Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Does it ?
What do the polls tell you now ?
That the Dems are still more unpopular than both Trump and the Republicans.
That's reflective of disappointment in party leadership. But in head to head polling they will still vote for the Democrat.
To turn your own question back on you, what does that tell you about this administration ?
It also shows I think that the Republican vote is more tribal than the Democratic vote. 40% will vote for and approve of the donkey with the red rosette no matter how much it shits on the carpet.
The replies to this vary so let me expand a bit. Win for the greens would be fatal for No10's political strategy. Less certain whether it pre-empts a leadership challenge. Even less certain that such a challenge would succeed. Labour PMs are remarkably durable in my experience.
Half a dozen leftist splinter groups standing, plus the Greens, will almost certainly deny Labour the seat. They’re fighting each other and not the actual enemy.
No, Advance are the lot that think Nigel Farage is a woke liberal, that Shabana Mahmood isn't the British Home Secretary.
Yeah I got that wrong and edited my original post. Advance are Tommy’s mob, rather than another leftist splinter group.
I doubt they'll get more than a couple of hundred votes, if that.
So much for Trump's negotiated pause in the bombing.
I know many things are happening but pls take a moment to read this: we are in full blackout in Kyiv, metro stopped, for the 1st time like this, power outages for the whole Ukraine, even in Moldova now too. all because of Russia bombing our power stations, and it’s -19 outside https://x.com/MargoGontar/status/2017538935614795848
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Does it ?
What do the polls tell you now ?
That the Dems are still more unpopular than both Trump and the Republicans.
That's reflective of disappointment in party leadership. But in head to head polling they will still vote for the Democrat.
To turn your own question back on you, what does that tell you about this administration ?
It also shows I think that the Republican vote is more tribal than the Democratic vote. 40% will vote for and approve of the donkey with the red rosette no matter how much it shits on the carpet.
The Democrats though haven't fall below 43% of the vote in a presidential or Congressional election since 1984 and even then Mondale still got 40.6%, so are just as tribal.
Only Goldwater in 1964 for the GOP and McGovern for the Democrats in 1972 of elections since WW2 ran such awful and centrist alienating campaigns they managed to get less than 40% of the vote
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
So even the big announcement was just an agreement to talk about getting an agreement...
The prime minister said the requirement for British visitors to need a visa to visit China for under 30 days would be scrapped. But the Chinese government said it was something they were merely "actively considering." Sir Keir insisted to me it will happen, but acknowledged there was no start date agreed. "We are making progress," he said.
I am glad he doesn't work for me sorting out deals. Given it isn't special to have such an agreement, how do you not get that over the line in exchange for allowing super spy centre in London. I get the feeling he would do a deal for magic beans on the international stage.
Apart from his habit of giving the EU everything it wants without getting anything tangible in return, and of paying foreigners tens of billions to take strategically vital islands off us, and of being habitually craven with the appalling US president, and of prosecuting British troops for killing terrorist murderers, and now of kowtowing to perhaps the most ghastly and harmful government in the world, and all in just his first 18 months, what could possibly give you that idea?
I predicted on here that Starmer would give a lot and get nothing.
Savvy world leaders know a weak-willed needy supplicant when they see one.
If it's the Americans at last, it's too late to threaten the regime.*
And if it isn't it will likely lead to a second crackdown.
*I have to say, I'm not sure a foreign intervention would actually help. It would require boots on the ground and that's never ended well. But that would have been a sensible reason not to promise one to start with.
Angeliki Stogia is Labour's candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election
Why are they all called Ange?
Her Wikipedia page has been nominated for deletion. You would like to think a halfway competent party of government would have sorted that out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angeliki_Stogia
I was looking at Ballot Box Scotland’s analysis of the recent YouGov Scottish poll. I noticed that Labour are forecast to pick up the final seat in 5 of the 8 regions. They are currently forecast to be the third largest party in terms of seats. If they don’t pick up those 5 seats they could be the fourth or even fifth largest party in Holyrood. How have the mighty fallen!
Labour could pick up some Holyrood constituency seats though, while England has seen a swing from Labour to Reform and Green since most of the local council seats up were last elected in 2022 and Wales has seen a swing from Labour to Plaid and Reform since the 2021 Senedd election in Scotland it is a different story. There has been a swing from SNP to Labour since the 2021 Holyrood election on both the constituency and regional list vote, albeit mainly because some 2021 SNP voters now back Reform or the Greens or LDs
Which constituency seats do you think Labour might pick up, other than the two they are already expected to win? Remember that the more constituency seats they win, the fewer regional seats they may win.
There has been a 3.5% swing from SNP to Labour since 2021 on the latest Yougov Holyrood poll last week.
I was looking at Ballot Box Scotland’s analysis of the recent YouGov Scottish poll. I noticed that Labour are forecast to pick up the final seat in 5 of the 8 regions. They are currently forecast to be the third largest party in terms of seats. If they don’t pick up those 5 seats they could be the fourth or even fifth largest party in Holyrood. How have the mighty fallen!
Labour could pick up some Holyrood constituency seats though, while England has seen a swing from Labour to Reform and Green since most of the local council seats up were last elected in 2022 and Wales has seen a swing from Labour to Plaid and Reform since the 2021 Senedd election in Scotland it is a different story. There has been a swing from SNP to Labour since the 2021 Holyrood election on both the constituency and regional list vote, albeit mainly because some 2021 SNP voters now back Reform or the Greens or LDs
Which constituency seats do you think Labour might pick up, other than the two they are already expected to win? Remember that the more constituency seats they win, the fewer regional seats they may win.
There has been a 3.5% swing from SNP to Labour since 2021 on the latest Yougov Holyrood poll last week.
The BBS summary I referred to was based on exactly that poll.
East Lothian would certainly be a Labour gain from SNP on that swing.
Aberdeen S and N Kincardine, Aberdeenshire East, Angus N and Mearns, Ayr, Banffshire and Buchan Coast, Cyldesdale, Moray, Perthshire N, Perthshire S and Kinrosshire could also be potential Reform gains from the SNP on last week's Yougov Holyrood poll
Angeliki Stogia is Labour's candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election
Why are they all called Ange?
Her Wikipedia page has been nominated for deletion. You would like to think a halfway competent party of government would have sorted that out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angeliki_Stogia
It's a sign they are trying to Rayner on ReFuk's parade.
So much for Trump's negotiated pause in the bombing.
I know many things are happening but pls take a moment to read this: we are in full blackout in Kyiv, metro stopped, for the 1st time like this, power outages for the whole Ukraine, even in Moldova now too. all because of Russia bombing our power stations, and it’s -19 outside https://x.com/MargoGontar/status/2017538935614795848
It's kicked off again in Gaza too. Trump has the attention span of Joe Biden.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Does it ?
What do the polls tell you now ?
That the Dems are still more unpopular than both Trump and the Republicans.
That's reflective of disappointment in party leadership. But in head to head polling they will still vote for the Democrat.
To turn your own question back on you, what does that tell you about this administration ?
It also shows I think that the Republican vote is more tribal than the Democratic vote. 40% will vote for and approve of the donkey with the red rosette no matter how much it shits on the carpet.
The Democrats though haven't fall below 43% of the vote in a presidential or Congressional election since 1984 and even then Mondale still got 40.6%, so are just as tribal.
Only Goldwater in 1964 for the GOP and McGovern for the Democrats in 1972 of elections since WW2 ran such awful and centrist alienating campaigns they managed to get less than 40% of the vote
The Find Out Now Gorton & Denton 'poll' VI was based on just 51 people.
Greens now heading to clear favourite on BF.
They shouldn't be.
Although the latest Nowcast has the Greens gaining Manchester Withington and Manchester Rusholme from Labour, it also has Labour leading in Gorton narrowly with Reform second and the Greens third.
Its Gorton and Denton figures from Nowcast are Labour 29.8%, Reform 26.9% and Greens 24.1%
Small LibDem vote can be squeezed by the anti-Reform vote. Easy tactical vote for the Greens for most of them.
May well be some anti-Reform Tories prepared to do the same. Easier tactical vote for the Greens for most of them than Labour.
Tories voting for Trots? Takes all sorts.
There are quite a lot of Tories for whom Green is their second choice. Takes all sorts indeed...
If the choice was either Green or Reform I’d be voting Green on the basis that Greens aren’t going to deport me.
I would vote Reform on that choice, no question
I will never vote for Reform under any circumstances, and could vote for the party best placed to beat them even Green but especially Plaid here in Wales
Well you are very much in the minority in terms of 2024 Conservative voters.
Most Tory voters on a forced choice would vote Reform over Labour or Green or Plaid and a plurality even Reform over the LDs.
It is most Labour or LD voters who on a forced choice would vote Green or Plaid over Reform.
52% of Conservative voters would vote Reform in a Labour v Reform seat FON found, 11% Labour and 37% would stay Tory. LD and Green and YP voters would strongly back Labour over Reform.
43% of Conservative voters would vote Reform in a LD v Reform seat, 31% would stay Conservative and 25% would vote LD.
Most Labour, Green and YP voters would tactically vote LD to beat Reform.
Interestingly in Conservative v Reform seats though, 38% of Labour voters would now vote Conservative to beat Reform, 53% stay Labour and just 6% go Reform. LD and Green supporters would act similarly
Both Badenoch and Davey will be faced with the "who are you going to back if it's a Hung Parliament?" question. The LDs have form on this while the Conservatives don't. To be fair, both parties are playing the equidistance game quite well at this time but that line can't hold for ever.
It's what I've come to call the "Amber Valley" question - in a seat held by Labour, where Reform are second and the Conservatives third, should Conservative voters tactically support Reform to take the seat from Labour or Labour to stop Reform winning the seat? Badenoch will be asked the question and she will need to come up with a coherent answer which will indicate whether she would support a Reform minority Government or simply sit in Opposition irrespective of how the election turns out and see what happens.
IF the Conservatives are neither first nor second party in the next House of Commons, they will face the kind of irrelevance usually reserved for the Liberal Democrats.
On the February Electoral Calculus projection out today Kemi would be Leader of the Opposition to a PM Farage propped up by the DUP and TUV in a hung parliament.
Reform 319 Conservatives 83 Labour 68 LDs 64 Greens 46 SNP 44 SF 7 DUP 5 Plaid 4 Others 4 UUP 1 Alliance 1 TUV 1
Albeit Nowcast's projection still has Starmer as LOTO with Farage PM with Reform on 337 seats and having a majority and the Tories 4th behind Labour and the LDs
So much for Trump's negotiated pause in the bombing.
