The 2025 chutzpah award goes to Marco Longhi – politicalbetting.com
The 2025 chutzpah award goes to Marco Longhi – politicalbetting.com
Marco – we sat next to each other for years. You were a Tory and you rebelled against the whip less than I did! You championed Boris and told me to keep quiet when I was pointing out his failing policies.This is just silly.
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Brass neck doesn’t even enter into it
Reform is rapidly becoming a care home for failed Tories.
It will come back to bite them.
Ben Pointer in the mud !!
I’m sure he’ll be back.
The shenanigans in Canada (discontent on the right with a Conservative government, leading to the rise of a party called Reform sucking all the life out of the old Tories before taking over the name and the remains) happened a couple of decades ago. They've also been pretty clearly the recipe that Nigel is trying to follow.
Besides, if Nigel really is going to be PM, he needs ca. 100 sound, loyal chaps who know their way around Westminster. Where does he find those, if not in the 2024 reject pile?
Now onto YouTube music videos
I’ve got the better of the deal.
Life in the fast lane.
Then on Christmas Eve we’ve a family of five visiting us.
Back on watch now though. Honestly, sifting the worth out of this story is a complete waste of time. Tory hasbeen tries to burn Fukker nobody on Twitter. It might as well be buggate,
This has been a very unhappy hear for me in politics. I feel an orphan. I have nothing but contempt for the SNP government in Scotland and I am in despair about the Labour government in London. My enthusiasm and even interest has waned sharply. I may have a break from PB for a while.
Indeed I do not see an end to turmoil and division going forward
We are singularly bereft of any leader or poltician, both at home or abroad, that would give hope of strong leadership
Nice one.
"A 29-year-old man, a 51-year-old woman, and a 55-year-old man were arrested on suspicion of offences including slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour, with one also suspected of making threats to kill."
https://sunderlandglobalmedia.org/breakin-green-party-councillor-cllr-sohail-asghar-has-been-arrested-on-suspicion-of-modern-slavery/
https://news.sky.com/story/sir-keir-starmer-and-ministers-to-hold-regular-news-conferences-in-radical-comms-shakeup-13485346
Checks - aw, scratch that, the councils have let it rot ...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyp892eg5wo
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Besides, how did we get here and then get out? Part of the problem, I'm sure, is that we're demanding leadership qualities that go well beyond what we have any right to demand. Since Blair, we've had seven PMs, all of whom failed fairly unambiguously and fairly quickly. What was the sliding door moment where we could have avoided all this?
https://x.com/lbc/status/2001585883883925957?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
I do like the railway station. Though I was never clear why there was a Deltic House just opposite. Apparently being turned into a posh hotel, or being proposed to be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn7gYDMFCtQ
News sneaked out in a written statement just before Christmas.
Ajax probe delays Defence Investment Plan decisions
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/ajax-probe-delays-defence-investment-plan-decisions/
The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that ongoing investigations into the British Army’s Ajax armoured vehicle programme will directly shape decisions in the forthcoming Defence Investment Plan, which has been delayed in recent weeks as ministers await clarity on the troubled programme.
In a written statement to Parliament ahead of the Christmas recess, Defence Minister Luke Pollard said multiple safety investigations into Ajax remain ongoing following reports of noise and vibration injuries among service personnel, and that their findings will now feed directly into investment decisions.
The statement provides the clearest indication yet that uncertainty around Ajax has contributed to the delayed publication of the Defence Investment Plan, as the government weighs future funding and capability choices linked to the Army’s Armoured Cavalry Programme...
Everyone involved in defence procurement at the MoD, with any responsibility for decision making on this program during the last decade and a half, should be put on notice. Unless they can provide good cause (for example, if they were recruited a few months ago, or they are on record as having consistently opposed the way in which Ajax has been handled), they ought to be fired.
That might be hugely disruptive for a few months, but I don't see how it could be much worse than the current situation.
And it might well improve things.
Rather like bank holiday weekends when you live in north Cumberland. Don't go anywhere. Between you and the Solway is space with no people, no cars and lots of lizards basking in the sun. Just down the road is gridlock.
My Christmas music usually involves clearing 4 evenings for a run through of the Ring. Not sure which version yet.
Cameron also lost a major national referendum he called before having got significant concessions from the EU, it was not a minor thing
The whole enterprise, military and civilian, needs to have some accountability introduced. The quid pro quo being the freedom to act quickly and decisively if you take responsibility for the decision, and latitude to make a few mistakes through enhanced risk appetite (though not at this scale).
Should such a solution be adopted, we could use Rheinmetall and the Germans to rebuild MOD procurement from scratch
There have been radical solutions in the past. Curtis LeMay built SAC by bullying, apocryphally saying he had "neither the time nor the inclination to differentiate between the incompetent and the merely unfortunate". See also Hap Arnold and the Battle of Kansas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kansas
And of course Ed M is yearning for another go.
Mrs Stodge and I travelled back from rural Derbyshire today - the trains into London not too busy but the queues waiting at the Eurostar terminal and for the trains to the Midlands and Sheffield were horrendous.
On the slightly substantive, there's quitting and leaving your party in the lurch. There's an argument parties "need time to reflect" after a heavy defeat ending a long period in Government but that's not how the world works. My guess is both Major and Cameron were sick and tired of the Conservative Party whose internal disunity and factionalism had arguably contributed much to their respective defeats.
The final revenge was to effectively say "sod it" and leave those who had conspired to pick up the pieces.
I think that the Greens have gone the other way - they've just chosen loathsome as their leader whereas their offering overall is just ghastly.
And there is no good answer for Farage - inevitably they will mostly be failed Tory re-treads or complete unknowns. A balance of the two is probably a bit better than either group dominating but it might be a hindrance come 2028/9 even if it makes no difference at all in 2025/6.
He will not be a great or even good PM if there's a Reform government. He'll perhaps let himself down, but his fellow-travellers will do far worse.
I don't think this is even controversial.
Who, by the way, is Marco Longhi?
Tony Blair had been an MP for 14 years before becoming Prime Minister.
I'd argue Blair at the very least was more "politically experienced" having served in Shadow Cabinet for a number of years before becoming leader in the election following John Smith's death.
As to whether Farage will "prove to be a great leader", impossible to know.
It's a sickening trend in world politics. The attitude of a violent school playground.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainians hit a Russian oil tanker in the Mediterranean, and tease about hitting another Black Sea warship.
I honestly think having that kind of coalition would see black people feel they have more of a stake in society, and racist-curious/left behind/anti PC white people be more thoughtful about immigration and skin colour
Is backbench experience useful? Probably, to see how things work (though Starmer has been front bench practically the whole time), especially if facing opposition which knows the ins and outs.
Parliamentary experience, political experience, are different things, each useful though.
https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1500077760