“If the next election is going to be about immigration and the war on the woke, it’s not going to be the Conservative party that are the beneficiaries of that. It will be Nigel Farage and Reform,” he said, in an interview with the Guardian. “Trying to make those issues more salient is a strategic blunder. First and foremost the Conservatives need to fight the next election on the economy.”..
A nice try from Gauke, but frankly I’m not convinced fighting on the economy will help them either.
People just aren’t listening to the Tories, and the fact is that they’re not going to get a hearing until memories fade, or they become the main alternative again due to a Reform collapse. I know there are a lot of commentators who like to kid themselves that a centrist Tory party would be popular right now, but the truth is, it wouldn’t be. It might even be less popular, if it shies away from discussing the current right wing talking points.
Yes, it's total shit
Polls show the voters are concerned about immigration more than any other issue, Gauke may wish otherwise, but there it is. PLUS all the other things voters worry about are downstream from immigration - NHS, housing, crime. Sorting all these means, possibly above all else, sorting immigration
He's like someone saying in 1358 "voters seem really concerned about recovery from the Black Death, but the "Let's Recover From The Black Death Party" already dominate that vote, so we need to be the pro-falconry party, with an emphasis on correct leather gauntlets"
Gauke is one of those Westminster liberals who gets his coffee served by the nice Eastern European migrant, gets ferried around by perfectly friendly Pakistani or Afghan Uber drivers and may see an Indian doctor from time to time. He probably thinks that those of use who want to reduce immigration and send people back are racist bigots and have been brainwashed by Nige or Trump etc...
Yep
I despise them, and I am glad the Tory party is going to die, taking down the likes of him, as it sinks
ALSO: how can they be this stupid??? It's mind-boggling
This is why the Tories may need someone a bit slimier like Jenrick to pitch to the lizard brain in a way that I don't think Kemi can but Nige definitely is able to. There's a huge chunk of voters up for grabs next time around. What's clear though, is that Labour are absolutely nowhere. The public absolute loathe Starmer and if he's still PM in the run up to the election he will lead them to their worst defeat, maybe ever.
Kemi has an oddly strong position to speak about immigration, being one herself but she needs to use it properly and goad the left into targeting her so she gets into the news. She needs her "stab the country in the front" moment with Starmer close to the election.
I appreciate that you both disagree with David Gauke politically but you haven't really addressed whether he's wrong electorally. His point that the Tories lost more of their bedrock vote to the Lib Dems rather than Reform seems to have some merit. The Tories have won plenty of elections without the Red Wall seats that went Labour in 2024 and seem likely to go Reform in 2029. They've never won without Surrey.
Winning the 3-5% of One Nationers back from the Lib Dems does nothing for the party. Stopping the remaining voters from leaving for Reform is existential. Anti-immigration is the only game in town for the Tories and they need someone who can sell it.
The Tories need to find a way, and it is very easy IMO, of linking mass immigration with the current economic and national paralysis and start the conversation per capita growth rather than overall growth. That gives them the economic argument in addition to being in favour of halting immigration which isn't something Reform will be credible on.
“If the next election is going to be about immigration and the war on the woke, it’s not going to be the Conservative party that are the beneficiaries of that. It will be Nigel Farage and Reform,” he said, in an interview with the Guardian. “Trying to make those issues more salient is a strategic blunder. First and foremost the Conservatives need to fight the next election on the economy.”..
A nice try from Gauke, but frankly I’m not convinced fighting on the economy will help them either.
People just aren’t listening to the Tories, and the fact is that they’re not going to get a hearing until memories fade, or they become the main alternative again due to a Reform collapse. I know there are a lot of commentators who like to kid themselves that a centrist Tory party would be popular right now, but the truth is, it wouldn’t be. It might even be less popular, if it shies away from discussing the current right wing talking points.
Yes, it's total shit
Polls show the voters are concerned about immigration more than any other issue, Gauke may wish otherwise, but there it is. PLUS all the other things voters worry about are downstream from immigration - NHS, housing, crime. Sorting all these means, possibly above all else, sorting immigration
He's like someone saying in 1358 "voters seem really concerned about recovery from the Black Death, but the "Let's Recover From The Black Death Party" already dominate that vote, so we need to be the pro-falconry party, with an emphasis on correct leather gauntlets"
Gauke is one of those Westminster liberals who gets his coffee served by the nice Eastern European migrant, gets ferried around by perfectly friendly Pakistani or Afghan Uber drivers and may see an Indian doctor from time to time. He probably thinks that those of use who want to reduce immigration and send people back are racist bigots and have been brainwashed by Nige or Trump etc...
Isn't that his point?
He was a mainstream Tory just a few years ago, now there is no place for him.
That's why the LDs triumphed across the South and Southwest. Reform are winning in the old coalfields and the saxon shore.
So there is no future for the Conservatives.
Brexit killed the Tory Party. They were hollowed out. Who in their right mind would think in their present incarnation they're better than Labour who at least have all their options open. They're an irrelevance. If you want full racist why not go Reform? I can't see the Conservatives with a single USP that at least one of the other Parties doesn't have in more concentrated form. They are the real dead parrot..
“If the next election is going to be about immigration and the war on the woke, it’s not going to be the Conservative party that are the beneficiaries of that. It will be Nigel Farage and Reform,” he said, in an interview with the Guardian. “Trying to make those issues more salient is a strategic blunder. First and foremost the Conservatives need to fight the next election on the economy.”..
A nice try from Gauke, but frankly I’m not convinced fighting on the economy will help them either.
People just aren’t listening to the Tories, and the fact is that they’re not going to get a hearing until memories fade, or they become the main alternative again due to a Reform collapse. I know there are a lot of commentators who like to kid themselves that a centrist Tory party would be popular right now, but the truth is, it wouldn’t be. It might even be less popular, if it shies away from discussing the current right wing talking points.
Yes, it's total shit
Polls show the voters are concerned about immigration more than any other issue, Gauke may wish otherwise, but there it is. PLUS all the other things voters worry about are downstream from immigration - NHS, housing, crime. Sorting all these means, possibly above all else, sorting immigration
He's like someone saying in 1358 "voters seem really concerned about recovery from the Black Death, but the "Let's Recover From The Black Death Party" already dominate that vote, so we need to be the pro-falconry party, with an emphasis on correct leather gauntlets"
Gauke is one of those Westminster liberals who gets his coffee served by the nice Eastern European migrant, gets ferried around by perfectly friendly Pakistani or Afghan Uber drivers and may see an Indian doctor from time to time. He probably thinks that those of use who want to reduce immigration and send people back are racist bigots and have been brainwashed by Nige or Trump etc...
Isn't that his point?
He was a mainstream Tory just a few years ago, now there is no place for him.
That's why the LDs triumphed across the South and Southwest. Reform are winning in the old coalfields and the saxon shore.
So there is no future for the Conservatives.
He's always been a Lib Dem, should never have joined the Tories.
No, he is a fiscal conservative and centre right, at most on the dryest of Orange Book wings of the LDs
Lib Dems endured about a decade of being called Tories by Labour supporters. Both wings believe that their more partisan and ideological voters are the ones that really matter, and those floating wishywashy swing voters aren’t worth so much.
I don’t fully agree with Gauke’s argument that the core Conservative vote is the Blue Wall professional though. The genius of the party’s former election winning strategy pre 2016 was that they managed to appeal to both that cautious demographic, and the Daily Mail reading social conservatives. That magic trick is gone for now, ever since the Brexit vote. Maybe it’ll return at some stage.
I get the impression that there is some overlap in the Venn Diagram between those cheering on us "taking back control" of our laws and regulations and those bemoaning how many folk the government employs.
Yes we can have fewer laws and regulations to go with cutting the state payroll. Sounds like a win/win to me. Fewer busybodies gumming up the system slowing everything down because there's less idiotic regulation and endless appeals for planning or deportations etc...
Cutting jobs and cutting regulations go hand in hand, you just can't see the forest for the trees.
Hasn't cutting regulations been the go to mantra for government since 1979? Why don't we live in a Paradise?
And yet we have more regulation than ever before and more restrictions on freedom than ever before. Weird that our per capita growth rate has slowed to a crawl while governments for the last 30 years increase regulations and decreased personal freedom, it's almost as if the two are intrinsically linked to risk taking and growth.
Are we less free and more regulated than thirty years ago? Really?
“If the next election is going to be about immigration and the war on the woke, it’s not going to be the Conservative party that are the beneficiaries of that. It will be Nigel Farage and Reform,” he said, in an interview with the Guardian. “Trying to make those issues more salient is a strategic blunder. First and foremost the Conservatives need to fight the next election on the economy.”..
A nice try from Gauke, but frankly I’m not convinced fighting on the economy will help them either.
People just aren’t listening to the Tories, and the fact is that they’re not going to get a hearing until memories fade, or they become the main alternative again due to a Reform collapse. I know there are a lot of commentators who like to kid themselves that a centrist Tory party would be popular right now, but the truth is, it wouldn’t be. It might even be less popular, if it shies away from discussing the current right wing talking points.
Yes, it's total shit
Polls show the voters are concerned about immigration more than any other issue, Gauke may wish otherwise, but there it is. PLUS all the other things voters worry about are downstream from immigration - NHS, housing, crime. Sorting all these means, possibly above all else, sorting immigration
He's like someone saying in 1358 "voters seem really concerned about recovery from the Black Death, but the "Let's Recover From The Black Death Party" already dominate that vote, so we need to be the pro-falconry party, with an emphasis on correct leather gauntlets"
Gauke is one of those Westminster liberals who gets his coffee served by the nice Eastern European migrant, gets ferried around by perfectly friendly Pakistani or Afghan Uber drivers and may see an Indian doctor from time to time. He probably thinks that those of use who want to reduce immigration and send people back are racist bigots and have been brainwashed by Nige or Trump etc...
Yep
I despise them, and I am glad the Tory party is going to die, taking down the likes of him, as it sinks
ALSO: how can they be this stupid??? It's mind-boggling
This is why the Tories may need someone a bit slimier like Jenrick to pitch to the lizard brain in a way that I don't think Kemi can but Nige definitely is able to. There's a huge chunk of voters up for grabs next time around. What's clear though, is that Labour are absolutely nowhere. The public absolute loathe Starmer and if he's still PM in the run up to the election he will lead them to their worst defeat, maybe ever.
Kemi has an oddly strong position to speak about immigration, being one herself but she needs to use it properly and goad the left into targeting her so she gets into the news. She needs her "stab the country in the front" moment with Starmer close to the election.
I appreciate that you both disagree with David Gauke politically but you haven't really addressed whether he's wrong electorally. His point that the Tories lost more of their bedrock vote to the Lib Dems rather than Reform seems to have some merit. The Tories have won plenty of elections without the Red Wall seats that went Labour in 2024 and seem likely to go Reform in 2029. They've never won without Surrey.
Winning the 3-5% of One Nationers back from the Lib Dems does nothing for the party. Stopping the remaining voters from leaving for Reform is existential. Anti-immigration is the only game in town for the Tories and they need someone who can sell it.
The Tories need to find a way, and it is very easy IMO, of linking mass immigration with the current economic and national paralysis and start the conversation per capita growth rather than overall growth. That gives them the economic argument in addition to being in favour of halting immigration which isn't something Reform will be credible on.
We need to understand more about the remaining Tory voters first. They’re an unusual bunch, but not typical Reform or Lib Dem. Otherwise they’d already have fled.
From polling questions they appear to be traditionalist, old, loyal, cautious, low tax and low spend, but strongly anti Trump and anti Putin. For the first time since 2016 a plurality now would support EU rejoin. So they’re not obviously populists. But they are perhaps more than ever the pensioner block vote. That makes radical policy making tricky.
“If the next election is going to be about immigration and the war on the woke, it’s not going to be the Conservative party that are the beneficiaries of that. It will be Nigel Farage and Reform,” he said, in an interview with the Guardian. “Trying to make those issues more salient is a strategic blunder. First and foremost the Conservatives need to fight the next election on the economy.”..
A nice try from Gauke, but frankly I’m not convinced fighting on the economy will help them either.
People just aren’t listening to the Tories, and the fact is that they’re not going to get a hearing until memories fade, or they become the main alternative again due to a Reform collapse. I know there are a lot of commentators who like to kid themselves that a centrist Tory party would be popular right now, but the truth is, it wouldn’t be. It might even be less popular, if it shies away from discussing the current right wing talking points.
Yes, it's total shit
Polls show the voters are concerned about immigration more than any other issue, Gauke may wish otherwise, but there it is. PLUS all the other things voters worry about are downstream from immigration - NHS, housing, crime. Sorting all these means, possibly above all else, sorting immigration
He's like someone saying in 1358 "voters seem really concerned about recovery from the Black Death, but the "Let's Recover From The Black Death Party" already dominate that vote, so we need to be the pro-falconry party, with an emphasis on correct leather gauntlets"
Gauke is one of those Westminster liberals who gets his coffee served by the nice Eastern European migrant, gets ferried around by perfectly friendly Pakistani or Afghan Uber drivers and may see an Indian doctor from time to time. He probably thinks that those of use who want to reduce immigration and send people back are racist bigots and have been brainwashed by Nige or Trump etc...
Oddly enough I had a moment of either weakness, or clarity at the weekend. On the phone to a mate while my children were playing with school friends at my allotment, I said that the mother of those school friends was a Lithuanian who was really lovely, and in fact the only other Eastern European I know of round here was a builder who’s done loads of work at my house and he is a diamond. I live in a pretty White-British village, which I find boring, and I’m glad to see some diversity. I actually heard myself saying “Maybe we were wrong about all that EU immigration”.
But I never disliked anyone because of their nationality. I dated lots of European girls and worked with plenty too, so I think I was being rather Gauke-ish, ie “it doesn’t affect me in a negative way, so why should it bother people whose circumstances are entirely different from mine?
Nothing wrong with immigration, but it should be carefully managed, not a free market
We seem to be back in “why can’t we just” world this evening. Government is simple etc.
Maybe it's not simple but you can't pretend that the British government doesn't over complicate everything. Just look at £49bn being spent on a third runway or £78bn on a nuclear power plant. It's completely ridiculous.
It’s not just the money, it’s also the time.
The lack of 3rd runway at LHR is already costing billions in opportunity costs, and has been for years now. They’ve been doing ‘special spacing’ (read ‘planes closer together than almost anywhere else in the world’) between aircraft on approach for decades, but means that on a foggy morning dozens of planes end up sent somewhere else or don’t take off.
I’ll keep referring to my story that Dubai’s Terminal 3 was built in less time than Heathrow’s Terminal 5 planning inquiry. Same scope of project, new buildings on an extant airfield with some access roads. Dubai built it while London talked about building it.
The 3rd runway is going to be even worse, there wil be a decade of talking about it before we see a spade in the ground.
That's because it's a turd of a project that the airlines don't even want, with a flightpath over west London. All that for £40 billion (at least - obviously it won't come in on budget)..