I know many things are happening but pls take a moment to read this: we are in full blackout in Kyiv, metro stopped, for the 1st time like this, power outages for the whole Ukraine, even in Moldova now too. all because of Russia bombing our power stations, and it’s -19 outside https://x.com/MargoGontar/status/2017538935614795848
I look forward to seeing how he blames this on Ukraine.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Does it ?
What do the polls tell you now ?
That the Dems are still more unpopular than both Trump and the Republicans.
That's reflective of disappointment in party leadership. But in head to head polling they will still vote for the Democrat.
To turn your own question back on you, what does that tell you about this administration ?
It also shows I think that the Republican vote is more tribal than the Democratic vote. 40% will vote for and approve of the donkey with the red rosette no matter how much it shits on the carpet.
The Democrats though haven't fall below 43% of the vote in a presidential or Congressional election since 1984 and even then Mondale still got 40.6%, so are just as tribal.
Only Goldwater in 1964 for the GOP and McGovern for the Democrats in 1972 of elections since WW2 ran such awful and centrist alienating campaigns they managed to get less than 40% of the vote
George HW Bush in 1992....
Apologies, you are right, albeit Perot took 19% of the vote in that election and indeed led Clinton and Bush at one stage.
That was the last US presidential election which was generally more than a 2 party candidate race
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Are you completely uninterested in what Trump and his buddy Epstein got up to before their 2007 fallout over a real estate deal?
My theory is that Trump did a deal - no prosecution in return for evidence. And that is what he is afraid of coming out.
Such deals (becoming an informant) are considered highly secret - which would explain it not leaking to this point.
The vast majority of such informants, in the US, are themselves guilty. See Sonny Gravano.
If it is the case, a part of it would be a full confession of wrong doing from Trump - as written testimony.
It's a possibility that's been fairly widely discussed. The sheer number of redactions in the published files, and the number still unreleased, could be for any number of reasons. That is certainly one.
Pro tip: Don't read about Bill Gates and his knobrot whilst you're eating bran flakes.
As for that photo of Andrew Mountbatten-WIndsor on all fours, can anyone tell me why he is was Queen Elizabeth II's favourite sprog?
Billy Boy claims its all fake news.....
His wife still divorced him soon afterwards, so she clearly wasn’t buying the denial.
Gates is someone who’d worked very hard to try and get himself a reputation as a good man, while his terrible behaviour both in business and personal lives has been kept quiet.
Like Norman Fowler, there's hundreds of thousands of people (if not millions) alive today who otherwise wouldn't be thanks to Bill Gates, I'll put him in the flawed genius category for now.
There’s a long history of people who got rich using the money to try and buy back their souls, in the second half of their lives.
From Enrico Scrovegni in 14th century Padua to the Sacklers in recent decades, for instance.
So much for Trump's negotiated pause in the bombing.
I know many things are happening but pls take a moment to read this: we are in full blackout in Kyiv, metro stopped, for the 1st time like this, power outages for the whole Ukraine, even in Moldova now too. all because of Russia bombing our power stations, and it’s -19 outside https://x.com/MargoGontar/status/2017538935614795848
I look forward to seeing how he blames this on Ukraine.
So much for Trump's negotiated pause in the bombing.
I know many things are happening but pls take a moment to read this: we are in full blackout in Kyiv, metro stopped, for the 1st time like this, power outages for the whole Ukraine, even in Moldova now too. all because of Russia bombing our power stations, and it’s -19 outside https://x.com/MargoGontar/status/2017538935614795848
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Are you completely uninterested in what Trump and his buddy Epstein got up to before their 2007 fallout over a real estate deal?
My theory is that Trump did a deal - no prosecution in return for evidence. And that is what he is afraid of coming out.
Such deals (becoming an informant) are considered highly secret - which would explain it not leaking to this point.
The vast majority of such informants, in the US, are themselves guilty. See Sonny Gravano.
If it is the case, a part of it would be a full confession of wrong doing from Trump - as written testimony.
Unlikely for the simple reason Trump would have known that he had signed a deal.
Remember Trump was in favour of releasing the files until the doors were slammed shut with a week or so to go. From this, I infer Trump ‘knew’ he was safe but something nasty was found at the last minute, and Trump would have been the very first name they'd have screened for.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
And she deserves a modicum of credit for warning in detail (and getting roundly mocked for it, including on here) what a second Trump term would mean.
Pro tip: Don't read about Bill Gates and his knobrot whilst you're eating bran flakes.
As for that photo of Andrew Mountbatten-WIndsor on all fours, can anyone tell me why he is was Queen Elizabeth II's favourite sprog?
Billy Boy claims its all fake news.....
His wife still divorced him soon afterwards, so she clearly wasn’t buying the denial.
Gates is someone who’d worked very hard to try and get himself a reputation as a good man, while his terrible behaviour both in business and personal lives has been kept quiet.
Like Norman Fowler, there's hundreds of thousands of people (if not millions) alive today who otherwise wouldn't be thanks to Bill Gates, I'll put him in the flawed genius category for now.
There’s a long history of people who got rich using the money to try and buy back their souls, in the second half of their lives.
From Enrico Scrovegni in 14th century Padua to the Sacklers in recent decades, for instance.
Indeed.
Various tyrants in Ancient Greece - kill the opposition. Steal everything. Then patronise the arts/philosophy.
I was looking at Ballot Box Scotland’s analysis of the recent YouGov Scottish poll. I noticed that Labour are forecast to pick up the final seat in 5 of the 8 regions. They are currently forecast to be the third largest party in terms of seats. If they don’t pick up those 5 seats they could be the fourth or even fifth largest party in Holyrood. How have the mighty fallen!
Labour could pick up some Holyrood constituency seats though, while England has seen a swing from Labour to Reform and Green since most of the local council seats up were last elected in 2022 and Wales has seen a swing from Labour to Plaid and Reform since the 2021 Senedd election in Scotland it is a different story. There has been a swing from SNP to Labour since the 2021 Holyrood election on both the constituency and regional list vote, albeit mainly because some 2021 SNP voters now back Reform or the Greens or LDs
Which constituency seats do you think Labour might pick up, other than the two they are already expected to win? Remember that the more constituency seats they win, the fewer regional seats they may win.
There has been a 3.5% swing from SNP to Labour since 2021 on the latest Yougov Holyrood poll last week.
I was looking at Ballot Box Scotland’s analysis of the recent YouGov Scottish poll. I noticed that Labour are forecast to pick up the final seat in 5 of the 8 regions. They are currently forecast to be the third largest party in terms of seats. If they don’t pick up those 5 seats they could be the fourth or even fifth largest party in Holyrood. How have the mighty fallen!
Labour could pick up some Holyrood constituency seats though, while England has seen a swing from Labour to Reform and Green since most of the local council seats up were last elected in 2022 and Wales has seen a swing from Labour to Plaid and Reform since the 2021 Senedd election in Scotland it is a different story. There has been a swing from SNP to Labour since the 2021 Holyrood election on both the constituency and regional list vote, albeit mainly because some 2021 SNP voters now back Reform or the Greens or LDs
Which constituency seats do you think Labour might pick up, other than the two they are already expected to win? Remember that the more constituency seats they win, the fewer regional seats they may win.
There has been a 3.5% swing from SNP to Labour since 2021 on the latest Yougov Holyrood poll last week.
The BBS summary I referred to was based on exactly that poll.
East Lothian would certainly be a Labour gain from SNP on that swing.
Aberdeen S and N Kincardine, Aberdeenshire East, Angus N and Mearns, Ayr, Banffshire and Buchan Coast, Cyldesdale, Moray, Perthshire N, Perthshire S and Kinrosshire could also be potential Reform gains from the SNP on last week's Yougov Holyrood poll
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Are you completely uninterested in what Trump and his buddy Epstein got up to before their 2007 fallout over a real estate deal?
My theory is that Trump did a deal - no prosecution in return for evidence. And that is what he is afraid of coming out.
Such deals (becoming an informant) are considered highly secret - which would explain it not leaking to this point.
The vast majority of such informants, in the US, are themselves guilty. See Sonny Gravano.
If it is the case, a part of it would be a full confession of wrong doing from Trump - as written testimony.
It's a possibility that's been fairly widely discussed. The sheer number of redactions in the published files, and the number still unreleased, could be for any number of reasons. That is certainly one.
It’s the only thing that makes sense - the deal would be secret. And such matters are considered the very highest grade of secret in US law enforcement.
Anything else about Trump’s involvement would have been leaked by someone before now.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
And she deserves a modicum of credit for warning in detail (and getting roundly mocked for it, including on here) what a second Trump term would mean.
It’s not like the Project 2025 crew were exactly shy about their intentions.
The Find Out Now Gorton & Denton 'poll' VI was based on just 51 people.
Greens now heading to clear favourite on BF.
They shouldn't be.
Although the latest Nowcast has the Greens gaining Manchester Withington and Manchester Rusholme from Labour, it also has Labour leading in Gorton narrowly with Reform second and the Greens third.
Its Gorton and Denton figures from Nowcast are Labour 29.8%, Reform 26.9% and Greens 24.1%
Small LibDem vote can be squeezed by the anti-Reform vote. Easy tactical vote for the Greens for most of them.
May well be some anti-Reform Tories prepared to do the same. Easier tactical vote for the Greens for most of them than Labour.
Tories voting for Trots? Takes all sorts.
There are quite a lot of Tories for whom Green is their second choice. Takes all sorts indeed...
If the choice was either Green or Reform I’d be voting Green on the basis that Greens aren’t going to deport me.
I would vote Reform on that choice, no question
I will never vote for Reform under any circumstances, and could vote for the party best placed to beat them even Green but especially Plaid here in Wales
Well you are very much in the minority in terms of 2024 Conservative voters.
Most Tory voters on a forced choice would vote Reform over Labour or Green or Plaid and a plurality even Reform over the LDs.
It is most Labour or LD voters who on a forced choice would vote Green or Plaid over Reform.
52% of Conservative voters would vote Reform in a Labour v Reform seat FON found, 11% Labour and 37% would stay Tory. LD and Green and YP voters would strongly back Labour over Reform.
43% of Conservative voters would vote Reform in a LD v Reform seat, 31% would stay Conservative and 25% would vote LD.
Most Labour, Green and YP voters would tactically vote LD to beat Reform.
Interestingly in Conservative v Reform seats though, 38% of Labour voters would now vote Conservative to beat Reform, 53% stay Labour and just 6% go Reform. LD and Green supporters would act similarly
Both Badenoch and Davey will be faced with the "who are you going to back if it's a Hung Parliament?" question. The LDs have form on this while the Conservatives don't. To be fair, both parties are playing the equidistance game quite well at this time but that line can't hold for ever.
