I think the likeliest outcome for the Senedd elections next year is Reform win most seats but Labour stay in power after doing a deal with Plaid as Labour plus Plaid have more AMs than Reform and the Tories, with whichever of Labour or Plaid wins more seats providing the next First Minister.
That could also be an omen for the next GE, while most polls give Reform most seats they are certainly well short of the 35-40%+ Farage would need to be on to make a clear majority likely, especially if LD and Green voters tactically vote Labour in the end in Labour held marginal seats to keep Reform out. It is perfectly possible therefore that at the next GE Reform win a majority in England, or Reform and the Tories combined at least win a majority in England but Labour stay in government as UK wide Labour and the SNP and Plaid combined win more seats in Scotland and Wales than Reform and the Tories combined do and with the LD seats won in England that gives Starmer enough MPs in a hung parliament to back him as PM over Farage
Good morning
I don't agree with you about Labour staying in power in Wales next year
All the signs are labour are heading for a tanking and the likely winner will be Plaid with Reform a close second
You do not live in Wales so haven't experienced the disaster that is Welsh Labour and it would be toxic for Plaid to allow labour to continue in government
That doesn't mean that Wales will have a stable Senedd, but I do expect 'an anybody but labour attitude' post the election next spring
In which case Plaid would govern with Labour support most likely.
The only way to really remove Welsh Labour from power is to vote Reform or Tory
Nice try. Have you seen the Reform prospectus? I despise the Tories, particularly the useless Welsh Tories, but even they are a step up from Welsh Reform.
Is there a post-2021 Welsh Reform prospectus - do you have a link?
No, just from ad hoc interviews on local telly. The closure of Cardiff Airport has been touted, as have the reintroduction of grammar schools, the return to a default 30mph, rolling back NetZero, and more privatisation within the NHS. None of which would cheer me up.
They have suggested the Southern M4 relief road at Newport would be built. I'm up for that.
HAng on, isn't closing Rhoose a Net Zero thing? What am I missing?
Well yes, but that is not the thinking behind the call for closure.
Rhoose is a great airport unfortunately there are, even in the summer, around half a dozen flights a day, and it is owned by Welsh Government. The May Government refused landing charge reductions for fear it would harm Bristol Airport, which is awfully oversubscribed and too small.
Cardiff Airport is another disappointing dereliction of duty from Westminster Labour.
The blame for Cardiff Airport lies solely with Welsh Labour. Instead of pissing money up the wall buying it, they should have built a decent link road to the M4. I know they have a pathological aversion to building new roads, but the fact the airport is such a pain to get to is the main reason most people in south east Wales choose Bristol (In addition to the fact flights are normally about 50 percent cheaper).
Irrespective of that it's also consistent with Reform's anti-devolution agenda. Wrecks the Welsh economy (whether actual or potential is irrelevant) and integrates south Wales more tightly with a different part of England from the centre and the north.
Cardiff airport has always been loss making and it simply doesn't serve anyone who lives in North or Mid Wales because getting there would take all day.
Hence I suspect there are a lot of votes available elsewhere from closing the airport.
Loss making? I am not sure Peter Thomas lost any money on Cardiff Airport
You would still need the runway for British Airways Maintenance but you could build a lot of houses on what would be a brownfield site.
Closing Rhoose doesn't exactly say Wales is open for business. Welcome to Wales via Bristol.
I am not sure why with a pet Government in Westminster Eluned hasn't made more headway during the last year.
A lot of people on here did A-Levels early. Shows how untypical PB is.
I don't think it was that uncommon at a certain point in time e.g. if you wanted to do further maths, a lot of schools in my day apparently used to get people to do the normal maths A-level in year one, then the further in year 2, rather than spread both across the 2 years.
Me from humble beginning, you want to do further what....what's that.
There was also a trend to do 5 or 6 A-Levels for the bright kids. I don't know if that is still the case. But I think spreading those over 2 years can cause a lot of timetable clashes. I had to miss some classes because of that.
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
You could say the same of MAGA, but it hasn't governed how Trump has acted. The Republicans have sold their WWC voters down the river in favour of tax cuts for the rich and a massive build-up of ICE.
If your A level results are disappointing, don’t worry. I got a C and two Us and here I am today, installing lights for a helicopter landing pad in my garden.
If he had achieved better grades he could afford to employ someone to install his helicopter landing lights.
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
I am not sure it does. That is how Reform voters feel, but I anticipate Reform MPs being more Farage aligned "smash the state" types. Those Reform voters may well find leopards eating their faces very quickly, as indeed we see in Trumpistan.
A very pleasant upside surprise in the S household today, after an early morning drive to school.
I hated this day back in 1990 and 1991. (I took A level Maths a year early). Our school had a policy of posting the results out, rather than allowing collection on the Thursday, so I had to wait an extra day to get them, with the media banging on about it all day.
Mine was 1983 and 1985 (did French A Level two years early) and my school used to post them and put them on a notice board. I was at my parents' house in Kerlouan so I had to go to the village doctor's house (the only one with a phone), give his wife a slack handful of 10 franc coins and call the school under her volucrine eye to get my results. It was like a missing chapter from L'education sentimentale.
I did two A Levels a year early. Which had an entertaining result - when at interview at UCL I got a 2 U offer, and so had a place immediately.
They clearly wanted you. I had Maths in the bag when applying and Warwick prostituted themselves to get me as they thought I was heading for Cambridge.
That was a standard UCL offer at the time. Basic matriculation
I got the same offer - “two Es and you’re in”. I guess it was UCL’s way of competing with Oxbridge. If they saw a candidate they liked they made their offer very hard to refuse
It made my A Level day delightfully stress free. Unlike all my peers I knew I’d gotten in to my chosen uni. I remember strolling to the college to get the actual results on a beautiful sunny morning and feeling very blithe
I got BBC in the end. Stop laughing at the back, mister Pornhub
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
PB readers will enjoy Andrew Teale today. He covers voter registration, transport planning and boundary changes before he even reaches the analysis of today’s by elections.
On topic, at root I don't see RefUK in Wales being much different from England.
Extra challenges imo are that it is still centralised, and the leadership default to England. Farage makes proclamations from One Horse Town, Bromley, and they salute rather than debate. I do not see that playing perfectly in Wales.
IMO one to watch is 20mph default Welsh speed limit and what RefUK do. It had cross party support in the Senedd until the Tories 'went culture war', and benefits are showing in casualty data and reduced insurance premiums. There is another nearly full school year by next May, so "cancel it all and put more people in hospital and children at risk" may not be wise.
A more risk-averse policy could be "we encourage local reviews" - but that is existing policy of the Lab government in Wales. There are other options, but they may not reach Single Street, London.
OTOH White Van Man and his friend Taxi Driver have not gone away.
A very pleasant upside surprise in the S household today, after an early morning drive to school.
I hated this day back in 1990 and 1991. (I took A level Maths a year early). Our school had a policy of posting the results out, rather than allowing collection on the Thursday, so I had to wait an extra day to get them, with the media banging on about it all day.
Mine was 1983 and 1985 (did French A Level two years early) and my school used to post them and put them on a notice board. I was at my parents' house in Kerlouan so I had to go to the village doctor's house (the only one with a phone), give his wife a slack handful of 10 franc coins and call the school under her volucrine eye to get my results. It was like a missing chapter from L'education sentimentale.
I did two A Levels a year early. Which had an entertaining result - when at interview at UCL I got a 2 U offer, and so had a place immediately.
They clearly wanted you. I had Maths in the bag when applying and Warwick prostituted themselves to get me as they thought I was heading for Cambridge.
That was a standard UCL offer at the time. Basic matriculation
I got the same offer - “two Es and you’re in”. I guess it was UCL’s way of competing with Oxbridge. If they saw a candidate they liked they made their offer very hard to refuse
It made my A Level day delightfully stress free. Unlike all my peers I knew I’d gotten in to my chosen uni. I remember strolling to the college to get the actual results on a beautiful sunny morning and feeling very blithe
I got BBC in the end. Stop laughing at the back, mister Pornhub
I got ABBC.
Gotta love that JMB General Studies A level!!!
From asking people on the course, they only gave the EE (or UU) to people with very high predicted grades. People with lower predictions (BBB was considered good at the time and would get you into a range of Unis) got tough offers.
We really should have figured out how to sync the results and uni place system - perhaps do during in COVID? The time and stress of the offers system is a nonesense.
If your A level results are disappointing, don’t worry. I got a C and two Us and here I am today, installing lights for a helicopter landing pad in my garden.
If he had achieved better grades he could afford to employ someone to install his helicopter landing lights.
In the last season of his show, he was trying to open a pub while harvesting crops at the same time, He was working round the clock and shortly thereafter had his heart attack
I know it made "good telly" but he could have hired someone else to drive his tractor for those 2 weeks
A very pleasant upside surprise in the S household today, after an early morning drive to school.
I hated this day back in 1990 and 1991. (I took A level Maths a year early). Our school had a policy of posting the results out, rather than allowing collection on the Thursday, so I had to wait an extra day to get them, with the media banging on about it all day.
Mine was 1983 and 1985 (did French A Level two years early) and my school used to post them and put them on a notice board. I was at my parents' house in Kerlouan so I had to go to the village doctor's house (the only one with a phone), give his wife a slack handful of 10 franc coins and call the school under her volucrine eye to get my results. It was like a missing chapter from L'education sentimentale.
I did two A Levels a year early. Which had an entertaining result - when at interview at UCL I got a 2 U offer, and so had a place immediately.
They clearly wanted you. I had Maths in the bag when applying and Warwick prostituted themselves to get me as they thought I was heading for Cambridge.
That was a standard UCL offer at the time. Basic matriculation
I got the same offer - “two Es and you’re in”. I guess it was UCL’s way of competing with Oxbridge. If they saw a candidate they liked they made their offer very hard to refuse
It made my A Level day delightfully stress free. Unlike all my peers I knew I’d gotten in to my chosen uni. I remember strolling to the college to get the actual results on a beautiful sunny morning and feeling very blithe
I got BBC in the end. Stop laughing at the back, mister Pornhub
I got ABBC.
Gotta love that JMB General Studies A level!!!
