculous expenditure of BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, how many radicalized lunatics, troublemakers all, should not be let back into our Country. Harvard is very slow in the presentation of these documents, and probably for good reason! The best thing Harvard has going for it is that they have shopped around and found the absolute best Judge (for them!) - But have no fear, the Government will, in the end, WIN!
Harvard should just reply:
"How many radicalized lunatics, troublemakers all, should not be let back into our Country?
When the President of the US next goes abroad on a state visit, the answer will be:
We are still waiting for the Foreign Student Lists from Harvard so that we can determine, after a ridiculous expenditure of BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, how many radicalized lunatics, troublemakers all, should not be let back into our Country. Harvard is very slow in the presentation of these documents, and probably for good reason! The best thing Harvard has going for it is that they have shopped around and found the absolute best Judge (for them!) - But have no fear, the Government will, in the end, WIN!
Proving once again the Mad King is a clueless old fool
Harvard is required to provide such information before any of the students can get a visa
This is my photo for today. It is an uncontrolled crossing on the Colchester Road in London, taken by the Ranty Highwayman (he is a highway designer) on his walk from J28 on the M25 to Marble Arch, as part of "May the month for walking" - surveying the infra as he went (including suggestions and context). This one has 35k vehicles per day, and a 50mph limit. It's a good way to get a top slice view; I used to enjoy walking half way across London, but I did it for architectural interest.
"Just down from the sub station access is an uncontrolled crossing of the Colchester Road between Painesbrook Park and St. Neots Park (above). As well as the parks and people living both sides of the A12, there are primary schools here and Harold Wood station to the south, and as such, there are often people trying to cross here with over 35,000 vehicles a day and a 50mph speed limit."
We are still waiting for the Foreign Student Lists from Harvard so that we can determine, after a ridiculous expenditure of BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, how many radicalized lunatics, troublemakers all, should not be let back into our Country. Harvard is very slow in the presentation of these documents, and probably for good reason! The best thing Harvard has going for it is that they have shopped around and found the absolute best Judge (for them!) - But have no fear, the Government will, in the end, WIN!
What is odd about Trump is that for all his MAGA rhetoric, he seems to be working from a list of all America's advantages, all the things that did make America great, and setting out to destroy them. Today it is the inwards brain drain of the world's best minds to American universities.
He also said overnight "We want to make the AI and the weapons, not the shirts and socks" while talking about manufacturing 'returning' to the US
WTF does he think the US Military Industrial Complex does today?
His brains are leaking out of his ears, on live TV...
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
Interestingly that wiki list gives USA wealth per adult as:
$112,157 median $564,862 mean
compared with UK wealth per adult:
$163,515 median $350,264 mean
illustrating how much greater wealth inequality is in the USA.
UK average median house prices are often higher than US average median house prices that is why (beyond a few exceptions like California and New York city, DC and Massachussetts and Hawaii which are extremely expensive to buy property in and therefore whack up the mean, though they are on a par with London still anyway).
US average income is higher than UK average income, though again with inner London the only exception here that can compete with US salaries. However UK wealth is higher because of home owners with more expensive assets here
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
True and there's another vital reason why we would have much higher immigration from young Europeans than you'd expect given the relative incomes - the magnetic pull of London as Europe's business and tech startup capital and English as the world's language.
Many young foreigners come here because learning the world's most important language is vital to their future career prospects, and because it's much easier to fit in in a country where you already half-speak the language anyway, having learned it at school.
Also, if the moronic Starmer government really is stupid enough to rejoin Erasmus, we can expect a huge number of EU students desperate to access our world-leading universities at the same time as improving their English. I spent some time in a decent European university a few weeks ago, and a large proportion of the students I met there were desperate to avail themselves of our higher education. Whereas in the few years since we left Erasmus, I've heard no more than a handful of English students who wished we were still in it, and some professors who've said how much money our higher education system has saved since we left.
So for all those reasons, we're better off keeping control of our own borders as much as possible.
What is going to happen with energy today? We're already at 120%, exporting to the continent and the sun is barely up yet.
I guess we'll be paying lots of turbines to turn off. What a waste.
And we’re still burning gas, presumably down South because the grid can’t get the electricity from the wind farms quickly enough.
0.41gw going into pumped storage.
We’re also, oddly, buying electricity from France up the interconnector at the moment.
Another good illustration of getting stuff built rather than messing around with planning enquiries and legal challenges for half a decade.
Far more grid infrastructure could be built by now if that were the case.
Sure you would love a tower in your garden
I live in West Yorkshir, Malc. Pylons have crisscrossed the landscape for decades.
It's a complete non issue for 95% - Farage and other bits of the political and media Right scraping around for a marketing narrative, since they have no credible policies.
Not so long ago RefUK were in support of meeting net-zero.
I think because that is how the Right frame it themselves - it's an arm of both Nimbyism and the Reform narrative, plus their media drone on about it endlessly.
For the MP you link, Adrian Ramsey, TBF to him he is asking for alternatives to be considered ie an offshore grid and buried cables, in advance of pylon lines. I don't see either of those as viable - one for national secutity and fishing reasons, the other because of cost and maintainability.
I grew up with a pylon in our family paddock in Derbyshire, and I don't see any problem.
I'd much rather a pylon than a turbine. The visual impact of something white and moving is 10x worse, and then you've got all the vehicle tracks trashing the moor.
What's weird is that they bury the cables running off the hill from the turbines. In my view the hill is already bespoiled by the turbines, so it's a massive cost for not much gain. I apply the same logic for running the Beauly-Denny line down the A9 corridor - it's already got a dual carriageway running down it, so there shouldn't be planning worries (in terms of landscape) if there is already significant infrastructure in place.
Like everything, infrastructure in the UK has a much bigger visual impact than elsewhere because of our lack of trees. The 275kv/400kv lines running through the north-east of Scotland make scarcely any impact all where they run through wooded areas.
The number of posters complaining about SSEN’s proliferation of “mega pylons” on the A90 seemed to have taken yet another leap this morning when I was driving to Aberdeen. They are seriously unpopular with the locals.
"I've got a brilliant new strategy, which is to make so many gaffes that nobody knows which one to concentrate on. [...] They cease to be newsworthy, you completely out-general the media in that way, and they despair. [...] You shell them, you pepper the media... you've got to pepper their positions with so many gaffes that they're confused. It's like a helicopter throwing out chaff, and then you steal on quietly and drop your depth charges wherever you want to drop them."
"I've got a brilliant new strategy, which is to make so many gaffes that nobody knows which one to concentrate on. [...] They cease to be newsworthy, you completely out-general the media in that way, and they despair. [...] You shell them, you pepper the media... you've got to pepper their positions with so many gaffes that they're confused. It's like a helicopter throwing out chaff, and then you steal on quietly and drop your depth charges wherever you want to drop them."
- Boris on BBC Booktalk in 2006.
Donny is doing the same thing
The problem though is that every single gaffe is newsworthy. Every single one says "This guy should not be in charge, of anything"
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
Interestingly that wiki list gives USA wealth per adult as:
$112,157 median $564,862 mean
compared with UK wealth per adult:
$163,515 median $350,264 mean
illustrating how much greater wealth inequality is in the USA.
UK average median house prices are often higher than US average median house prices that is why (beyond a few exceptions like California and New York city, DC and Massachussetts and Hawaii which are extremely expensive to buy property in and therefore whack up the mean, though they are on a par with London still anyway).
US average income is higher than UK average income, though again with inner London the only exception here that can compete with US salaries. However UK wealth is higher because of home owners with more expensive assets here
High house prices are good for wealth but not so good for standard of living because it means a large % of income goes on accommodation costs.