It's what I've come to call the "Amber Valley" question - in a seat held by Labour, where Reform are second and the Conservatives third, should Conservative voters tactically support Reform to take the seat from Labour or Labour to stop Reform winning the seat? Badenoch will be asked the question and she will need to come up with a coherent answer which will indicate whether she would support a Reform minority Government or simply sit in Opposition irrespective of how the election turns out and see what happens.
IF the Conservatives are neither first nor second party in the next House of Commons, they will face the kind of irrelevance usually reserved for the Liberal Democrats.
On the February Electoral Calculus projection out today Kemi would be Leader of the Opposition to a PM Farage propped up by the DUP and TUV in a hung parliament.
Reform 319 Conservatives 83 Labour 68 LDs 64 Greens 46 SNP 44 SF 7 DUP 5 Plaid 4 Others 4 UUP 1 Alliance 1 TUV 1
Albeit Nowcast's projection still has Starmer as LOTO with Farage PM with Reform on 337 seats and having a majority and the Tories 4th behind Labour and the LDs
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
And she deserves a modicum of credit for warning in detail (and getting roundly mocked for it, including on here) what a second Trump term would mean.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
And she deserves a modicum of credit for warning in detail (and getting roundly mocked for it, including on here) what a second Trump term would mean.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
And she deserves a modicum of credit for warning in detail (and getting roundly mocked for it, including on here) what a second Trump term would mean.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
And she deserves a modicum of credit for warning in detail (and getting roundly mocked for it, including on here) what a second Trump term would mean.
It’s not like the Project 2025 crew were exactly shy about their intentions.
Well, no, but simply quoting things from Project 2025 had people being mocked for Trump Derangement Syndrome.
You to can enrol in a non-existant uni course or be taught a computer science course on the history of computing from 20 years ago to upskill yourself for modern AI.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Are you completely uninterested in what Trump and his buddy Epstein got up to before their 2007 fallout over a real estate deal?
My theory is that Trump did a deal - no prosecution in return for evidence. And that is what he is afraid of coming out.
Such deals (becoming an informant) are considered highly secret - which would explain it not leaking to this point.
The vast majority of such informants, in the US, are themselves guilty. See Sonny Gravano.
If it is the case, a part of it would be a full confession of wrong doing from Trump - as written testimony.
It's a possibility that's been fairly widely discussed. The sheer number of redactions in the published files, and the number still unreleased, could be for any number of reasons. That is certainly one.
It’s the only thing that makes sense - the deal would be secret. And such matters are considered the very highest grade of secret in US law enforcement.
Anything else about Trump’s involvement would have been leaked by someone before now.
Any Trump/Rozzers deal would have been secret but would not have been secret from Trump himself.
Pro tip: Don't read about Bill Gates and his knobrot whilst you're eating bran flakes.
As for that photo of Andrew Mountbatten-WIndsor on all fours, can anyone tell me why he is was Queen Elizabeth II's favourite sprog?
Billy Boy claims its all fake news.....
His wife still divorced him soon afterwards, so she clearly wasn’t buying the denial.
Gates is someone who’d worked very hard to try and get himself a reputation as a good man, while his terrible behaviour both in business and personal lives has been kept quiet.
None of us are totally good, none of us (I hope and trust) are utterly irredeemably bad.
Indeed. I always try and see the good in people, and once you get past the Putins and Khamenis of this world I try not to think of anyone as evil. We all have good and bad ideas, and all do good and bad things.
I do however reserve extreme scepticism for those who try and present themselves as philanthropists, while turning up regularly on as island full of underage sex workers. There’s a lot of other pretty horrible rumours about Bill Gates out there, which I’m not going to repeat because I don’t want to get this site in trouble. I remember when we all used to think that Microsoft was the worst thing he’d ever done.
"Underage sex workers"
Jesus: enough with the euphemisms!
If underage they were not workers and they were not having sex, whether for work or pleasure. They were children being raped and assaulted by men. And who were coerced and/or groomed by one woman, at least. She is in prison. But the men who did this are rapists and should also be in prison.
You do not "have sex with" a child. Children cannot consent, legally or in any other sense. Decent men know this. These men were not and are not decent.
Excusing them because of some good things they have done is just the secular world's version of buying indulgences.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
And she deserves a modicum of credit for warning in detail (and getting roundly mocked for it, including on here) what a second Trump term would mean.
It’s not like the Project 2025 crew were exactly shy about their intentions.
Well, no, but simply quoting things from Project 2025 had people being mocked for Trump Derangement Syndrome.
To be fair - most of Project 2025 was so batshit/illegal that it was hard to believe that the legislature and judiciary would simply let it happen.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
And she deserves a modicum of credit for warning in detail (and getting roundly mocked for it, including on here) what a second Trump term would mean.
It’s not like the Project 2025 crew were exactly shy about their intentions.
Well, no, but simply quoting things from Project 2025 had people being mocked for Trump Derangement Syndrome.
To be fair - most of Project 2025 was so batshit/illegal that it was hard to believe that the legislature and judiciary would simply let it happen.
As they have done.
The sad thing Trump has revealed is that for most people all that matters is power, not any principles.
I mean, we generally expect that to be the case, but it still disappoints when it is revealed so blatantly to be true.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Are you completely uninterested in what Trump and his buddy Epstein got up to before their 2007 fallout over a real estate deal?
My theory is that Trump did a deal - no prosecution in return for evidence. And that is what he is afraid of coming out.
Such deals (becoming an informant) are considered highly secret - which would explain it not leaking to this point.
The vast majority of such informants, in the US, are themselves guilty. See Sonny Gravano.
If it is the case, a part of it would be a full confession of wrong doing from Trump - as written testimony.
It's a possibility that's been fairly widely discussed. The sheer number of redactions in the published files, and the number still unreleased, could be for any number of reasons. That is certainly one.
It’s the only thing that makes sense - the deal would be secret. And such matters are considered the very highest grade of secret in US law enforcement.
Anything else about Trump’s involvement would have been leaked by someone before now.
Any Trump/Rozzers deal would have been secret but would not have been secret from Trump himself.
Even Trump would be unlikely to leak signed, detailed, sworn evidence of his own guilt.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Are you completely uninterested in what Trump and his buddy Epstein got up to before their 2007 fallout over a real estate deal?
My theory is that Trump did a deal - no prosecution in return for evidence. And that is what he is afraid of coming out.
Such deals (becoming an informant) are considered highly secret - which would explain it not leaking to this point.
The vast majority of such informants, in the US, are themselves guilty. See Sonny Gravano.
If it is the case, a part of it would be a full confession of wrong doing from Trump - as written testimony.
It's a possibility that's been fairly widely discussed. The sheer number of redactions in the published files, and the number still unreleased, could be for any number of reasons. That is certainly one.
It’s the only thing that makes sense - the deal would be secret. And such matters are considered the very highest grade of secret in US law enforcement.
Anything else about Trump’s involvement would have been leaked by someone before now.
Any Trump/Rozzers deal would have been secret but would not have been secret from Trump himself.
Even Trump would be unlikely to leak signed, detailed, sworn evidence of his own guilt.
Yes, that is the point, but Trump campaigned for the Epstein files to be released. Therefore, he knew he was not involved. But if Trump knew he'd signed a deal, he would know that he was involved.
You to can enrol in a non-existant uni course or be taught a computer science course on the history of computing from 20 years ago to upskill yourself for modern AI.
At some point, technology is going to turn higher education upside-down.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
And she deserves a modicum of credit for warning in detail (and getting roundly mocked for it, including on here) what a second Trump term would mean.
It’s not like the Project 2025 crew were exactly shy about their intentions.
Well, no, but simply quoting things from Project 2025 had people being mocked for Trump Derangement Syndrome.
To be fair - most of Project 2025 was so batshit/illegal that it was hard to believe that the legislature and judiciary would simply let it happen.
As they have done.
The sad thing Trump has revealed is that for most people all that matters is power, not any principles.
I mean, we generally expect that to be the case, but it still disappoints when it is revealed so blatantly to be true.
More that “Who Guards The Guardians” is still the lynch-pin of a state governed by laws.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
And she deserves a modicum of credit for warning in detail (and getting roundly mocked for it, including on here) what a second Trump term would mean.
It’s not like the Project 2025 crew were exactly shy about their intentions.
Well, no, but simply quoting things from Project 2025 had people being mocked for Trump Derangement Syndrome.
To be fair - most of Project 2025 was so batshit/illegal that it was hard to believe that the legislature and judiciary would simply let it happen.
As they have done.
The sad thing Trump has revealed is that for most people all that matters is power, not any principles.
I mean, we generally expect that to be the case, but it still disappoints when it is revealed so blatantly to be true.
Meanwhile, in "some endorsements you probably don't want" news,
Far-right activist Tommy Robinson has endorsed Reform UK’s by-election candidate, after Labour warned he represents “extreme” politics.
Matt Goodwin - GB News presenter and former university academic - was unveiled as Reform UK’s candidate for the upcoming Gorton and Denton by-election earlier this week...
I don't see that at all. Hitler hasn't been the kiss of death for vegetarianism. People need to grow up and vote based on their own thought process, not sloppily follow 'vibes'.
I don't know - I always think there is something odd about vegetarians - maybe the link with Hitler is why...
More seriously, too often people on PB (notoriously centrist, mostly anti-Brexit, mostly very much anti Reform) have no concept of the great unwashed. My neighbour, a classic salt of the Earth carpet layer, came out with "Farage is right*" totally unprompted one weekend. A lot of people will vote for Reform and many of them will also think Tommeh Two Names has a point about that thing that cannot be discussed on PB.**
*Paraphrase - cannot recall the exact discussion.
** No, not voting reform
My neighbour is a retired market trader.
He's stood (at council elections) for the Tories, Reform, UKIP and the English Democrats and was actually on the council for a number of years. He has ... views. And the odd flag.
But then, I live in Donny, not Harrogate or Surrey. Brexit was not a surprise.
Brexit surprised a lot of people who only knew Remainers, like a lot of my Uni colleagues.
I knew none and I did ask. Later I did find one or two and I did ask. One was a reasonably popular model who had just asked if she could stay at my place in France. I asked her what she was thinking about and after a few minutes playing the dumb blond (she's brunette) she explained.
I knew lots. My work base is Port Talbot which was Brexit Central. So what were the justifications? EU ripping us off, the French, Eastern Europeans taking our jobs, Eastern Europeans in the GP queue, Eastern European children not having English as their first language ( in Wales?) Italians flouting government subsidies to steel producer rules and WW2. And racism and racism.