While the second runway at Gatwick will deliver almost the same extra capacity for £2.2 billion plus incremental terminal capacity, with flightpaths mostly over empty country until the planes get high enough. And a second runway on Stansted I see is estimated about about £1.5 billion.
But the government has been captured by the Heathrow and associated contractors lobby.
“If the next election is going to be about immigration and the war on the woke, it’s not going to be the Conservative party that are the beneficiaries of that. It will be Nigel Farage and Reform,” he said, in an interview with the Guardian. “Trying to make those issues more salient is a strategic blunder. First and foremost the Conservatives need to fight the next election on the economy.”..
A nice try from Gauke, but frankly I’m not convinced fighting on the economy will help them either.
People just aren’t listening to the Tories, and the fact is that they’re not going to get a hearing until memories fade, or they become the main alternative again due to a Reform collapse. I know there are a lot of commentators who like to kid themselves that a centrist Tory party would be popular right now, but the truth is, it wouldn’t be. It might even be less popular, if it shies away from discussing the current right wing talking points.
Yes, it's total shit
Polls show the voters are concerned about immigration more than any other issue, Gauke may wish otherwise, but there it is. PLUS all the other things voters worry about are downstream from immigration - NHS, housing, crime. Sorting all these means, possibly above all else, sorting immigration
He's like someone saying in 1358 "voters seem really concerned about recovery from the Black Death, but the "Let's Recover From The Black Death Party" already dominate that vote, so we need to be the pro-falconry party, with an emphasis on correct leather gauntlets"
Gauke is one of those Westminster liberals who gets his coffee served by the nice Eastern European migrant, gets ferried around by perfectly friendly Pakistani or Afghan Uber drivers and may see an Indian doctor from time to time. He probably thinks that those of use who want to reduce immigration and send people back are racist bigots and have been brainwashed by Nige or Trump etc...
Isn't that his point?
He was a mainstream Tory just a few years ago, now there is no place for him.
That's why the LDs triumphed across the South and Southwest. Reform are winning in the old coalfields and the saxon shore.
So there is no future for the Conservatives.
Brexit killed the Tory Party. They were hollowed out. Who in their right mind would think in their present incarnation they're better than Labour who at least have all their options open. They're an irrelevance. If you want full racist why not go Reform? I can't see the Conservatives with a single USP that at least one of the other Parties doesn't have in more concentrated form. They are the real dead parrot..
“If the next election is going to be about immigration and the war on the woke, it’s not going to be the Conservative party that are the beneficiaries of that. It will be Nigel Farage and Reform,” he said, in an interview with the Guardian. “Trying to make those issues more salient is a strategic blunder. First and foremost the Conservatives need to fight the next election on the economy.”..
A nice try from Gauke, but frankly I’m not convinced fighting on the economy will help them either.
People just aren’t listening to the Tories, and the fact is that they’re not going to get a hearing until memories fade, or they become the main alternative again due to a Reform collapse. I know there are a lot of commentators who like to kid themselves that a centrist Tory party would be popular right now, but the truth is, it wouldn’t be. It might even be less popular, if it shies away from discussing the current right wing talking points.
Yes, it's total shit
Polls show the voters are concerned about immigration more than any other issue, Gauke may wish otherwise, but there it is. PLUS all the other things voters worry about are downstream from immigration - NHS, housing, crime. Sorting all these means, possibly above all else, sorting immigration
He's like someone saying in 1358 "voters seem really concerned about recovery from the Black Death, but the "Let's Recover From The Black Death Party" already dominate that vote, so we need to be the pro-falconry party, with an emphasis on correct leather gauntlets"
Gauke is one of those Westminster liberals who gets his coffee served by the nice Eastern European migrant, gets ferried around by perfectly friendly Pakistani or Afghan Uber drivers and may see an Indian doctor from time to time. He probably thinks that those of use who want to reduce immigration and send people back are racist bigots and have been brainwashed by Nige or Trump etc...
Oddly enough I had a moment of either weakness, or clarity at the weekend. On the phone to a mate while my children were playing with school friends at my allotment, I said that the mother of those school friends was a Lithuanian who was really lovely, and in fact the only other Eastern European I know of round here was a builder who’s done loads of work at my house and he is a diamond. I live in a pretty White-British village, which I find boring, and I’m glad to see some diversity. I actually heard myself saying “Maybe we were wrong about all that EU immigration”.
But I never disliked anyone because of their nationality. I dated lots of European girls and worked with plenty too, so I think I was being rather Gauke-ish, ie “it doesn’t affect me in a negative way, so why should it bother people whose circumstances are entirely different from mine?
Nothing wrong with immigration, but it should be carefully managed, not a free market
Nothing wrong with a free market so long as its a proper free market.
The problem we have is for a long time we've had a free market on people moving here but not a free market on them building a house once they're here.
Its easier to move to the country, than it is to build a new house in the country.
The result has been disastrous, except to those who seek to extract rents from ever-increasing asset values.
It should be as easy to build a house as it is to move to the country. We should be having more housing growth than population growth.
“If the next election is going to be about immigration and the war on the woke, it’s not going to be the Conservative party that are the beneficiaries of that. It will be Nigel Farage and Reform,” he said, in an interview with the Guardian. “Trying to make those issues more salient is a strategic blunder. First and foremost the Conservatives need to fight the next election on the economy.”..
A nice try from Gauke, but frankly I’m not convinced fighting on the economy will help them either.
People just aren’t listening to the Tories, and the fact is that they’re not going to get a hearing until memories fade, or they become the main alternative again due to a Reform collapse. I know there are a lot of commentators who like to kid themselves that a centrist Tory party would be popular right now, but the truth is, it wouldn’t be. It might even be less popular, if it shies away from discussing the current right wing talking points.
Yes, it's total shit
Polls show the voters are concerned about immigration more than any other issue, Gauke may wish otherwise, but there it is. PLUS all the other things voters worry about are downstream from immigration - NHS, housing, crime. Sorting all these means, possibly above all else, sorting immigration
He's like someone saying in 1358 "voters seem really concerned about recovery from the Black Death, but the "Let's Recover From The Black Death Party" already dominate that vote, so we need to be the pro-falconry party, with an emphasis on correct leather gauntlets"
Gauke is one of those Westminster liberals who gets his coffee served by the nice Eastern European migrant, gets ferried around by perfectly friendly Pakistani or Afghan Uber drivers and may see an Indian doctor from time to time. He probably thinks that those of use who want to reduce immigration and send people back are racist bigots and have been brainwashed by Nige or Trump etc...
Isn't that his point?
He was a mainstream Tory just a few years ago, now there is no place for him.
That's why the LDs triumphed across the South and Southwest. Reform are winning in the old coalfields and the saxon shore.
So there is no future for the Conservatives.
Brexit killed the Tory Party. They were hollowed out. Who in their right mind would think in their present incarnation they're better than Labour who at least have all their options open. They're an irrelevance. If you want full racist why not go Reform? I can't see the Conservatives with a single USP that at least one of the other Parties doesn't have in more concentrated form. They are the real dead parrot..
Not only that but the grim reaper will have harvested 1 million of their 7 million voters by 2029, with no recruits to take their place. They are literally a dying party.
I think they will struggle to hold onto the Hindu vote if Jenrick gets the gig. Their future looks a lot like the National Liberals, absorption into the bigger party.
Truss still has ambition. There's obviously no future for her in the Tories, but she should be able to get a Reform seat, she is no nuttier than the rest of their candidates, and as one of a handful of their MPs with some experience of government she should be straight into the cabinet.
When I grew up the two main parties were broad churches which had room for Roy Jenkins or Geirge Brown and Eric Heffer or Tony Benn. For Willie Whitelaw and Keith Joseph. Now we don't seem to have a home for David Gauke and Rory Stewart. I think with so much narrow factionalism and so many parties we should have another look at PR. In particular STV
“If the next election is going to be about immigration and the war on the woke, it’s not going to be the Conservative party that are the beneficiaries of that. It will be Nigel Farage and Reform,” he said, in an interview with the Guardian. “Trying to make those issues more salient is a strategic blunder. First and foremost the Conservatives need to fight the next election on the economy.”..
A nice try from Gauke, but frankly I’m not convinced fighting on the economy will help them either.
People just aren’t listening to the Tories, and the fact is that they’re not going to get a hearing until memories fade, or they become the main alternative again due to a Reform collapse. I know there are a lot of commentators who like to kid themselves that a centrist Tory party would be popular right now, but the truth is, it wouldn’t be. It might even be less popular, if it shies away from discussing the current right wing talking points.
Yes, it's total shit
Polls show the voters are concerned about immigration more than any other issue, Gauke may wish otherwise, but there it is. PLUS all the other things voters worry about are downstream from immigration - NHS, housing, crime. Sorting all these means, possibly above all else, sorting immigration
He's like someone saying in 1358 "voters seem really concerned about recovery from the Black Death, but the "Let's Recover From The Black Death Party" already dominate that vote, so we need to be the pro-falconry party, with an emphasis on correct leather gauntlets"
Gauke is one of those Westminster liberals who gets his coffee served by the nice Eastern European migrant, gets ferried around by perfectly friendly Pakistani or Afghan Uber drivers and may see an Indian doctor from time to time. He probably thinks that those of use who want to reduce immigration and send people back are racist bigots and have been brainwashed by Nige or Trump etc...
Oddly enough I had a moment of either weakness, or clarity at the weekend. On the phone to a mate while my children were playing with school friends at my allotment, I said that the mother of those school friends was a Lithuanian who was really lovely, and in fact the only other Eastern European I know of round here was a builder who’s done loads of work at my house and he is a diamond. I live in a pretty White-British village, which I find boring, and I’m glad to see some diversity. I actually heard myself saying “Maybe we were wrong about all that EU immigration”.
But I never disliked anyone because of their nationality. I dated lots of European girls and worked with plenty too, so I think I was being rather Gauke-ish, ie “it doesn’t affect me in a negative way, so why should it bother people whose circumstances are entirely different from mine?
Nothing wrong with immigration, but it should be carefully managed, not a free market
But that's consistent, there's nothing wrong with immigration if it is controlled. The blunt instrument we have to control it at the moment is salary (and maybe age for working holiday visas for selected countries who are culturally aligned). It was flooding towns with millions of migrants from Eastern Europe over a 15 year period and then again with south Asian and African migrants from 2020 to now that is the problem. If the government had held migration to 50k per year from 2005 to today, so about a million people rather than 7 million very few people would have any complaints about immigration and per capita GDP would surely be much higher than it is now.
I get the impression that there is some overlap in the Venn Diagram between those cheering on us "taking back control" of our laws and regulations and those bemoaning how many folk the government employs.
Yes we can have fewer laws and regulations to go with cutting the state payroll. Sounds like a win/win to me. Fewer busybodies gumming up the system slowing everything down because there's less idiotic regulation and endless appeals for planning or deportations etc...
Cutting jobs and cutting regulations go hand in hand, you just can't see the forest for the trees.
Hasn't cutting regulations been the go to mantra for government since 1979? Why don't we live in a Paradise?
And yet we have more regulation than ever before and more restrictions on freedom than ever before. Weird that our per capita growth rate has slowed to a crawl while governments for the last 30 years increase regulations and decreased personal freedom, it's almost as if the two are intrinsically linked to risk taking and growth.
Are we less free and more regulated than thirty years ago? Really?
YES, omg YES
How so?
Connolly wouldn't be imprisoned for spouting guff on IRC and the Palestine Action people wouldn't be charged under terror offences.
And yet. Gerry Adams' voice couldn't be heard on TV. And I'm pretty sure soliciting arson on a building with people in it has always been a crime.
Gerry Adam’s had a voice over. While advocating a full scale war against the government including very large bombs, machine guns and attempting to assassinate the PM.
Withdrawing unemployment benefit from convicted terrorists (their chief source of money to live on, apart from illegal, cash in had jobs) was considered but rejected.
Banning SF was suggested after the Brighton Bombing. Thatcher dismissed the suggestion instantly.
Meanwhile people cutting the fence at Greenham got arrested and complained about too much sugar in the tea they were given. Then released.
Swings and roundabouts. In the Seventies you had internment. Including for Adams.
It’s curious that those most into and shout the loudest about the “everything about Britain is shit now” mantra on the internet live the most privileged lives, on all sides of the political spectrum.
When I grew up the two main parties were broad churches which had room for Roy Jenkins or Geirge Brown and Eric Heffer or Tony Benn. For Willie Whitelaw and Keith Joseph. Now we don't seem to have a home for David Gauke and Rory Stewart. I think with so much narrow factionalism and so many parties we should have another look at PR. In particular STV
They should just fuck off and join the Lib Dems
No one is "oppressing the PB centrist Dads". They have their very own party, right there. Waiting
It will never win power by itself as things stand, but that's because centrism is, in modern circumstances, laughably inadequate. But it makes them feel good to say these nice moderate things so Yay Them
Plod telling people to have a go is the most irresponsible advice I've heard. People will get injured or sued or prosecuted. If robbers know people will try to stop them they won't stop robbing they will just build in the need to handle the stoppers. And they will likely both be tooled up and handier than the would be heroes.
I get your logic, but I am not sure it's true
The shoplifters near me tend to be scrawny druggies or blatant opportunists, or maybe the really young working as a gang
They don't look like people who would happily shank someone if confronted with physicality, I suspect they'd drop everything and run. Why get in a knife fight over £50 worth of ribeye steak?
I would not want to be the first person to test this theory, however
They have nothing to lose and are desperate for the next fix. Prison is probably a safer environment for them.
Rather you than me.
Nah, it's bollocks
Recall, I was a smack addict for 10 years. I know - or knew (many are dead) - plenty of drug addicts
You are very seldom that desperate for a fix you will almost-pointlessly risk getting beaten up. And if that became the likely outcome of any shoplifting foray, they would stop doing it immediately
Trouble is, they would turn to different crimes, but that's not the argument we are having. IF shoplifting was physically and painfully hindered, it would cease. The rewards are not big enough
Our problem is that we have decriminalised shoplifting. That's it. We have simply invited every chancer to try it, with zero comeback
I think the deeper underlying problem, or maybe rather the underlying cause for this increase in low level lawlessness, is that we have emasculated teachers, the police, the church and fathers over the last 40-50 years, and youngsters are genuinely not afraid to risk testing the patience of what were once seen as figures of authority.
No doubt the emasculation has its positives, but a side effect is the increase in shop lifting, drug taking, graffiti, petty crime etc. It’s a matter of how many people see the benefits outnumbering the drawbacks
“If the next election is going to be about immigration and the war on the woke, it’s not going to be the Conservative party that are the beneficiaries of that. It will be Nigel Farage and Reform,” he said, in an interview with the Guardian. “Trying to make those issues more salient is a strategic blunder. First and foremost the Conservatives need to fight the next election on the economy.”..
A nice try from Gauke, but frankly I’m not convinced fighting on the economy will help them either.