"I've got a brilliant new strategy, which is to make so many gaffes that nobody knows which one to concentrate on. [...] They cease to be newsworthy, you completely out-general the media in that way, and they despair. [...] You shell them, you pepper the media... you've got to pepper their positions with so many gaffes that they're confused. It's like a helicopter throwing out chaff, and then you steal on quietly and drop your depth charges wherever you want to drop them."
- Boris on BBC Booktalk in 2006.
Donny is doing the same thing
The problem though is that every single gaffe is newsworthy. Every single one says "This guy should not be in charge, of anything"
Trump rose to the top of the American political system because he's the most qualified to be commander in chief. He's actually capable of leading the public towards his positions in a way that lesser politicians, who rely on focus groups to know what to say, can only dream of.
"I've got a brilliant new strategy, which is to make so many gaffes that nobody knows which one to concentrate on. [...] They cease to be newsworthy, you completely out-general the media in that way, and they despair. [...] You shell them, you pepper the media... you've got to pepper their positions with so many gaffes that they're confused. It's like a helicopter throwing out chaff, and then you steal on quietly and drop your depth charges wherever you want to drop them."
- Boris on BBC Booktalk in 2006.
Donny is doing the same thing
The problem though is that every single gaffe is newsworthy. Every single one says "This guy should not be in charge, of anything"
Trump rose to the top of the American political system because he's the most qualified to be commander in chief. He's actually capable of leading the public towards his positions in a way that lesser politicians, who rely on focus groups to know what to say, can only dream of.
He didn't. He made it back due to (i) his cultish base scaring the GOP into submission and (ii) high inflation under the Dems and (iii) Biden spiking their drink by hanging on until the last minute.
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
I find these sort of charts incredibly annoying because they are misleading, gdp per capita is a useful measure for individual countries to use to see if on the whole they are getting better. Between countries however I think they are actually not only useless but detrimental.
My reasoning for this is that is for instance you use the basket of goods we use to calculate cpih you may well find
Country A gdp per capita 50000$ basket of goods value = 1000$ Country B gdp per capita 100000$ basket of goods value = 3000$
So by purely gdp per capita measures people in country B are twice as well off whereas in reality because they have a cost of living 3 times higher
Therefore for how far the working wage goes
Country A realistically is 50 Country B realistically is 33.33
Is there a gap in the market for PPP adjusted GDP per capita?
It used to be that American presidents on such occasions would say things that sought to create a blandly positive unified glow across the nation. I'll take a lot of persuading that Trump's departure from this is an improvement.
Liverpool police said don't bring flares..that was obviously ignored..😏👌
Look at all these bellends in New Street Station. As much as I despise AVFC I’d far rather locals supported a local team than glory hunted the Mickey Mousers
I know some will be from the pool but most won’t be.
Trump rose to the top of the American political system because he's the most qualified to be commander in chief. He's actually capable of leading the public towards his positions in a way that lesser politicians, who rely on focus groups to know what to say, can only dream of.
Liverpool police said don't bring flares..that was obviously ignored..😏👌
Look at all these bellends in New Street Station. As much as I despise AVFC I’d far rather locals supported a local team than glory hunted the Mickey Mousers
I know some will be from the pool but most won’t be.
When swindon had their one season in the premiership the most depressing thing was all the local fans of ‘x’ or ‘y’ turning out when their club was in Town. There’s no rule that says you have to support you home team, but my god I can’t stand those who just support the most successful team at the time.
"I've got a brilliant new strategy, which is to make so many gaffes that nobody knows which one to concentrate on. [...] They cease to be newsworthy, you completely out-general the media in that way, and they despair. [...] You shell them, you pepper the media... you've got to pepper their positions with so many gaffes that they're confused. It's like a helicopter throwing out chaff, and then you steal on quietly and drop your depth charges wherever you want to drop them."
- Boris on BBC Booktalk in 2006.
Donny is doing the same thing
The problem though is that every single gaffe is newsworthy. Every single one says "This guy should not be in charge, of anything"
Trump rose to the top of the American political system because he's the most qualified to be commander in chief. He's actually capable of leading the public towards his positions in a way that lesser politicians, who rely on focus groups to know what to say, can only dream of.
He didn't. He made it back due to (i) his cultish base scaring the GOP into submission and (ii) high inflation under the Dems and (iii) Biden spiking their drink by hanging on until the last minute.
More that the nutball right self radicalised in a spiral, going through a sound finance phase (Tea Party) to moon howling.
The various groupings saw that their barrier to power was other non-batshit Republicans - see Mitt Romney etc. So they concentrated on gathering power at local level and working their way up.
In the more general sphere, they did similar in local elections for various minor offices and the lowest levels of the judicial system.
The pyramid of loons reached ever higher. And higher
Trump lucked out on reaching out to these people at the right time. They broke through the dam of the Republican establishment to give him the first nomination. And he, as the nominee and then President gave them full control of the party.
There has been a clear change here in East Ham - in 2005, we had a lot of Poles and Lithuanians move into the area. They quickly set up food shops and established communities but they are now gone.
We have a lot of Romanians and Bulgarians now along with a growing community of Sub-Saharan Africans from the ex-Portuguese colonies who can come into Europe via Portugal quite easily - not sure if that loophole still exists. Some Afghanis but not many Somalis.
Liverpool police said don't bring flares..that was obviously ignored..😏👌
Look at all these bellends in New Street Station. As much as I despise AVFC I’d far rather locals supported a local team than glory hunted the Mickey Mousers
I know some will be from the pool but most won’t be.
When swindon had their one season in the premiership the most depressing thing was all the local fans of ‘x’ or ‘y’ turning out when their club was in Town. There’s no rule that says you have to support you home team, but my god I can’t stand those who just support the most successful team at the time.
I remember seeing a young lad in Coventry wearing a Blackburn top the year after they won the league.
"I've got a brilliant new strategy, which is to make so many gaffes that nobody knows which one to concentrate on. [...] They cease to be newsworthy, you completely out-general the media in that way, and they despair. [...] You shell them, you pepper the media... you've got to pepper their positions with so many gaffes that they're confused. It's like a helicopter throwing out chaff, and then you steal on quietly and drop your depth charges wherever you want to drop them."
- Boris on BBC Booktalk in 2006.
Donny is doing the same thing
The problem though is that every single gaffe is newsworthy. Every single one says "This guy should not be in charge, of anything"
Trump rose to the top of the American political system because he's the most qualified to be commander in chief. He's actually capable of leading the public towards his positions in a way that lesser politicians, who rely on focus groups to know what to say, can only dream of.
He didn't. He made it back due to (i) his cultish base scaring the GOP into submission and (ii) high inflation under the Dems and (iii) Biden spiking their drink by hanging on until the last minute.
More that the nutball right self radicalised in a spiral, going through a sound finance phase (Tea Party) to moon howling.
The various groupings saw that their barrier to power was other non-batshit Republicans - see Mitt Romney etc. So they concentrated on gathering power at local level and working their way up.
In the more general sphere, they did similar in local elections for various minor offices and the lowest levels of the judicial system.
The pyramid of loons reached ever higher. And higher
Trump lucked out on reaching out to these people at the right time. They broke through the dam of the Republican establishment to give him the first nomination. And he, as the nominee and then President gave them full control of the party.
But he hasn't given them full control of the party. Trump has imposed positions on them that are not at all in line with things they have been arguing for over the years. Trump is a very skilled politician, which you can see most clearly in how he handled the question of abortion.
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
I find these sort of charts incredibly annoying because they are misleading, gdp per capita is a useful measure for individual countries to use to see if on the whole they are getting better. Between countries however I think they are actually not only useless but detrimental.