If your costs for enploying a nanny and a plumber amd a gardener were being kept nice and low, you voted to remain. If your wages for working in childcare or construction were being kept low you voted leave. It wasn't much more than that.
I believe my analysis to be more considered and accurate than yours.
Quite frankly, despite being a cheap ill-considered GBNews stereotype of a Remain voter your narrative is a falsehood that it was exclusively liberal elites who voted Remain (heck, even our Trump adjacent working class MAGA hero friend @williamglenn was a Remain enthusiast). Whether you like it or not, racial "othering" applied and blimey did the racists revolt `when they realised after 2019, Starmer had replaced all the white Europeans with "our friends" from the Indian SubContinent, and now the racists are demonstrating an incandescent (Fa)rage.
I know plenty of blue collar colleagues who thought Brexit was an insane folly. And to date no one should, on an economic level at least, suggest they were wrong.
N.B. Just for the record, I am a former Remainer who shuns tradesmen be they "cor-blimey cockney sparrer chimney sweeps" or plumbers from Poland. And our nannies were always strictly "au pairs".
Pro tip: Don't read about Bill Gates and his knobrot whilst you're eating bran flakes.
As for that photo of Andrew Mountbatten-WIndsor on all fours, can anyone tell me why he is was Queen Elizabeth II's favourite sprog?
Billy Boy claims its all fake news.....
His wife still divorced him soon afterwards, so she clearly wasn’t buying the denial.
Gates is someone who’d worked very hard to try and get himself a reputation as a good man, while his terrible behaviour both in business and personal lives has been kept quiet.
None of us are totally good, none of us (I hope and trust) are utterly irredeemably bad.
Indeed. I always try and see the good in people, and once you get past the Putins and Khamenis of this world I try not to think of anyone as evil. We all have good and bad ideas, and all do good and bad things.
I do however reserve extreme scepticism for those who try and present themselves as philanthropists, while turning up regularly on as island full of underage sex workers. There’s a lot of other pretty horrible rumours about Bill Gates out there, which I’m not going to repeat because I don’t want to get this site in trouble. I remember when we all used to think that Microsoft was the worst thing he’d ever done.
"Underage sex workers"
Jesus: enough with the euphemisms!
If underage they were not workers and they were not having sex, whether for work or pleasure. They were children being raped and assaulted by men. And who were coerced and/or groomed by one woman, at least. She is in prison. But the men who did this are rapists and should also be in prison.
You do not "have sex with" a child. Children cannot consent, legally or in any other sense. Decent men know this. These men were not and are not decent.
Excusing them because of some good things they have done is just the secular world's version of buying indulgences.
I finished a trial yesterday where a Romanian claimed to have consensual sex with a 14 year girl he had offered a lift home to when she was drunk. He was unanimously convicted of rape and rightly so. People who think like this are simply beyond my comprehension. They are monsters, dangerous monsters. I try not to get emotionally invested in my cases but this was one which turned my stomach. I frankly don't give a damn whether he has done some good or not.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
And she deserves a modicum of credit for warning in detail (and getting roundly mocked for it, including on here) what a second Trump term would mean.
It’s not like the Project 2025 crew were exactly shy about their intentions.
Well, no, but simply quoting things from Project 2025 had people being mocked for Trump Derangement Syndrome.
To be fair - most of Project 2025 was so batshit/illegal that it was hard to believe that the legislature and judiciary would simply let it happen.
As they have done.
And there was also the record of Trump's first term when he had not done half the things promised and/or warned about. You can understand why American voters would not have heeded the more extreme stuff.
Pro tip: Don't read about Bill Gates and his knobrot whilst you're eating bran flakes.
As for that photo of Andrew Mountbatten-WIndsor on all fours, can anyone tell me why he is was Queen Elizabeth II's favourite sprog?
Billy Boy claims its all fake news.....
His wife still divorced him soon afterwards, so she clearly wasn’t buying the denial.
Gates is someone who’d worked very hard to try and get himself a reputation as a good man, while his terrible behaviour both in business and personal lives has been kept quiet.
None of us are totally good, none of us (I hope and trust) are utterly irredeemably bad.
Indeed. I always try and see the good in people, and once you get past the Putins and Khamenis of this world I try not to think of anyone as evil. We all have good and bad ideas, and all do good and bad things.
I do however reserve extreme scepticism for those who try and present themselves as philanthropists, while turning up regularly on as island full of underage sex workers. There’s a lot of other pretty horrible rumours about Bill Gates out there, which I’m not going to repeat because I don’t want to get this site in trouble. I remember when we all used to think that Microsoft was the worst thing he’d ever done.
"Underage sex workers"
Jesus: enough with the euphemisms!
If underage they were not workers and they were not having sex, whether for work or pleasure. They were children being raped and assaulted by men. And who were coerced and/or groomed by one woman, at least. She is in prison. But the men who did this are rapists and should also be in prison.
You do not "have sex with" a child. Children cannot consent, legally or in any other sense. Decent men know this. These men were not and are not decent.
Excusing them because of some good things they have done is just the secular world's version of buying indulgences.
Don’t worry I agree with you. The euphemism was to avoid an argument with others trying to justify ‘sex work’.
Yes, everyone who did something illegal on Epstein’s island should be in prison, irrespective of their wealth, connections, and political affiliation.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Are you completely uninterested in what Trump and his buddy Epstein got up to before their 2007 fallout over a real estate deal?
My theory is that Trump did a deal - no prosecution in return for evidence. And that is what he is afraid of coming out.
Such deals (becoming an informant) are considered highly secret - which would explain it not leaking to this point.
The vast majority of such informants, in the US, are themselves guilty. See Sonny Gravano.
If it is the case, a part of it would be a full confession of wrong doing from Trump - as written testimony.
It's a possibility that's been fairly widely discussed. The sheer number of redactions in the published files, and the number still unreleased, could be for any number of reasons. That is certainly one.
It’s the only thing that makes sense - the deal would be secret. And such matters are considered the very highest grade of secret in US law enforcement.
Anything else about Trump’s involvement would have been leaked by someone before now.
Any Trump/Rozzers deal would have been secret but would not have been secret from Trump himself.
Even Trump would be unlikely to leak signed, detailed, sworn evidence of his own guilt.
Yes, that is the point, but Trump campaigned for the Epstein files to be released. Therefore, he knew he was not involved. But if Trump knew he'd signed a deal, he would know that he was involved.
Such a deal could not be released, even if the person involved wanted it to be. Trump would have known that it would be kept in the deepest darkest vault forever.
Plus Trump is a creature of the moment - he was all about releasing the files, until he realised that it included non-legally suppressed information about himself.
Pro tip: Don't read about Bill Gates and his knobrot whilst you're eating bran flakes.
As for that photo of Andrew Mountbatten-WIndsor on all fours, can anyone tell me why he is was Queen Elizabeth II's favourite sprog?
Billy Boy claims its all fake news.....
His wife still divorced him soon afterwards, so she clearly wasn’t buying the denial.
Gates is someone who’d worked very hard to try and get himself a reputation as a good man, while his terrible behaviour both in business and personal lives has been kept quiet.
None of us are totally good, none of us (I hope and trust) are utterly irredeemably bad.
Indeed. I always try and see the good in people, and once you get past the Putins and Khamenis of this world I try not to think of anyone as evil. We all have good and bad ideas, and all do good and bad things.
I do however reserve extreme scepticism for those who try and present themselves as philanthropists, while turning up regularly on as island full of underage sex workers. There’s a lot of other pretty horrible rumours about Bill Gates out there, which I’m not going to repeat because I don’t want to get this site in trouble. I remember when we all used to think that Microsoft was the worst thing he’d ever done.
"Underage sex workers"
Jesus: enough with the euphemisms!
If underage they were not workers and they were not having sex, whether for work or pleasure. They were children being raped and assaulted by men. And who were coerced and/or groomed by one woman, at least. She is in prison. But the men who did this are rapists and should also be in prison.
You do not "have sex with" a child. Children cannot consent, legally or in any other sense. Decent men know this. These men were not and are not decent.
Excusing them because of some good things they have done is just the secular world's version of buying indulgences.
Don’t worry I agree with you. The euphemism was to avoid an argument with others trying to justify ‘sex work’.
Yes, everyone who did something illegal on Epstein’s island should be in prison, irrespective of their wealth, connections, and political affiliation.
I wouldn't put money on it though. We probably cannot even be bluntly clear on what we think some of the powerful people did there (and probably elsewhere) even with such references as there are.
Pro tip: Don't read about Bill Gates and his knobrot whilst you're eating bran flakes.
As for that photo of Andrew Mountbatten-WIndsor on all fours, can anyone tell me why he is was Queen Elizabeth II's favourite sprog?
Billy Boy claims its all fake news.....
His wife still divorced him soon afterwards, so she clearly wasn’t buying the denial.
Gates is someone who’d worked very hard to try and get himself a reputation as a good man, while his terrible behaviour both in business and personal lives has been kept quiet.
None of us are totally good, none of us (I hope and trust) are utterly irredeemably bad.
Indeed. I always try and see the good in people, and once you get past the Putins and Khamenis of this world I try not to think of anyone as evil. We all have good and bad ideas, and all do good and bad things.
I do however reserve extreme scepticism for those who try and present themselves as philanthropists, while turning up regularly on as island full of underage sex workers. There’s a lot of other pretty horrible rumours about Bill Gates out there, which I’m not going to repeat because I don’t want to get this site in trouble. I remember when we all used to think that Microsoft was the worst thing he’d ever done.
"Underage sex workers"
Jesus: enough with the euphemisms!
If underage they were not workers and they were not having sex, whether for work or pleasure. They were children being raped and assaulted by men. And who were coerced and/or groomed by one woman, at least. She is in prison. But the men who did this are rapists and should also be in prison.
You do not "have sex with" a child. Children cannot consent, legally or in any other sense. Decent men know this. These men were not and are not decent.
Excusing them because of some good things they have done is just the secular world's version of buying indulgences.
I finished a trial yesterday where a Romanian claimed to have consensual sex with a 14 year girl he had offered a lift home to when she was drunk. He was unanimously convicted of rape and rightly so. People who think like this are simply beyond my comprehension. They are monsters, dangerous monsters. I try not to get emotionally invested in my cases but this was one which turned my stomach. I frankly don't give a damn whether he has done some good or not.
Jesus. If I haven't said it before, thanks for clearing up the streets of these people.
Pro tip: Don't read about Bill Gates and his knobrot whilst you're eating bran flakes.