From asking people on the course, they only gave the EE (or UU) to people with very high predicted grades. People with lower predictions (BBB was considered good at the time and would get you into a range of Unis) got tough offers.
We really should have figured out how to sync the results and uni place system - perhaps do during in COVID? The time and stress of the offers system is a nonesense.
Given everything is electronic now, it isn't even as if you need people to send people paperwork then they have to send that paperwork in via the post, then the university send a letter back inviting them to a chat, etc etc etc.
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
A surprisingly high percentage of Reform voters would now vote Remain, given another chance.
22% of Reform would vote Remain and 44% of Con. 24% of 2016 Leave voters want another referendum in the next 5 years too, even though the outcome would look very much a Rejoin victory.
There is a growing disparity between opinions of Brexit and of Farage that at some point will have to be resolved.
Just as a high % of the Tory party wanted to leave but the centrist leaning leadership kept ploughing further with integration.....
As an aside, I know a couple of Remainers who are now voting Reform. From vastly different backgrounds, different parts of the country etc. What do they have in common? They are wary of the growth in immigration over the past 5-10 years AND consider Starmer's Labour party to be continuity Sunak
If your A level results are disappointing, don’t worry. I got a C and two Us and here I am today, installing lights for a helicopter landing pad in my garden.
If he had achieved better grades he could afford to employ someone to install his helicopter landing lights.
In the last season of his show, he was trying to open a pub while harvesting crops at the same time, He was working round the clock and shortly thereafter had his heart attack
I know it made "good telly" but he could have hired someone else to drive his tractor for those 2 weeks
Although obviously he makes a load of money out of Clarkson's Farm TV show and there is clearly stunts that are setup and originally he bought that farm as an efficient IHT play....I think he is being genuine about how he has fallen in love with farming.
I think it started off as right I can get my IHT tax bill down and Amazon want some more telly form my big deal, oh I will just go Top Gear does Farms piece of piss for a few weeks a year. But COVID, he was trapped on that farm and it shows that he is way more invested in doing farmy things than he needs to be doing, he could be paying people to manage that land all year round and sit around making silly beer ads.
A very pleasant upside surprise in the S household today, after an early morning drive to school.
I hated this day back in 1990 and 1991. (I took A level Maths a year early). Our school had a policy of posting the results out, rather than allowing collection on the Thursday, so I had to wait an extra day to get them, with the media banging on about it all day.
And in other news my top 10 UK university is essentially closed for clearing to home students, and wide open for overseas. Money talks.
The collapse of the idea that the first priority of the top UK universities is the education of properly qualifying UK citizens is an immoral sell out. It will erode us culturally, just as the concept of doctors going on strike erodes the sense of duty and vocation.
So I will shortly be interviewing and no doubt offering a place to an overseas applicant. We've also just rejected a student who got A*BB rather than the offered AAB. (So one up, one down). They have a right to be angry, I think.
Is A*BB not the same UCAS points as AAB?
We don't use points at Bath. It would be equivlant.
Does the subject mix affect things, so for example if your home student who missed out was coming in to do chemistry with an AAB offer and they got that A*BB but the A* was in interpretive dance and the Chemistry only got a B would that be the killer (and would she have got accepted for kissing the offer if her A* had been chemistry and the dropped A to a B was in a subject not vital for the degree)?
Hope this makes sense.
No - we don't discriminate on which of the grades is chemistry, but they do need chemistry as one of he three. We are not completely sure how our admissions team determines which of the near misses they take, apart from widening access (so underprivileged background, free school meals etc) seems to be featuring a lot. Bath has an issue with being rather middle class across the board and it can affect league tables.
Not a criticism of you. That seems very backward. If a kid gets A* in Chemistry for a Chemistry degree, I would be giving them a break on missing by one grade on another subject. Vice versa, Chemistry being the weak grade, then I can see it being more of a problem.
There are lots of factors at play - as I said Bath seems to be on a widening access drive so are prioritising that. To be honest I don't have time to go through all the near misses, but as we have taken 17 I expect there are many more who didn't get in and you could probably make a good case for a fair number of them. At the end of the day the 123 who met offer were straight in. Thats the way to ensure you get your place.
My solution to all of this which I have made for I think the entire time I have posted on here to end the overall nonsense. Post A-Level results applications. Then its a pretty simple did you get above the bar required, yes / no. If oversubscribed, look at a candidates peers at their school, did they over achieve, you can give them a bit of a higher weighting.
I 100% agree. Would save a lot of time and effort on the Uni's part too.
A very pleasant upside surprise in the S household today, after an early morning drive to school.
I hated this day back in 1990 and 1991. (I took A level Maths a year early). Our school had a policy of posting the results out, rather than allowing collection on the Thursday, so I had to wait an extra day to get them, with the media banging on about it all day.
Mine was 1983 and 1985 (did French A Level two years early) and my school used to post them and put them on a notice board. I was at my parents' house in Kerlouan so I had to go to the village doctor's house (the only one with a phone), give his wife a slack handful of 10 franc coins and call the school under her volucrine eye to get my results. It was like a missing chapter from L'education sentimentale.
I did two A Levels a year early. Which had an entertaining result - when at interview at UCL I got a 2 U offer, and so had a place immediately.
They clearly wanted you. I had Maths in the bag when applying and Warwick prostituted themselves to get me as they thought I was heading for Cambridge.
The group I was in for interview was all A and B predicted - this was back when ABB would get you in Unis like UCL.
At the end of the tour, talks etc, they called us in, one by one to have a final discussion and an offer. The first person in told us that he’d ben asked what offer *he wanted*. And got it. The next person in had the same and asked for a lower offer. And got that.
I moved myself to the back of the queue. The guy before me asked for EE and got it. When asked, I deflected by talking about other Unis I was looking at. After the 3rd ask deflected, the Prof announced he was giving me a UU offer.
Other people on the course, were in different groups to this, and got real offers.
Weird process, I also went there around same time as you and had an invitation to interview, went up, interviewed with the head of department for just over three hours and then a week later was sent a 2E offer - you must have gone earlier as I understand they stopped the 2 U offers and definitely don’t offer it now.
If your A level results are disappointing, don’t worry. I got a C and two Us and here I am today, installing lights for a helicopter landing pad in my garden.
If he had achieved better grades he could afford to employ someone to install his helicopter landing lights.
In the last season of his show, he was trying to open a pub while harvesting crops at the same time, He was working round the clock and shortly thereafter had his heart attack
I know it made "good telly" but he could have hired someone else to drive his tractor for those 2 weeks
Although obviously he makes a load of money out of Clarkson's Farm TV show and there is clearly stunts that are setup and originally he bought that farm as an efficient IHT play....I think he is being genuine about how he has fallen in love with farming.
Yes. It’s clearly real
He may have started the show as a lark but by the end you can see his sincere joy in the new job. In fact that’s one of the reasons it works and is SO successful (it’s globally popular) - it is obviously true at its core, even as elements are staged or crafted
Conversely, the Grand Tour declined in quality as the staging and scripting got more salient and painfully obvious - and you could sense the three guys were kinda bored
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
Yes, remember how Leave majored on more funding for the NHS.
Too many foreigners, we're a soft touch, it's not fair, let's look after our own, British jobs/houses/schools/hospitals for British people, there's plenty of £££ if we stop wasting it on bureaucracy and bogus asylum-seekers and DEI and climate wokery - it's Reform's challenge to fuse all this into an election winning political project.
Farage did it successfully in 2016. Can he do it again? Big reason No: The thing he sold last time is tarnished by subsequent reality. It's been exposed as a con. Big Reason Yes: Anti-immigration sentiment and general discontent is even higher now than in 2016 and he doesn't need 52% this time. Mid to high 30s will probably do.
@Casino_Royale There was a good deal of wishful thinking, when it came to analysing US Presidential polls, and early voting numbers ( I did not want Trump to win, either).
But, the early voting numbers from Nevada and Georgia were clear. Trump was winning both States. Trump might have gone on to lose narrowly, despite gaining both States, but it was not likely he would.
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
A surprisingly high percentage of Reform voters would now vote Remain, given another chance.
22% of Reform would vote Remain and 44% of Con. 24% of 2016 Leave voters want another referendum in the next 5 years too, even though the outcome would look very much a Rejoin victory.
There is a growing disparity between opinions of Brexit and of Farage that at some point will have to be resolved.
Just as a high % of the Tory party wanted to leave but the centrist leaning leadership kept ploughing further with integration.....
As an aside, I know a couple of Remainers who are now voting Reform. From vastly different backgrounds, different parts of the country etc. What do they have in common? They are wary of the growth in immigration over the past 5-10 years AND consider Starmer's Labour party to be continuity Sunak
The rise of the leftwing “anti mass immigration” vote is real and important. See my earlier comment about my lefty friend who obviously has this opinion but the only way he can comfortably express it - for now - is by ranting about “all the Brexit changes”
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
You could say the same of MAGA, but it hasn't governed how Trump has acted. The Republicans have sold their WWC voters down the river in favour of tax cuts for the rich and a massive build-up of ICE.
A good point, but there are a couple of key differences:
UK voters are not religious in the same way as USA voters are. They are much less subject to magical beliefs about charismatic politicians. Nor are they ideologically accustomed to the idea that the rich can be radically irresponsible and run the country on their own fiat.
The UK does not allow for the takeover of the state by an individual and cronies as easily as the USA. And Reform MPs will mostly want to be re-elected on 2034.
Our courts are far less politicised, and there is no chance (IMO) of a government simply ignoring thr rule of law.
But we shall perhaps find out. (30% chance of a Reform majority government).
If your A level results are disappointing, don’t worry. I got a C and two Us and here I am today, installing lights for a helicopter landing pad in my garden.
If he had achieved better grades he could afford to employ someone to install his helicopter landing lights.
In the last season of his show, he was trying to open a pub while harvesting crops at the same time, He was working round the clock and shortly thereafter had his heart attack
I know it made "good telly" but he could have hired someone else to drive his tractor for those 2 weeks
Although obviously he makes a load of money out of Clarkson's Farm TV show and there is clearly stunts that are setup and originally he bought that farm as an efficient IHT play....I think he is being genuine about how he has fallen in love with farming.