My reasoning for this is that is for instance you use the basket of goods we use to calculate cpih you may well find
Country A gdp per capita 50000$ basket of goods value = 1000$ Country B gdp per capita 100000$ basket of goods value = 3000$
So by purely gdp per capita measures people in country B are twice as well off whereas in reality because they have a cost of living 3 times higher
Therefore for how far the working wage goes
Country A realistically is 50 Country B realistically is 33.33
Is there a gap in the market for PPP adjusted GDP per capita?
"I've got a brilliant new strategy, which is to make so many gaffes that nobody knows which one to concentrate on. [...] They cease to be newsworthy, you completely out-general the media in that way, and they despair. [...] You shell them, you pepper the media... you've got to pepper their positions with so many gaffes that they're confused. It's like a helicopter throwing out chaff, and then you steal on quietly and drop your depth charges wherever you want to drop them."
- Boris on BBC Booktalk in 2006.
Donny is doing the same thing
The problem though is that every single gaffe is newsworthy. Every single one says "This guy should not be in charge, of anything"
Trump rose to the top of the American political system because he's the most qualified to be commander in chief. He's actually capable of leading the public towards his positions in a way that lesser politicians, who rely on focus groups to know what to say, can only dream of.
He didn't. He made it back due to (i) his cultish base scaring the GOP into submission and (ii) high inflation under the Dems and (iii) Biden spiking their drink by hanging on until the last minute.
More that the nutball right self radicalised in a spiral, going through a sound finance phase (Tea Party) to moon howling.
The various groupings saw that their barrier to power was other non-batshit Republicans - see Mitt Romney etc. So they concentrated on gathering power at local level and working their way up.
In the more general sphere, they did similar in local elections for various minor offices and the lowest levels of the judicial system.
The pyramid of loons reached ever higher. And higher
Trump lucked out on reaching out to these people at the right time. They broke through the dam of the Republican establishment to give him the first nomination. And he, as the nominee and then President gave them full control of the party.
Yes, pretty much. His power does come from the people but not in the sense of broad based popularity. It's via the Maga cult's control of the Republican party.
"I've got a brilliant new strategy, which is to make so many gaffes that nobody knows which one to concentrate on. [...] They cease to be newsworthy, you completely out-general the media in that way, and they despair. [...] You shell them, you pepper the media... you've got to pepper their positions with so many gaffes that they're confused. It's like a helicopter throwing out chaff, and then you steal on quietly and drop your depth charges wherever you want to drop them."
- Boris on BBC Booktalk in 2006.
Donny is doing the same thing
The problem though is that every single gaffe is newsworthy. Every single one says "This guy should not be in charge, of anything"
Trump rose to the top of the American political system because he's the most qualified to be commander in chief. He's actually capable of leading the public towards his positions in a way that lesser politicians, who rely on focus groups to know what to say, can only dream of.
He didn't. He made it back due to (i) his cultish base scaring the GOP into submission and (ii) high inflation under the Dems and (iii) Biden spiking their drink by hanging on until the last minute.
More that the nutball right self radicalised in a spiral, going through a sound finance phase (Tea Party) to moon howling.
The various groupings saw that their barrier to power was other non-batshit Republicans - see Mitt Romney etc. So they concentrated on gathering power at local level and working their way up.
In the more general sphere, they did similar in local elections for various minor offices and the lowest levels of the judicial system.
The pyramid of loons reached ever higher. And higher
Trump lucked out on reaching out to these people at the right time. They broke through the dam of the Republican establishment to give him the first nomination. And he, as the nominee and then President gave them full control of the party.
But he hasn't given them full control of the party. Trump has imposed positions on them that are not at all in line with things they have been arguing for over the years. Trump is a very skilled politician, which you can see most clearly in how he handled the question of abortion.
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
I find these sort of charts incredibly annoying because they are misleading, gdp per capita is a useful measure for individual countries to use to see if on the whole they are getting better. Between countries however I think they are actually not only useless but detrimental.
My reasoning for this is that is for instance you use the basket of goods we use to calculate cpih you may well find
Country A gdp per capita 50000$ basket of goods value = 1000$ Country B gdp per capita 100000$ basket of goods value = 3000$
So by purely gdp per capita measures people in country B are twice as well off whereas in reality because they have a cost of living 3 times higher
Therefore for how far the working wage goes
Country A realistically is 50 Country B realistically is 33.33
Is there a gap in the market for PPP adjusted GDP per capita?
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
True and there's another vital reason why we would have much higher immigration from young Europeans than you'd expect given the relative incomes - the magnetic pull of London as Europe's business and tech startup capital and English as the world's language.
Many young foreigners come here because learning the world's most important language is vital to their future career prospects, and because it's much easier to fit in in a country where you already half-speak the language anyway, having learned it at school.
Also, if the moronic Starmer government really is stupid enough to rejoin Erasmus, we can expect a huge number of EU students desperate to access our world-leading universities at the same time as improving their English. I spent some time in a decent European university a few weeks ago, and a large proportion of the students I met there were desperate to avail themselves of our higher education. Whereas in the few years since we left Erasmus, I've heard no more than a handful of English students who wished we were still in it, and some professors who've said how much money our higher education system has saved since we left.
So for all those reasons, we're better off keeping control of our own borders as much as possible.
Its not just London as an attraction either, other parts of the UK are more attractive than London to various demographics
Staffordshire is attractive to a Slovakian factory worker, Lincolnshire is attractive to a Lithuanian agricultural worker.
They would have jobs available that they could do, affordable living costs and be similar to what they were used to, only more affluent and more cosmopolitan.
We are still waiting for the Foreign Student Lists from Harvard so that we can determine, after a ridiculous expenditure of BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, how many radicalized lunatics, troublemakers all, should not be let back into our Country. Harvard is very slow in the presentation of these documents, and probably for good reason! The best thing Harvard has going for it is that they have shopped around and found the absolute best Judge (for them!) - But have no fear, the Government will, in the end, WIN!
What is odd about Trump is that for all his MAGA rhetoric, he seems to be working from a list of all America's advantages, all the things that did make America great, and setting out to destroy them. Today it is the inwards brain drain of the world's best minds to American universities.
Given how much US universities charge it will also be a hefty source of foreign income.
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
True and there's another vital reason why we would have much higher immigration from young Europeans than you'd expect given the relative incomes - the magnetic pull of London as Europe's business and tech startup capital and English as the world's language.
Many young foreigners come here because learning the world's most important language is vital to their future career prospects, and because it's much easier to fit in in a country where you already half-speak the language anyway, having learned it at school.
Also, if the moronic Starmer government really is stupid enough to rejoin Erasmus, we can expect a huge number of EU students desperate to access our world-leading universities at the same time as improving their English. I spent some time in a decent European university a few weeks ago, and a large proportion of the students I met there were desperate to avail themselves of our higher education. Whereas in the few years since we left Erasmus, I've heard no more than a handful of English students who wished we were still in it, and some professors who've said how much money our higher education system has saved since we left.
So for all those reasons, we're better off keeping control of our own borders as much as possible.
Its not just London as an attraction either, other parts of the UK are more attractive than London to various demographics
Staffordshire is attractive to a Slovakian factory worker, Lincolnshire is attractive to a Lithuanian agricultural worker.
They would have jobs available that they could do, affordable living costs and be similar to what they were used to, only more affluent and more cosmopolitan.
If I recall authoritative PB anecdata, London is full of antisocial grumps who flit from happier places because they just want to go on buses and sulk.
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
I find these sort of charts incredibly annoying because they are misleading, gdp per capita is a useful measure for individual countries to use to see if on the whole they are getting better. Between countries however I think they are actually not only useless but detrimental.