As for that photo of Andrew Mountbatten-WIndsor on all fours, can anyone tell me why he is was Queen Elizabeth II's favourite sprog?
Billy Boy claims its all fake news.....
His wife still divorced him soon afterwards, so she clearly wasn’t buying the denial.
Gates is someone who’d worked very hard to try and get himself a reputation as a good man, while his terrible behaviour both in business and personal lives has been kept quiet.
None of us are totally good, none of us (I hope and trust) are utterly irredeemably bad.
Indeed. I always try and see the good in people, and once you get past the Putins and Khamenis of this world I try not to think of anyone as evil. We all have good and bad ideas, and all do good and bad things.
I do however reserve extreme scepticism for those who try and present themselves as philanthropists, while turning up regularly on as island full of underage sex workers. There’s a lot of other pretty horrible rumours about Bill Gates out there, which I’m not going to repeat because I don’t want to get this site in trouble. I remember when we all used to think that Microsoft was the worst thing he’d ever done.
"Underage sex workers"
Jesus: enough with the euphemisms!
If underage they were not workers and they were not having sex, whether for work or pleasure. They were children being raped and assaulted by men. And who were coerced and/or groomed by one woman, at least. She is in prison. But the men who did this are rapists and should also be in prison.
You do not "have sex with" a child. Children cannot consent, legally or in any other sense. Decent men know this. These men were not and are not decent.
Excusing them because of some good things they have done is just the secular world's version of buying indulgences.
"Underage sex workers"
I am old enough to remember when we called them victims of (at the very least) statutory rape by rapists.
Pro tip: Don't read about Bill Gates and his knobrot whilst you're eating bran flakes.
As for that photo of Andrew Mountbatten-WIndsor on all fours, can anyone tell me why he is was Queen Elizabeth II's favourite sprog?
Billy Boy claims its all fake news.....
His wife still divorced him soon afterwards, so she clearly wasn’t buying the denial.
Gates is someone who’d worked very hard to try and get himself a reputation as a good man, while his terrible behaviour both in business and personal lives has been kept quiet.
None of us are totally good, none of us (I hope and trust) are utterly irredeemably bad.
Indeed. I always try and see the good in people, and once you get past the Putins and Khamenis of this world I try not to think of anyone as evil. We all have good and bad ideas, and all do good and bad things.
I do however reserve extreme scepticism for those who try and present themselves as philanthropists, while turning up regularly on as island full of underage sex workers. There’s a lot of other pretty horrible rumours about Bill Gates out there, which I’m not going to repeat because I don’t want to get this site in trouble. I remember when we all used to think that Microsoft was the worst thing he’d ever done.
"Underage sex workers"
Jesus: enough with the euphemisms!
If underage they were not workers and they were not having sex, whether for work or pleasure. They were children being raped and assaulted by men. And who were coerced and/or groomed by one woman, at least. She is in prison. But the men who did this are rapists and should also be in prison.
You do not "have sex with" a child. Children cannot consent, legally or in any other sense. Decent men know this. These men were not and are not decent.
Excusing them because of some good things they have done is just the secular world's version of buying indulgences.
I finished a trial yesterday where a Romanian claimed to have consensual sex with a 14 year girl he had offered a lift home to when she was drunk. He was unanimously convicted of rape and rightly so. People who think like this are simply beyond my comprehension. They are monsters, dangerous monsters. I try not to get emotionally invested in my cases but this was one which turned my stomach. I frankly don't give a damn whether he has done some good or not.
Hopefully you get to wind down with a tax evasion case or something next after that.
Meanwhile, in "some endorsements you probably don't want" news,
Far-right activist Tommy Robinson has endorsed Reform UK’s by-election candidate, after Labour warned he represents “extreme” politics.
Matt Goodwin - GB News presenter and former university academic - was unveiled as Reform UK’s candidate for the upcoming Gorton and Denton by-election earlier this week...
I don't see that at all. Hitler hasn't been the kiss of death for vegetarianism. People need to grow up and vote based on their own thought process, not sloppily follow 'vibes'.
I don't know - I always think there is something odd about vegetarians - maybe the link with Hitler is why...
More seriously, too often people on PB (notoriously centrist, mostly anti-Brexit, mostly very much anti Reform) have no concept of the great unwashed. My neighbour, a classic salt of the Earth carpet layer, came out with "Farage is right*" totally unprompted one weekend. A lot of people will vote for Reform and many of them will also think Tommeh Two Names has a point about that thing that cannot be discussed on PB.**
*Paraphrase - cannot recall the exact discussion.
** No, not voting reform
My neighbour is a retired market trader.
He's stood (at council elections) for the Tories, Reform, UKIP and the English Democrats and was actually on the council for a number of years. He has ... views. And the odd flag.
But then, I live in Donny, not Harrogate or Surrey. Brexit was not a surprise.
Brexit surprised a lot of people who only knew Remainers, like a lot of my Uni colleagues.
I knew none and I did ask. Later I did find one or two and I did ask. One was a reasonably popular model who had just asked if she could stay at my place in France. I asked her what she was thinking about and after a few minutes playing the dumb blond (she's brunette) she explained.
I knew lots. My work base is Port Talbot which was Brexit Central. So what were the justifications? EU ripping us off, the French, Eastern Europeans taking our jobs, Eastern Europeans in the GP queue, Eastern European children not having English as their first language ( in Wales?) Italians flouting government subsidies to steel producer rules and WW2. And racism and racism.
If your costs for enploying a nanny and a plumber amd a gardener were being kept nice and low, you voted to remain. If your wages for working in childcare or construction were being kept low you voted leave. It wasn't much more than that.
I believe my analysis to be more considered and accurate than yours.
Quite frankly, despite being a cheap ill-considered GBNews stereotype of a Remain voter your narrative is a falsehood that it was exclusively liberal elites who voted Remain (heck, even our Trump adjacent working class MAGA hero friend @williamglenn was a Remain enthusiast). Whether you like it or not, racial "othering" applied and blimey did the racists revolt `when they realised after 2019, Starmer had replaced all the white Europeans with "our friends" from the Indian SubContinent, and now the racists are demonstrating an incandescent (Fa)rage.
I know plenty of blue collar colleagues who thought Brexit was an insane folly. And to date no one should, on an economic level at least, suggest they were wrong.
N.B. Just for the record, I am a former Remainer who shuns tradesmen be they "cor-blimey cockney sparrer chimney sweeps" or plumbers from Poland. And our nannies were always strictly "au pairs".
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
And she deserves a modicum of credit for warning in detail (and getting roundly mocked for it, including on here) what a second Trump term would mean.
It’s not like the Project 2025 crew were exactly shy about their intentions.
Well, no, but simply quoting things from Project 2025 had people being mocked for Trump Derangement Syndrome.
To be fair - most of Project 2025 was so batshit/illegal that it was hard to believe that the legislature and judiciary would simply let it happen.
As they have done.
And there was also the record of Trump's first term when he had not done half the things promised and/or warned about. You can understand why American voters would not have heeded the more extreme stuff.
Quite. People learned from Trumps first term
- Some thought the same chaos and blocking by the courts would occur, making him far, far less dangerous than he said - The 2025 Project was also a result of his first term. They saw that Trump was willing, so that if they created the mechanism to push through their policies, Trump was on board.
I was looking at Ballot Box Scotland’s analysis of the recent YouGov Scottish poll. I noticed that Labour are forecast to pick up the final seat in 5 of the 8 regions. They are currently forecast to be the third largest party in terms of seats. If they don’t pick up those 5 seats they could be the fourth or even fifth largest party in Holyrood. How have the mighty fallen!
Labour could pick up some Holyrood constituency seats though, while England has seen a swing from Labour to Reform and Green since most of the local council seats up were last elected in 2022 and Wales has seen a swing from Labour to Plaid and Reform since the 2021 Senedd election in Scotland it is a different story. There has been a swing from SNP to Labour since the 2021 Holyrood election on both the constituency and regional list vote, albeit mainly because some 2021 SNP voters now back Reform or the Greens or LDs
Which constituency seats do you think Labour might pick up, other than the two they are already expected to win? Remember that the more constituency seats they win, the fewer regional seats they may win.
There has been a 3.5% swing from SNP to Labour since 2021 on the latest Yougov Holyrood poll last week.
I was looking at Ballot Box Scotland’s analysis of the recent YouGov Scottish poll. I noticed that Labour are forecast to pick up the final seat in 5 of the 8 regions. They are currently forecast to be the third largest party in terms of seats. If they don’t pick up those 5 seats they could be the fourth or even fifth largest party in Holyrood. How have the mighty fallen!
Labour could pick up some Holyrood constituency seats though, while England has seen a swing from Labour to Reform and Green since most of the local council seats up were last elected in 2022 and Wales has seen a swing from Labour to Plaid and Reform since the 2021 Senedd election in Scotland it is a different story. There has been a swing from SNP to Labour since the 2021 Holyrood election on both the constituency and regional list vote, albeit mainly because some 2021 SNP voters now back Reform or the Greens or LDs
Which constituency seats do you think Labour might pick up, other than the two they are already expected to win? Remember that the more constituency seats they win, the fewer regional seats they may win.
There has been a 3.5% swing from SNP to Labour since 2021 on the latest Yougov Holyrood poll last week.
The BBS summary I referred to was based on exactly that poll.
East Lothian would certainly be a Labour gain from SNP on that swing.
Aberdeen S and N Kincardine, Aberdeenshire East, Angus N and Mearns, Ayr, Banffshire and Buchan Coast, Cyldesdale, Moray, Perthshire N, Perthshire S and Kinrosshire could also be potential Reform gains from the SNP on last week's Yougov Holyrood poll
Pro tip: Don't read about Bill Gates and his knobrot whilst you're eating bran flakes.
As for that photo of Andrew Mountbatten-WIndsor on all fours, can anyone tell me why he is was Queen Elizabeth II's favourite sprog?
Billy Boy claims its all fake news.....
His wife still divorced him soon afterwards, so she clearly wasn’t buying the denial.
Gates is someone who’d worked very hard to try and get himself a reputation as a good man, while his terrible behaviour both in business and personal lives has been kept quiet.
None of us are totally good, none of us (I hope and trust) are utterly irredeemably bad.
Indeed. I always try and see the good in people, and once you get past the Putins and Khamenis of this world I try not to think of anyone as evil. We all have good and bad ideas, and all do good and bad things.
I do however reserve extreme scepticism for those who try and present themselves as philanthropists, while turning up regularly on as island full of underage sex workers. There’s a lot of other pretty horrible rumours about Bill Gates out there, which I’m not going to repeat because I don’t want to get this site in trouble. I remember when we all used to think that Microsoft was the worst thing he’d ever done.