People just aren’t listening to the Tories, and the fact is that they’re not going to get a hearing until memories fade, or they become the main alternative again due to a Reform collapse. I know there are a lot of commentators who like to kid themselves that a centrist Tory party would be popular right now, but the truth is, it wouldn’t be. It might even be less popular, if it shies away from discussing the current right wing talking points.
Yes, it's total shit
Polls show the voters are concerned about immigration more than any other issue, Gauke may wish otherwise, but there it is. PLUS all the other things voters worry about are downstream from immigration - NHS, housing, crime. Sorting all these means, possibly above all else, sorting immigration
He's like someone saying in 1358 "voters seem really concerned about recovery from the Black Death, but the "Let's Recover From The Black Death Party" already dominate that vote, so we need to be the pro-falconry party, with an emphasis on correct leather gauntlets"
Gauke is one of those Westminster liberals who gets his coffee served by the nice Eastern European migrant, gets ferried around by perfectly friendly Pakistani or Afghan Uber drivers and may see an Indian doctor from time to time. He probably thinks that those of use who want to reduce immigration and send people back are racist bigots and have been brainwashed by Nige or Trump etc...
Isn't that his point?
He was a mainstream Tory just a few years ago, now there is no place for him.
That's why the LDs triumphed across the South and Southwest. Reform are winning in the old coalfields and the saxon shore.
So there is no future for the Conservatives.
He's always been a Lib Dem, should never have joined the Tories.
No, he is a fiscal conservative and centre right, at most on the dryest of Orange Book wings of the LDs
Lib Dems endured about a decade of being called Tories by Labour supporters. Both wings believe that their more partisan and ideological voters are the ones that really matter, and those floating wishywashy swing voters aren’t worth so much.
I don’t fully agree with Gauke’s argument that the core Conservative vote is the Blue Wall professional though. The genius of the party’s former election winning strategy pre 2016 was that they managed to appeal to both that cautious demographic, and the Daily Mail reading social conservatives. That magic trick is gone for now, ever since the Brexit vote. Maybe it’ll return at some stage.
Something similar on the left- in More In Common "7 segments" speak, the Progressive Activists and Incrementalist Left used to be (just about) willing to sit in the same party, and now they don't seem so happy to. 2016 can't have helped, but my hunch is that it's a sympton of a wider malaise.
FINAL WARNING DONALD TRUMP — MAYBE THE MOST IMPORTANT WARNING IN HISTORY! STOP CHEATING OR CALIFORNIA WILL REDRAW THE MAPS. AND GUESS WHO WILL ANNOUNCE IT THIS WEEK? GAVIN NEWSOM (MANY SAY THE MOST LOVED & HANDSOME GOVERNOR) AND A VERY POWERFUL TEAM. DON’T MAKE US DO IT!!! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.
“If the next election is going to be about immigration and the war on the woke, it’s not going to be the Conservative party that are the beneficiaries of that. It will be Nigel Farage and Reform,” he said, in an interview with the Guardian. “Trying to make those issues more salient is a strategic blunder. First and foremost the Conservatives need to fight the next election on the economy.”..
A nice try from Gauke, but frankly I’m not convinced fighting on the economy will help them either.
People just aren’t listening to the Tories, and the fact is that they’re not going to get a hearing until memories fade, or they become the main alternative again due to a Reform collapse. I know there are a lot of commentators who like to kid themselves that a centrist Tory party would be popular right now, but the truth is, it wouldn’t be. It might even be less popular, if it shies away from discussing the current right wing talking points.
Yes, it's total shit
Polls show the voters are concerned about immigration more than any other issue, Gauke may wish otherwise, but there it is. PLUS all the other things voters worry about are downstream from immigration - NHS, housing, crime. Sorting all these means, possibly above all else, sorting immigration
He's like someone saying in 1358 "voters seem really concerned about recovery from the Black Death, but the "Let's Recover From The Black Death Party" already dominate that vote, so we need to be the pro-falconry party, with an emphasis on correct leather gauntlets"
Gauke is one of those Westminster liberals who gets his coffee served by the nice Eastern European migrant, gets ferried around by perfectly friendly Pakistani or Afghan Uber drivers and may see an Indian doctor from time to time. He probably thinks that those of use who want to reduce immigration and send people back are racist bigots and have been brainwashed by Nige or Trump etc...
Yep
I despise them, and I am glad the Tory party is going to die, taking down the likes of him, as it sinks
ALSO: how can they be this stupid??? It's mind-boggling
This is why the Tories may need someone a bit slimier like Jenrick to pitch to the lizard brain in a way that I don't think Kemi can but Nige definitely is able to. There's a huge chunk of voters up for grabs next time around. What's clear though, is that Labour are absolutely nowhere. The public absolute loathe Starmer and if he's still PM in the run up to the election he will lead them to their worst defeat, maybe ever.
Kemi has an oddly strong position to speak about immigration, being one herself but she needs to use it properly and goad the left into targeting her so she gets into the news. She needs her "stab the country in the front" moment with Starmer close to the election.
I appreciate that you both disagree with David Gauke politically but you haven't really addressed whether he's wrong electorally. His point that the Tories lost more of their bedrock vote to the Lib Dems rather than Reform seems to have some merit. The Tories have won plenty of elections without the Red Wall seats that went Labour in 2024 and seem likely to go Reform in 2029. They've never won without Surrey.
I'm not sure why they care. Leon is Reform these days anyway. He's just venting.
"I note that Nicola Sturgeon devotes more paragraphs (4) to her appearance on Jon Stewart's 'The Daily Show' than she does to drug deaths (3) and ferries (0) combined."
Thanks for the conversation on the previous thread - very interesting. I have a couple of points to come back to that I have not answered.
The thing that has surprised me about these proposals is that so far they seem in general to have broad brush support. Even when the Telegraph tried to make a culture war, they were being thoroughly beaten up by their own readers in the comments. eg:
DT you've had all day to correct the impression that we oldies will be subjected to full driving tests every 3 years. You know it's only eye tests. I can only conclude that you are either guilty of clickbait or the article was written by some young oik who hates pensioners and wants to start a campaign against them.
Insurance tends to be very high in two age brackets, males between 17 and 25, and all drivers over 75. For under 25s restrictions on passenger numbers/younger ages seems to be among the most popular ideas. I'd be in favour of both eye tests for over 80s and something for cognitive response, perhaps similar to the hazard perception test?
There are many aspects of driving in the UK which should be reformed. First, B + E tests should never have been scrapped (car plus trailer), this was the Tories idea to get rid of to cut a backlog of driving tests and lorry tests. Result, more inexperienced drivers on our roads towing. Also no one passing a car test should be automatically allowed to drive a 28T tractor and trailer outfit without sitting a full tractor test.
Even DT readers realise there are issues at the end of the age spectrum we need to do better on, with cases like the one I linked to in Edinburgh. I agree the law needs changed to make roads safer
B + E tests and the associated regime was one of the stupidest things the government had ever done - it needed scrapping. The old rules actively incentivised towing trailers with unsuitable tow motors.
Accidents involving heavy trailers (which is what the B+E rules prohibited) are negligible. Insofar as there is a problem with accidents involving trailers at-all (which we don't really) the main problem is large surface area lightweight caravans towed behind cars which aren't heavy enough getting crosswinded by lorries on motorways. And that's always been legal without a B+E so long as the combination isn't very heavy.
Again, zero point in making people take a tractor test. There aren't many accidents, and almost none of them are had by people who aren't perfectly capable of passing a tractor test. Most of the lads running round at a million miles an hour in FastTracs have taken a tractor test anyway, the farm lads all do it at 16 so they've a means of driving home from the pub.
Making everyone do a tractor test just stuffs up people like me who jump in a tractor for a couple of weeks a year to help my mates cart in silage via 1/4 mile of single track lane (risk of serious accident approximately nil).
Is there still a cut off around those who passed a test before 1997 for the MAM you are allowed to tow with a trailer? One thing that irked me about the trailer test being scrapped was for 25 years it was deemed to be that every younger person who wanted to tow had to do this, but grandfather rights still existed. Know someone who took and passed a test about a fortnight before it was scrapped, instructor/test etc, almost £1k down the pan.
Most likely causes of accidents are those who tow caravans and not used to the difference forgetting the width of their vehicle, there's plenty of wing mirrors lying on the side of A82 narrow bridges.
I don't think you've forgotten any of your tractor driving skills but I don't see why every 96 year old granny who holds a manual car licence should hold entitlement rights to drive that kind of gross weight around the countryside without having their ability tested. There would hardly be any significant uptake on tests if you removed category f from those who hadn't sat tractor tests
I find it odd a 96 year old who has never sat a tractor test can drive a 3500 gallon slurry tanker yoke but not a class C1/C+E
Plod telling people to have a go is the most irresponsible advice I've heard. People will get injured or sued or prosecuted. If robbers know people will try to stop them they won't stop robbing they will just build in the need to handle the stoppers. And they will likely both be tooled up and handier than the would be heroes.
I get your logic, but I am not sure it's true
The shoplifters near me tend to be scrawny druggies or blatant opportunists, or maybe the really young working as a gang
They don't look like people who would happily shank someone if confronted with physicality, I suspect they'd drop everything and run. Why get in a knife fight over £50 worth of ribeye steak?
I would not want to be the first person to test this theory, however
They have nothing to lose and are desperate for the next fix. Prison is probably a safer environment for them.
Rather you than me.
Nah, it's bollocks
Recall, I was a smack addict for 10 years. I know - or knew (many are dead) - plenty of drug addicts
"I've had a few guns pointed at my head and shit like that. But I mean, you walk into a crack house and what do you expect? Everybody's fucked out of their heads and they've all got .38s down the back of their pants!"
This is going to be a disaster. They just need to get real and cut spending. Freeze public sector salaries, cut the triple lock and cut public sector pensions. Private sector salary growth is stalling already and the number of vacancies is falling drastically so they can't even cry about a recruitment problem like they moaned about when the last government did it.
Taxes can't go up now without taking money out of the productive base of the economy. There's no more left to give.
This is actually targeted at the unearned wealth of the boomer generation. So I'd have thought you would approve.
It's simply not going to raise enough money and will send wealthy people fleeing overseas. The non-dom changes have already caused a huge hole in the public finances, hitting long term investment two tax rises is going to cause an even bigger loss for the government.
For every billion pounds in tax they raise they are going to take a billion out of the economy, if not more given that they will have to target the productive part meaning money that would otherwise be better used and result in a pretty good 1.5x economic multiplier now goes to the state which consumes. I wouldn't be surprised for every £1bn the government intends to raise by the maths it will only get around £0.5-0.6bn in additional revenue due to slower growth.
Cutting spending is the only answer, it isn't beyond the wit of man to cut 2.5% out of the government budget.
This stands at about £1.3 tn at the moment. 2.5% is about £32 billion. That's a cut of £1000 pa in expenditure for 32 million people, or £10,000 for 3.2 million people.
Even when you have identified these cuts (answers on a postcard to 11 Downing Street) you have only cut about a third of our annual debt interest payments, or about a fifth of the additional amount we are borrowing each year for our grandchildren to pay back.
Headcount. The number of uk central government employees was just over 4m in q1 2025 vs 3.4m in q1 2020.
Let’s say 0.5m at the median wage of £30k = £15bn p.a. (Plus the social costs so let’s say another £5bn)
Local government employment has fallen about 30k in that period to a shade under 2m.
I’m not sure that the quality of government services has improved by that much over the last 5 years?
Over time - and it might take a year - this we’ll be absorbed by the productive economy so the income and social taxes will be replaced and hopefully output will be higher resulting in additional corporate taxes
Speaking of government waste, has anyone worked out why HMG is giving £2bn a year to Microsoft? According to this article, that isn’t even for licensing costs; public bodies have to buy licenses separately.
Yes the amount appears excessive, but they’re not buying off-the-shelf they have a whole load of requirements related to data. They probably got MS to build a data centre specifically for the government, and includes services like live real-time backups.
The only reasonable alternative is Amazon AWS, which would cost similar.
An alternative alternative is using a British host or even building its own. From IT to AI British policy under both parties has been to enrich Americans (who, to put the cherry on the cake, might be required to allow access to official American spies).
Trump's people at DHS are referencing here "Which Way, Western Man," a book by white supremacist William Gayley Simpson that was published by an American Neo-Nazi organization, the National Alliance. https://x.com/ReichlinMelnick/status/1955293964723986905
This is truly incredible. Skinner is a market trader/barrow boy who lives round the corner to me and who I’ve seen out here and there in Brentwood…& he’s knocking about with the VP!
The power of social media
Here is a pic of Me and Vice President @JDVance towards the end of the night after a few beers🍻 I’m overdressed in my suit, but when the VP invites you to a BBQ, you don’t risk turning up in shorts an flip-flops😂 Cracking night in the beautiful English countryside with JD, his friends and family. Once in a lifetime. Bosh❤️🇬🇧🇺🇸
I’m heading to France right now to find out more about what’s happening on the ground with the illegal migration crisis - following my observations at sea on the channel last week
I’m heading to France right now to find out more about what’s happening on the ground with the illegal migration crisis - following my observations at sea on the channel last week
I’m heading to France right now to find out more about what’s happening on the ground with the illegal migration crisis - following my observations at sea on the channel last week
Trump's people at DHS are referencing here "Which Way, Western Man," a book by white supremacist William Gayley Simpson that was published by an American Neo-Nazi organization, the National Alliance. https://x.com/ReichlinMelnick/status/1955293964723986905
Terrible as it sounds, is this vastly different in principle from curators ‘decolonising’ our museums? Once we allow that all history is up for debate, surely it is no surprise that labels swing back and forth with whomever is in power.
I've been hoping rcs1000 would tell us more about that recent episode of "car violence" in California. I imagine those in the insurance business were impressed by the scale.
This is truly incredible. Skinner is a market trader/barrow boy who lives round the corner to me and who I’ve seen out here and there in Brentwood…& he’s knocking about with the VP!
The power of social media
Here is a pic of Me and Vice President @JDVance towards the end of the night after a few beers🍻 I’m overdressed in my suit, but when the VP invites you to a BBQ, you don’t risk turning up in shorts an flip-flops😂 Cracking night in the beautiful English countryside with JD, his friends and family. Once in a lifetime. Bosh❤️🇬🇧🇺🇸
The irony for British Trump-haters is that this is probably the most Anglophile US administration in living memory
I struggle to think of one which is so clearly pro-Britain (and doesn't give a fuck about Ireland or the EU by comparison). Trump is passionate about his Scotch heritage, Vance is obviously pro-Anglo Saxon/hillbilly Celt
This does not make Trump any less crazy or dangerous, but it does add to the whole paradox. Trump and Vance are almost certainly more pro Britain and patriotically pro British than Keir fecking Starmer
This is truly incredible. Skinner is a market trader/barrow boy who lives round the corner to me and who I’ve seen out here and there in Brentwood…& he’s knocking about with the VP!