My reasoning for this is that is for instance you use the basket of goods we use to calculate cpih you may well find
Country A gdp per capita 50000$ basket of goods value = 1000$ Country B gdp per capita 100000$ basket of goods value = 3000$
So by purely gdp per capita measures people in country B are twice as well off whereas in reality because they have a cost of living 3 times higher
Therefore for how far the working wage goes
Country A realistically is 50 Country B realistically is 33.33
Is there a gap in the market for PPP adjusted GDP per capita?
"I've got a brilliant new strategy, which is to make so many gaffes that nobody knows which one to concentrate on. [...] They cease to be newsworthy, you completely out-general the media in that way, and they despair. [...] You shell them, you pepper the media... you've got to pepper their positions with so many gaffes that they're confused. It's like a helicopter throwing out chaff, and then you steal on quietly and drop your depth charges wherever you want to drop them."
- Boris on BBC Booktalk in 2006.
Donny is doing the same thing
The problem though is that every single gaffe is newsworthy. Every single one says "This guy should not be in charge, of anything"
Trump rose to the top of the American political system because he's the most qualified to be commander in chief. He's actually capable of leading the public towards his positions in a way that lesser politicians, who rely on focus groups to know what to say, can only dream of.
He didn't. He made it back due to (i) his cultish base scaring the GOP into submission and (ii) high inflation under the Dems and (iii) Biden spiking their drink by hanging on until the last minute.
More that the nutball right self radicalised in a spiral, going through a sound finance phase (Tea Party) to moon howling.
The various groupings saw that their barrier to power was other non-batshit Republicans - see Mitt Romney etc. So they concentrated on gathering power at local level and working their way up.
In the more general sphere, they did similar in local elections for various minor offices and the lowest levels of the judicial system.
The pyramid of loons reached ever higher. And higher
Trump lucked out on reaching out to these people at the right time. They broke through the dam of the Republican establishment to give him the first nomination. And he, as the nominee and then President gave them full control of the party.
But he hasn't given them full control of the party. Trump has imposed positions on them that are not at all in line with things they have been arguing for over the years. Trump is a very skilled politician, which you can see most clearly in how he handled the question of abortion.
Oh he has skills. This cannot be denied.
He gave them the judges. Which gave them the end of an abortion. He gave them exactly what they wanted.
"I've got a brilliant new strategy, which is to make so many gaffes that nobody knows which one to concentrate on. [...] They cease to be newsworthy, you completely out-general the media in that way, and they despair. [...] You shell them, you pepper the media... you've got to pepper their positions with so many gaffes that they're confused. It's like a helicopter throwing out chaff, and then you steal on quietly and drop your depth charges wherever you want to drop them."
- Boris on BBC Booktalk in 2006.
Donny is doing the same thing
The problem though is that every single gaffe is newsworthy. Every single one says "This guy should not be in charge, of anything"
Trump rose to the top of the American political system because he's the most qualified to be commander in chief. He's actually capable of leading the public towards his positions in a way that lesser politicians, who rely on focus groups to know what to say, can only dream of.
He didn't. He made it back due to (i) his cultish base scaring the GOP into submission and (ii) high inflation under the Dems and (iii) Biden spiking their drink by hanging on until the last minute.
More that the nutball right self radicalised in a spiral, going through a sound finance phase (Tea Party) to moon howling.
The various groupings saw that their barrier to power was other non-batshit Republicans - see Mitt Romney etc. So they concentrated on gathering power at local level and working their way up.
In the more general sphere, they did similar in local elections for various minor offices and the lowest levels of the judicial system.
The pyramid of loons reached ever higher. And higher
Trump lucked out on reaching out to these people at the right time. They broke through the dam of the Republican establishment to give him the first nomination. And he, as the nominee and then President gave them full control of the party.
But he hasn't given them full control of the party. Trump has imposed positions on them that are not at all in line with things they have been arguing for over the years. Trump is a very skilled politician, which you can see most clearly in how he handled the question of abortion.
Oh he has skills. This cannot be denied.
He gave them the judges. Which gave them the end of an abortion. He gave them exactly what they wanted.
Wrong. They wanted a national abortion ban and he's put that off the agenda, probably forever. He's neutralised an issue that poisoned national US politics for decades.
"I've got a brilliant new strategy, which is to make so many gaffes that nobody knows which one to concentrate on. [...] They cease to be newsworthy, you completely out-general the media in that way, and they despair. [...] You shell them, you pepper the media... you've got to pepper their positions with so many gaffes that they're confused. It's like a helicopter throwing out chaff, and then you steal on quietly and drop your depth charges wherever you want to drop them."
- Boris on BBC Booktalk in 2006.
Donny is doing the same thing
The problem though is that every single gaffe is newsworthy. Every single one says "This guy should not be in charge, of anything"
Trump rose to the top of the American political system because he's the most qualified to be commander in chief. He's actually capable of leading the public towards his positions in a way that lesser politicians, who rely on focus groups to know what to say, can only dream of.
He didn't. He made it back due to (i) his cultish base scaring the GOP into submission and (ii) high inflation under the Dems and (iii) Biden spiking their drink by hanging on until the last minute.
More that the nutball right self radicalised in a spiral, going through a sound finance phase (Tea Party) to moon howling.
The various groupings saw that their barrier to power was other non-batshit Republicans - see Mitt Romney etc. So they concentrated on gathering power at local level and working their way up.
In the more general sphere, they did similar in local elections for various minor offices and the lowest levels of the judicial system.
The pyramid of loons reached ever higher. And higher
Trump lucked out on reaching out to these people at the right time. They broke through the dam of the Republican establishment to give him the first nomination. And he, as the nominee and then President gave them full control of the party.
But he hasn't given them full control of the party. Trump has imposed positions on them that are not at all in line with things they have been arguing for over the years. Trump is a very skilled politician, which you can see most clearly in how he handled the question of abortion.
Oh he has skills. This cannot be denied.
He gave them the judges. Which gave them the end of an abortion. He gave them exactly what they wanted.
Wrong. They wanted a national abortion ban and he'd put that off the agenda, probably forever. He's neutralised an issue that poisoned national US politics for decades.
Wrong.
That is a further aspiration that doesn’t match with even the majority of MAGA. They were, as a group, agreed on “Return control of abortion to the States”. This is what he delivered.
There is very little support, even among the hardline nutters for a federal abortion ban. Numbers vary between 65-80% *against* in various polls.
"I've got a brilliant new strategy, which is to make so many gaffes that nobody knows which one to concentrate on. [...] They cease to be newsworthy, you completely out-general the media in that way, and they despair. [...] You shell them, you pepper the media... you've got to pepper their positions with so many gaffes that they're confused. It's like a helicopter throwing out chaff, and then you steal on quietly and drop your depth charges wherever you want to drop them."
- Boris on BBC Booktalk in 2006.
Donny is doing the same thing
The problem though is that every single gaffe is newsworthy. Every single one says "This guy should not be in charge, of anything"
Trump rose to the top of the American political system because he's the most qualified to be commander in chief. He's actually capable of leading the public towards his positions in a way that lesser politicians, who rely on focus groups to know what to say, can only dream of.
He didn't. He made it back due to (i) his cultish base scaring the GOP into submission and (ii) high inflation under the Dems and (iii) Biden spiking their drink by hanging on until the last minute.
More that the nutball right self radicalised in a spiral, going through a sound finance phase (Tea Party) to moon howling.
The various groupings saw that their barrier to power was other non-batshit Republicans - see Mitt Romney etc. So they concentrated on gathering power at local level and working their way up.
In the more general sphere, they did similar in local elections for various minor offices and the lowest levels of the judicial system.
The pyramid of loons reached ever higher. And higher
Trump lucked out on reaching out to these people at the right time. They broke through the dam of the Republican establishment to give him the first nomination. And he, as the nominee and then President gave them full control of the party.
But he hasn't given them full control of the party. Trump has imposed positions on them that are not at all in line with things they have been arguing for over the years. Trump is a very skilled politician, which you can see most clearly in how he handled the question of abortion.