"Underage sex workers"
Jesus: enough with the euphemisms!
If underage they were not workers and they were not having sex, whether for work or pleasure. They were children being raped and assaulted by men. And who were coerced and/or groomed by one woman, at least. She is in prison. But the men who did this are rapists and should also be in prison.
You do not "have sex with" a child. Children cannot consent, legally or in any other sense. Decent men know this. These men were not and are not decent.
Excusing them because of some good things they have done is just the secular world's version of buying indulgences.
Children can consent "in any other sense" and that is why we have age of consent laws so that they cannot consent in the legal sense. This was part of the problem in the grooming gangs scandals up north. Children wanted to associate with the men who would become their rapists. They were not being grabbed off the street at knifepoint.
As for buying indulgences, you are right. It is the same reason we now tear down statues of slave-traders in what some condemn as the woke recasting of history.
I think we all knew Trump would be very, very angry by yesterday's Epstein Revelations, particularly the absolutely disgusting and immoral material about, checks notes- Donald Trump. So isn't carpet bombing Tehran an inevitable side effect?
Meanwhile, in "some endorsements you probably don't want" news,
Far-right activist Tommy Robinson has endorsed Reform UK’s by-election candidate, after Labour warned he represents “extreme” politics.
Matt Goodwin - GB News presenter and former university academic - was unveiled as Reform UK’s candidate for the upcoming Gorton and Denton by-election earlier this week...
I don't see that at all. Hitler hasn't been the kiss of death for vegetarianism. People need to grow up and vote based on their own thought process, not sloppily follow 'vibes'.
I don't know - I always think there is something odd about vegetarians - maybe the link with Hitler is why...
More seriously, too often people on PB (notoriously centrist, mostly anti-Brexit, mostly very much anti Reform) have no concept of the great unwashed. My neighbour, a classic salt of the Earth carpet layer, came out with "Farage is right*" totally unprompted one weekend. A lot of people will vote for Reform and many of them will also think Tommeh Two Names has a point about that thing that cannot be discussed on PB.**
*Paraphrase - cannot recall the exact discussion.
** No, not voting reform
My neighbour is a retired market trader.
He's stood (at council elections) for the Tories, Reform, UKIP and the English Democrats and was actually on the council for a number of years. He has ... views. And the odd flag.
But then, I live in Donny, not Harrogate or Surrey. Brexit was not a surprise.
Brexit surprised a lot of people who only knew Remainers, like a lot of my Uni colleagues.
I knew none and I did ask. Later I did find one or two and I did ask. One was a reasonably popular model who had just asked if she could stay at my place in France. I asked her what she was thinking about and after a few minutes playing the dumb blond (she's brunette) she explained.
I knew lots. My work base is Port Talbot which was Brexit Central. So what were the justifications? EU ripping us off, the French, Eastern Europeans taking our jobs, Eastern Europeans in the GP queue, Eastern European children not having English as their first language ( in Wales?) Italians flouting government subsidies to steel producer rules and WW2. And racism and racism.
If your costs for enploying a nanny and a plumber amd a gardener were being kept nice and low, you voted to remain. If your wages for working in childcare or construction were being kept low you voted leave. It wasn't much more than that.
I believe my analysis to be more considered and accurate than yours.
Quite frankly, despite being a cheap ill-considered GBNews stereotype of a Remain voter your narrative is a falsehood that it was exclusively liberal elites who voted Remain (heck, even our Trump adjacent working class MAGA hero friend @williamglenn was a Remain enthusiast). Whether you like it or not, racial "othering" applied and blimey did the racists revolt `when they realised after 2019, Starmer had replaced all the white Europeans with "our friends" from the Indian SubContinent, and now the racists are demonstrating an incandescent (Fa)rage.
I know plenty of blue collar colleagues who thought Brexit was an insane folly. And to date no one should, on an economic level at least, suggest they were wrong.
N.B. Just for the record, I am a former Remainer who shuns tradesmen be they "cor-blimey cockney sparrer chimney sweeps" or plumbers from Poland. And our nannies were always strictly "au pairs".
How can you be a former Remainer? Once you have joined The Firm, there’s no Leaving allowed….
The Find Out Now Gorton & Denton 'poll' VI was based on just 51 people.
Greens now heading to clear favourite on BF.
They shouldn't be.
Although the latest Nowcast has the Greens gaining Manchester Withington and Manchester Rusholme from Labour, it also has Labour leading in Gorton narrowly with Reform second and the Greens third.
Its Gorton and Denton figures from Nowcast are Labour 29.8%, Reform 26.9% and Greens 24.1%
Meanwhile, in "some endorsements you probably don't want" news,
Far-right activist Tommy Robinson has endorsed Reform UK’s by-election candidate, after Labour warned he represents “extreme” politics.
Matt Goodwin - GB News presenter and former university academic - was unveiled as Reform UK’s candidate for the upcoming Gorton and Denton by-election earlier this week...
I don't see that at all. Hitler hasn't been the kiss of death for vegetarianism. People need to grow up and vote based on their own thought process, not sloppily follow 'vibes'.
I don't know - I always think there is something odd about vegetarians - maybe the link with Hitler is why...
More seriously, too often people on PB (notoriously centrist, mostly anti-Brexit, mostly very much anti Reform) have no concept of the great unwashed. My neighbour, a classic salt of the Earth carpet layer, came out with "Farage is right*" totally unprompted one weekend. A lot of people will vote for Reform and many of them will also think Tommeh Two Names has a point about that thing that cannot be discussed on PB.**
*Paraphrase - cannot recall the exact discussion.
** No, not voting reform
My neighbour is a retired market trader.
He's stood (at council elections) for the Tories, Reform, UKIP and the English Democrats and was actually on the council for a number of years. He has ... views. And the odd flag.
But then, I live in Donny, not Harrogate or Surrey. Brexit was not a surprise.
Brexit surprised a lot of people who only knew Remainers, like a lot of my Uni colleagues.
I knew none and I did ask. Later I did find one or two and I did ask. One was a reasonably popular model who had just asked if she could stay at my place in France. I asked her what she was thinking about and after a few minutes playing the dumb blond (she's brunette) she explained.
I knew lots. My work base is Port Talbot which was Brexit Central. So what were the justifications? EU ripping us off, the French, Eastern Europeans taking our jobs, Eastern Europeans in the GP queue, Eastern European children not having English as their first language ( in Wales?) Italians flouting government subsidies to steel producer rules and WW2. And racism and racism.
If your costs for enploying a nanny and a plumber amd a gardener were being kept nice and low, you voted to remain. If your wages for working in childcare or construction were being kept low you voted leave. It wasn't much more than that.
I believe my analysis to be more considered and accurate than yours.
Quite frankly, despite being a cheap ill-considered GBNews stereotype of a Remain voter your narrative is a falsehood that it was exclusively liberal elites who voted Remain (heck, even our Trump adjacent working class MAGA hero friend @williamglenn was a Remain enthusiast). Whether you like it or not, racial "othering" applied and blimey did the racists revolt `when they realised after 2019, Starmer had replaced all the white Europeans with "our friends" from the Indian SubContinent, and now the racists are demonstrating an incandescent (Fa)rage.
I know plenty of blue collar colleagues who thought Brexit was an insane folly. And to date no one should, on an economic level at least, suggest they were wrong.
N.B. Just for the record, I am a former Remainer who shuns tradesmen be they "cor-blimey cockney sparrer chimney sweeps" or plumbers from Poland. And our nannies were always strictly "au pairs".
Meanwhile, in "some endorsements you probably don't want" news,
Far-right activist Tommy Robinson has endorsed Reform UK’s by-election candidate, after Labour warned he represents “extreme” politics.
Matt Goodwin - GB News presenter and former university academic - was unveiled as Reform UK’s candidate for the upcoming Gorton and Denton by-election earlier this week...
I don't see that at all. Hitler hasn't been the kiss of death for vegetarianism. People need to grow up and vote based on their own thought process, not sloppily follow 'vibes'.
I don't know - I always think there is something odd about vegetarians - maybe the link with Hitler is why...
More seriously, too often people on PB (notoriously centrist, mostly anti-Brexit, mostly very much anti Reform) have no concept of the great unwashed. My neighbour, a classic salt of the Earth carpet layer, came out with "Farage is right*" totally unprompted one weekend. A lot of people will vote for Reform and many of them will also think Tommeh Two Names has a point about that thing that cannot be discussed on PB.**
*Paraphrase - cannot recall the exact discussion.
** No, not voting reform
My neighbour is a retired market trader.
He's stood (at council elections) for the Tories, Reform, UKIP and the English Democrats and was actually on the council for a number of years. He has ... views. And the odd flag.
But then, I live in Donny, not Harrogate or Surrey. Brexit was not a surprise.
Brexit surprised a lot of people who only knew Remainers, like a lot of my Uni colleagues.
I knew none and I did ask. Later I did find one or two and I did ask. One was a reasonably popular model who had just asked if she could stay at my place in France. I asked her what she was thinking about and after a few minutes playing the dumb blond (she's brunette) she explained.
I knew lots. My work base is Port Talbot which was Brexit Central. So what were the justifications? EU ripping us off, the French, Eastern Europeans taking our jobs, Eastern Europeans in the GP queue, Eastern European children not having English as their first language ( in Wales?) Italians flouting government subsidies to steel producer rules and WW2. And racism and racism.
If your costs for enploying a nanny and a plumber amd a gardener were being kept nice and low, you voted to remain. If your wages for working in childcare or construction were being kept low you voted leave. It wasn't much more than that.
I believe my analysis to be more considered and accurate than yours.
Quite frankly, despite being a cheap ill-considered GBNews stereotype of a Remain voter your narrative is a falsehood that it was exclusively liberal elites who voted Remain (heck, even our Trump adjacent working class MAGA hero friend @williamglenn was a Remain enthusiast). Whether you like it or not, racial "othering" applied and blimey did the racists revolt `when they realised after 2019, Starmer had replaced all the white Europeans with "our friends" from the Indian SubContinent, and now the racists are demonstrating an incandescent (Fa)rage.
I know plenty of blue collar colleagues who thought Brexit was an insane folly. And to date no one should, on an economic level at least, suggest they were wrong.
N.B. Just for the record, I am a former Remainer who shuns tradesmen be they "cor-blimey cockney sparrer chimney sweeps" or plumbers from Poland. And our nannies were always strictly "au pairs".
How can you be a former Remainer? Once you have joined The Firm, there’s no Leaving allowed….
{Tom Cruise runs past in a suit and tie}
Brexit wasn't Hotel California. We checked out and we left!