The power of social media
Here is a pic of Me and Vice President @JDVance towards the end of the night after a few beers🍻 I’m overdressed in my suit, but when the VP invites you to a BBQ, you don’t risk turning up in shorts an flip-flops😂 Cracking night in the beautiful English countryside with JD, his friends and family. Once in a lifetime. Bosh❤️🇬🇧🇺🇸
The irony for British Trump-haters is that this is probably the most Anglophile US administration in living memory
I struggle to think of one which is so clearly pro-Britain (and doesn't give a fuck about Ireland or the EU by comparison). Trump is passionate about his Scotch heritage, Vance is obviously pro-Anglo Saxon/hillbilly Celt
This does not make Trump any less crazy or dangerous, but it does add to the whole paradox. Trump and Vance are almost certainly more pro Britain and patriotically pro British than Keir fecking Starmer
And most Democrat Presidents and presidential candidates, Biden and JFK preferred Ireland to us, Harris and Hillary preferred the EU to us as did Obama who said Brexit would send us 'to the back of the queue.' Kerry was a Francophile more than an Anglophile.
Bill Clinton had a soft spot for Britain but he was an exception. Reagan, Bush W, Trump all liked the UK more than France and Germany certainly
When I grew up the two main parties were broad churches which had room for Roy Jenkins or Geirge Brown and Eric Heffer or Tony Benn. For Willie Whitelaw and Keith Joseph. Now we don't seem to have a home for David Gauke and Rory Stewart. I think with so much narrow factionalism and so many parties we should have another look at PR. In particular STV
They should just fuck off and join the Lib Dems
No one is "oppressing the PB centrist Dads". They have their very own party, right there. Waiting
It will never win power by itself as things stand, but that's because centrism is, in modern circumstances, laughably inadequate. But it makes them feel good to say these nice moderate things so Yay Them
The Tories need their One Nation wing and Thatcherite wing to win a majority
This is truly incredible. Skinner is a market trader/barrow boy who lives round the corner to me and who I’ve seen out here and there in Brentwood…& he’s knocking about with the VP!
The power of social media
Here is a pic of Me and Vice President @JDVance towards the end of the night after a few beers🍻 I’m overdressed in my suit, but when the VP invites you to a BBQ, you don’t risk turning up in shorts an flip-flops😂 Cracking night in the beautiful English countryside with JD, his friends and family. Once in a lifetime. Bosh❤️🇬🇧🇺🇸
The irony for British Trump-haters is that this is probably the most Anglophile US administration in living memory
I struggle to think of one which is so clearly pro-Britain (and doesn't give a fuck about Ireland or the EU by comparison). Trump is passionate about his Scotch heritage, Vance is obviously pro-Anglo Saxon/hillbilly Celt
This does not make Trump any less crazy or dangerous, but it does add to the whole paradox. Trump and Vance are almost certainly more pro Britain and patriotically pro British than Keir fecking Starmer
And most Democrat Presidents and presidential candidates, Biden and JFK preferred Ireland to us, Harris and Hillary preferred the EU to us as did Obama who said Brexit would send us 'to the back of the queue.' Kerry was a Francophile more than an Anglophile.
Bill Clinton had a soft spot for Britain but he was an exception. Reagan, Bush W, Trump all liked the UK more than France and Germany certainly
This is the most instinctively pro-British US admin since Ronald Reagan, at least
“If the next election is going to be about immigration and the war on the woke, it’s not going to be the Conservative party that are the beneficiaries of that. It will be Nigel Farage and Reform,” he said, in an interview with the Guardian. “Trying to make those issues more salient is a strategic blunder. First and foremost the Conservatives need to fight the next election on the economy.”..
A nice try from Gauke, but frankly I’m not convinced fighting on the economy will help them either.
People just aren’t listening to the Tories, and the fact is that they’re not going to get a hearing until memories fade, or they become the main alternative again due to a Reform collapse. I know there are a lot of commentators who like to kid themselves that a centrist Tory party would be popular right now, but the truth is, it wouldn’t be. It might even be less popular, if it shies away from discussing the current right wing talking points.
Yes, it's total shit
Polls show the voters are concerned about immigration more than any other issue, Gauke may wish otherwise, but there it is. PLUS all the other things voters worry about are downstream from immigration - NHS, housing, crime. Sorting all these means, possibly above all else, sorting immigration
He's like someone saying in 1358 "voters seem really concerned about recovery from the Black Death, but the "Let's Recover From The Black Death Party" already dominate that vote, so we need to be the pro-falconry party, with an emphasis on correct leather gauntlets"
Gauke is one of those Westminster liberals who gets his coffee served by the nice Eastern European migrant, gets ferried around by perfectly friendly Pakistani or Afghan Uber drivers and may see an Indian doctor from time to time. He probably thinks that those of use who want to reduce immigration and send people back are racist bigots and have been brainwashed by Nige or Trump etc...
Isn't that his point?
He was a mainstream Tory just a few years ago, now there is no place for him.
That's why the LDs triumphed across the South and Southwest. Reform are winning in the old coalfields and the saxon shore.
So there is no future for the Conservatives.
Brexit killed the Tory Party. They were hollowed out. Who in their right mind would think in their present incarnation they're better than Labour who at least have all their options open. They're an irrelevance. If you want full racist why not go Reform? I can't see the Conservatives with a single USP that at least one of the other Parties doesn't have in more concentrated form. They are the real dead parrot..
The Tories are still more of a home for fiscal conservatives who don't loathe immigrants than Labour or Reform or even the LDs
“If the next election is going to be about immigration and the war on the woke, it’s not going to be the Conservative party that are the beneficiaries of that. It will be Nigel Farage and Reform,” he said, in an interview with the Guardian. “Trying to make those issues more salient is a strategic blunder. First and foremost the Conservatives need to fight the next election on the economy.”..
A nice try from Gauke, but frankly I’m not convinced fighting on the economy will help them either.
People just aren’t listening to the Tories, and the fact is that they’re not going to get a hearing until memories fade, or they become the main alternative again due to a Reform collapse. I know there are a lot of commentators who like to kid themselves that a centrist Tory party would be popular right now, but the truth is, it wouldn’t be. It might even be less popular, if it shies away from discussing the current right wing talking points.
Yes, it's total shit
Polls show the voters are concerned about immigration more than any other issue, Gauke may wish otherwise, but there it is. PLUS all the other things voters worry about are downstream from immigration - NHS, housing, crime. Sorting all these means, possibly above all else, sorting immigration
He's like someone saying in 1358 "voters seem really concerned about recovery from the Black Death, but the "Let's Recover From The Black Death Party" already dominate that vote, so we need to be the pro-falconry party, with an emphasis on correct leather gauntlets"
Gauke is one of those Westminster liberals who gets his coffee served by the nice Eastern European migrant, gets ferried around by perfectly friendly Pakistani or Afghan Uber drivers and may see an Indian doctor from time to time. He probably thinks that those of use who want to reduce immigration and send people back are racist bigots and have been brainwashed by Nige or Trump etc...
Yep
I despise them, and I am glad the Tory party is going to die, taking down the likes of him, as it sinks
ALSO: how can they be this stupid??? It's mind-boggling
Gauke is right, you aren't going to win back voters from Farage trying to be even harder against immigration and the ECHR and anti woke than he is as he will always out populist right you.
They are better off trying to hold the 2024 Sunak voters who are primarily centre right and focused on the economy and dislike Labour's tax rises, that would keep them on 24%.
Then if Farage loses next time and steps down Jenrick could have a chance to reunite the right but not before.
Ironically it is probably better for Tories as above if Labour win the next GE than Reform, at least if Labour win, preferably with no majority, that would prove Farage can't win enough swing voters who used to vote Conservative when the Conservatives won.
If Reform win most seats or a majority though then under FPTP sooner or later the Tories likely end up taken over by Farage
You seem to put party before country, which is despicable
I apologise if I misconstrue you, but this appears to be the case. You would happily have the UK endure a second catastrophic Labour government as long as it helps the Tories recover?
Fuck that shit. We are one year into Starmer and look at the state of the motherland
No, I just believe my country is best served by a Tory government.
I suspect most senior Tories would rather have PM Starmer than PM Farage as long as we have FPTP as it at least ensures their party lives to fight another day.
Albeit a neutered Starmer who has lost his majority with some Tory seat gains.
Most of the Tory members and Tory voters would take Farage over Starmer admittedly but CCHQ would take Starmer over Farage in my view
This is truly incredible. Skinner is a market trader/barrow boy who lives round the corner to me and who I’ve seen out here and there in Brentwood…& he’s knocking about with the VP!
The power of social media
Here is a pic of Me and Vice President @JDVance towards the end of the night after a few beers🍻 I’m overdressed in my suit, but when the VP invites you to a BBQ, you don’t risk turning up in shorts an flip-flops😂 Cracking night in the beautiful English countryside with JD, his friends and family. Once in a lifetime. Bosh❤️🇬🇧🇺🇸
The irony for British Trump-haters is that this is probably the most Anglophile US administration in living memory
I struggle to think of one which is so clearly pro-Britain (and doesn't give a fuck about Ireland or the EU by comparison). Trump is passionate about his Scotch heritage, Vance is obviously pro-Anglo Saxon/hillbilly Celt
This does not make Trump any less crazy or dangerous, but it does add to the whole paradox. Trump and Vance are almost certainly more pro Britain and patriotically pro British than Keir fecking Starmer
The Trump-Starmer relationship is bewildering. Sir Keir prostrates himself at The Donald, only to be subjected to humiliating take downs such at that recently at Gleneagles, where, if it were revealed Trump’s spiel had been written by Nigel Farage, it could pass muster. Starmer sat there, as Tom Peck of The Times put it “… staring hard in to the middle distance, clenching his teeth and trying to prevent his eyes widening ever further. It was the kind of look that can get you chucked out of an Ibiza nightclub.”
Yet there are few criticisms of Sir Keir’s approach, nothing like the attempts to make “hand in hand” stick on Theresa May
This is truly incredible. Skinner is a market trader/barrow boy who lives round the corner to me and who I’ve seen out here and there in Brentwood…& he’s knocking about with the VP!
The power of social media
Here is a pic of Me and Vice President @JDVance towards the end of the night after a few beers🍻 I’m overdressed in my suit, but when the VP invites you to a BBQ, you don’t risk turning up in shorts an flip-flops😂 Cracking night in the beautiful English countryside with JD, his friends and family. Once in a lifetime. Bosh❤️🇬🇧🇺🇸
The popularity of the Baby-Sitters Club (books, TV, and a movie) should tell anyone paying attention how attractive babies can be to girls and young women. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Baby-Sitters_Club
As should experiments like the one I read about many years ago: When we see something that interests us, our eyes open up. About 80 percent of young women had that reaction when shown a picture of a baby, but only 20 percent of young men. (Granted, the experiment was probably done on American college students, but I think it likely you would get similar results elsewhere,)
(For the record: I am pretty sure I am in that 20 percent.)
This is truly incredible. Skinner is a market trader/barrow boy who lives round the corner to me and who I’ve seen out here and there in Brentwood…& he’s knocking about with the VP!
The power of social media
Here is a pic of Me and Vice President @JDVance towards the end of the night after a few beers🍻 I’m overdressed in my suit, but when the VP invites you to a BBQ, you don’t risk turning up in shorts an flip-flops😂 Cracking night in the beautiful English countryside with JD, his friends and family. Once in a lifetime. Bosh❤️🇬🇧🇺🇸
The irony for British Trump-haters is that this is probably the most Anglophile US administration in living memory
I struggle to think of one which is so clearly pro-Britain (and doesn't give a fuck about Ireland or the EU by comparison). Trump is passionate about his Scotch heritage, Vance is obviously pro-Anglo Saxon/hillbilly Celt
This does not make Trump any less crazy or dangerous, but it does add to the whole paradox. Trump and Vance are almost certainly more pro Britain and patriotically pro British than Keir fecking Starmer
And most Democrat Presidents and presidential candidates, Biden and JFK preferred Ireland to us, Harris and Hillary preferred the EU to us as did Obama who said Brexit would send us 'to the back of the queue.' Kerry was a Francophile more than an Anglophile.
Bill Clinton had a soft spot for Britain but he was an exception. Reagan, Bush W, Trump all liked the UK more than France and Germany certainly
This is the most instinctively pro-British US admin since Ronald Reagan, at least
Reagan who invaded a Commonwealth country without so much as a by-your-leave (Ukraine says hello) and whose UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick preferred Argentina over the Falklands?
“If the next election is going to be about immigration and the war on the woke, it’s not going to be the Conservative party that are the beneficiaries of that. It will be Nigel Farage and Reform,” he said, in an interview with the Guardian. “Trying to make those issues more salient is a strategic blunder. First and foremost the Conservatives need to fight the next election on the economy.”..
A nice try from Gauke, but frankly I’m not convinced fighting on the economy will help them either.
People just aren’t listening to the Tories, and the fact is that they’re not going to get a hearing until memories fade, or they become the main alternative again due to a Reform collapse. I know there are a lot of commentators who like to kid themselves that a centrist Tory party would be popular right now, but the truth is, it wouldn’t be. It might even be less popular, if it shies away from discussing the current right wing talking points.
Yes, it's total shit
Polls show the voters are concerned about immigration more than any other issue, Gauke may wish otherwise, but there it is. PLUS all the other things voters worry about are downstream from immigration - NHS, housing, crime. Sorting all these means, possibly above all else, sorting immigration
He's like someone saying in 1358 "voters seem really concerned about recovery from the Black Death, but the "Let's Recover From The Black Death Party" already dominate that vote, so we need to be the pro-falconry party, with an emphasis on correct leather gauntlets"
Gauke is one of those Westminster liberals who gets his coffee served by the nice Eastern European migrant, gets ferried around by perfectly friendly Pakistani or Afghan Uber drivers and may see an Indian doctor from time to time. He probably thinks that those of use who want to reduce immigration and send people back are racist bigots and have been brainwashed by Nige or Trump etc...
Isn't that his point?
He was a mainstream Tory just a few years ago, now there is no place for him.
That's why the LDs triumphed across the South and Southwest. Reform are winning in the old coalfields and the saxon shore.
So there is no future for the Conservatives.
Of course. That's why the Lib Dems are in the low-mid teens as a %, and Reform are over 30%
Also, those apparently safe Lib Dem seats in the S and SW are all going to swing right as the Boriswave and the boat people ripple out across the shires and boroughs. You can literally watch it happening. Labour are dispersing them all and it's all going to get WORSE, not better
They won't, even if the country went Reform voters in Surrey, Berkshire and Bucks and the Cotswolds and West Sussex and most of Herts, Hampshire and SW London wouldn't as for them Farage is even more of an oik than the likes of Kinnock or Corbyn were and they wouldn't have been seen dead voting for them
Plod telling people to have a go is the most irresponsible advice I've heard. People will get injured or sued or prosecuted. If robbers know people will try to stop them they won't stop robbing they will just build in the need to handle the stoppers. And they will likely both be tooled up and handier than the would be heroes.