Yes. It’s clearly real
He may have started the show as a lark but by the end you can see his sincere joy in the new job. In fact that’s one of the reasons it works and is SO successful (it’s globally popular) - it is obviously true at its core, even as elements are staged or crafted
The best moments are the ones that couldn't be staged. Obviously what happens to the animals and everybody finds somebody getting kicked in the nuts by one amusing.
I find the really OTT scripted setups my only annoyance with the show e.g. supposedly Caleb not telling him they are harvesting and him finding out its on social media versus him genuinely on verge of a breakdown because of over work / stress and snapping at him.
The severe range penalty for uphill grades isn't an issue for this business.
"The beauty of electric semis is their bi-directional charging. We can recharge our vehicles directly off the semi’s battery en-route to a job site, And most sites are just short hauls from their storage yards. Perfect conditions for electric semi deployment."
Today's edition of every accusation is a confession.
Trump: "The numbers are worse than they ever -- don't let anyone tell you they're not. The whole statistical charts they made, the whole thing is a rigged deal. They got rid of the guy because he didn't want to do the numbers the way they wanted to and they put their own numbers out." https://x.com/atrupar/status/1955663092601241752
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
Cameron and Osborne were running the Tories between 2005 and 2016 and that suited most people on PB very nicely. The opposite of populism.
A lot of our problems can be laid at Osborne's door. The de-prioritisation of investment, while prioritising pensioners' incomes. The cuts to the justice budget and defence. Help to Buy, in order to keep house prices from falling.
The severe range penalty for uphill grades isn't an issue for this business.
"The beauty of electric semis is their bi-directional charging. We can recharge our vehicles directly off the semi’s battery en-route to a job site, And most sites are just short hauls from their storage yards. Perfect conditions for electric semi deployment."
It was a joke about the fact Nikola staged having working electric semi truck by rolling one down a hill with no engine and filming it on a slant so it looked like it was travelling under its own power on a flat road.
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
Yes, remember how Leave majored on more funding for the NHS.
Too many foreigners, we're a soft touch, it's not fair, let's look after our own, British jobs/houses/schools/hospitals for British people, there's plenty of £££ if we stop wasting it on bureaucracy and bogus asylum-seekers and DEI and climate wokery - it's Reform's challenge to fuse all this into an election winning political project.
Farage did it successfully in 2016. Can he do it again? Big reason No: The thing he sold last time is tarnished by subsequent reality. It's been exposed as a con. Big Reason Yes: Anti-immigration sentiment and general discontent is even higher now than in 2016 and he doesn't need 52% this time. Mid to high 30s will probably do.
Yes. But election winning in 2029 and successful governing are two entirely separate subjects. IMO Reform can, but probably won't, win in 2029. I put it at 30% chance of majority government. Successful governing and how Reform will achieve it is the most underdiscussed political subject of our day.
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
You could say the same of MAGA, but it hasn't governed how Trump has acted. The Republicans have sold their WWC voters down the river in favour of tax cuts for the rich and a massive build-up of ICE.
A good point, but there are a couple of key differences:
UK voters are not religious in the same way as USA voters are. They are much less subject to magical beliefs about charismatic politicians. Nor are they ideologically accustomed to the idea that the rich can be radically irresponsible and run the country on their own fiat.
The UK does not allow for the takeover of the state by an individual and cronies as easily as the USA. And Reform MPs will mostly want to be re-elected on 2034.
Our courts are far less politicised, and there is no chance (IMO) of a government simply ignoring thr rule of law.
But we shall perhaps find out. (30% chance of a Reform majority government).
Boris, Blair, Cameron? All won because of their charisma in large part
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
You could say the same of MAGA, but it hasn't governed how Trump has acted. The Republicans have sold their WWC voters down the river in favour of tax cuts for the rich and a massive build-up of ICE.
A good point, but there are a couple of key differences:
UK voters are not religious in the same way as USA voters are. They are much less subject to magical beliefs about charismatic politicians. Nor are they ideologically accustomed to the idea that the rich can be radically irresponsible and run the country on their own fiat.
The UK does not allow for the takeover of the state by an individual and cronies as easily as the USA. And Reform MPs will mostly want to be re-elected on 2034.
Our courts are far less politicised, and there is no chance (IMO) of a government simply ignoring thr rule of law.
But we shall perhaps find out. (30% chance of a Reform majority government).
The U.K. has supremacy of Parliament. Which means that a majority in the Commons can do virtually anything.
Some lawyers are trying to knit a constitution out of HR law etc. - to truly limit what parliament can do on various things.
I can easily imagine a battle in the courts to try and limit primary legislation by a Reform Government.
I think the likeliest outcome for the Senedd elections next year is Reform win most seats but Labour stay in power after doing a deal with Plaid as Labour plus Plaid have more AMs than Reform and the Tories, with whichever of Labour or Plaid wins more seats providing the next First Minister.
That could also be an omen for the next GE, while most polls give Reform most seats they are certainly well short of the 35-40%+ Farage would need to be on to make a clear majority likely, especially if LD and Green voters tactically vote Labour in the end in Labour held marginal seats to keep Reform out. It is perfectly possible therefore that at the next GE Reform win a majority in England, or Reform and the Tories combined at least win a majority in England but Labour stay in government as UK wide Labour and the SNP and Plaid combined win more seats in Scotland and Wales than Reform and the Tories combined do and with the LD seats won in England that gives Starmer enough MPs in a hung parliament to back him as PM over Farage
Good morning
I don't agree with you about Labour staying in power in Wales next year
All the signs are labour are heading for a tanking and the likely winner will be Plaid with Reform a close second
You do not live in Wales so haven't experienced the disaster that is Welsh Labour and it would be toxic for Plaid to allow labour to continue in government
That doesn't mean that Wales will have a stable Senedd, but I do expect 'an anybody but labour attitude' post the election next spring
In which case Plaid would govern with Labour support most likely.
The only way to really remove Welsh Labour from power is to vote Reform or Tory
Nice try. Have you seen the Reform prospectus? I despise the Tories, particularly the useless Welsh Tories, but even they are a step up from Welsh Reform.
Is there a post-2021 Welsh Reform prospectus - do you have a link?
No, just from ad hoc interviews on local telly. The closure of Cardiff Airport has been touted, as have the reintroduction of grammar schools, the return to a default 30mph, rolling back NetZero, and more privatisation within the NHS. None of which would cheer me up.
They have suggested the Southern M4 relief road at Newport would be built. I'm up for that.
HAng on, isn't closing Rhoose a Net Zero thing? What am I missing?
Well yes, but that is not the thinking behind the call for closure.
Rhoose is a great airport unfortunately there are, even in the summer, around half a dozen flights a day, and it is owned by Welsh Government. The May Government refused landing charge reductions for fear it would harm Bristol Airport, which is awfully oversubscribed and too small.
Cardiff Airport is another disappointing dereliction of duty from Westminster Labour.
The blame for Cardiff Airport lies solely with Welsh Labour. Instead of pissing money up the wall buying it, they should have built a decent link road to the M4. I know they have a pathological aversion to building new roads, but the fact the airport is such a pain to get to is the main reason most people in south east Wales choose Bristol (In addition to the fact flights are normally about 50 percent cheaper).
Irrespective of that it's also consistent with Reform's anti-devolution agenda. Wrecks the Welsh economy (whether actual or potential is irrelevant) and integrates south Wales more tightly with a different part of England from the centre and the north.
Cardiff airport has always been loss making and it simply doesn't serve anyone who lives in North or Mid Wales because getting there would take all day.
Hence I suspect there are a lot of votes available elsewhere from closing the airport.
Loss making? I am not sure Peter Thomas lost any money on Cardiff Airport
You would still need the runway for British Airways Maintenance but you could build a lot of houses on what would be a brownfield site.
Closing Rhoose doesn't exactly say Wales is open for business. Welcome to Wales via Bristol.
I am not sure why with a pet Government in Westminster Eluned hasn't made more headway during the last year.
When (if) the Heathrow expansion happens, it would be easy for BA to open a maintenance hanger or two on site there, especialy for the larger aircraft which are really expensive to fly 100 miles away for servicing.
The lack of replacement for the Brynglas tunnels on the M4 should be a national embarrassment for the Welsh government. They’ve been the bottleneck every since the second bridge opened in the mid 1990s
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
A surprisingly high percentage of Reform voters would now vote Remain, given another chance.
22% of Reform would vote Remain and 44% of Con. 24% of 2016 Leave voters want another referendum in the next 5 years too, even though the outcome would look very much a Rejoin victory.
I think the likeliest outcome for the Senedd elections next year is Reform win most seats but Labour stay in power after doing a deal with Plaid as Labour plus Plaid have more AMs than Reform and the Tories, with whichever of Labour or Plaid wins more seats providing the next First Minister.
That could also be an omen for the next GE, while most polls give Reform most seats they are certainly well short of the 35-40%+ Farage would need to be on to make a clear majority likely, especially if LD and Green voters tactically vote Labour in the end in Labour held marginal seats to keep Reform out. It is perfectly possible therefore that at the next GE Reform win a majority in England, or Reform and the Tories combined at least win a majority in England but Labour stay in government as UK wide Labour and the SNP and Plaid combined win more seats in Scotland and Wales than Reform and the Tories combined do and with the LD seats won in England that gives Starmer enough MPs in a hung parliament to back him as PM over Farage
Good morning
I don't agree with you about Labour staying in power in Wales next year
All the signs are labour are heading for a tanking and the likely winner will be Plaid with Reform a close second
You do not live in Wales so haven't experienced the disaster that is Welsh Labour and it would be toxic for Plaid to allow labour to continue in government
That doesn't mean that Wales will have a stable Senedd, but I do expect 'an anybody but labour attitude' post the election next spring
In which case Plaid would govern with Labour support most likely.
The only way to really remove Welsh Labour from power is to vote Reform or Tory
Nice try. Have you seen the Reform prospectus? I despise the Tories, particularly the useless Welsh Tories, but even they are a step up from Welsh Reform.
Is there a post-2021 Welsh Reform prospectus - do you have a link?