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whom they knew to be a criminal, a rapist and a failure
FTFY
We then come back to why. It may be immigration - Trump was certainly active in sabotaging efforts to control it, so he knew it was a hot button issue. It may be the economy, or Gaza, both of which were ultimately on Russia who are closely aligned with Trump. It may be Twitter, which Musk weaponised to push false narratives with considerable success (as we see on here, indeed). Or it may be the continued efforts of Republican state governors to rig the vote, although that would hardly account for Pennsylvania or North Carolina.
Most likely, it was some combination of all of them.
It was a fairly close result, so it was many things, but I think the biggest was inflation. Every incumbent government was losing elections. Harris did better than most!
The Find Out Now Gorton & Denton 'poll' VI was based on just 51 people.
Greens now heading to clear favourite on BF.
They shouldn't be.
Although the latest Nowcast has the Greens gaining Manchester Withington and Manchester Rusholme from Labour, it also has Labour leading in Gorton narrowly with Reform second and the Greens third.
Its Gorton and Denton figures from Nowcast are Labour 29.8%, Reform 26.9% and Greens 24.1%
Small LibDem vote can be squeezed by the anti-Reform vote. Easy tactical vote for the Greens for most of them.
May well be some anti-Reform Tories prepared to do the same. Easier tactical vote for the Greens for most of them than Labour.
Tories voting for Trots? Takes all sorts.
There are quite a lot of Tories for whom Green is their second choice. Takes all sorts indeed...
If the choice was either Green or Reform I’d be voting Green on the basis that Greens aren’t going to deport me.
I would vote Reform on that choice, no question
Are you saying that you want TSE deported? I think we should be told.
There is as far as I can see no Reform policy to deport those born and raised in the UK.
And yet in the past year there has been a lot of sudden interest in being specific about ethnic nationalism, and online ramping up of suggestion of 'repatriation' (which is no such thing).
I hope that's a line cross too far for most, but it is becoming more common.
Angeliki Stogia is Labour's candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election
Why are they all called Ange?
Her Wikipedia page has been nominated for deletion. You would like to think a halfway competent party of government would have sorted that out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angeliki_Stogia
What do you expect the government to do?
Wikipedia notability criteria for having an article for a politician are, to simplify, that they’ve won. Just being a candidate doesn’t count. When by-elections happen, it’s common for candidates to have articles created for them, that then rapidly get nominated for deletion, but the deletion discussion often takes long than the election campaign!
That same Iranian regime alleged to have killed as many protestors in the last few weeks, as were killed in Gaza in three years.
I was in Central London this morning, I think this lot are protesting against the genocide in Palestine and events in Iran.
As my Iranian heritage friends have said as the internet has become available again the scale of the atrocities are becoming more widespread, there's not a single family in Tehran that's not grieving, they have executed pharmacists and doctors who have treated the wounded.
So even the big announcement was just an agreement to talk about getting an agreement...
The prime minister said the requirement for British visitors to need a visa to visit China for under 30 days would be scrapped. But the Chinese government said it was something they were merely "actively considering." Sir Keir insisted to me it will happen, but acknowledged there was no start date agreed. "We are making progress," he said.
I am glad he doesn't work for me sorting out deals. Given it isn't special to have such an agreement, how do you not get that over the line in exchange for allowing super spy centre in London. I get the feeling he would do a deal for magic beans on the international stage.
Apart from his habit of giving the EU everything it wants without getting anything tangible in return, and of paying foreigners tens of billions to take strategically vital islands off us, and of being habitually craven with the appalling US president, and of prosecuting British troops for killing terrorist murderers, and now of kowtowing to perhaps the most ghastly and harmful government in the world, and all in just his first 18 months, what could possibly give you that idea?
Fortunately, giving foreign political leaders everything they ask for with no expectation of anything in return is a good policy to follow when it comes to supporting Ukraine. So there is that.
Pro tip: Don't read about Bill Gates and his knobrot whilst you're eating bran flakes.
As for that photo of Andrew Mountbatten-WIndsor on all fours, can anyone tell me why he is was Queen Elizabeth II's favourite sprog?
Billy Boy claims its all fake news.....
His wife still divorced him soon afterwards, so she clearly wasn’t buying the denial.
Gates is someone who’d worked very hard to try and get himself a reputation as a good man, while his terrible behaviour both in business and personal lives has been kept quiet.
None of us are totally good, none of us (I hope and trust) are utterly irredeemably bad.
Indeed. I always try and see the good in people, and once you get past the Putins and Khamenis of this world I try not to think of anyone as evil. We all have good and bad ideas, and all do good and bad things.
I do however reserve extreme scepticism for those who try and present themselves as philanthropists, while turning up regularly on as island full of underage sex workers. There’s a lot of other pretty horrible rumours about Bill Gates out there, which I’m not going to repeat because I don’t want to get this site in trouble. I remember when we all used to think that Microsoft was the worst thing he’d ever done.
"Underage sex workers"
Jesus: enough with the euphemisms!
If underage they were not workers and they were not having sex, whether for work or pleasure. They were children being raped and assaulted by men. And who were coerced and/or groomed by one woman, at least. She is in prison. But the men who did this are rapists and should also be in prison.
You do not "have sex with" a child. Children cannot consent, legally or in any other sense. Decent men know this. These men were not and are not decent.
Excusing them because of some good things they have done is just the secular world's version of buying indulgences.
Children can consent "in any other sense" and that is why we have age of consent laws so that they cannot consent in the legal sense. This was part of the problem in the grooming gangs scandals up north. Children wanted to associate with the men who would become their rapists. They were not being grabbed off the street at knifepoint.
As for buying indulgences, you are right. It is the same reason we now tear down statues of slave-traders in what some condemn as the woke recasting of history.
Also, children can consent legally, the age of consent is 16 not 18.
That same Iranian regime alleged to have killed as many protestors in the last few weeks, as were killed in Gaza in three years.
Ideological certainty is a helluva drug, and can lead to some very peculiar bedfellows.
A favourite has always been the Tankies who ended up supporting Arkan.
For those who don’t remember the Balkan Wars of the 90s, Arkan was a Serbian paramilitary leader/crime lord/war criminal on a major scale. What ideology he had was Ethnofacism.
Imagine that the Red Hand Defenders got themselves some serious firepower…
But he was opposed to The West, so the ultra-Tankies….
That same Iranian regime alleged to have killed as many protestors in the last few weeks, as were killed in Gaza in three years.
How do we know this represents support of the Iranian regime rather than the Iranian people? When Tommy Robinson waves a Union Flag he clearly isn't supporting the regime of Keir Starmer.
That same Iranian regime alleged to have killed as many protestors in the last few weeks, as were killed in Gaza in three years.
How do we know this represents support of the Iranian regime rather than the Iranian people? When Tommy Robinson waves a Union Flag he clearly isn't supporting the regime of Keir Starmer.
Because those opposed to the regime in Iran are waving a different flag, with the lion at the centre.
Angeliki Stogia is Labour's candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election
Why are they all called Ange?
Her Wikipedia page has been nominated for deletion. You would like to think a halfway competent party of government would have sorted that out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angeliki_Stogia
What do you expect the government to do?
Wikipedia notability criteria for having an article for a politician are, to simplify, that they’ve won. Just being a candidate doesn’t count. When by-elections happen, it’s common for candidates to have articles created for them, that then rapidly get nominated for deletion, but the deletion discussion often takes long than the election campaign!
I don't expect the government to do anything. I expect Labour, aka the party of government, to have sorted out its candidate's social media presence including Wikipedia.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
I believe the key difference is that you could safely vote for Harris in the knowledge that you would be free to oppose those policies of hers that you disagreed with, and that Congressional Democrats would not be so cowed as to be incapable of responding to public pressure to block those policies.
You cannot say the same about Trump and Congressional Republicans.
That same Iranian regime alleged to have killed as many protestors in the last few weeks, as were killed in Gaza in three years.
How do we know this represents support of the Iranian regime rather than the Iranian people? When Tommy Robinson waves a Union Flag he clearly isn't supporting the regime of Keir Starmer.
Because the pre-Islamic Revolution flag of Iran is different, with lion and sun in the middle stripe.
More optimistic than the idea of the Tories going above Reform in 2026?
Jon Burrows has said he wants the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) to be "the biggest party in unionism again" as he officially becomes the new party leader.
"I want us to see us with more seats in councils, more seats in the assembly and more seats in Westminster," he said.
Burrows is a former police officer who was unopposed for the post, which is regarded as one of the toughest in Northern Ireland politics.
That same Iranian regime alleged to have killed as many protestors in the last few weeks, as were killed in Gaza in three years.
How do we know this represents support of the Iranian regime rather than the Iranian people? When Tommy Robinson waves a Union Flag he clearly isn't supporting the regime of Keir Starmer.
Because those opposed to the regime in Iran are waving a different flag, with the lion at the centre.
Angeliki Stogia is Labour's candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election
Why are they all called Ange?
Her Wikipedia page has been nominated for deletion. You would like to think a halfway competent party of government would have sorted that out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angeliki_Stogia
What do you expect the government to do?
Wikipedia notability criteria for having an article for a politician are, to simplify, that they’ve won. Just being a candidate doesn’t count. When by-elections happen, it’s common for candidates to have articles created for them, that then rapidly get nominated for deletion, but the deletion discussion often takes long than the election campaign!
I don't expect the government to do anything. I expect Labour, aka the party of government, to have sorted out its candidate's social media presence including Wikipedia.
Neither the candidate nor party can “sort out” her Wikipedia presence. Wikipedia is not like Instagram or Facebook. You don’t get to curate your own page. People with any conflict of interest are not meant to edit an article, or only do so cautiously.
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
I believe the key difference is that you could safely vote for Harris in the knowledge that you would be free to oppose those policies of hers that you disagreed with, and that Congressional Democrats would not be so cowed as to be incapable of responding to public pressure to block those policies.
You cannot say the same about Trump and Congressional Republicans.
Indeed.
I am trying to think of a Democrat ticket that I wouldn’t have instantly voted for over Trump/Vance.
AOC/Bernie - no hesitation.
Can anyone come up with a ticket that wouldn’t obviously have been better than Trump?
More optimistic than the idea of the Tories going above Reform in 2026?
Jon Burrows has said he wants the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) to be "the biggest party in unionism again" as he officially becomes the new party leader.
"I want us to see us with more seats in councils, more seats in the assembly and more seats in Westminster," he said.
Burrows is a former police officer who was unopposed for the post, which is regarded as one of the toughest in Northern Ireland politics.