I get your logic, but I am not sure it's true
The shoplifters near me tend to be scrawny druggies or blatant opportunists, or maybe the really young working as a gang
They don't look like people who would happily shank someone if confronted with physicality, I suspect they'd drop everything and run. Why get in a knife fight over £50 worth of ribeye steak?
I would not want to be the first person to test this theory, however
They have nothing to lose and are desperate for the next fix. Prison is probably a safer environment for them.
Rather you than me.
Nah, it's bollocks
Recall, I was a smack addict for 10 years. I know - or knew (many are dead) - plenty of drug addicts
You are very seldom that desperate for a fix you will almost-pointlessly risk getting beaten up. And if that became the likely outcome of any shoplifting foray, they would stop doing it immediately
Trouble is, they would turn to different crimes, but that's not the argument we are having. IF shoplifting was physically and painfully hindered, it would cease. The rewards are not big enough
Our problem is that we have decriminalised shoplifting. That's it. We have simply invited every chancer to try it, with zero comeback
I think the deeper underlying problem, or maybe rather the underlying cause for this increase in low level lawlessness, is that we have emasculated teachers, the police, the church and fathers over the last 40-50 years, and youngsters are genuinely not afraid to risk testing the patience of what were once seen as figures of authority.
No doubt the emasculation has its positives, but a side effect is the increase in shop lifting, drug taking, graffiti, petty crime etc. It’s a matter of how many people see the benefits outnumbering the drawbacks
The real problem is that a smack addict (amongst other things) demands that non criminals, i.e. his opponents, to treat his ideas as though they weren't garbage. Non crims are "centrist Dads" or whatever,.The fact that, as a paid employee of a well known drug crazed former minister, he rants from a very specific point of view. Plenty would say his "views" were "quite racist" somw would say that they were more or less openly Fascist. Yet it is his opponents that are "gay" or whatever. To be honest, a teeny bit of humility from a smack head near grandad with ho-hum education would raise the value of his paid for oppinions, but mostly his crazed rants are not the kind of voice our country really needs right now.
This is truly incredible. Skinner is a market trader/barrow boy who lives round the corner to me and who I’ve seen out here and there in Brentwood…& he’s knocking about with the VP!
The power of social media
Here is a pic of Me and Vice President @JDVance towards the end of the night after a few beers🍻 I’m overdressed in my suit, but when the VP invites you to a BBQ, you don’t risk turning up in shorts an flip-flops😂 Cracking night in the beautiful English countryside with JD, his friends and family. Once in a lifetime. Bosh❤️🇬🇧🇺🇸
The irony for British Trump-haters is that this is probably the most Anglophile US administration in living memory
I struggle to think of one which is so clearly pro-Britain (and doesn't give a fuck about Ireland or the EU by comparison). Trump is passionate about his Scotch heritage, Vance is obviously pro-Anglo Saxon/hillbilly Celt
This does not make Trump any less crazy or dangerous, but it does add to the whole paradox. Trump and Vance are almost certainly more pro Britain and patriotically pro British than Keir fecking Starmer
And most Democrat Presidents and presidential candidates, Biden and JFK preferred Ireland to us, Harris and Hillary preferred the EU to us as did Obama who said Brexit would send us 'to the back of the queue.' Kerry was a Francophile more than an Anglophile.
Bill Clinton had a soft spot for Britain but he was an exception. Reagan, Bush W, Trump all liked the UK more than France and Germany certainly
Plod telling people to have a go is the most irresponsible advice I've heard. People will get injured or sued or prosecuted. If robbers know people will try to stop them they won't stop robbing they will just build in the need to handle the stoppers. And they will likely both be tooled up and handier than the would be heroes.
I’m heading to France right now to find out more about what’s happening on the ground with the illegal migration crisis - following my observations at sea on the channel last week
I’m heading to France right now to find out more about what’s happening on the ground with the illegal migration crisis - following my observations at sea on the channel last week
I can buy index linked senior Gilts that yield 5.03% (22/03/29) and on the same day I am advertised similar fixed term mortgages for 3.8%
I could borrow £500k against a property, pay the bank £19,000 pa interest and sink the cash into inflation proof Gilts that pay me £25,150 pa.
Obviously I have skipped taxes for the sake of simplicity (everyone’s taxes are different), but you shouldn’t be able to carry trade the risk free rate of return INSIDE a currency?
Why are UK banks seemingly offering this arbitrage? Are they just trying to prop up their residential property books?
It feels one of those things you notice that screams “something is going to break soon”.
The main mortgage lenders are in the business of borrowing from their depositors at 1-2%, leaving them very well able to compete downwards to below 4% lending rates.
Sure: but then why lend to people at all, when you can earn a (much) better return lending to the government?
Plod telling people to have a go is the most irresponsible advice I've heard. People will get injured or sued or prosecuted. If robbers know people will try to stop them they won't stop robbing they will just build in the need to handle the stoppers. And they will likely both be tooled up and handier than the would be heroes.
I get your logic, but I am not sure it's true
The shoplifters near me tend to be scrawny druggies or blatant opportunists, or maybe the really young working as a gang
They don't look like people who would happily shank someone if confronted with physicality, I suspect they'd drop everything and run. Why get in a knife fight over £50 worth of ribeye steak?
I would not want to be the first person to test this theory, however
They have nothing to lose and are desperate for the next fix. Prison is probably a safer environment for them.
Rather you than me.
Nah, it's bollocks
Recall, I was a smack addict for 10 years. I know - or knew (many are dead) - plenty of drug addicts
You are very seldom that desperate for a fix you will almost-pointlessly risk getting beaten up. And if that became the likely outcome of any shoplifting foray, they would stop doing it immediately
Trouble is, they would turn to different crimes, but that's not the argument we are having. IF shoplifting was physically and painfully hindered, it would cease. The rewards are not big enough
Our problem is that we have decriminalised shoplifting. That's it. We have simply invited every chancer to try it, with zero comeback
I think the deeper underlying problem, or maybe rather the underlying cause for this increase in low level lawlessness, is that we have emasculated teachers, the police, the church and fathers over the last 40-50 years, and youngsters are genuinely not afraid to risk testing the patience of what were once seen as figures of authority.
No doubt the emasculation has its positives, but a side effect is the increase in shop lifting, drug taking, graffiti, petty crime etc. It’s a matter of how many people see the benefits outnumbering the drawbacks
The real problem is that a smack addict (amongst other things) demands that non criminals, i.e. his opponents, to treat his ideas as though they weren't garbage. Non crims are "centrist Dads" or whatever,.The fact that, as a paid employee of a well known drug crazed former minister, he rants from a very specific point of view. Plenty would say his "views" were "quite racist" somw would say that they were more or less openly Fascist. Yet it is his opponents that are "gay" or whatever. To be honest, a teeny bit of humility from a smack head near grandad with ho-hum education would raise the value of his paid for oppinions, but mostly his crazed rants are not the kind of voice our country really needs right now.
This is truly incredible. Skinner is a market trader/barrow boy who lives round the corner to me and who I’ve seen out here and there in Brentwood…& he’s knocking about with the VP!
The power of social media
Here is a pic of Me and Vice President @JDVance towards the end of the night after a few beers🍻 I’m overdressed in my suit, but when the VP invites you to a BBQ, you don’t risk turning up in shorts an flip-flops😂 Cracking night in the beautiful English countryside with JD, his friends and family. Once in a lifetime. Bosh❤️🇬🇧🇺🇸
The irony for British Trump-haters is that this is probably the most Anglophile US administration in living memory
I struggle to think of one which is so clearly pro-Britain (and doesn't give a fuck about Ireland or the EU by comparison). Trump is passionate about his Scotch heritage, Vance is obviously pro-Anglo Saxon/hillbilly Celt
This does not make Trump any less crazy or dangerous, but it does add to the whole paradox. Trump and Vance are almost certainly more pro Britain and patriotically pro British than Keir fecking Starmer
The Trump-Starmer relationship is bewildering. Sir Keir prostrates himself at The Donald, only to be subjected to humiliating take downs such at that recently at Gleneagles, where, if it were revealed Trump’s spiel had been written by Nigel Farage, it could pass muster. Starmer sat there, as Tom Peck of The Times put it “… staring hard in to the middle distance, clenching his teeth and trying to prevent his eyes widening ever further. It was the kind of look that can get you chucked out of an Ibiza nightclub.”
Yet there are few criticisms of Sir Keir’s approach, nothing like the attempts to make “hand in hand” stick on Theresa May
I think Kier is a total idiot re Trump. In fact, the whole liberal order is.
“If the next election is going to be about immigration and the war on the woke, it’s not going to be the Conservative party that are the beneficiaries of that. It will be Nigel Farage and Reform,” he said, in an interview with the Guardian. “Trying to make those issues more salient is a strategic blunder. First and foremost the Conservatives need to fight the next election on the economy.”..
A nice try from Gauke, but frankly I’m not convinced fighting on the economy will help them either.
People just aren’t listening to the Tories, and the fact is that they’re not going to get a hearing until memories fade, or they become the main alternative again due to a Reform collapse. I know there are a lot of commentators who like to kid themselves that a centrist Tory party would be popular right now, but the truth is, it wouldn’t be. It might even be less popular, if it shies away from discussing the current right wing talking points.
Yes, it's total shit
Polls show the voters are concerned about immigration more than any other issue, Gauke may wish otherwise, but there it is. PLUS all the other things voters worry about are downstream from immigration - NHS, housing, crime. Sorting all these means, possibly above all else, sorting immigration
He's like someone saying in 1358 "voters seem really concerned about recovery from the Black Death, but the "Let's Recover From The Black Death Party" already dominate that vote, so we need to be the pro-falconry party, with an emphasis on correct leather gauntlets"
Gauke is one of those Westminster liberals who gets his coffee served by the nice Eastern European migrant, gets ferried around by perfectly friendly Pakistani or Afghan Uber drivers and may see an Indian doctor from time to time. He probably thinks that those of use who want to reduce immigration and send people back are racist bigots and have been brainwashed by Nige or Trump etc...
Yep
I despise them, and I am glad the Tory party is going to die, taking down the likes of him, as it sinks
ALSO: how can they be this stupid??? It's mind-boggling
Gauke is right, you aren't going to win back voters from Farage trying to be even harder against immigration and the ECHR and anti woke than he is as he will always out populist right you.
They are better off trying to hold the 2024 Sunak voters who are primarily centre right and focused on the economy and dislike Labour's tax rises, that would keep them on 24%.
Then if Farage loses next time and steps down Jenrick could have a chance to reunite the right but not before.
Ironically it is probably better for Tories as above if Labour win the next GE than Reform, at least if Labour win, preferably with no majority, that would prove Farage can't win enough swing voters who used to vote Conservative when the Conservatives won.
If Reform win most seats or a majority though then under FPTP sooner or later the Tories likely end up taken over by Farage
You seem to put party before country, which is despicable
I apologise if I misconstrue you, but this appears to be the case. You would happily have the UK endure a second catastrophic Labour government as long as it helps the Tories recover?
Fuck that shit. We are one year into Starmer and look at the state of the motherland
No, I just believe my country is best served by a Tory government.
I suspect most senior Tories would rather have PM Starmer than PM Farage as long as we have FPTP as it at least ensures their party lives to fight another day.
Albeit a neutered Starmer who has lost his majority with some Tory seat gains.
Most of the Tory members and Tory voters would take Farage over Starmer admittedly but CCHQ would take Starmer over Farage in my view
Then I do despise you. Sorry. You put party over country
I can buy index linked senior Gilts that yield 5.03% (22/03/29) and on the same day I am advertised similar fixed term mortgages for 3.8%
I could borrow £500k against a property, pay the bank £19,000 pa interest and sink the cash into inflation proof Gilts that pay me £25,150 pa.
Obviously I have skipped taxes for the sake of simplicity (everyone’s taxes are different), but you shouldn’t be able to carry trade the risk free rate of return INSIDE a currency?
Why are UK banks seemingly offering this arbitrage? Are they just trying to prop up their residential property books?
It feels one of those things you notice that screams “something is going to break soon”.
The main mortgage lenders are in the business of borrowing from their depositors at 1-2%, leaving them very well able to compete downwards to below 4% lending rates.
Sure: but then why lend to people at all, when you can earn a (much) better return lending to the government?
A prime mortgage is less risky than a long dated gilt? Maybe they need a bigger risk premium than what is on offer. Asset recovery for a mortgage will be substantially higher than if the government defaults, though I suspect there will be a housing market crash if the latter happens.
People can hate Starmer and think he’s doing a terrible job but these accusations that he hates Britain are just nonsense . Just as I would never accuse Johnson of hating Britain even though I loathed him . Even Trump who is absolutely loathsome I would never accuse of hating the USA .
You can fundamentally disagree with someone’s actions and their view of what’s best for the country they lead but I find these attacks on Starmer aimed at his patriotism risible .
“If the next election is going to be about immigration and the war on the woke, it’s not going to be the Conservative party that are the beneficiaries of that. It will be Nigel Farage and Reform,” he said, in an interview with the Guardian. “Trying to make those issues more salient is a strategic blunder. First and foremost the Conservatives need to fight the next election on the economy.”..
A nice try from Gauke, but frankly I’m not convinced fighting on the economy will help them either.
People just aren’t listening to the Tories, and the fact is that they’re not going to get a hearing until memories fade, or they become the main alternative again due to a Reform collapse. I know there are a lot of commentators who like to kid themselves that a centrist Tory party would be popular right now, but the truth is, it wouldn’t be. It might even be less popular, if it shies away from discussing the current right wing talking points.
Yes, it's total shit
Polls show the voters are concerned about immigration more than any other issue, Gauke may wish otherwise, but there it is. PLUS all the other things voters worry about are downstream from immigration - NHS, housing, crime. Sorting all these means, possibly above all else, sorting immigration
He's like someone saying in 1358 "voters seem really concerned about recovery from the Black Death, but the "Let's Recover From The Black Death Party" already dominate that vote, so we need to be the pro-falconry party, with an emphasis on correct leather gauntlets"
Gauke is one of those Westminster liberals who gets his coffee served by the nice Eastern European migrant, gets ferried around by perfectly friendly Pakistani or Afghan Uber drivers and may see an Indian doctor from time to time. He probably thinks that those of use who want to reduce immigration and send people back are racist bigots and have been brainwashed by Nige or Trump etc...
Yep
I despise them, and I am glad the Tory party is going to die, taking down the likes of him, as it sinks
ALSO: how can they be this stupid??? It's mind-boggling
Gauke is right, you aren't going to win back voters from Farage trying to be even harder against immigration and the ECHR and anti woke than he is as he will always out populist right you.
They are better off trying to hold the 2024 Sunak voters who are primarily centre right and focused on the economy and dislike Labour's tax rises, that would keep them on 24%.
Then if Farage loses next time and steps down Jenrick could have a chance to reunite the right but not before.