Oh he has skills. This cannot be denied.
He gave them the judges. Which gave them the end of an abortion. He gave them exactly what they wanted.
Wrong. They wanted a national abortion ban and he'd put that off the agenda, probably forever. He's neutralised an issue that poisoned national US politics for decades.
Wrong.
That is a further aspiration that doesn’t match with even the majority of MAGA. They were, as a group, agreed on “Return control of abortion to the States”. This is what he delivered.
There is very little support, even among the hardline nutters for a federal abortion ban. Numbers vary between 65-80% *against* in various polls.
It was the official position of the Republican party until Trump. This was their platform in 2012:
Faithful to the "self-evident" truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children.
This feels a bit like self-employed Times/Spectator writers trying to make lanyards a thing when to a vast proportion of people employed by others, they’re just a routine part of daily working life.
They never used to be..the civil service is not a template for the rest of the workforce..🧐🥴
I've worked in offices all my working life, and in nearly every one there was some kind of card with my picture on it that I had to show/swipe to gain entry/exit. Sometimes it was attached to my clothing. Now it's on a lanyard round my neck. This "lanyard-class" silliness just goes to show that the Times and Spectator are staffed by spoilt idiots who have never done a day's work in their life. What are they going to go after next? Yearly assessments? Passwords? Laptop usage?
"I've got a brilliant new strategy, which is to make so many gaffes that nobody knows which one to concentrate on. [...] They cease to be newsworthy, you completely out-general the media in that way, and they despair. [...] You shell them, you pepper the media... you've got to pepper their positions with so many gaffes that they're confused. It's like a helicopter throwing out chaff, and then you steal on quietly and drop your depth charges wherever you want to drop them."
- Boris on BBC Booktalk in 2006.
Donny is doing the same thing
The problem though is that every single gaffe is newsworthy. Every single one says "This guy should not be in charge, of anything"
Trump rose to the top of the American political system because he's the most qualified to be commander in chief. He's actually capable of leading the public towards his positions in a way that lesser politicians, who rely on focus groups to know what to say, can only dream of.
He didn't. He made it back due to (i) his cultish base scaring the GOP into submission and (ii) high inflation under the Dems and (iii) Biden spiking their drink by hanging on until the last minute.
More that the nutball right self radicalised in a spiral, going through a sound finance phase (Tea Party) to moon howling.
The various groupings saw that their barrier to power was other non-batshit Republicans - see Mitt Romney etc. So they concentrated on gathering power at local level and working their way up.
In the more general sphere, they did similar in local elections for various minor offices and the lowest levels of the judicial system.
The pyramid of loons reached ever higher. And higher
Trump lucked out on reaching out to these people at the right time. They broke through the dam of the Republican establishment to give him the first nomination. And he, as the nominee and then President gave them full control of the party.
But he hasn't given them full control of the party. Trump has imposed positions on them that are not at all in line with things they have been arguing for over the years. Trump is a very skilled politician, which you can see most clearly in how he handled the question of abortion.
Oh he has skills. This cannot be denied.
He gave them the judges. Which gave them the end of an abortion. He gave them exactly what they wanted.
Wrong. They wanted a national abortion ban and he'd put that off the agenda, probably forever. He's neutralised an issue that poisoned national US politics for decades.
Wrong.
That is a further aspiration that doesn’t match with even the majority of MAGA. They were, as a group, agreed on “Return control of abortion to the States”. This is what he delivered.
There is very little support, even among the hardline nutters for a federal abortion ban. Numbers vary between 65-80% *against* in various polls.
It was the official position of the Republican party until Trump. This was their platform in 2012:
Faithful to the "self-evident" truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children.
Which has been conspicuously ignored by everyone.
What the MAGA group, as a collective average, wanted was an end to Roe. Trump delivered this.
There is next to no support for attempting to legislate a federal ban, even among the crazy crazy *crazy* MAGA.
"I've got a brilliant new strategy, which is to make so many gaffes that nobody knows which one to concentrate on. [...] They cease to be newsworthy, you completely out-general the media in that way, and they despair. [...] You shell them, you pepper the media... you've got to pepper their positions with so many gaffes that they're confused. It's like a helicopter throwing out chaff, and then you steal on quietly and drop your depth charges wherever you want to drop them."
- Boris on BBC Booktalk in 2006.
Donny is doing the same thing
The problem though is that every single gaffe is newsworthy. Every single one says "This guy should not be in charge, of anything"
Trump rose to the top of the American political system because he's the most qualified to be commander in chief. He's actually capable of leading the public towards his positions in a way that lesser politicians, who rely on focus groups to know what to say, can only dream of.
He didn't. He made it back due to (i) his cultish base scaring the GOP into submission and (ii) high inflation under the Dems and (iii) Biden spiking their drink by hanging on until the last minute.
More that the nutball right self radicalised in a spiral, going through a sound finance phase (Tea Party) to moon howling.
The various groupings saw that their barrier to power was other non-batshit Republicans - see Mitt Romney etc. So they concentrated on gathering power at local level and working their way up.
In the more general sphere, they did similar in local elections for various minor offices and the lowest levels of the judicial system.
The pyramid of loons reached ever higher. And higher
Trump lucked out on reaching out to these people at the right time. They broke through the dam of the Republican establishment to give him the first nomination. And he, as the nominee and then President gave them full control of the party.
But he hasn't given them full control of the party. Trump has imposed positions on them that are not at all in line with things they have been arguing for over the years. Trump is a very skilled politician, which you can see most clearly in how he handled the question of abortion.
Oh he has skills. This cannot be denied.
He gave them the judges. Which gave them the end of an abortion. He gave them exactly what they wanted.
Wrong. They wanted a national abortion ban and he'd put that off the agenda, probably forever. He's neutralised an issue that poisoned national US politics for decades.
Wrong.
That is a further aspiration that doesn’t match with even the majority of MAGA. They were, as a group, agreed on “Return control of abortion to the States”. This is what he delivered.
There is very little support, even among the hardline nutters for a federal abortion ban. Numbers vary between 65-80% *against* in various polls.
It was the official position of the Republican party until Trump. This was their platform in 2012:
Faithful to the "self-evident" truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children.
Which has been conspicuously ignored by everyone.
What the MAGA group, as a collective average, wanted was an end to Roe. Trump delivered this.
There is next to no support for attempting to legislate a federal ban, even among the crazy crazy *crazy* MAGA.
It's the wrong frame of reference to see increasing craziness as more MAGA. Trump has moved the Republicans towards the centre.
This feels a bit like self-employed Times/Spectator writers trying to make lanyards a thing when to a vast proportion of people employed by others, they’re just a routine part of daily working life.
They never used to be..the civil service is not a template for the rest of the workforce..🧐🥴
I've worked in offices all my working life, and in nearly every one there was some kind of card with my picture on it that I had to show/swipe to gain entry/exit. Sometimes it was attached to my clothing. Now it's on a lanyard round my neck. This "lanyard-class" silliness just goes to show that the Times and Spectator are staffed by spoilt idiots who have never done a day's work in their life. What are they going to go after next? Yearly assessments? Passwords? Laptop usage?
This feels a bit like self-employed Times/Spectator writers trying to make lanyards a thing when to a vast proportion of people employed by others, they’re just a routine part of daily working life.
They never used to be..the civil service is not a template for the rest of the workforce..🧐🥴
I've worked in offices all my working life, and in nearly every one there was some kind of card with my picture on it that I had to show/swipe to gain entry/exit. Sometimes it was attached to my clothing. Now it's on a lanyard round my neck. This "lanyard-class" silliness just goes to show that the Times and Spectator are staffed by spoilt idiots who have never done a day's work in their life. What are they going to go after next? Yearly assessments? Passwords? Laptop usage?