No, just from ad hoc interviews on local telly. The closure of Cardiff Airport has been touted, as have the reintroduction of grammar schools, the return to a default 30mph, rolling back NetZero, and more privatisation within the NHS. None of which would cheer me up.
They have suggested the Southern M4 relief road at Newport would be built. I'm up for that.
HAng on, isn't closing Rhoose a Net Zero thing? What am I missing?
Well yes, but that is not the thinking behind the call for closure.
Rhoose is a great airport unfortunately there are, even in the summer, around half a dozen flights a day, and it is owned by Welsh Government. The May Government refused landing charge reductions for fear it would harm Bristol Airport, which is awfully oversubscribed and too small.
Cardiff Airport is another disappointing dereliction of duty from Westminster Labour.
The blame for Cardiff Airport lies solely with Welsh Labour. Instead of pissing money up the wall buying it, they should have built a decent link road to the M4. I know they have a pathological aversion to building new roads, but the fact the airport is such a pain to get to is the main reason most people in south east Wales choose Bristol (In addition to the fact flights are normally about 50 percent cheaper).
Irrespective of that it's also consistent with Reform's anti-devolution agenda. Wrecks the Welsh economy (whether actual or potential is irrelevant) and integrates south Wales more tightly with a different part of England from the centre and the north.
Cardiff airport has always been loss making and it simply doesn't serve anyone who lives in North or Mid Wales because getting there would take all day.
Hence I suspect there are a lot of votes available elsewhere from closing the airport.
Loss making? I am not sure Peter Thomas lost any money on Cardiff Airport
You would still need the runway for British Airways Maintenance but you could build a lot of houses on what would be a brownfield site.
Closing Rhoose doesn't exactly say Wales is open for business. Welcome to Wales via Bristol.
That is the reason why I have little problem with Teeside airport remaining open - its existence means you get companies that simply wouldn’t otherwise invest in Teeside
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
You could say the same of MAGA, but it hasn't governed how Trump has acted. The Republicans have sold their WWC voters down the river in favour of tax cuts for the rich and a massive build-up of ICE.
Trump is deporting immigrants, just as his WWC voters voted for and imposing tariffs on foreign imports, also as his WWC voters voted for and there have been tax cuts for those on middle incomes too, also as WWC voters voted for
The severe range penalty for uphill grades isn't an issue for this business.
"The beauty of electric semis is their bi-directional charging. We can recharge our vehicles directly off the semi’s battery en-route to a job site, And most sites are just short hauls from their storage yards. Perfect conditions for electric semi deployment."
It was a joke about the fact Nikola staged having working electric semi truck by rolling one down a hill with no engine and filming it on a slant so it looked like it was travelling under its own power on a flat road.
There’s a mine in Europe, somewhere, where it’s at the top of a mountain. Loaded electric trucks go down, charging the batteries as they do. This creates enough charge to get the empty truck back to the mine.
A very pleasant upside surprise in the S household today, after an early morning drive to school.
I hated this day back in 1990 and 1991. (I took A level Maths a year early). Our school had a policy of posting the results out, rather than allowing collection on the Thursday, so I had to wait an extra day to get them, with the media banging on about it all day.
Mine was 1983 and 1985 (did French A Level two years early) and my school used to post them and put them on a notice board. I was at my parents' house in Kerlouan so I had to go to the village doctor's house (the only one with a phone), give his wife a slack handful of 10 franc coins and call the school under her volucrine eye to get my results. It was like a missing chapter from L'education sentimentale.
I did two A Levels a year early. Which had an entertaining result - when at interview at UCL I got a 2 U offer, and so had a place immediately.
They clearly wanted you. I had Maths in the bag when applying and Warwick prostituted themselves to get me as they thought I was heading for Cambridge.
That was a standard UCL offer at the time. Basic matriculation
I got the same offer - “two Es and you’re in”. I guess it was UCL’s way of competing with Oxbridge. If they saw a candidate they liked they made their offer very hard to refuse
It made my A Level day delightfully stress free. Unlike all my peers I knew I’d gotten in to my chosen uni. I remember strolling to the college to get the actual results on a beautiful sunny morning and feeling very blithe
I got BBC in the end. Stop laughing at the back, mister Pornhub
I got ABBC.
Gotta love that JMB General Studies A level!!!
I think it's generally accepted that General Studies doesn't count (sadly; I got an A).
The severe range penalty for uphill grades isn't an issue for this business.
"The beauty of electric semis is their bi-directional charging. We can recharge our vehicles directly off the semi’s battery en-route to a job site, And most sites are just short hauls from their storage yards. Perfect conditions for electric semi deployment."
It was a joke about the fact Nikola staged having working electric semi truck by rolling one down a hill with no engine and filming it on a slant so it looked like it was travelling under its own power on a flat road.
There’s a mine in Europe, somewhere, where it’s at the top of a mountain. Loaded electric trucks go down, charging the batteries as they do. This creates enough charge to get the empty truck back to the mine.
Wouldn't a cable and pulley system be more efficient?
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
A surprisingly high percentage of Reform voters would now vote Remain, given another chance.
22% of Reform would vote Remain and 44% of Con. 24% of 2016 Leave voters want another referendum in the next 5 years too, even though the outcome would look very much a Rejoin victory.
There is a growing disparity between opinions of Brexit and of Farage that at some point will have to be resolved.
If the referendum result had been 52/48 in favour Remain, you'd see polls today showing most people supporting Leave in the same sort of way. Whatever the result was, people today would be veering in the opposite direction almost automatically. Buyer's remorse.
The severe range penalty for uphill grades isn't an issue for this business.
"The beauty of electric semis is their bi-directional charging. We can recharge our vehicles directly off the semi’s battery en-route to a job site, And most sites are just short hauls from their storage yards. Perfect conditions for electric semi deployment."
It was a joke about the fact Nikola staged having working electric semi truck by rolling one down a hill with no engine and filming it on a slant so it looked like it was travelling under its own power on a flat road.
There’s a mine in Europe, somewhere, where it’s at the top of a mountain. Loaded electric trucks go down, charging the batteries as they do. This creates enough charge to get the empty truck back to the mine.
Wouldn't a cable and pulley system be more efficient?
Open cast mining, IIRC. So dump trucks the size of small house filled up somewhere in the mine, then head out, in a steady stream.
Other than creating another opportunity to grift off the negotiations with individual companies, what is the actual point of this ?
It’s a combination of trying to close a massive budget deficit, and rebalance away from personal income taxes.
There’s a lot of sectors where US companies such as Nvidia and Microsoft have effective worldwide monopolies, meaning that the demand is price inelastic. Taxing Nvidia 15% on chip sales to China is pure profit for the Treasury.
Now many people will disagree with the approach, but that’s what they’re trying to do. There’s a suggestion that next year’s Budget is doing to scrap the Federal income tax for anyone earning less than $100k or even $200k.
I think the likeliest outcome for the Senedd elections next year is Reform win most seats but Labour stay in power after doing a deal with Plaid as Labour plus Plaid have more AMs than Reform and the Tories, with whichever of Labour or Plaid wins more seats providing the next First Minister.
That could also be an omen for the next GE, while most polls give Reform most seats they are certainly well short of the 35-40%+ Farage would need to be on to make a clear majority likely, especially if LD and Green voters tactically vote Labour in the end in Labour held marginal seats to keep Reform out. It is perfectly possible therefore that at the next GE Reform win a majority in England, or Reform and the Tories combined at least win a majority in England but Labour stay in government as UK wide Labour and the SNP and Plaid combined win more seats in Scotland and Wales than Reform and the Tories combined do and with the LD seats won in England that gives Starmer enough MPs in a hung parliament to back him as PM over Farage
Good morning
I don't agree with you about Labour staying in power in Wales next year
All the signs are labour are heading for a tanking and the likely winner will be Plaid with Reform a close second
You do not live in Wales so haven't experienced the disaster that is Welsh Labour and it would be toxic for Plaid to allow labour to continue in government
That doesn't mean that Wales will have a stable Senedd, but I do expect 'an anybody but labour attitude' post the election next spring
In which case Plaid would govern with Labour support most likely.
The only way to really remove Welsh Labour from power is to vote Reform or Tory
Nice try. Have you seen the Reform prospectus? I despise the Tories, particularly the useless Welsh Tories, but even they are a step up from Welsh Reform.
Is there a post-2021 Welsh Reform prospectus - do you have a link?
No, just from ad hoc interviews on local telly. The closure of Cardiff Airport has been touted, as have the reintroduction of grammar schools, the return to a default 30mph, rolling back NetZero, and more privatisation within the NHS. None of which would cheer me up.
They have suggested the Southern M4 relief road at Newport would be built. I'm up for that.
HAng on, isn't closing Rhoose a Net Zero thing? What am I missing?
Well yes, but that is not the thinking behind the call for closure.
Rhoose is a great airport unfortunately there are, even in the summer, around half a dozen flights a day, and it is owned by Welsh Government. The May Government refused landing charge reductions for fear it would harm Bristol Airport, which is awfully oversubscribed and too small.
Cardiff Airport is another disappointing dereliction of duty from Westminster Labour.
The blame for Cardiff Airport lies solely with Welsh Labour. Instead of pissing money up the wall buying it, they should have built a decent link road to the M4. I know they have a pathological aversion to building new roads, but the fact the airport is such a pain to get to is the main reason most people in south east Wales choose Bristol (In addition to the fact flights are normally about 50 percent cheaper).
Irrespective of that it's also consistent with Reform's anti-devolution agenda. Wrecks the Welsh economy (whether actual or potential is irrelevant) and integrates south Wales more tightly with a different part of England from the centre and the north.
I'm all for an anti-devolution agenda. It's been a disaster for Wales.
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
Yes, remember how Leave majored on more funding for the NHS.
Too many foreigners, we're a soft touch, it's not fair, let's look after our own, British jobs/houses/schools/hospitals for British people, there's plenty of £££ if we stop wasting it on bureaucracy and bogus asylum-seekers and DEI and climate wokery - it's Reform's challenge to fuse all this into an election winning political project.
Farage did it successfully in 2016. Can he do it again? Big reason No: The thing he sold last time is tarnished by subsequent reality. It's been exposed as a con. Big Reason Yes: Anti-immigration sentiment and general discontent is even higher now than in 2016 and he doesn't need 52% this time. Mid to high 30s will probably do.