Ironically it is probably better for Tories as above if Labour win the next GE than Reform, at least if Labour win, preferably with no majority, that would prove Farage can't win enough swing voters who used to vote Conservative when the Conservatives won.
If Reform win most seats or a majority though then under FPTP sooner or later the Tories likely end up taken over by Farage
You seem to put party before country, which is despicable
I apologise if I misconstrue you, but this appears to be the case. You would happily have the UK endure a second catastrophic Labour government as long as it helps the Tories recover?
Fuck that shit. We are one year into Starmer and look at the state of the motherland
No, I just believe my country is best served by a Tory government.
I suspect most senior Tories would rather have PM Starmer than PM Farage as long as we have FPTP as it at least ensures their party lives to fight another day.
Albeit a neutered Starmer who has lost his majority with some Tory seat gains.
Most of the Tory members and Tory voters would take Farage over Starmer admittedly but CCHQ would take Starmer over Farage in my view
Then I do despise you. Sorry. You put party over country
Personally I would prefer PR, then on current polls you might still get PR AND 100-150 Tory MPs even on current polls.
Whereas under FPTP the only way you get PM Farage is if he has near wiped out the Tories and their MPs
This is truly incredible. Skinner is a market trader/barrow boy who lives round the corner to me and who I’ve seen out here and there in Brentwood…& he’s knocking about with the VP!
The power of social media
Here is a pic of Me and Vice President @JDVance towards the end of the night after a few beers🍻 I’m overdressed in my suit, but when the VP invites you to a BBQ, you don’t risk turning up in shorts an flip-flops😂 Cracking night in the beautiful English countryside with JD, his friends and family. Once in a lifetime. Bosh❤️🇬🇧🇺🇸
The irony for British Trump-haters is that this is probably the most Anglophile US administration in living memory
I struggle to think of one which is so clearly pro-Britain (and doesn't give a fuck about Ireland or the EU by comparison). Trump is passionate about his Scotch heritage, Vance is obviously pro-Anglo Saxon/hillbilly Celt
This does not make Trump any less crazy or dangerous, but it does add to the whole paradox. Trump and Vance are almost certainly more pro Britain and patriotically pro British than Keir fecking Starmer
And most Democrat Presidents and presidential candidates, Biden and JFK preferred Ireland to us, Harris and Hillary preferred the EU to us as did Obama who said Brexit would send us 'to the back of the queue.' Kerry was a Francophile more than an Anglophile.
Bill Clinton had a soft spot for Britain but he was an exception. Reagan, Bush W, Trump all liked the UK more than France and Germany certainly
“If the next election is going to be about immigration and the war on the woke, it’s not going to be the Conservative party that are the beneficiaries of that. It will be Nigel Farage and Reform,” he said, in an interview with the Guardian. “Trying to make those issues more salient is a strategic blunder. First and foremost the Conservatives need to fight the next election on the economy.”..
A nice try from Gauke, but frankly I’m not convinced fighting on the economy will help them either.
People just aren’t listening to the Tories, and the fact is that they’re not going to get a hearing until memories fade, or they become the main alternative again due to a Reform collapse. I know there are a lot of commentators who like to kid themselves that a centrist Tory party would be popular right now, but the truth is, it wouldn’t be. It might even be less popular, if it shies away from discussing the current right wing talking points.
Yes, it's total shit
Polls show the voters are concerned about immigration more than any other issue, Gauke may wish otherwise, but there it is. PLUS all the other things voters worry about are downstream from immigration - NHS, housing, crime. Sorting all these means, possibly above all else, sorting immigration
He's like someone saying in 1358 "voters seem really concerned about recovery from the Black Death, but the "Let's Recover From The Black Death Party" already dominate that vote, so we need to be the pro-falconry party, with an emphasis on correct leather gauntlets"
Gauke is one of those Westminster liberals who gets his coffee served by the nice Eastern European migrant, gets ferried around by perfectly friendly Pakistani or Afghan Uber drivers and may see an Indian doctor from time to time. He probably thinks that those of use who want to reduce immigration and send people back are racist bigots and have been brainwashed by Nige or Trump etc...
Yep
I despise them, and I am glad the Tory party is going to die, taking down the likes of him, as it sinks
ALSO: how can they be this stupid??? It's mind-boggling
Gauke is right, you aren't going to win back voters from Farage trying to be even harder against immigration and the ECHR and anti woke than he is as he will always out populist right you.
They are better off trying to hold the 2024 Sunak voters who are primarily centre right and focused on the economy and dislike Labour's tax rises, that would keep them on 24%.
Then if Farage loses next time and steps down Jenrick could have a chance to reunite the right but not before.
Ironically it is probably better for Tories as above if Labour win the next GE than Reform, at least if Labour win, preferably with no majority, that would prove Farage can't win enough swing voters who used to vote Conservative when the Conservatives won.
If Reform win most seats or a majority though then under FPTP sooner or later the Tories likely end up taken over by Farage
You seem to put party before country, which is despicable
I apologise if I misconstrue you, but this appears to be the case. You would happily have the UK endure a second catastrophic Labour government as long as it helps the Tories recover?
Fuck that shit. We are one year into Starmer and look at the state of the motherland
No, I just believe my country is best served by a Tory government.
I suspect most senior Tories would rather have PM Starmer than PM Farage as long as we have FPTP as it at least ensures their party lives to fight another day.
Albeit a neutered Starmer who has lost his majority with some Tory seat gains.
Most of the Tory members and Tory voters would take Farage over Starmer admittedly but CCHQ would take Starmer over Farage in my view
Then I do despise you. Sorry. You put party over country
Personally I would prefer PR, then on current polls you might still get PR AND 100-150 Tory MPs even on current polls.
Whereas under FPTP the only way you get PM Farage is if he has near wiped out the Tories and their MPs
Who cares? Your party governed the country like a bunch of clowns, and then you won Brexit and your response was to allow in one million net migrants a year. The greatest betrayal in modern British political history. Then we got Truss
Why do the Tories deserve to survive? They don’t. They deserve to go extinct. They are not fit for purpose and never will be, ever again
A party is no more than a vehicle. Your country is your country. It’s like you’re putting a football team ahead of your family
“If the next election is going to be about immigration and the war on the woke, it’s not going to be the Conservative party that are the beneficiaries of that. It will be Nigel Farage and Reform,” he said, in an interview with the Guardian. “Trying to make those issues more salient is a strategic blunder. First and foremost the Conservatives need to fight the next election on the economy.”..
A nice try from Gauke, but frankly I’m not convinced fighting on the economy will help them either.
People just aren’t listening to the Tories, and the fact is that they’re not going to get a hearing until memories fade, or they become the main alternative again due to a Reform collapse. I know there are a lot of commentators who like to kid themselves that a centrist Tory party would be popular right now, but the truth is, it wouldn’t be. It might even be less popular, if it shies away from discussing the current right wing talking points.
Yes, it's total shit
Polls show the voters are concerned about immigration more than any other issue, Gauke may wish otherwise, but there it is. PLUS all the other things voters worry about are downstream from immigration - NHS, housing, crime. Sorting all these means, possibly above all else, sorting immigration
He's like someone saying in 1358 "voters seem really concerned about recovery from the Black Death, but the "Let's Recover From The Black Death Party" already dominate that vote, so we need to be the pro-falconry party, with an emphasis on correct leather gauntlets"
Gauke is one of those Westminster liberals who gets his coffee served by the nice Eastern European migrant, gets ferried around by perfectly friendly Pakistani or Afghan Uber drivers and may see an Indian doctor from time to time. He probably thinks that those of use who want to reduce immigration and send people back are racist bigots and have been brainwashed by Nige or Trump etc...
Yep
I despise them, and I am glad the Tory party is going to die, taking down the likes of him, as it sinks
ALSO: how can they be this stupid??? It's mind-boggling
Gauke is right, you aren't going to win back voters from Farage trying to be even harder against immigration and the ECHR and anti woke than he is as he will always out populist right you.
They are better off trying to hold the 2024 Sunak voters who are primarily centre right and focused on the economy and dislike Labour's tax rises, that would keep them on 24%.
Then if Farage loses next time and steps down Jenrick could have a chance to reunite the right but not before.
Ironically it is probably better for Tories as above if Labour win the next GE than Reform, at least if Labour win, preferably with no majority, that would prove Farage can't win enough swing voters who used to vote Conservative when the Conservatives won.
If Reform win most seats or a majority though then under FPTP sooner or later the Tories likely end up taken over by Farage
You seem to put party before country, which is despicable
I apologise if I misconstrue you, but this appears to be the case. You would happily have the UK endure a second catastrophic Labour government as long as it helps the Tories recover?
Fuck that shit. We are one year into Starmer and look at the state of the motherland
No, I just believe my country is best served by a Tory government.
I suspect most senior Tories would rather have PM Starmer than PM Farage as long as we have FPTP as it at least ensures their party lives to fight another day.
Albeit a neutered Starmer who has lost his majority with some Tory seat gains.
Most of the Tory members and Tory voters would take Farage over Starmer admittedly but CCHQ would take Starmer over Farage in my view
Then I do despise you. Sorry. You put party over country
Personally I would prefer PR, then on current polls you might still get PR AND 100-150 Tory MPs even on current polls.
Whereas under FPTP the only way you get PM Farage is if he has near wiped out the Tories and their MPs
Who cares? Your party governed the country like a bunch of clowns, and then you won Brexit and your response was to allow in one million net migrants a year. The greatest betrayal in modern British political history. Then we got Truss
Why do the Tories deserve to survive? They don’t. They deserve to go extinct. They are not fit for purpose and never will be, ever again
A party is no more than a vehicle. Your country is your country. It’s like you’re putting a football team ahead of your family
Grow some backbone and abandon the Tories
It didn't, Cameron and Osborne reduced the deficit and cut tax, May got a Brexit deal and helped victims of domestic violence and slavery, Boris beat Corbyn and got Brexit done and the Covid vaccines, Sunak cut immigration (Truss is basically Reform anyway).
The Tories are a party for sensible middle class fiscal conservatives and unionists and soft Brexiteers who are ideologically centre right not populist right.
If the Tories didn't exist I would no longer be a member of any party, I would most likely be a swing voter between Reform and the LDs.
Not all Tory voters and members and MPs would go Reform either, 2/3 would, 1/3 would go LD
I can buy index linked senior Gilts that yield 5.03% (22/03/29) and on the same day I am advertised similar fixed term mortgages for 3.8%
I could borrow £500k against a property, pay the bank £19,000 pa interest and sink the cash into inflation proof Gilts that pay me £25,150 pa.
Obviously I have skipped taxes for the sake of simplicity (everyone’s taxes are different), but you shouldn’t be able to carry trade the risk free rate of return INSIDE a currency?
Why are UK banks seemingly offering this arbitrage? Are they just trying to prop up their residential property books?
It feels one of those things you notice that screams “something is going to break soon”.
The main mortgage lenders are in the business of borrowing from their depositors at 1-2%, leaving them very well able to compete downwards to below 4% lending rates.
Sure: but then why lend to people at all, when you can earn a (much) better return lending to the government?
A prime mortgage is less risky than a long dated gilt? Maybe they need a bigger risk premium than what is on offer. Asset recovery for a mortgage will be substantially higher than if the government defaults, though I suspect there will be a housing market crash if the latter happens.
FINAL WARNING DONALD TRUMP — MAYBE THE MOST IMPORTANT WARNING IN HISTORY! STOP CHEATING OR CALIFORNIA WILL REDRAW THE MAPS. AND GUESS WHO WILL ANNOUNCE IT THIS WEEK? GAVIN NEWSOM (MANY SAY THE MOST LOVED & HANDSOME GOVERNOR) AND A VERY POWERFUL TEAM. DON’T MAKE US DO IT!!! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.
FINAL WARNING DONALD TRUMP — MAYBE THE MOST IMPORTANT WARNING IN HISTORY! STOP CHEATING OR CALIFORNIA WILL REDRAW THE MAPS. AND GUESS WHO WILL ANNOUNCE IT THIS WEEK? GAVIN NEWSOM (MANY SAY THE MOST LOVED & HANDSOME GOVERNOR) AND A VERY POWERFUL TEAM. DON’T MAKE US DO IT!!! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.
And there are people who want the self-serving moron Newsom to replace the self-serving moron Trump.
"Public must stand up to shoplifters, says policing chief Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner claims people who fail to intervene are ‘part of problem’" (£)
I can buy index linked senior Gilts that yield 5.03% (22/03/29) and on the same day I am advertised similar fixed term mortgages for 3.8%
I could borrow £500k against a property, pay the bank £19,000 pa interest and sink the cash into inflation proof Gilts that pay me £25,150 pa.
Obviously I have skipped taxes for the sake of simplicity (everyone’s taxes are different), but you shouldn’t be able to carry trade the risk free rate of return INSIDE a currency?
Why are UK banks seemingly offering this arbitrage? Are they just trying to prop up their residential property books?
It feels one of those things you notice that screams “something is going to break soon”.
The main mortgage lenders are in the business of borrowing from their depositors at 1-2%, leaving them very well able to compete downwards to below 4% lending rates.
Sure: but then why lend to people at all, when you can earn a (much) better return lending to the government?
Volume?
The volume of mortgage lending exceeds even UK government borrowing per annum. Plus there's nothing stopping banks from doing both - and if both are profitable, then why not do both and make a profit on both volumes.
If you only lent to the government and cut off mortgage profits you may increase your proportional profit but not your actual gross profit as you'd be leaving profitable business on the table to be snapped up by someone else.
FINAL WARNING DONALD TRUMP — MAYBE THE MOST IMPORTANT WARNING IN HISTORY! STOP CHEATING OR CALIFORNIA WILL REDRAW THE MAPS. AND GUESS WHO WILL ANNOUNCE IT THIS WEEK? GAVIN NEWSOM (MANY SAY THE MOST LOVED & HANDSOME GOVERNOR) AND A VERY POWERFUL TEAM. DON’T MAKE US DO IT!!! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.
And there are people who want the self-serving moron Newsom to replace the self-serving moron Trump.
He's just aping Trump's style. Is it stupid and puerile? Yes. But being serious has not helped the Dems much either.
"Public must stand up to shoplifters, says policing chief Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner claims people who fail to intervene are ‘part of problem’" (£)
I can buy index linked senior Gilts that yield 5.03% (22/03/29) and on the same day I am advertised similar fixed term mortgages for 3.8%
I could borrow £500k against a property, pay the bank £19,000 pa interest and sink the cash into inflation proof Gilts that pay me £25,150 pa.
Obviously I have skipped taxes for the sake of simplicity (everyone’s taxes are different), but you shouldn’t be able to carry trade the risk free rate of return INSIDE a currency?
Why are UK banks seemingly offering this arbitrage? Are they just trying to prop up their residential property books?
It feels one of those things you notice that screams “something is going to break soon”.
The main mortgage lenders are in the business of borrowing from their depositors at 1-2%, leaving them very well able to compete downwards to below 4% lending rates.