What they are reaching towards is a definition of aspirant NU10Kers. Still working their way up, to fully incompetent, ignorant and entitled.
For every Paula Vennells, there are a hundred aspirants, with thick reports, full of nothing, tucked under their arms.
This feels a bit like self-employed Times/Spectator writers trying to make lanyards a thing when to a vast proportion of people employed by others, they’re just a routine part of daily working life.
They never used to be..the civil service is not a template for the rest of the workforce..🧐🥴
I've worked in offices all my working life, and in nearly every one there was some kind of card with my picture on it that I had to show/swipe to gain entry/exit. Sometimes it was attached to my clothing. Now it's on a lanyard round my neck. This "lanyard-class" silliness just goes to show that the Times and Spectator are staffed by spoilt idiots who have never done a day's work in their life. What are they going to go after next? Yearly assessments? Passwords? Laptop usage?
This feels a bit like self-employed Times/Spectator writers trying to make lanyards a thing when to a vast proportion of people employed by others, they’re just a routine part of daily working life.
They never used to be..the civil service is not a template for the rest of the workforce..🧐🥴
I've worked in offices all my working life, and in nearly every one there was some kind of card with my picture on it that I had to show/swipe to gain entry/exit. Sometimes it was attached to my clothing. Now it's on a lanyard round my neck. This "lanyard-class" silliness just goes to show that the Times and Spectator are staffed by spoilt idiots who have never done a day's work in their life. What are they going to go after next? Yearly assessments? Passwords? Laptop usage?
Schoolkids are festooned with ID on a lanyard these days. They're everywhere.
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
Do the figures for Romania include the bribes you have to routinely pay to get things to happen. Source: a family member's Romanian girlfriend , an NHS nurse.
"I've got a brilliant new strategy, which is to make so many gaffes that nobody knows which one to concentrate on. [...] They cease to be newsworthy, you completely out-general the media in that way, and they despair. [...] You shell them, you pepper the media... you've got to pepper their positions with so many gaffes that they're confused. It's like a helicopter throwing out chaff, and then you steal on quietly and drop your depth charges wherever you want to drop them."
- Boris on BBC Booktalk in 2006.
Donny is doing the same thing
The problem though is that every single gaffe is newsworthy. Every single one says "This guy should not be in charge, of anything"
Trump rose to the top of the American political system because he's the most qualified to be commander in chief. He's actually capable of leading the public towards his positions in a way that lesser politicians, who rely on focus groups to know what to say, can only dream of.
He didn't. He made it back due to (i) his cultish base scaring the GOP into submission and (ii) high inflation under the Dems and (iii) Biden spiking their drink by hanging on until the last minute.
More that the nutball right self radicalised in a spiral, going through a sound finance phase (Tea Party) to moon howling.
The various groupings saw that their barrier to power was other non-batshit Republicans - see Mitt Romney etc. So they concentrated on gathering power at local level and working their way up.
In the more general sphere, they did similar in local elections for various minor offices and the lowest levels of the judicial system.
The pyramid of loons reached ever higher. And higher
Trump lucked out on reaching out to these people at the right time. They broke through the dam of the Republican establishment to give him the first nomination. And he, as the nominee and then President gave them full control of the party.
But he hasn't given them full control of the party. Trump has imposed positions on them that are not at all in line with things they have been arguing for over the years. Trump is a very skilled politician, which you can see most clearly in how he handled the question of abortion.
Oh he has skills. This cannot be denied.
He gave them the judges. Which gave them the end of an abortion. He gave them exactly what they wanted.
Wrong. They wanted a national abortion ban and he'd put that off the agenda, probably forever. He's neutralised an issue that poisoned national US politics for decades.
Wrong.
That is a further aspiration that doesn’t match with even the majority of MAGA. They were, as a group, agreed on “Return control of abortion to the States”. This is what he delivered.
There is very little support, even among the hardline nutters for a federal abortion ban. Numbers vary between 65-80% *against* in various polls.
It was the official position of the Republican party until Trump. This was their platform in 2012:
Faithful to the "self-evident" truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children.
Which has been conspicuously ignored by everyone.
What the MAGA group, as a collective average, wanted was an end to Roe. Trump delivered this.
There is next to no support for attempting to legislate a federal ban, even among the crazy crazy *crazy* MAGA.
It's the wrong frame of reference to see increasing craziness as more MAGA. Trump has moved the Republicans towards the centre.
I've worked you out. You're a stand up comedian trying out new material, aren't you?
This feels a bit like self-employed Times/Spectator writers trying to make lanyards a thing when to a vast proportion of people employed by others, they’re just a routine part of daily working life.
They never used to be..the civil service is not a template for the rest of the workforce..🧐🥴
I've worked in offices all my working life, and in nearly every one there was some kind of card with my picture on it that I had to show/swipe to gain entry/exit. Sometimes it was attached to my clothing. Now it's on a lanyard round my neck. This "lanyard-class" silliness just goes to show that the Times and Spectator are staffed by spoilt idiots who have never done a day's work in their life. What are they going to go after next? Yearly assessments? Passwords? Laptop usage?
Better to keep the pass in your jacket pocket. If it happens to be warm then your trouser pocket. Pockets on shirts are to be avoided, and not the place for your pass. The absolute greatest sin is a short sleeved shirt with a pocket and pens in the pocket plus a lanyard flapping around too.
(In reality I confess though since I started wearing glasses I have been tempted by the merits of shirt pockets, but fortunately any quality shirt - double cuffed, proper collar - is unlikely to have such a thing, and thus I've avoided such things)
Given the MoreinCommon poll has a Boris led Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% to 23% for Reform and 22% for Labour you would expect him to not only win any by election he fights in a Tory held seat but also to increase the Conservative majority.
However I cannot see him becoming a contender for the leadership before he is back in Parliament. If Kemi lost a VONC next autumn and was replaced by Cleverly or Jenrick they would see themselves as having that mandate not Boris to lead the party until the next GE
The tories need Johnson to survive. We'll see if they have the will and guile to engineer it.
I think you are right.
Declaration: I am no fan of Boris and voted for Hunt against him for leader. I think I was right to at the time, and I certainly accept the many criticisms of Boris expressed in this thread. But what's the alternative? PM Farage?
So far as BJ is concerned, he does have a few good characteristics.
1. I don't believe he is personally prejudiced or racialist 2. He has been absolutely solid on Ukraine and a great friend to President Zelenskyy
These are things I care about. And can you say the same for Farage and Reform? I don't think so.
So, if you don't want to see the British Right-of-Centre go the same way as the US, then Boris may be the only realistic solution. Fight fire with fire when it comes to competing with Farage. Do what Farage least wants to happen - the re-emergence of Boris as a competitor. Throw over the card table.
Hardly ideal. But there we are. Pragmatism is the British way, after all.
Boris coming back would be the end of Britain as a serious country.
Britain is a serious country?
Well yes quite. We are falling well behind now. Bucharest in Romania is as rich as Yorkshire now. Take London and the SE away and we are basically eastern european standards of living
Yet there are thousands of eastern Europeans who live in Yorkshire and near zero Yorkshiremen who live in eastern Europe.
Not to mention that London has a lower standard of living than Yorkshire:
I think you do need to PPP that - nominal numbers swing around a ton with the currency (and of course, it ignores cost of living.)
I would also note that the median wealth in the UK is the consequence of unaffordable housing. It's a negative, rather than a positive. And it also means that people's incomes don't go as far, because of how much has to get spent on housing.