Yes. But election winning in 2029 and successful governing are two entirely separate subjects. IMO Reform can, but probably won't, win in 2029. I put it at 30% chance of majority government. Successful governing and how Reform will achieve it is the most underdiscussed political subject of our day.
It is underdiscussed. Perhaps a reason for this is it's only the first point (will they win?) that has much uncertainty about it. The second (will they govern well if they do win?) is pretty much known by anyone paying attention.
Another reason is the GE is several years away. I want them to be properly scrutinised and that means posing and discussing that question of what they would do. It's not happening atm but there is time.
Talking of Wales, tonights Cardiff by election is in Cardiff South and Penarth - Caerdydd Penarth in the Senedd '26 which will likely be the greens best hope for an MS, so a little taster of their local performance as well as a Labour benchmark in a strong area for them
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn47wq93vn2o A man accused of deliberately driving into a crowd of fans at Liverpool's Premier League victory parade has been charged with 24 new offences, including attempted grievous bodily harm against two babies.
Paul Doyle appeared at Liverpool Crown Court over video-link from prison and became tearful as he was asked to confirm his identity.
He was due to enter pleas to the seven counts he originally faced over the incident in May, but the court heard prosecutors had introduced 24 new counts to the indictment.
Mr Doyle, of West Derby in Liverpool, was not asked to enter pleas to any charges after his barrister Simon Csoka KC asked for more time to consider the new counts.
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
Cameron and Osborne were running the Tories between 2005 and 2016 and that suited most people on PB very nicely. The opposite of populism.
A lot of our problems can be laid at Osborne's door. The de-prioritisation of investment, while prioritising pensioners' incomes. The cuts to the justice budget and defence. Help to Buy, in order to keep house prices from falling.
I think the likeliest outcome for the Senedd elections next year is Reform win most seats but Labour stay in power after doing a deal with Plaid as Labour plus Plaid have more AMs than Reform and the Tories, with whichever of Labour or Plaid wins more seats providing the next First Minister.
That could also be an omen for the next GE, while most polls give Reform most seats they are certainly well short of the 35-40%+ Farage would need to be on to make a clear majority likely, especially if LD and Green voters tactically vote Labour in the end in Labour held marginal seats to keep Reform out. It is perfectly possible therefore that at the next GE Reform win a majority in England, or Reform and the Tories combined at least win a majority in England but Labour stay in government as UK wide Labour and the SNP and Plaid combined win more seats in Scotland and Wales than Reform and the Tories combined do and with the LD seats won in England that gives Starmer enough MPs in a hung parliament to back him as PM over Farage
Good morning
I don't agree with you about Labour staying in power in Wales next year
All the signs are labour are heading for a tanking and the likely winner will be Plaid with Reform a close second
You do not live in Wales so haven't experienced the disaster that is Welsh Labour and it would be toxic for Plaid to allow labour to continue in government
That doesn't mean that Wales will have a stable Senedd, but I do expect 'an anybody but labour attitude' post the election next spring
In which case Plaid would govern with Labour support most likely.
The only way to really remove Welsh Labour from power is to vote Reform or Tory
Nice try. Have you seen the Reform prospectus? I despise the Tories, particularly the useless Welsh Tories, but even they are a step up from Welsh Reform.
Is there a post-2021 Welsh Reform prospectus - do you have a link?
No, just from ad hoc interviews on local telly. The closure of Cardiff Airport has been touted, as have the reintroduction of grammar schools, the return to a default 30mph, rolling back NetZero, and more privatisation within the NHS. None of which would cheer me up.
They have suggested the Southern M4 relief road at Newport would be built. I'm up for that.
HAng on, isn't closing Rhoose a Net Zero thing? What am I missing?
Well yes, but that is not the thinking behind the call for closure.
Rhoose is a great airport unfortunately there are, even in the summer, around half a dozen flights a day, and it is owned by Welsh Government. The May Government refused landing charge reductions for fear it would harm Bristol Airport, which is awfully oversubscribed and too small.
Cardiff Airport is another disappointing dereliction of duty from Westminster Labour.
The blame for Cardiff Airport lies solely with Welsh Labour. Instead of pissing money up the wall buying it, they should have built a decent link road to the M4. I know they have a pathological aversion to building new roads, but the fact the airport is such a pain to get to is the main reason most people in south east Wales choose Bristol (In addition to the fact flights are normally about 50 percent cheaper).
Irrespective of that it's also consistent with Reform's anti-devolution agenda. Wrecks the Welsh economy (whether actual or potential is irrelevant) and integrates south Wales more tightly with a different part of England from the centre and the north.
Cardiff airport has always been loss making and it simply doesn't serve anyone who lives in North or Mid Wales because getting there would take all day.
Hence I suspect there are a lot of votes available elsewhere from closing the airport.
Loss making? I am not sure Peter Thomas lost any money on Cardiff Airport
You would still need the runway for British Airways Maintenance but you could build a lot of houses on what would be a brownfield site.
Closing Rhoose doesn't exactly say Wales is open for business. Welcome to Wales via Bristol.
I am not sure why with a pet Government in Westminster Eluned hasn't made more headway during the last year.
When (if) the Heathrow expansion happens, it would be easy for BA to open a maintenance hanger or two on site there, especialy for the larger aircraft which are really expensive to fly 100 miles away for servicing.
The lack of replacement for the Brynglas tunnels on the M4 should be a national embarrassment for the Welsh government. They’ve been the bottleneck every since the second bridge opened in the mid 1990s
Heathrow expansion is unlikely to happen in my lifetime so I suspect maintenance remains in Rhoose.
I mentioned the Southern M4 relief in my first post on this mini thread. I would vote for that, but that would not be enough me to vote for Reform.
Talking of Newport and Airports every few decades the idea of the Estuary Airport on the Eastern part of the Llanwern Steelworks site would pop up. That would negate the need for either Cardiff or Bristol Airports. It isn't on the agenda at the moment.
Other than creating another opportunity to grift off the negotiations with individual companies, what is the actual point of this ?
It’s a combination of trying to close a massive budget deficit, and rebalance away from personal income taxes.
There’s a lot of sectors where US companies such as Nvidia and Microsoft have effective worldwide monopolies, meaning that the demand is price inelastic. Taxing Nvidia 15% on chip sales to China is pure profit for the Treasury.
Now many people will disagree with the approach, but that’s what they’re trying to do. There’s a suggestion that next year’s Budget is doing to scrap the Federal income tax for anyone earning less than $100k or even $200k.
Apropos of that, aiui (and not my thing) last week's US Treasury bond auction was in the toilet.
Point of Order. The thread header says "it might also be a good petri dish to see if there’s any tactical voting against Reform, .." The election is under PR. There is no tactical vote with PR, you vote positively for a party.
Other than creating another opportunity to grift off the negotiations with individual companies, what is the actual point of this ?
It's a big part of the Trump MO, isn't it. Pass punitive laws, allow those affected to plead and bargain for exemption. An extortion racket, basically, home and abroad. Government by personal caprice.
Point of Order. The thread header says "it might also be a good petri dish to see if there’s any tactical voting against Reform, .." The election is under PR. There is no tactical vote with PR, you vote positively for a party.
Yes, 'tactical' voting can in fact be counter productive - for example in Clwyd (Clwyd N plus Clwyd E) current polling suggests Lab, Ref and Con all in the low to mid 20s sharing 5 seats (2 for 2 and 1 for the third placed of them) so all 'tactically' voting achieves is reducing your favourites chance of a second seat
A lot of people on here did A-Levels early. Shows how untypical PB is.
I don't think it was that uncommon at a certain point in time e.g. if you wanted to do further maths, a lot of schools in my day apparently used to get people to do the normal maths A-level in year one, then the further in year 2, rather than spread both across the 2 years.
Me from humble beginning, you want to do further what....what's that.
There was also a trend to do 5 or 6 A-Levels for the bright kids. I don't know if that is still the case. But I think spreading those over 2 years can cause a lot of timetable clashes. I had to miss some classes because of that.
Thats exactly what our school did with maths and further maths (it was a Grammar, and the top set in Maths did this).
There are not so many taking more than 4 A levels now - although EPQ's and Welsh Bacc's are common.
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
A surprisingly high percentage of Reform voters would now vote Remain, given another chance.
22% of Reform would vote Remain and 44% of Con. 24% of 2016 Leave voters want another referendum in the next 5 years too, even though the outcome would look very much a Rejoin victory.
There is a growing disparity between opinions of Brexit and of Farage that at some point will have to be resolved.
If the referendum result had been 52/48 in favour Remain, you'd see polls today showing most people supporting Leave in the same sort of way. Whatever the result was, people today would be veering in the opposite direction almost automatically. Buyer's remorse.
I think that's probably right. Because Remain would be status quo and Leave still a vision unsullied by being realised.
Point of Order. The thread header says "it might also be a good petri dish to see if there’s any tactical voting against Reform, .." The election is under PR. There is no tactical vote with PR, you vote positively for a party.
Ordinarily yes, but this method does depend on the order of party votes, especially for the last seat awarded. The libdems and greens are highly unlikely to score any seats. The final result is likely to be approx a third for each party plus a handful for the tories.
Other than creating another opportunity to grift off the negotiations with individual companies, what is the actual point of this ?
It’s a combination of trying to close a massive budget deficit, and rebalance away from personal income taxes.
There’s a lot of sectors where US companies such as Nvidia and Microsoft have effective worldwide monopolies, meaning that the demand is price inelastic. Taxing Nvidia 15% on chip sales to China is pure profit for the Treasury.
Now many people will disagree with the approach, but that’s what they’re trying to do. There’s a suggestion that next year’s Budget is doing to scrap the Federal income tax for anyone earning less than $100k or even $200k.
Apropos of that, aiui (and not my thing) last week's US Treasury bond auction was in the toilet.
There’s a reckoning on the way for pretty much all Western governments, as can be seen in things like the gold (and bitcoin) price.
Four years after the pandemic and no-one really has the spending under control, gilt rates ticking up everywhere.