Sure: but then why lend to people at all, when you can earn a (much) better return lending to the government?
Volume?
The volume of mortgage lending exceeds even UK government borrowing per annum. Plus there's nothing stopping banks from doing both - and if both are profitable, then why not do both and make a profit on both volumes.
If you only lent to the government and cut off mortgage profits you may increase your proportional profit but not your actual gross profit as you'd be leaving profitable business on the table to be snapped up by someone else.
It's just a weird artifact. You would expect that 30 year index linked gilts would trade at a discount to mortgages, because banks would choose to purchase them in preference. Simply: they have a smaller capital charge (from a risk weighted assets point of view), and are currently offering essentially guaranteed better returns.
In an efficient market, you would expec them to trade at a 25-75bps premium to mortgages.
FINAL WARNING DONALD TRUMP — MAYBE THE MOST IMPORTANT WARNING IN HISTORY! STOP CHEATING OR CALIFORNIA WILL REDRAW THE MAPS. AND GUESS WHO WILL ANNOUNCE IT THIS WEEK? GAVIN NEWSOM (MANY SAY THE MOST LOVED & HANDSOME GOVERNOR) AND A VERY POWERFUL TEAM. DON’T MAKE US DO IT!!! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.
And there are people who want the self-serving moron Newsom to replace the self-serving moron Trump.
I can buy index linked senior Gilts that yield 5.03% (22/03/29) and on the same day I am advertised similar fixed term mortgages for 3.8%
I could borrow £500k against a property, pay the bank £19,000 pa interest and sink the cash into inflation proof Gilts that pay me £25,150 pa.
Obviously I have skipped taxes for the sake of simplicity (everyone’s taxes are different), but you shouldn’t be able to carry trade the risk free rate of return INSIDE a currency?
Why are UK banks seemingly offering this arbitrage? Are they just trying to prop up their residential property books?
It feels one of those things you notice that screams “something is going to break soon”.
The main mortgage lenders are in the business of borrowing from their depositors at 1-2%, leaving them very well able to compete downwards to below 4% lending rates.
Sure: but then why lend to people at all, when you can earn a (much) better return lending to the government?
Volume?
The volume of mortgage lending exceeds even UK government borrowing per annum. Plus there's nothing stopping banks from doing both - and if both are profitable, then why not do both and make a profit on both volumes.
If you only lent to the government and cut off mortgage profits you may increase your proportional profit but not your actual gross profit as you'd be leaving profitable business on the table to be snapped up by someone else.
It's just a weird artifact. You would expect that 30 year index linked gilts would trade at a discount to mortgages, because banks would choose to purchase them in preference. Simply: they have a smaller capital charge (from a risk weighted assets point of view), and are currently offering essentially guaranteed better returns.
In an efficient market, you would expec them to trade at a 25-75bps premium to mortgages.
I don't think the average UK consumer realises just what good deals the UK mortgage market gives them. The profit is all in customers being on the svr - something the USA doesn't really have with the very long terms there
There's quite a story behind this. A couple of Texan GOP politicians want to relocate the Space Shuttle Discovery from the National Air and Space Museum (which the Smithsonian run) to Houston. This would cost hundreds of millions of dollars, which, apparently, NASA would pay.
The problem with moving them is that the two aircraft developed to move them have also been retired. So how do you move such a massive object across the country without damaging it? Not a simple task...
The GOP have just become gangsters now. Do as we want or you will pay.
And that's exactly the sort of thing the Faragists want for this country....
"The elevation of Ashbourne, Derbyshire, varies, but it is generally around 400 feet (122 meters)"
I think we can safely say the elevation of Ashbourne is something that doesn't vary very much.
I think it means that some parts might be 390 feet and others around 410 (for example)?
I can confirm that Ashbourne is, indeed, quite hilly.
Incidentally, when I was at school nearby in 1990, we did a little study into a north-south bypass of Ashbourne, which was, and is, badly needed. It still has not been built, and I can imagine the ecoloons will have a field day if one is proposed.
(Such 'small' bypasses are, IMO, valid from a 'green' perspective. They reduce congestion in towns, reduce pollution, and make local roads safer for locals and active travel.)
Plod telling people to have a go is the most irresponsible advice I've heard. People will get injured or sued or prosecuted. If robbers know people will try to stop them they won't stop robbing they will just build in the need to handle the stoppers. And they will likely both be tooled up and handier than the would be heroes.
Just stand back and let crime happen.
The thing about this is that you just know that 99% of the people saying "The public should have a go at the shoplifters!!!" would be far too cowardly to 'have a go' themselves. And half the other 1% would 'have a go' at people they don't like the look of regardless of any perceived offence, and the other 0.5% may, just about, manage to cough and say "excuse me".
This is truly incredible. Skinner is a market trader/barrow boy who lives round the corner to me and who I’ve seen out here and there in Brentwood…& he’s knocking about with the VP!
The power of social media
Here is a pic of Me and Vice President @JDVance towards the end of the night after a few beers🍻 I’m overdressed in my suit, but when the VP invites you to a BBQ, you don’t risk turning up in shorts an flip-flops😂 Cracking night in the beautiful English countryside with JD, his friends and family. Once in a lifetime. Bosh❤️🇬🇧🇺🇸
The irony for British Trump-haters is that this is probably the most Anglophile US administration in living memory
I struggle to think of one which is so clearly pro-Britain (and doesn't give a fuck about Ireland or the EU by comparison). Trump is passionate about his Scotch heritage, Vance is obviously pro-Anglo Saxon/hillbilly Celt
This does not make Trump any less crazy or dangerous, but it does add to the whole paradox. Trump and Vance are almost certainly more pro Britain and patriotically pro British than Keir fecking Starmer
The Trump-Starmer relationship is bewildering. Sir Keir prostrates himself at The Donald, only to be subjected to humiliating take downs such at that recently at Gleneagles, where, if it were revealed Trump’s spiel had been written by Nigel Farage, it could pass muster. Starmer sat there, as Tom Peck of The Times put it “… staring hard in to the middle distance, clenching his teeth and trying to prevent his eyes widening ever further. It was the kind of look that can get you chucked out of an Ibiza nightclub.”
Yet there are few criticisms of Sir Keir’s approach, nothing like the attempts to make “hand in hand” stick on Theresa May
I think Kier is a total idiot re Trump. In fact, the whole liberal order is.
Ed Davey has been trenchant in his criticism so not the Liberal order.
This is truly incredible. Skinner is a market trader/barrow boy who lives round the corner to me and who I’ve seen out here and there in Brentwood…& he’s knocking about with the VP!
The power of social media
Here is a pic of Me and Vice President @JDVance towards the end of the night after a few beers🍻 I’m overdressed in my suit, but when the VP invites you to a BBQ, you don’t risk turning up in shorts an flip-flops😂 Cracking night in the beautiful English countryside with JD, his friends and family. Once in a lifetime. Bosh❤️🇬🇧🇺🇸
The irony for British Trump-haters is that this is probably the most Anglophile US administration in living memory
I struggle to think of one which is so clearly pro-Britain (and doesn't give a fuck about Ireland or the EU by comparison). Trump is passionate about his Scotch heritage, Vance is obviously pro-Anglo Saxon/hillbilly Celt
This does not make Trump any less crazy or dangerous, but it does add to the whole paradox. Trump and Vance are almost certainly more pro Britain and patriotically pro British than Keir fecking Starmer
The Trump-Starmer relationship is bewildering. Sir Keir prostrates himself at The Donald, only to be subjected to humiliating take downs such at that recently at Gleneagles, where, if it were revealed Trump’s spiel had been written by Nigel Farage, it could pass muster. Starmer sat there, as Tom Peck of The Times put it “… staring hard in to the middle distance, clenching his teeth and trying to prevent his eyes widening ever further. It was the kind of look that can get you chucked out of an Ibiza nightclub.”
Yet there are few criticisms of Sir Keir’s approach, nothing like the attempts to make “hand in hand” stick on Theresa May
I think Kier is a total idiot re Trump. In fact, the whole liberal order is.
Ed Davey has been trenchant in his criticism so not the Liberal order.
OK, I'll give him *some* credit. Also, I guess I should note that the illiberal order has not been any better. Indeed, it's been even more fawning.
Trump's people at DHS are referencing here "Which Way, Western Man," a book by white supremacist William Gayley Simpson that was published by an American Neo-Nazi organization, the National Alliance. https://x.com/ReichlinMelnick/status/1955293964723986905
Terrible as it sounds, is this vastly different in principle from curators ‘decolonising’ our museums? Once we allow that all history is up for debate, surely it is no surprise that labels swing back and forth with whomever is in power.
New data show the deficit jumped 19% to $291B in July. This is despite $21B collected from Americans due to higher import taxes, which have led to higher costs on goods like furniture, footwear, and auto parts.
FINAL WARNING DONALD TRUMP — MAYBE THE MOST IMPORTANT WARNING IN HISTORY! STOP CHEATING OR CALIFORNIA WILL REDRAW THE MAPS. AND GUESS WHO WILL ANNOUNCE IT THIS WEEK? GAVIN NEWSOM (MANY SAY THE MOST LOVED & HANDSOME GOVERNOR) AND A VERY POWERFUL TEAM. DON’T MAKE US DO IT!!! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.
And there are people who want the self-serving moron Newsom to replace the self-serving moron Trump.
He's just aping Trump's style. Is it stupid and puerile? Yes. But being serious has not helped the Dems much either.
Imitation (of Trump) is the sincerest form of mockery is how I'd read that from Newsom. He's taking the piss.
New data show the deficit jumped 19% to $291B in July. This is despite $21B collected from Americans due to higher import taxes, which have led to higher costs on goods like furniture, footwear, and auto parts.
Tax cuts → deficit → debt → no more spending. ‘Starving the beast’ has been GOP policy for decades.
For some, it's a path to small government. For others, including the squillionaires paying for Trump and the Republicans, tax cuts loom larger, and the future can take care of itself.
Plod telling people to have a go is the most irresponsible advice I've heard. People will get injured or sued or prosecuted. If robbers know people will try to stop them they won't stop robbing they will just build in the need to handle the stoppers. And they will likely both be tooled up and handier than the would be heroes.
Just stand back and let crime happen.
The thing about this is that you just know that 99% of the people saying "The public should have a go at the shoplifters!!!" would be far too cowardly to 'have a go' themselves. And half the other 1% would 'have a go' at people they don't like the look of regardless of any perceived offence, and the other 0.5% may, just about, manage to cough and say "excuse me".
Operation Snap allows the public to upload video of traffic offences for review and possible action by the police. Perhaps it could be extended to shoplifting (and other crimes).
Although given high quality cctv coverage in major shops, one wonders why the big chains cannot act on this already.
New data show the deficit jumped 19% to $291B in July. This is despite $21B collected from Americans due to higher import taxes, which have led to higher costs on goods like furniture, footwear, and auto parts.
I think this take from centrist Dad Danny Finkelstein, about Farage, is correct and it’s a point I’ve made here. Good thread here when people say Reform will be awful or a Reform council will be awful.
‘ Haven’t read a single sentence that better explains why campaigners are struggling to land blows on Farage than this from @Dannythefink and it chimes exactly with what hear day in/out - whatever Farage/Reform’s flaws many people don’t think it can be worse than what we have now.’
FINAL WARNING DONALD TRUMP — MAYBE THE MOST IMPORTANT WARNING IN HISTORY! STOP CHEATING OR CALIFORNIA WILL REDRAW THE MAPS. AND GUESS WHO WILL ANNOUNCE IT THIS WEEK? GAVIN NEWSOM (MANY SAY THE MOST LOVED & HANDSOME GOVERNOR) AND A VERY POWERFUL TEAM. DON’T MAKE US DO IT!!! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.
He’s either deranged or it’s a very good piece of satire/performance art.
FINAL WARNING DONALD TRUMP — MAYBE THE MOST IMPORTANT WARNING IN HISTORY! STOP CHEATING OR CALIFORNIA WILL REDRAW THE MAPS. AND GUESS WHO WILL ANNOUNCE IT THIS WEEK? GAVIN NEWSOM (MANY SAY THE MOST LOVED & HANDSOME GOVERNOR) AND A VERY POWERFUL TEAM. DON’T MAKE US DO IT!!! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.
He’s either deranged or it’s a very good piece of satire/performance art.
He's taking the piss out of Trump's all caps style, that seems to always end with "THANKS FOR YOU CONSIDERATION"
I think this take from centrist Dad Danny Finkelstein, about Farage, is correct and it’s a point I’ve made here. Good thread here when people say Reform will be awful or a Reform council will be awful.
‘ Haven’t read a single sentence that better explains why campaigners are struggling to land blows on Farage than this from @Dannythefink and it chimes exactly with what hear day in/out - whatever Farage/Reform’s flaws many people don’t think it can be worse than what we have now.’
FINAL WARNING DONALD TRUMP — MAYBE THE MOST IMPORTANT WARNING IN HISTORY! STOP CHEATING OR CALIFORNIA WILL REDRAW THE MAPS. AND GUESS WHO WILL ANNOUNCE IT THIS WEEK? GAVIN NEWSOM (MANY SAY THE MOST LOVED & HANDSOME GOVERNOR) AND A VERY POWERFUL TEAM. DON’T MAKE US DO IT!!! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.
And there are people who want the self-serving moron Newsom to replace the self-serving moron Trump.
He's just aping Trump's style. Is it stupid and puerile? Yes. But being serious has not helped the Dems much either.
I think this take from centrist Dad Danny Finkelstein, about Farage, is correct and it’s a point I’ve made here. Good thread here when people say Reform will be awful or a Reform council will be awful.
‘ Haven’t read a single sentence that better explains why campaigners are struggling to land blows on Farage than this from @Dannythefink and it chimes exactly with what hear day in/out - whatever Farage/Reform’s flaws many people don’t think it can be worse than what we have now.’
"Public must stand up to shoplifters, says policing chief Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner claims people who fail to intervene are ‘part of problem’" (£)
I can buy index linked senior Gilts that yield 5.03% (22/03/29) and on the same day I am advertised similar fixed term mortgages for 3.8%
I could borrow £500k against a property, pay the bank £19,000 pa interest and sink the cash into inflation proof Gilts that pay me £25,150 pa.
Obviously I have skipped taxes for the sake of simplicity (everyone’s taxes are different), but you shouldn’t be able to carry trade the risk free rate of return INSIDE a currency?
Why are UK banks seemingly offering this arbitrage? Are they just trying to prop up their residential property books?
It feels one of those things you notice that screams “something is going to break soon”.
The main mortgage lenders are in the business of borrowing from their depositors at 1-2%, leaving them very well able to compete downwards to below 4% lending rates.
Sure: but then why lend to people at all, when you can earn a (much) better return lending to the government?
Volume?
The volume of mortgage lending exceeds even UK government borrowing per annum. Plus there's nothing stopping banks from doing both - and if both are profitable, then why not do both and make a profit on both volumes.