"I've got a brilliant new strategy, which is to make so many gaffes that nobody knows which one to concentrate on. [...] They cease to be newsworthy, you completely out-general the media in that way, and they despair. [...] You shell them, you pepper the media... you've got to pepper their positions with so many gaffes that they're confused. It's like a helicopter throwing out chaff, and then you steal on quietly and drop your depth charges wherever you want to drop them."
- Boris on BBC Booktalk in 2006.
Donny is doing the same thing
The problem though is that every single gaffe is newsworthy. Every single one says "This guy should not be in charge, of anything"
Trump rose to the top of the American political system because he's the most qualified to be commander in chief. He's actually capable of leading the public towards his positions in a way that lesser politicians, who rely on focus groups to know what to say, can only dream of.
He didn't. He made it back due to (i) his cultish base scaring the GOP into submission and (ii) high inflation under the Dems and (iii) Biden spiking their drink by hanging on until the last minute.
More that the nutball right self radicalised in a spiral, going through a sound finance phase (Tea Party) to moon howling.
The various groupings saw that their barrier to power was other non-batshit Republicans - see Mitt Romney etc. So they concentrated on gathering power at local level and working their way up.
In the more general sphere, they did similar in local elections for various minor offices and the lowest levels of the judicial system.
The pyramid of loons reached ever higher. And higher
Trump lucked out on reaching out to these people at the right time. They broke through the dam of the Republican establishment to give him the first nomination. And he, as the nominee and then President gave them full control of the party.
But he hasn't given them full control of the party. Trump has imposed positions on them that are not at all in line with things they have been arguing for over the years. Trump is a very skilled politician, which you can see most clearly in how he handled the question of abortion.
Oh he has skills. This cannot be denied.
He gave them the judges. Which gave them the end of an abortion. He gave them exactly what they wanted.
Wrong. They wanted a national abortion ban and he'd put that off the agenda, probably forever. He's neutralised an issue that poisoned national US politics for decades.
Wrong.
That is a further aspiration that doesn’t match with even the majority of MAGA. They were, as a group, agreed on “Return control of abortion to the States”. This is what he delivered.
There is very little support, even among the hardline nutters for a federal abortion ban. Numbers vary between 65-80% *against* in various polls.
It was the official position of the Republican party until Trump. This was their platform in 2012:
Faithful to the "self-evident" truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children.
Which has been conspicuously ignored by everyone.
What the MAGA group, as a collective average, wanted was an end to Roe. Trump delivered this.
There is next to no support for attempting to legislate a federal ban, even among the crazy crazy *crazy* MAGA.
It's the wrong frame of reference to see increasing craziness as more MAGA. Trump has moved the Republicans towards the centre.
This feels a bit like self-employed Times/Spectator writers trying to make lanyards a thing when to a vast proportion of people employed by others, they’re just a routine part of daily working life.
They never used to be..the civil service is not a template for the rest of the workforce..🧐🥴
I've worked in offices all my working life, and in nearly every one there was some kind of card with my picture on it that I had to show/swipe to gain entry/exit. Sometimes it was attached to my clothing. Now it's on a lanyard round my neck. This "lanyard-class" silliness just goes to show that the Times and Spectator are staffed by spoilt idiots who have never done a day's work in their life. What are they going to go after next? Yearly assessments? Passwords? Laptop usage?
Better to keep the pass in your jacket pocket. If it happens to be warm then your trouser pocket. Pockets on shirts are to be avoided, and not the place for your pass. The absolute greatest sin is a short sleeved shirt with a pocket and pens in the pocket plus a lanyard flapping around too.
(In reality I confess though since I started wearing glasses I have been tempted by the merits of shirt pockets, but fortunately any quality shirt - double cuffed, proper collar - is unlikely to have such a thing, and thus I've avoided such things)
We are obliged to have our ID on display at all times. Hence the PITA lanyard.
"I've got a brilliant new strategy, which is to make so many gaffes that nobody knows which one to concentrate on. [...] They cease to be newsworthy, you completely out-general the media in that way, and they despair. [...] You shell them, you pepper the media... you've got to pepper their positions with so many gaffes that they're confused. It's like a helicopter throwing out chaff, and then you steal on quietly and drop your depth charges wherever you want to drop them."
- Boris on BBC Booktalk in 2006.
Donny is doing the same thing
The problem though is that every single gaffe is newsworthy. Every single one says "This guy should not be in charge, of anything"
Trump rose to the top of the American political system because he's the most qualified to be commander in chief. He's actually capable of leading the public towards his positions in a way that lesser politicians, who rely on focus groups to know what to say, can only dream of.
He didn't. He made it back due to (i) his cultish base scaring the GOP into submission and (ii) high inflation under the Dems and (iii) Biden spiking their drink by hanging on until the last minute.
More that the nutball right self radicalised in a spiral, going through a sound finance phase (Tea Party) to moon howling.
The various groupings saw that their barrier to power was other non-batshit Republicans - see Mitt Romney etc. So they concentrated on gathering power at local level and working their way up.
In the more general sphere, they did similar in local elections for various minor offices and the lowest levels of the judicial system.
The pyramid of loons reached ever higher. And higher
Trump lucked out on reaching out to these people at the right time. They broke through the dam of the Republican establishment to give him the first nomination. And he, as the nominee and then President gave them full control of the party.
But he hasn't given them full control of the party. Trump has imposed positions on them that are not at all in line with things they have been arguing for over the years. Trump is a very skilled politician, which you can see most clearly in how he handled the question of abortion.
Oh he has skills. This cannot be denied.
He gave them the judges. Which gave them the end of an abortion. He gave them exactly what they wanted.
Wrong. They wanted a national abortion ban and he'd put that off the agenda, probably forever. He's neutralised an issue that poisoned national US politics for decades.
Wrong.
That is a further aspiration that doesn’t match with even the majority of MAGA. They were, as a group, agreed on “Return control of abortion to the States”. This is what he delivered.
There is very little support, even among the hardline nutters for a federal abortion ban. Numbers vary between 65-80% *against* in various polls.
It was the official position of the Republican party until Trump. This was their platform in 2012:
Faithful to the "self-evident" truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children.
Which has been conspicuously ignored by everyone.
What the MAGA group, as a collective average, wanted was an end to Roe. Trump delivered this.
There is next to no support for attempting to legislate a federal ban, even among the crazy crazy *crazy* MAGA.
It's the wrong frame of reference to see increasing craziness as more MAGA. Trump has moved the Republicans towards the centre.
Top tip: Make your boss think you are in the office by simply putting your lanyard round your neck while joining a Teams call from the comfort of your sofa.
Comments
Their decency is in her imagination, and their principles were dishonesty, anti-democracy and contempt for the voters who paid their salaries.
Partly because what you claimed previously is bollox:
GDP per capita 2025 (IMF):
Germany $56k
UK $55k
France $47k
Italy $41k
Spain $36k
Czechia $33k
Slovakia $27k
Poland $27k
Hungary $25k
Romania $21k
Bulgaria $19k
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
Alternatively, median wealth per adult 2024:
UK $164k
France $141k
Italy $114k
Spain $111k
Germany $67k
Slovakia $41k
Hungary $26k
Czechia $24k
Bulgaria $23k
Romania $22k
Poland $20k
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult
https://allpoetry.com/Middlesex
$112,157 median
$564,862 mean
compared with UK wealth per adult:
$163,515 median
$350,264 mean
illustrating how much greater wealth inequality is in the USA.
Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
What's weird is that they bury the cables running off the hill from the turbines. In my view the hill is already bespoiled by the turbines, so it's a massive cost for not much gain. I apply the same logic for running the Beauly-Denny line down the A9 corridor - it's already got a dual carriageway running down it, so there shouldn't be planning worries (in terms of landscape) if there is already significant infrastructure in place.