AIUI there’s a lot of one-offs in the US figures, related to redundancies made at the start of Trump’s term, but the spending is still out of control.
The markets also don’t like that a lot of the governance is coming from Trump directly through executive orders, and not legislated by Congress, so it can be easily undone by the next administration. Trump being Trump also means they don’t know what he might do or say next week.
Congress basically put all the pork back in the Budget bill, because they’ve spent decades being lobbied by every special interest and the money goes to buy jobs in every single congressional district.
Other than creating another opportunity to grift off the negotiations with individual companies, what is the actual point of this ?
It’s a combination of trying to close a massive budget deficit, and rebalance away from personal income taxes.
There’s a lot of sectors where US companies such as Nvidia and Microsoft have effective worldwide monopolies, meaning that the demand is price inelastic. Taxing Nvidia 15% on chip sales to China is pure profit for the Treasury.
Now many people will disagree with the approach, but that’s what they’re trying to do. There’s a suggestion that next year’s Budget is doing to scrap the Federal income tax for anyone earning less than $100k or even $200k.
The deficit is increasing. As is the trade deficit. A lot.
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
Cameron and Osborne were running the Tories between 2005 and 2016 and that suited most people on PB very nicely. The opposite of populism.
A lot of our problems can be laid at Osborne's door. The de-prioritisation of investment, while prioritising pensioners' incomes. The cuts to the justice budget and defence. Help to Buy, in order to keep house prices from falling.
It was all Osborne.
Same with defence cuts and justice cuts too.
Osborne.
So nothing happened between Osbourne leaving office, and now ?
The coalition did some good stuff and some bad - as did Thatcher. But as with Thatcher, his successors just carried on with the bad stuff. Absolving them of responsibility for that, in the way your comment implies, is wrong.
Osborne was pure politics. Short-term politics. All a game.
Cameron should have challenged him more on the strategic implications of the decisions but didn't.
Keeping Osborne in place when his policies were so damaging was one of Cameron’s biggest failures. Anyone who thinks Cameron was a good Prime Minister is deluded.
A lot of people on here did A-Levels early. Shows how untypical PB is.
I did Highers early, and then A-levels on top. One also early.
Was doing A-levels early a private school thing? I went to a grammar, and I don't remember anyone doing A-levels early.
In my case it was a Grammar school and the top maths set did GCSE early (so I sat the first ever maths GCSE) and this then carried on to A Level a year early and then Further Maths.
Osborne was pure politics. Short-term politics. All a game.
Cameron should have challenged him more on the strategic implications of the decisions but didn't.
Ossie warned Cameron of the potential jeopardy in holding the EU Referendum. The man was a soothsayer.
The Referendum was perfectly winnable - especially if it had been held earlier.
Absolutely. Johnson and his two letters were the game changer.
When you say earlier are you alluding to Cameron's AirMiles to and from Brussels bigging up all the concessions he would win, only to return just prior to the referendum with the square root of zero?
A very pleasant upside surprise in the S household today, after an early morning drive to school.
I hated this day back in 1990 and 1991. (I took A level Maths a year early). Our school had a policy of posting the results out, rather than allowing collection on the Thursday, so I had to wait an extra day to get them, with the media banging on about it all day.
Mine was 1983 and 1985 (did French A Level two years early) and my school used to post them and put them on a notice board. I was at my parents' house in Kerlouan so I had to go to the village doctor's house (the only one with a phone), give his wife a slack handful of 10 franc coins and call the school under her volucrine eye to get my results. It was like a missing chapter from L'education sentimentale.
I did two A Levels a year early. Which had an entertaining result - when at interview at UCL I got a 2 U offer, and so had a place immediately.
They clearly wanted you. I had Maths in the bag when applying and Warwick prostituted themselves to get me as they thought I was heading for Cambridge.
That was a standard UCL offer at the time. Basic matriculation
I got the same offer - “two Es and you’re in”. I guess it was UCL’s way of competing with Oxbridge. If they saw a candidate they liked they made their offer very hard to refuse
It made my A Level day delightfully stress free. Unlike all my peers I knew I’d gotten in to my chosen uni. I remember strolling to the college to get the actual results on a beautiful sunny morning and feeling very blithe
I got BBC in the end. Stop laughing at the back, mister Pornhub
I got ABBC.
Gotta love that JMB General Studies A level!!!
I think it's generally accepted that General Studies doesn't count (sadly; I got an A).
In my day the JMB universities (mainly northern) accepted it.
A lot of people on here did A-Levels early. Shows how untypical PB is.
I did Highers early, and then A-levels on top. One also early.
Was doing A-levels early a private school thing? I went to a grammar, and I don't remember anyone doing A-levels early.
We had a significant minority that did one A-level a year early at my boarding school (usually maths). I think it was a way of maximising the eventual grades by spreading the effort and stress.
It will surprise nobody to learn that I had little facility as a scholar and only did French A-level two years early because I was educated exclusively in French until I was 13.
Osborne was pure politics. Short-term politics. All a game.
Cameron should have challenged him more on the strategic implications of the decisions but didn't.
Ossie warned Cameron of the potential jeopardy in holding the EU Referendum. The man was a soothsayer.
The Referendum was perfectly winnable - especially if it had been held earlier.
Absolutely. Johnson and his two letters were the game changer.
When you say earlier are you alluding to Cameron's AirMiles to and from Brussels bigging up all the concessions he would win, only to return just prior to the referendum with the square root of zero?
There is little to be gained by rehashing the old arguments, but I am sad that the case for staying in the EU was always couched as how bad it would be if we left, rather than how great it is to be in.
Ukranian press are suggesting that there might be an elaborate amount of deception about this trip. The allegation is that the real Putin doesn’t like flying anywhere, and has a whole load of decoy movements designed to cover for his actually travelling by train, as he’s scared of being on planes that are easy targets to take out with MANPADS.
There’s also the suggestion that the man who turns up in Alaska tomorrow, if indeed he does, might not be the real Putin but one of the many body doubles he uses.
Yes. Shouldn't A* be reserved for, say, the top 5% of candidates? Or 10% at a stretch.
I seldom agree with you on most things but on this you are right. As time ticks on the most elite results will become A**********. Do we even need an A*?
And whilst Michaela do what they do very well, their sixth form is mega selective. To get in, you need an average grade of 7 at GCSE (A in old money), and 8's (A/A*) in the subjects you plan to study at A Level.
Osborne was pure politics. Short-term politics. All a game.
Cameron should have challenged him more on the strategic implications of the decisions but didn't.
Ossie warned Cameron of the potential jeopardy in holding the EU Referendum. The man was a soothsayer.
The Referendum was perfectly winnable - especially if it had been held earlier.
Absolutely. Johnson and his two letters were the game changer.
When you say earlier are you alluding to Cameron's AirMiles to and from Brussels bigging up all the concessions he would win, only to return just prior to the referendum with the square root of zero?
There is little to be gained by rehashing the old arguments, but I am sad that the case for staying in the EU was always couched as how bad it would be if we left, rather than how great it is to be in.
DC was fresh off winning the Sindy Ref with that technique. I feel the same as you about 2016 but I doubt a more idealistic approach would have worked better. Contra consensus I think Leave won it with a very skilled campaign rather than Remain lost it with an especially bad one.
Ukranian press are suggesting that there might be an elaborate amount of deception about this trip. The allegation is that the real Putin doesn’t like flying anywhere, and has a whole load of decoy movements designed to cover for his actually travelling by train, as he’s scared of being on planes that are easy targets to take out with MANPADS.
There’s also the suggestion that the man who turns up in Alaska tomorrow, if indeed he does, might not be the real Putin but one of the many body doubles he uses.
It shows something about changing tastes that the Fisk Jubilee Singers performed for Queen Victoria -- but are heard of so little, now.
In early 1872 the group performed at the World's Peace Jubilee and International Musical Festival in Boston, and they were invited to perform for President Ulysses S. Grant at the White House in March of that year.[3][4] They gave a separate performance in Washington, D.C., for Vice President Schuyler Colfax and members of the U.S. Congress. They traveled next to New York, where they performed before enthusiastic audiences at preacher Henry Ward Beecher’s Plymouth Church in Brooklyn and at Steinway Hall in Manhattan.[4] They garnered national attention and generous donations. Staying in the New York area for six weeks, by the time they returned to Nashville, they had raised the full $20,000 White had promised the university.[5]
In a tour of Great Britain and Europe in 1873, the group, by then with 11 members, performed "Steal Away to Jesus" and "Go Down, Moses" for Queen Victoria in April. They returned the following year, they sailed to Europe again, touring from May 1875 to July 1878 and drawing rave reviews.
(For the record: Many years ago, when I was living in Chicago, I sometimes listened to broadcasts from black churches, because I loved much of their music.)
Osborne was pure politics. Short-term politics. All a game.
Cameron should have challenged him more on the strategic implications of the decisions but didn't.
Ossie warned Cameron of the potential jeopardy in holding the EU Referendum. The man was a soothsayer.
The Referendum was perfectly winnable - especially if it had been held earlier.
Absolutely. Johnson and his two letters were the game changer.
When you say earlier are you alluding to Cameron's AirMiles to and from Brussels bigging up all the concessions he would win, only to return just prior to the referendum with the square root of zero?
There is little to be gained by rehashing the old arguments, but I am sad that the case for staying in the EU was always couched as how bad it would be if we left, rather than how great it is to be in.
DC was fresh off winning the Sindy Ref with that technique. I feel the same as you about 2016 but I doubt a more idealistic approach would have worked better. Contra consensus I think Leave won it with a very skilled campaign rather than Remain lost it with an especially bad one.
I suspect Remain was always doomed (though I was actually surprised they got as close as they did). A country which a few years later would have silly old Nigel and Reform leading the polls was never going to be sufficiently receptive to drearily sensible centrist-dad stuff about the merits of EU membership.
A lot of people on here did A-Levels early. Shows how untypical PB is.
I did Highers early, and then A-levels on top. One also early.
Was doing A-levels early a private school thing? I went to a grammar, and I don't remember anyone doing A-levels early.
The policy at mine was that a lot did Maths early at O Level, then Further Maths. A lot could have done French or German a year early, but we went slow.