If you only lent to the government and cut off mortgage profits you may increase your proportional profit but not your actual gross profit as you'd be leaving profitable business on the table to be snapped up by someone else.
It's just a weird artifact. You would expect that 30 year index linked gilts would trade at a discount to mortgages, because banks would choose to purchase them in preference. Simply: they have a smaller capital charge (from a risk weighted assets point of view), and are currently offering essentially guaranteed better returns.
In an efficient market, you would expec them to trade at a 25-75bps premium to mortgages.
I don't think the average UK consumer realises just what good deals the UK mortgage market gives them. The profit is all in customers being on the svr - something the USA doesn't really have with the very long terms there
We seem to be back in “why can’t we just” world this evening. Government is simple etc.
Maybe it's not simple but you can't pretend that the British government doesn't over complicate everything. Just look at £49bn being spent on a third runway or £78bn on a nuclear power plant. It's completely ridiculous.
It’s not just the money, it’s also the time.
The lack of 3rd runway at LHR is already costing billions in opportunity costs, and has been for years now. They’ve been doing ‘special spacing’ (read ‘planes closer together than almost anywhere else in the world’) between aircraft on approach for decades, but means that on a foggy morning dozens of planes end up sent somewhere else or don’t take off.
I’ll keep referring to my story that Dubai’s Terminal 3 was built in less time than Heathrow’s Terminal 5 planning inquiry. Same scope of project, new buildings on an extant airfield with some access roads. Dubai built it while London talked about building it.
The 3rd runway is going to be even worse, there wil be a decade of talking about it before we see a spade in the ground.
That's because it's a turd of a project that the airlines don't even want, with a flightpath over west London. All that for £40 billion (at least - obviously it won't come in on budget)..
While the second runway at Gatwick will deliver almost the same extra capacity for £2.2 billion plus incremental terminal capacity, with flightpaths mostly over empty country until the planes get high enough. And a second runway on Stansted I see is estimated about about £1.5 billion.
But the government has been captured by the Heathrow and associated contractors lobby.
It's not just about an extra runway; it's about a hub airport which allows you many more direct "spoke" routes to other destinations worldwide than you'd otherwise be able to justify for your size, and hence higher connectivity and trade.
"Public must stand up to shoplifters, says policing chief Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner claims people who fail to intervene are ‘part of problem’" (£)
I think this take from centrist Dad Danny Finkelstein, about Farage, is correct and it’s a point I’ve made here. Good thread here when people say Reform will be awful or a Reform council will be awful.
‘ Haven’t read a single sentence that better explains why campaigners are struggling to land blows on Farage than this from @Dannythefink and it chimes exactly with what hear day in/out - whatever Farage/Reform’s flaws many people don’t think it can be worse than what we have now.’
I think, for people like Gauke and Finkelstein - and this extends to Parris, Hammond and others - is that what matters most to them is that they are seen by their peer group as reasonable. And, to some extent they're still negotiating
They're a bit different to Grieve, Soubry and Phillip Lee who were all genuinely driven mad by Brexit.
I think this take from centrist Dad Danny Finkelstein, about Farage, is correct and it’s a point I’ve made here. Good thread here when people say Reform will be awful or a Reform council will be awful.
‘ Haven’t read a single sentence that better explains why campaigners are struggling to land blows on Farage than this from @Dannythefink and it chimes exactly with what hear day in/out - whatever Farage/Reform’s flaws many people don’t think it can be worse than what we have now.’
Yes, and I heard the same argument about Starmer and Labour replacing Sunak and the Tories before GE2024 as well.
Well Labour have been shit but not as shit as the Tories and many of the problems they have are legacy Tory issues. Anyway, from the Twitter thread.
‘ As the piece says the only way the mainstream could hope to challenge Reform is to show that it *can* deliver, that it respects ordinary people and crucially showing there is something worth losing from taking a risk on chucking it all out for something new.’
In Durham we got rid of a Labour council as it was not very good and replaced it with a lib Dem led coalition. This was really no big improvement. Hence the transition to Reform and no matter how many nary, ranty. they/them pronouns, pink hair, nose ring, keyboard warriors ranted about them in Facebook groups and told people they were racist or stupid or voting against their own interests (always a sure fire way of getting people to reconsider their votes, abuse) prior to the election people gave them a chance. If they deliver, great, if they don’t well where do we go then ?
Comments
The Tories need to find a way, and it is very easy IMO, of linking mass immigration with the current economic and national paralysis and start the conversation per capita growth rather than overall growth. That gives them the economic argument in addition to being in favour of halting immigration which isn't something Reform will be credible on.
I don’t fully agree with Gauke’s argument that the core Conservative vote is the Blue Wall professional though. The genius of the party’s former election winning strategy pre 2016 was that they managed to appeal to both that cautious demographic, and the Daily Mail reading social conservatives. That magic trick is gone for now, ever since the Brexit vote. Maybe it’ll return at some stage.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/articles/cpv0lj0vmeko
What a match that was. fantastic stuff.
From polling questions they appear to be traditionalist, old, loyal, cautious, low tax and low spend, but strongly anti Trump and anti Putin. For the first time since 2016 a plurality now would support EU rejoin. So they’re not obviously populists. But they are perhaps more than ever the pensioner block vote. That makes radical policy making tricky.
But I never disliked anyone because of their nationality. I dated lots of European girls and worked with plenty too, so I think I was being rather Gauke-ish, ie “it doesn’t affect me in a negative way, so why should it bother people whose circumstances are entirely different from mine?
Nothing wrong with immigration, but it should be carefully managed, not a free market
https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1955225914905661689#m
You don't build camps after they arrive, you prevent them getting in in the first place...
While the second runway at Gatwick will deliver almost the same extra capacity for £2.2 billion plus incremental terminal capacity, with flightpaths mostly over empty country until the planes get high enough. And a second runway on Stansted I see is estimated about about £1.5 billion.
But the government has been captured by the Heathrow and associated contractors lobby.
The problem we have is for a long time we've had a free market on people moving here but not a free market on them building a house once they're here.
Its easier to move to the country, than it is to build a new house in the country.
The result has been disastrous, except to those who seek to extract rents from ever-increasing asset values.
It should be as easy to build a house as it is to move to the country. We should be having more housing growth than population growth.
I think they will struggle to hold onto the Hindu vote if Jenrick gets the gig. Their future looks a lot like the National Liberals, absorption into the bigger party.
Truss still has ambition. There's obviously no future for her in the Tories, but she should be able to get a Reform seat, she is no nuttier than the rest of their candidates, and as one of a handful of their MPs with some experience of government she should be straight into the cabinet.
Now we don't seem to have a home for David Gauke and Rory Stewart.
I think with so much narrow factionalism and so many parties we should have another look at PR. In particular STV
No one is "oppressing the PB centrist Dads". They have their very own party, right there. Waiting
It will never win power by itself as things stand, but that's because centrism is, in modern circumstances, laughably inadequate. But it makes them feel good to say these nice moderate things so Yay Them
No doubt the emasculation has its positives, but a side effect is the increase in shop lifting, drug taking, graffiti, petty crime etc. It’s a matter of how many people see the benefits outnumbering the drawbacks
Governor Newsom Press Office
@GovPressOffice
FINAL WARNING DONALD TRUMP — MAYBE THE MOST IMPORTANT WARNING IN HISTORY! STOP CHEATING OR CALIFORNIA WILL REDRAW THE MAPS. AND GUESS WHO WILL ANNOUNCE IT THIS WEEK? GAVIN NEWSOM (MANY SAY THE MOST LOVED & HANDSOME GOVERNOR) AND A VERY POWERFUL TEAM. DON’T MAKE US DO IT!!! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.
Leon is Reform these days anyway. He's just venting.
"I note that Nicola Sturgeon devotes more paragraphs (4) to her appearance on Jon Stewart's 'The Daily Show' than she does to drug deaths (3) and ferries (0) combined."
https://x.com/alexmassie/status/1955244298582048936
Most likely causes of accidents are those who tow caravans and not used to the difference forgetting the width of their vehicle, there's plenty of wing mirrors lying on the side of A82 narrow bridges.
I don't think you've forgotten any of your tractor driving skills but I don't see why every 96 year old granny who holds a manual car licence should hold entitlement rights to drive that kind of gross weight around the countryside without having their ability tested. There would hardly be any significant uptake on tests if you removed category f from those who hadn't sat tractor tests
I find it odd a 96 year old who has never sat a tractor test can drive a 3500 gallon slurry tanker yoke but not a class C1/C+E
The White House will now be “vetting” Smithsonian museums to ensure their exhibits comply with Trump’s “vision” and “interpretation” of history.
https://x.com/NoLieWithBTC/status/1955322096671715594
https://x.com/ReichlinMelnick/status/1955293964723986905
The power of social media
Here is a pic of Me and Vice President @JDVance towards the end of the night after a few beers🍻 I’m overdressed in my suit, but when the VP invites you to a BBQ, you don’t risk turning up in shorts an flip-flops😂 Cracking night in the beautiful English countryside with JD, his friends and family. Once in a lifetime. Bosh❤️🇬🇧🇺🇸
https://x.com/iamtomskinner/status/1955373110640947300?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
https://x.com/CPhilpOfficial/status/1955374988933918863
Seems like every Tory frontbencher is going on holiday to Northern France this year.
I struggle to think of one which is so clearly pro-Britain (and doesn't give a fuck about Ireland or the EU by comparison). Trump is passionate about his Scotch heritage, Vance is obviously pro-Anglo Saxon/hillbilly Celt
This does not make Trump any less crazy or dangerous, but it does add to the whole paradox. Trump and Vance are almost certainly more pro Britain and patriotically pro British than Keir fecking Starmer
Bill Clinton had a soft spot for Britain but he was an exception. Reagan, Bush W, Trump all liked the UK more than France and Germany certainly
I suspect most senior Tories would rather have PM Starmer than PM Farage as long as we have FPTP as it at least ensures their party lives to fight another day.
Albeit a neutered Starmer who has lost his majority with some Tory seat gains.
Most of the Tory members and Tory voters would take Farage over Starmer admittedly but CCHQ would take Starmer over Farage in my view
Yet there are few criticisms of Sir Keir’s approach, nothing like the attempts to make “hand in hand” stick on Theresa May
As should experiments like the one I read about many years ago: When we see something that interests us, our eyes open up. About 80 percent of young women had that reaction when shown a picture of a baby, but only 20 percent of young men. (Granted, the experiment was probably done on American college students, but I think it likely you would get similar results elsewhere,)
(For the record: I am pretty sure I am in that 20 percent.)
Just sayin'.
1000 in 1 out works just peachy under certain conditions.
Not sure the French will like it, but who cares?
Not much happening then.
"Oppinions"
"Just sayin"
"whatever.,."
*checks time in the Baltic Republics*
Ah, Yes
You can fundamentally disagree with someone’s actions and their view of what’s best for the country they lead but I find these attacks on Starmer aimed at his patriotism risible .
Whereas under FPTP the only way you get PM Farage is if he has near wiped out the Tories and their MPs
Why do the Tories deserve to survive? They don’t. They deserve to go extinct. They are not fit for purpose and never will be, ever again
A party is no more than a vehicle. Your country is your country. It’s like you’re putting a football team ahead of your family
Grow some backbone and abandon the Tories
The Tories are a party for sensible middle class fiscal conservatives and unionists and soft Brexiteers who are ideologically centre right not populist right.
If the Tories didn't exist I would no longer be a member of any party, I would most likely be a swing voter between Reform and the LDs.
Not all Tory voters and members and MPs would go Reform either, 2/3 would, 1/3 would go LD
"Public must stand up to shoplifters, says policing chief
Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner claims people who fail to intervene are ‘part of problem’" (£)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/12/public-must-stand-up-to-shoplifters-says-policing-chief
The volume of mortgage lending exceeds even UK government borrowing per annum. Plus there's nothing stopping banks from doing both - and if both are profitable, then why not do both and make a profit on both volumes.
If you only lent to the government and cut off mortgage profits you may increase your proportional profit but not your actual gross profit as you'd be leaving profitable business on the table to be snapped up by someone else.
Saving money on criminal justice is one of the most expensive things you can do.
In an efficient market, you would expec them to trade at a 25-75bps premium to mortgages.
Panerai Luminor 233. Bro's watch game is STRONG.
"The elevation of Ashbourne, Derbyshire, varies, but it is generally around 400 feet (122 meters)"
I think we can safely say the elevation of Ashbourne is something that doesn't vary very much.
The problem with moving them is that the two aircraft developed to move them have also been retired. So how do you move such a massive object across the country without damaging it? Not a simple task...
The GOP have just become gangsters now. Do as we want or you will pay.
And that's exactly the sort of thing the Faragists want for this country....
Incidentally, when I was at school nearby in 1990, we did a little study into a north-south bypass of Ashbourne, which was, and is, badly needed. It still has not been built, and I can imagine the ecoloons will have a field day if one is proposed.
(Such 'small' bypasses are, IMO, valid from a 'green' perspective. They reduce congestion in towns, reduce pollution, and make local roads safer for locals and active travel.)
Vance not meeting her indicates they have already weighed her and found her wanting.
New data show the deficit jumped 19% to $291B in July. This is despite $21B collected from Americans due to higher import taxes, which have led to higher costs on goods like furniture, footwear, and auto parts.
The deficit for 2025 is already $1.63 trillion, up 7% from the same period last year.
https://x.com/MeidasTouch/status/1955392728000540896
For some, it's a path to small government. For others, including the squillionaires paying for Trump and the Republicans, tax cuts loom larger, and the future can take care of itself.
Although given high quality cctv coverage in major shops, one wonders why the big chains cannot act on this already.
‘ Haven’t read a single sentence that better explains why campaigners are struggling to land blows on Farage than this from @Dannythefink and it chimes exactly with what hear day in/out - whatever Farage/Reform’s flaws many people don’t think it can be worse than what we have now.’
https://x.com/luketryl/status/1955343071563919546?s=61
Heathrow needs it and we must get on with it.
NEW THREAD
But I'm a bit busy with my day job, and my cool new side project (halbut.io).
Also, I need to migrate PB to Cloudflare.
They're a bit different to Grieve, Soubry and Phillip Lee who were all genuinely driven mad by Brexit.
‘ As the piece says the only way the mainstream could hope to challenge Reform is to show that it *can* deliver, that it respects ordinary people and crucially showing there is something worth losing from taking a risk on chucking it all out for something new.’
In Durham we got rid of a Labour council as it was not very good and replaced it with a lib Dem led coalition. This was really no big improvement. Hence the transition to Reform and no matter how many nary, ranty. they/them pronouns, pink hair, nose ring, keyboard warriors ranted about them in Facebook groups and told people they were racist or stupid or voting against their own interests (always a sure fire way of getting people to reconsider their votes, abuse) prior to the election people gave them a chance. If they deliver, great, if they don’t well where do we go then ?