Like everything, infrastructure in the UK has a much bigger visual impact than elsewhere because of our lack of trees. The 275kv/400kv lines running through the north-east of Scotland make scarcely any impact all where they run through wooded areas.
The Greens also campaign against solar at a local level, in the wrong area is the Lib Dem style of excuse.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65926756
The Greens want their cake and eat it. Just NIMBYism.
I think your paddock having a pylon was probably better than this ?
https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/two-bed-bungalow-sale-350000-26237573
"Just down from the sub station access is an uncontrolled crossing of the Colchester Road between Painesbrook Park and St. Neots Park (above). As well as the parks and people living both sides of the A12, there are primary schools here and Harold Wood station to the south, and as such, there are often people trying to cross here with over 35,000 vehicles a day and a 50mph speed limit."
Here's his account (you need a cup, or a pot, of tea, and several digestives):
https://therantyhighwayman.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-lonely-walk.html
My reasoning for this is that is for instance you use the basket of goods we use to calculate cpih you may well find
Country A gdp per capita 50000$ basket of goods value = 1000$
Country B gdp per capita 100000$ basket of goods value = 3000$
So by purely gdp per capita measures people in country B are twice as well off whereas in reality because they have a cost of living 3 times higher
Therefore for how far the working wage goes
Country A realistically is 50
Country B realistically is 33.33
"With £90 billion currently spent on welfare, the great economic issues of our time are social. They are moral. And yet the Government is virtually incapacitated from utterance by its own bumbling.
"The modern British male is useless. If he is blue collar, he is likely to be drunk, criminal, aimless, feckless and hopeless, and perhaps claiming to suffer from low self-esteem brought on by unemployment. If he is white collar, he is likely to be little better.
"Something must be found, first, to restore women's desire to be married. That means addressing the feebleness of the modern Briton, his reluctance or inability to take control of his woman and be head of a household."
- Boris: "The male sex is to blame for the appalling proliferation of single mothers", The Spectator, 19 August 1995.
Even then, it's not particularly useful because GDP per capita does not correlate 1:1 with median income (PPP), which probably gives us a better feel for how the average person is getting on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income
We are still waiting for the Foreign Student Lists from Harvard so that we can determine, after a ridiculous expenditure of BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, how many radicalized lunatics, troublemakers all, should not be let back into our Country. Harvard is very slow in the presentation of these documents, and probably for good reason! The best thing Harvard has going for it is that they have shopped around and found the absolute best Judge (for them!) - But have no fear, the Government will, in the end, WIN!
Macron takes it on the chin (allegedly).
This is the ONS data for 2020, unfortunately nothing post covid and Ukraine:
Germany 124
UK 113
France 110
Italy 96
Spain 85
Czechia 83
Poland 83
Romania 80
Slovakia 71
Hungary 70
Bulgaria 61
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/articles/actualindividualconsumptionperheadintheuk/2020
What these various lists show is that if eastern European countries are going to 'overtake' the UK they will do so after already overtaking Spain, Italy and France and only shortly before they overtake Germany.
"How many radicalized lunatics, troublemakers all, should not be let back into our Country?
When the President of the US next goes abroad on a state visit, the answer will be:
One. Donald Trump."
Harvard is required to provide such information before any of the students can get a visa
Maybe Musk DOGEd the list...
She did so this morning to parrot Russian talking points...
How much longer can she last?
Russian embassy now running Kemi Badenoch's comments across social media
https://x.com/JAHeale/status/1926971422917730528
WTF does he think the US Military Industrial Complex does today?
His brains are leaking out of his ears, on live TV...
https://bsky.app/profile/darrigomelanie.bsky.social/post/3lq35mquz722s
US average income is higher than UK average income, though again with inner London the only exception here that can compete with US salaries. However UK wealth is higher because of home owners with more expensive assets here
Many young foreigners come here because learning the world's most important language is vital to their future career prospects, and because it's much easier to fit in in a country where you already half-speak the language anyway, having learned it at school.
Also, if the moronic Starmer government really is stupid enough to rejoin Erasmus, we can expect a huge number of EU students desperate to access our world-leading universities at the same time as improving their English. I spent some time in a decent European university a few weeks ago, and a large proportion of the students I met there were desperate to avail themselves of our higher education. Whereas in the few years since we left Erasmus, I've heard no more than a handful of English students who wished we were still in it, and some professors who've said how much money our higher education system has saved since we left.
So for all those reasons, we're better off keeping control of our own borders as much as possible.
"I've got a brilliant new strategy, which is to make so many gaffes that nobody knows which one to concentrate on. [...] They cease to be newsworthy, you completely out-general the media in that way, and they despair. [...] You shell them, you pepper the media... you've got to pepper their positions with so many gaffes that they're confused. It's like a helicopter throwing out chaff, and then you steal on quietly and drop your depth charges wherever you want to drop them."
- Boris on BBC Booktalk in 2006.
The problem though is that every single gaffe is newsworthy. Every single one says "This guy should not be in charge, of anything"
But she isn't, so it probably doesn't.
@JAHeale
·
1h
Tory wag: “First endorsement she's had for a long time to be fair”
Has a PPP adjusted table -
PPP Adjusted GDP per Capita for European Countries (2025)
So 21 trillion people.
That's a lot.
I know some will be from the pool but most won’t be.
It was the same in Wolverhampton too.
https://x.com/lylebignon/status/1926951906192052236?s=61
The various groupings saw that their barrier to power was other non-batshit Republicans - see Mitt Romney etc. So they concentrated on gathering power at local level and working their way up.
In the more general sphere, they did similar in local elections for various minor offices and the lowest levels of the judicial system.
The pyramid of loons reached ever higher. And higher
Trump lucked out on reaching out to these people at the right time. They broke through the dam of the Republican establishment to give him the first nomination. And he, as the nominee and then President gave them full control of the party.
There has been a clear change here in East Ham - in 2005, we had a lot of Poles and Lithuanians move into the area. They quickly set up food shops and established communities but they are now gone.
We have a lot of Romanians and Bulgarians now along with a growing community of Sub-Saharan Africans from the ex-Portuguese colonies who can come into Europe via Portugal quite easily - not sure if that loophole still exists. Some Afghanis but not many Somalis.
I'm guessing that was a short-lived relationship.
Staffordshire is attractive to a Slovakian factory worker, Lincolnshire is attractive to a Lithuanian agricultural worker.
They would have jobs available that they could do, affordable living costs and be similar to what they were used to, only more affluent and more cosmopolitan.
https://news.sky.com/story/emmanuel-macron-pushed-in-face-by-wife-as-his-office-plays-down-video-of-squabble-13374861
https://archive.is/AIxyV
That is a further aspiration that doesn’t match with even the majority of MAGA. They were, as a group, agreed on “Return control of abortion to the States”. This is what he delivered.
There is very little support, even among the hardline nutters for a federal abortion ban. Numbers vary between 65-80% *against* in various polls.
Try reading something other than TwiX or Truth Social
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/2012-republican-party-platform
Faithful to the "self-evident" truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children.
What the MAGA group, as a collective average, wanted was an end to Roe. Trump delivered this.
There is next to no support for attempting to legislate a federal ban, even among the crazy crazy *crazy* MAGA.
For every Paula Vennells, there are a hundred aspirants, with thick reports, full of nothing, tucked under their arms.
Source: a family member's Romanian girlfriend , an NHS nurse.
(In reality I confess though since I started wearing glasses I have been tempted by the merits of shirt pockets, but fortunately any quality shirt - double cuffed, proper collar - is unlikely to have such a thing, and thus I've avoided such things)
Or the coal mines.
I would also note that the median wealth in the UK is the consequence of unaffordable housing. It's a negative, rather than a positive. And it also means that people's incomes don't go as far, because of how much has to get spent on housing.
I have read the thread header and still don't understand the headline.