At 6th Form, the policy was to treat General Studies with disdain, and just do 3 each. Some did S-Level as it was then.
Is it not the case that there was a move to a wider range of A-levels 1-2 decades ago?
Having no sprogs, I do not follow ultra-detail for a small number of years.
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
You could say the same of MAGA, but it hasn't governed how Trump has acted. The Republicans have sold their WWC voters down the river in favour of tax cuts for the rich and a massive build-up of ICE.
A good point, but there are a couple of key differences:
UK voters are not religious in the same way as USA voters are. They are much less subject to magical beliefs about charismatic politicians. Nor are they ideologically accustomed to the idea that the rich can be radically irresponsible and run the country on their own fiat.
The UK does not allow for the takeover of the state by an individual and cronies as easily as the USA. And Reform MPs will mostly want to be re-elected on 2034.
Our courts are far less politicised, and there is no chance (IMO) of a government simply ignoring thr rule of law.
But we shall perhaps find out. (30% chance of a Reform majority government).
The U.K. has supremacy of Parliament. Which means that a majority in the Commons can do virtually anything.
Some lawyers are trying to knit a constitution out of HR law etc. - to truly limit what parliament can do on various things.
I can easily imagine a battle in the courts to try and limit primary legislation by a Reform Government.
A court battle to prevent the passing of primary legislation would be, SFAICS, entirely novel and would be a constitutional event of box office proportions.
Court battles over the meaning and application/disapplication of primary (and other) legislation is standard fare in modern law. This is because, to the chagrin of dim MPs, the law is not a superficial thing. It is a collective body of materials gathered over the last 1000 years or so from various sources and is in a permanent state of development. If an Act of 2025 is inconsistent or ambiguous when put alongside an Act from the reign of Edward III which it has failed to repeal there is an issue for a court to decide. Multiply this by a few billion and you have the current state of things. To test the waters and appreciate the complexities just read few Supreme Court judgments - probably the world's brightest court; these only deal in contested and previously indeterminate matters.
What I think is impossible in the UK (unlike the USA) is three fold: That courts will allow its fundamental jurisdiction to be ousted; that a Reform government will try to do so; and that a Reform government will try to overlook or ignore the rule of law as pronounced by our courts.
1) There has been an enormous increase in road mileage since 2010, even while economic activity has barely increased 2) This is primarily due to LCVs (vans). HGVs, buses have both fallen over that period. 3) and this is due to the surge in online shopping, Amazon etc 4) this kind of economic activity is dependent on ... low-skilled and cheap labour 5) immigrants
Osborne was pure politics. Short-term politics. All a game.
Cameron should have challenged him more on the strategic implications of the decisions but didn't.
Ossie warned Cameron of the potential jeopardy in holding the EU Referendum. The man was a soothsayer.
He was the most political Chancellor ever (compliment and criticism).
I don't like him. I am just saying he got the Brexit vote bob-on.
And never got suckered into 'national interest but unpopular' stuff like messing with the WFA or pensions. Kept his guns trained on things his voters disliked such as welfare and local government.
And whilst Michaela do what they do very well, their sixth form is mega selective. To get in, you need an average grade of 7 at GCSE (A in old money), and 8's (A/A*) in the subjects you plan to study at A Level.
That's stated entry threshold for 6th form at top grammars. The other metric to check would be what % of the 6th form were entered for how many A levels, as they may be filtering out lower performing students
Other than creating another opportunity to grift off the negotiations with individual companies, what is the actual point of this ?
It’s a combination of trying to close a massive budget deficit, and rebalance away from personal income taxes.
There’s a lot of sectors where US companies such as Nvidia and Microsoft have effective worldwide monopolies, meaning that the demand is price inelastic. Taxing Nvidia 15% on chip sales to China is pure profit for the Treasury.
Now many people will disagree with the approach, but that’s what they’re trying to do. There’s a suggestion that next year’s Budget is doing to scrap the Federal income tax for anyone earning less than $100k or even $200k.
Apropos of that, aiui (and not my thing) last week's US Treasury bond auction was in the toilet.
There’s a reckoning on the way for pretty much all Western governments, as can be seen in things like the gold (and bitcoin) price.
Four years after the pandemic and no-one really has the spending under control, gilt rates ticking up everywhere.
AIUI there’s a lot of one-offs in the US figures, related to redundancies made at the start of Trump’s term, but the spending is still out of control.
The markets also don’t like that a lot of the governance is coming from Trump directly through executive orders, and not legislated by Congress, so it can be easily undone by the next administration. Trump being Trump also means they don’t know what he might do or say next week.
Congress basically put all the pork back in the Budget bill, because they’ve spent decades being lobbied by every special interest and the money goes to buy jobs in every single congressional district.
The markets hate Trump's erratic tariff policy, which is driving up inflation. That's the biggest reason the bond auction was "in the toilet".
Osborne was pure politics. Short-term politics. All a game.
Cameron should have challenged him more on the strategic implications of the decisions but didn't.
Ossie warned Cameron of the potential jeopardy in holding the EU Referendum. The man was a soothsayer.
The Referendum was perfectly winnable - especially if it had been held earlier.
Absolutely. Johnson and his two letters were the game changer.
When you say earlier are you alluding to Cameron's AirMiles to and from Brussels bigging up all the concessions he would win, only to return just prior to the referendum with the square root of zero?
More that such a referendum was blocked by the LibDems at the start of the Coalition.
If it had been done then, it would have been 60/40 Remain with a poor campaign and 65/35 with a good one.
Which would have settled the matter for a good long while. Sure, Farage would be UKIPing away now, but unless subsequent governments started signing more Lisbon Treaties, it would be background noise.
Osborne was pure politics. Short-term politics. All a game.
Cameron should have challenged him more on the strategic implications of the decisions but didn't.
Ossie warned Cameron of the potential jeopardy in holding the EU Referendum. The man was a soothsayer.
The Referendum was perfectly winnable - especially if it had been held earlier.
Absolutely. Johnson and his two letters were the game changer.
When you say earlier are you alluding to Cameron's AirMiles to and from Brussels bigging up all the concessions he would win, only to return just prior to the referendum with the square root of zero?
There is little to be gained by rehashing the old arguments, but I am sad that the case for staying in the EU was always couched as how bad it would be if we left, rather than how great it is to be in.
DC was fresh off winning the Sindy Ref with that technique. I feel the same as you about 2016 but I doubt a more idealistic approach would have worked better. Contra consensus I think Leave won it with a very skilled campaign rather than Remain lost it with an especially bad one.
I suspect Remain was always doomed (though I was actually surprised they got as close as they did). A country which a few years later would have silly old Nigel and Reform leading the polls was never going to be sufficiently receptive to drearily sensible centrist-dad stuff about the merits of EU membership.
The Brexit and Reform projects are very similar in terms of sentiments tapped into and buttons being pressed.
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
You could say the same of MAGA, but it hasn't governed how Trump has acted. The Republicans have sold their WWC voters down the river in favour of tax cuts for the rich and a massive build-up of ICE.
A good point, but there are a couple of key differences:
UK voters are not religious in the same way as USA voters are. They are much less subject to magical beliefs about charismatic politicians. Nor are they ideologically accustomed to the idea that the rich can be radically irresponsible and run the country on their own fiat.
The UK does not allow for the takeover of the state by an individual and cronies as easily as the USA. And Reform MPs will mostly want to be re-elected on 2034.
Our courts are far less politicised, and there is no chance (IMO) of a government simply ignoring thr rule of law.
But we shall perhaps find out. (30% chance of a Reform majority government).
The U.K. has supremacy of Parliament. Which means that a majority in the Commons can do virtually anything.
Some lawyers are trying to knit a constitution out of HR law etc. - to truly limit what parliament can do on various things.
I can easily imagine a battle in the courts to try and limit primary legislation by a Reform Government.
A court battle to prevent the passing of primary legislation would be, SFAICS, entirely novel and would be a constitutional event of box office proportions.
Court battles over the meaning and application/disapplication of primary (and other) legislation is standard fare in modern law. This is because, to the chagrin of dim MPs, the law is not a superficial thing. It is a collective body of materials gathered over the last 1000 years or so from various sources and is in a permanent state of development. If an Act of 2025 is inconsistent or ambiguous when put alongside an Act from the reign of Edward III which it has failed to repeal there is an issue for a court to decide. Multiply this by a few billion and you have the current state of things. To test the waters and appreciate the complexities just read few Supreme Court judgments - probably the world's brightest court; these only deal in contested and previously indeterminate matters.
What I think is impossible in the UK (unlike the USA) is three fold: That courts will allow its fundamental jurisdiction to be ousted; that a Reform government will try to do so; and that a Reform government will try to overlook or ignore the rule of law as pronounced by our courts.
Why not? Farage makes no secret of his love and admiration for Trump. It seems plausible that he will act like Trump in office.
Comments
You would still need the runway for British Airways Maintenance but you could build a lot of houses on what would be a brownfield site.
Closing Rhoose doesn't exactly say Wales is open for business. Welcome to Wales via Bristol.
I am not sure why with a pet Government in Westminster Eluned hasn't made more headway during the last year.
Me from humble beginning, you want to do further what....what's that.
There was also a trend to do 5 or 6 A-Levels for the bright kids. I don't know if that is still the case. But I think spreading those over 2 years can cause a lot of timetable clashes. I had to miss some classes because of that.
Gotta love that JMB General Studies A level!!!
Extra challenges imo are that it is still centralised, and the leadership default to England. Farage makes proclamations from One Horse Town, Bromley, and they salute rather than debate. I do not see that playing perfectly in Wales.
IMO one to watch is 20mph default Welsh speed limit and what RefUK do. It had cross party support in the Senedd until the Tories 'went culture war', and benefits are showing in casualty data and reduced insurance premiums. There is another nearly full school year by next May, so "cancel it all and put more people in hospital and children at risk" may not be wise.
A more risk-averse policy could be "we encourage local reviews" - but that is existing policy of the Lab government in Wales. There are other options, but they may not reach Single Street, London.
OTOH White Van Man and his friend Taxi Driver have not gone away.
We really should have figured out how to sync the results and uni place system - perhaps do during in COVID? The time and stress of the offers system is a nonesense.
I know it made "good telly" but he could have hired someone else to drive his tractor for those 2 weeks
As an aside, I know a couple of Remainers who are now voting Reform. From vastly different backgrounds, different parts of the country etc. What do they have in common? They are wary of the growth in immigration over the past 5-10 years AND consider Starmer's Labour party to be continuity Sunak
I think it started off as right I can get my IHT tax bill down and Amazon want some more telly form my big deal, oh I will just go Top Gear does Farms piece of piss for a few weeks a year. But COVID, he was trapped on that farm and it shows that he is way more invested in doing farmy things than he needs to be doing, he could be paying people to manage that land all year round and sit around making silly beer ads.
He may have started the show as a lark but by the end you can see his sincere joy in the new job. In fact that’s one of the reasons it works and is SO successful (it’s globally popular) - it is obviously true at its core, even as elements are staged or crafted
Conversely, the Grand Tour declined in quality as the staging and scripting got more salient and painfully obvious - and you could sense the three guys were kinda bored
Too many foreigners, we're a soft touch, it's not fair, let's look after our own, British jobs/houses/schools/hospitals for British people, there's plenty of £££ if we stop wasting it on bureaucracy and bogus asylum-seekers and DEI and climate wokery - it's Reform's challenge to fuse all this into an election winning political project.
Farage did it successfully in 2016. Can he do it again? Big reason No: The thing he sold last time is tarnished by subsequent reality. It's been exposed as a con. Big Reason Yes: Anti-immigration sentiment and general discontent is even higher now than in 2016 and he doesn't need 52% this time. Mid to high 30s will probably do.
But, the early voting numbers from Nevada and Georgia were clear. Trump was winning both States. Trump might have gone on to lose narrowly, despite gaining both States, but it was not likely he would.
UK voters are not religious in the same way as USA voters are. They are much less subject to magical beliefs about charismatic politicians. Nor are they ideologically accustomed to the idea that the rich can be radically irresponsible and run the country on their own fiat.
The UK does not allow for the takeover of the state by an individual and cronies as easily as the USA. And Reform MPs will mostly want to be re-elected on 2034.
Our courts are far less politicised, and there is no chance (IMO) of a government simply ignoring thr rule of law.
But we shall perhaps find out. (30% chance of a Reform majority government).
I find the really OTT scripted setups my only annoyance with the show e.g. supposedly Caleb not telling him they are harvesting and him finding out its on social media versus him genuinely on verge of a breakdown because of over work / stress and snapping at him.
"The beauty of electric semis is their bi-directional charging.
We can recharge our vehicles directly off the semi’s battery en-route to a job site,
And most sites are just short hauls from their storage yards. Perfect conditions for electric semi deployment."
Trump: "The numbers are worse than they ever -- don't let anyone tell you they're not. The whole statistical charts they made, the whole thing is a rigged deal. They got rid of the guy because he didn't want to do the numbers the way they wanted to and they put their own numbers out."
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1955663092601241752
Some lawyers are trying to knit a constitution out of HR law etc. - to truly limit what parliament can do on various things.
I can easily imagine a battle in the courts to try and limit primary legislation by a Reform Government.
The lack of replacement for the Brynglas tunnels on the M4 should be a national embarrassment for the Welsh government. They’ve been the bottleneck every since the second bridge opened in the mid 1990s
US Treasury Secretary Bessent floats rolling out export tax to more industries - FT.
https://x.com/financialjuice/status/1955642482177286498
Other than creating another opportunity to grift off the negotiations with individual companies, what is the actual point of this ?
Edit: found it https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/09/this-cement-quarry-dump-truck-will-be-the-worlds-biggest-electric-vehicle/
Michaela School 6th form, 70% A* and A grades, 90% A* to B grades.
https://x.com/miss_snuffy/status/1955922562870837612
There’s a lot of sectors where US companies such as Nvidia and Microsoft have effective worldwide monopolies, meaning that the demand is price inelastic. Taxing Nvidia 15% on chip sales to China is pure profit for the Treasury.
Now many people will disagree with the approach, but that’s what they’re trying to do. There’s a suggestion that next year’s Budget is doing to scrap the Federal income tax for anyone earning less than $100k or even $200k.
Another reason is the GE is several years away. I want them to be properly scrutinised and that means posing and discussing that question of what they would do. It's not happening atm but there is time.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn47wq93vn2o
A man accused of deliberately driving into a crowd of fans at Liverpool's Premier League victory parade has been charged with 24 new offences, including attempted grievous bodily harm against two babies.
Paul Doyle appeared at Liverpool Crown Court over video-link from prison and became tearful as he was asked to confirm his identity.
He was due to enter pleas to the seven counts he originally faced over the incident in May, but the court heard prosecutors had introduced 24 new counts to the indictment.
Mr Doyle, of West Derby in Liverpool, was not asked to enter pleas to any charges after his barrister Simon Csoka KC asked for more time to consider the new counts.
Same with defence cuts and justice cuts too.
Osborne.
I mentioned the Southern M4 relief in my first post on this mini thread. I would vote for that, but that would not be enough me to vote for Reform.
Talking of Newport and Airports every few decades the idea of the Estuary Airport on the Eastern part of the Llanwern Steelworks site would pop up. That would negate the need for either Cardiff or Bristol Airports. It isn't on the agenda at the moment.
One of Janan Ganesh's best articles imo.
"Why bad ideas are always with us
Tariffs, Nimbyism, high debt — the victims of these things don’t even know what they’re losing
Janan Ganesh" (£)
https://www.ft.com/content/584cac88-0c22-457b-a7a2-ca1d5ca997c5
The thread header says "it might also be a good petri dish to see if there’s any tactical voting against Reform, .."
The election is under PR. There is no tactical vote with PR, you vote positively for a party.
Cameron should have challenged him more on the strategic implications of the decisions but didn't.
There are not so many taking more than 4 A levels now - although EPQ's and Welsh Bacc's are common.
Four years after the pandemic and no-one really has the spending under control, gilt rates ticking up everywhere.
AIUI there’s a lot of one-offs in the US figures, related to redundancies made at the start of Trump’s term, but the spending is still out of control.
The markets also don’t like that a lot of the governance is coming from Trump directly through executive orders, and not legislated by Congress, so it can be easily undone by the next administration. Trump being Trump also means they don’t know what he might do or say next week.
Congress basically put all the pork back in the Budget bill, because they’ve spent decades being lobbied by every special interest and the money goes to buy jobs in every single congressional district.
As is the trade deficit. A lot.
That particular school is one of the best state-funded schools in the country, yet for some reason very unpopular with the educational Establishment.
The coalition did some good stuff and some bad - as did Thatcher. But as with Thatcher, his successors just carried on with the bad stuff. Absolving them of responsibility for that, in the way your comment implies, is wrong.
When you say earlier are you alluding to Cameron's AirMiles to and from Brussels bigging up all the concessions he would win, only to return just prior to the referendum with the square root of zero?
It will surprise nobody to learn that I had little facility as a scholar and only did French A-level two years early because I was educated exclusively in French until I was 13.
https://x.com/wartranslated/status/1955921885314867454
Ukranian press are suggesting that there might be an elaborate amount of deception about this trip. The allegation is that the real Putin doesn’t like flying anywhere, and has a whole load of decoy movements designed to cover for his actually travelling by train, as he’s scared of being on planes that are easy targets to take out with MANPADS.
There’s also the suggestion that the man who turns up in Alaska tomorrow, if indeed he does, might not be the real Putin but one of the many body doubles he uses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVF86fOtW4E
Of course all of the above might be Ukranian propoganda, but that’s what’s being said.
https://feweek.co.uk/a-level-results-2025-8-key-trends-in-englands-data/
And whilst Michaela do what they do very well, their sixth form is mega selective. To get in, you need an average grade of 7 at GCSE (A in old money), and 8's (A/A*) in the subjects you plan to study at A Level.
People will know what I got so I won't go trumpeting that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1zJzr-kWsI
It shows something about changing tastes that the Fisk Jubilee Singers performed for Queen Victoria -- but are heard of so little, now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisk_Jubilee_Singers
(For the record: Many years ago, when I was living in Chicago, I sometimes listened to broadcasts from black churches, because I loved much of their music.)
At 6th Form, the policy was to treat General Studies with disdain, and just do 3 each. Some did S-Level as it was then.
Is it not the case that there was a move to a wider range of A-levels 1-2 decades ago?
Having no sprogs, I do not follow ultra-detail for a small number of years.
However this is a really odd take.
https://x.com/rupertlowe10/status/1955935404835660251?s=61
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/dec/07/nigel-farage-blames-immigration-m4-traffic-ukip-reception
Court battles over the meaning and application/disapplication of primary (and other) legislation is standard fare in modern law. This is because, to the chagrin of dim MPs, the law is not a superficial thing. It is a collective body of materials gathered over the last 1000 years or so from various sources and is in a permanent state of development. If an Act of 2025 is inconsistent or ambiguous when put alongside an Act from the reign of Edward III which it has failed to repeal there is an issue for a court to decide. Multiply this by a few billion and you have the current state of things. To test the waters and appreciate the complexities just read few Supreme Court judgments - probably the world's brightest court; these only deal in contested and previously indeterminate matters.
What I think is impossible in the UK (unlike the USA) is three fold: That courts will allow its fundamental jurisdiction to be ousted; that a Reform government will try to do so; and that a Reform government will try to overlook or ignore the rule of law as pronounced by our courts.
1) There has been an enormous increase in road mileage since 2010, even while economic activity has barely increased
2) This is primarily due to LCVs (vans). HGVs, buses have both fallen over that period.
3) and this is due to the surge in online shopping, Amazon etc
4) this kind of economic activity is dependent on ... low-skilled and cheap labour
5) immigrants
The other metric to check would be what % of the 6th form were entered for how many A levels, as they may be filtering out lower performing students
If it had been done then, it would have been 60/40 Remain with a poor campaign and 65/35 with a good one.
Which would have settled the matter for a good long while. Sure, Farage would be UKIPing away now, but unless subsequent governments started signing more Lisbon Treaties, it would be background noise.
Which is not the most auspicious of thoughts.