1. Dems in House: -3 2. Dems in Senate: -1 3. SNP MSPs: 52 4. Plaid Cymru AMs: 11 5. Largest poll lead: Reform 12% 6. Labour PNS local elections: 28% 7. Reform MPs end 2026: 7 8. UK PM 31 Dec 2026: Keir Starmer 9. Burnham MP by year-end: Yes 10. UK borrowing Nov 2026: £145bn 11. UK GDP growth Oct 2026: 0.8% 12. World Cup winners: Brazil
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
I believe the key difference is that you could safely vote for Harris in the knowledge that you would be free to oppose those policies of hers that you disagreed with, and that Congressional Democrats would not be so cowed as to be incapable of responding to public pressure to block those policies.
You cannot say the same about Trump and Congressional Republicans.
I believe Dick and Liz Cheney voted Harris for President but GOP for Congress
Trump kicked Epstein out of his club two decades ago, when he worked out what he was up to.
I don't think either of those statements is true
Go on then, evidence for Musk ever going to the island, or for Trump having any relationship with Epstein after I think 2007?
Whether or not he cut ties with Epstein after 2007 does not exonerate all the other allegations against Trump before that date. I am not saying they are true because we don’t know but the absolute lack of transparency in respect of the release of the files and the redactions is not exactly a great look. The allegations are horrifying.
I stand by my previous comments that if there was any serious evidence of impropriety involving Trump, something serious enough to be disqualifying, it would have found its way to the papers before the election.
Biden’s DOJ was willing to throw anything and everything at putting him in prison, they wouldn’t have overlooked anything they thought they could stand up in court.
Trump incited a riot on 6/1/2021. He repeatedly lied that he lost the election, due to fraud. A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault. He describes Haitians and Venezuelans as garbage, and lies about them eating pets. His business record is one of fraud, and non-payment of bills. He lusts after his own daughter. His posts on Truth Social are like the outpourings of the demon Pazuzu, in The Exorcist.
All this is in the public domain, and still 77 m voted for this deranged, babbling, fuckwit.
Which tells you just how bad the alternative was.
Harris is mediocre in the extreme, but she is not actively malevolent, corrupt, senile, or unhinged. She is not someone who is an active threat to US allies.
Sometimes, the voters make bad choices. In this case, they willingly chose a man whose character is atrocious.
I would not have voted for Harris. Wokery (which bleeds over here) would have been given a further boost over here, and the dogma on Net Zero would have continued.
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
I (and I used to be an American citizen) would have voted for Harris. She is a B- politician on the national level, true.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
I believe the key difference is that you could safely vote for Harris in the knowledge that you would be free to oppose those policies of hers that you disagreed with, and that Congressional Democrats would not be so cowed as to be incapable of responding to public pressure to block those policies.
You cannot say the same about Trump and Congressional Republicans.
Indeed.
I am trying to think of a Democrat ticket that I wouldn’t have instantly voted for over Trump/Vance.
AOC/Bernie - no hesitation.
Can anyone come up with a ticket that wouldn’t obviously have been better than Trump?
I think if there'd been a Biden/Trump ticket, I think I might have struggled to vote for that.
Comments
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/2017583145667670071
@theobertram
The replies to this vary so let me expand a bit. Win for the greens would be fatal for No10's political strategy. Less certain whether it pre-empts a leadership challenge. Even less certain that such a challenge would succeed. Labour PMs are remarkably durable in my experience.
https://x.com/theobertram/status/2017278676128108947
He's doing it for publicity, not to win.
I know many things are happening but pls take a moment to read this: we are in full blackout in Kyiv, metro stopped, for the 1st time like this, power outages for the whole Ukraine, even in Moldova now too. all because of Russia bombing our power stations, and it’s -19 outside
https://x.com/MargoGontar/status/2017538935614795848
Only Goldwater in 1964 for the GOP and McGovern for the Democrats in 1972 of elections since WW2 ran such awful and centrist alienating campaigns they managed to get less than 40% of the vote
I'd have gone third party. The problem with American politics is how utterly polarised it is.
Savvy world leaders know a weak-willed needy supplicant when they see one.
And if it isn't it will likely lead to a second crackdown.
*I have to say, I'm not sure a foreign intervention would actually help. It would require boots on the ground and that's never ended well. But that would have been a sensible reason not to promise one to start with.
Her Wikipedia page has been nominated for deletion. You would like to think a halfway competent party of government would have sorted that out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angeliki_Stogia
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jan/31/labour-chooses-angeliki-stogia-for-gorton-and-denton-byelection
Reform 319
Conservatives 83
Labour 68
LDs 64
Greens 46
SNP 44
SF 7
DUP 5
Plaid 4
Others 4
UUP 1
Alliance 1
TUV 1
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/prediction_main.html
Albeit Nowcast's projection still has Starmer as LOTO with Farage PM with Reform on 337 seats and having a majority and the Tories 4th behind Labour and the LDs
https://electionmaps.uk/nowcast
Such deals (becoming an informant) are considered highly secret - which would explain it not leaking to this point.
The vast majority of such informants, in the US, are themselves guilty. See Sonny Gravano.
If it is the case, a part of it would be a full confession of wrong doing from Trump - as written testimony.
That was the last US presidential election which was generally more than a 2 party candidate race
The sheer number of redactions in the published files, and the number still unreleased, could be for any number of reasons. That is certainly one.
https://x.com/abujomaagaza/status/2017554364718608627?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
This is not just a cease fire, it’s a Trump sponsored IDF ceasefire.
But she isn’t a lying, racist, rapist, insurrectionist fraudster.
8 years of Harris might not be optimal. But she wouldn’t be destroying large chunks of the social contract.
Remember Trump was in favour of releasing the files until the doors were slammed shut with a week or so to go. From this, I infer Trump ‘knew’ he was safe but something nasty was found at the last minute, and Trump would have been the very first name they'd have screened for.
https://x.com/vividprowess/status/2017586976984121377
One claimed to be at the home of IRGC commander:
https://x.com/visionergeo/status/2017576228123783488
Special forces operations from US or Israel possibly, or local insurgents supplied with bombs?
Various tyrants in Ancient Greece - kill the opposition. Steal everything. Then patronise the arts/philosophy.
Or is it too soon to tell?
Anything else about Trump’s involvement would have been leaked by someone before now.
It's a whole lot worse than she forecast.
The Government’s AI skills website is going well
https://x.com/jamestitcomb/status/2017168985800810555?s=20
You to can enrol in a non-existant uni course or be taught a computer science course on the history of computing from 20 years ago to upskill yourself for modern AI.
Jesus: enough with the euphemisms!
If underage they were not workers and they were not having sex, whether for work or pleasure. They were children being raped and assaulted by men. And who were coerced and/or groomed by one woman, at least. She is in prison. But the men who did this are rapists and should also be in prison.
You do not "have sex with" a child. Children cannot consent, legally or in any other sense. Decent men know this. These men were not and are not decent.
Excusing them because of some good things they have done is just the secular world's version of buying indulgences.
As they have done.
I mean, we generally expect that to be the case, but it still disappoints when it is revealed so blatantly to be true.
But this definitely isn’t it.
https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1952348112204288398
Quite frankly, despite being a cheap ill-considered GBNews stereotype of a Remain voter your narrative is a falsehood that it was exclusively liberal elites who voted Remain (heck, even our Trump adjacent working class MAGA hero friend @williamglenn was a Remain enthusiast). Whether you like it or not, racial "othering" applied and blimey did the racists revolt `when they realised after 2019, Starmer had replaced all the white Europeans with "our friends" from the Indian SubContinent, and now the racists are demonstrating an incandescent (Fa)rage.
I know plenty of blue collar colleagues who thought Brexit was an insane folly. And to date no one should, on an economic level at least, suggest they were wrong.
N.B. Just for the record, I am a former Remainer who shuns tradesmen be they "cor-blimey cockney sparrer chimney sweeps" or plumbers from Poland. And our nannies were always strictly "au pairs".
Yes, everyone who did something illegal on Epstein’s island should be in prison, irrespective of their wealth, connections, and political affiliation.
Plus Trump is a creature of the moment - he was all about releasing the files, until he realised that it included non-legally suppressed information about himself.
I am old enough to remember when we called them victims of (at the very least) statutory rape by rapists.
- Some thought the same chaos and blocking by the courts would occur, making him far, far less dangerous than he said
- The 2025 Project was also a result of his first term. They saw that Trump was willing, so that if they created the mechanism to push through their policies, Trump was on board.
Only real possibility of a Reform gain is Banff & Buchan, and that's unlikely due to resilience of Tory vote in Aberdeenshire.
As for buying indulgences, you are right. It is the same reason we now tear down statues of slave-traders in what some condemn as the woke recasting of history.
{Tom Cruise runs past in a suit and tie}
https://x.com/heidibachram/status/2017567854162313315
https://x.com/niohberg/status/2017594690426589624
That same Iranian regime alleged to have killed as many protestors in the last few weeks, as were killed in Gaza in three years.
I hope that's a line cross too far for most, but it is becoming more common.
Wikipedia notability criteria for having an article for a politician are, to simplify, that they’ve won. Just being a candidate doesn’t count. When by-elections happen, it’s common for candidates to have articles created for them, that then rapidly get nominated for deletion, but the deletion discussion often takes long than the election campaign!
As my Iranian heritage friends have said as the internet has become available again the scale of the atrocities are becoming more widespread, there's not a single family in Tehran that's not grieving, they have executed pharmacists and doctors who have treated the wounded.
Edit: Just don't let him negotiate with Putin.
For those who don’t remember the Balkan Wars of the 90s, Arkan was a Serbian paramilitary leader/crime lord/war criminal on a major scale. What ideology he had was Ethnofacism.
Imagine that the Red Hand Defenders got themselves some serious firepower…
But he was opposed to The West, so the ultra-Tankies….
Being posh should be a protected characteristic
If we’re going to outlaw class discrimination in the interests of fairness, no one should be exempt
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/life/sophia-money-coutts-protect-posh-people/?WT.mc_id=tmgoff_tw_post_money-coutts-protect-posh-people/
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Why-Are-Iranian-Protesters-Using-the-Pre-revolution-Lion-and-Sun-Flag
You cannot say the same about Trump and Congressional Republicans.
Jon Burrows has said he wants the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) to be "the biggest party in unionism again" as he officially becomes the new party leader.
"I want us to see us with more seats in councils, more seats in the assembly and more seats in Westminster," he said.
Burrows is a former police officer who was unopposed for the post, which is regarded as one of the toughest in Northern Ireland politics.
He became an MLA for North Antrim in the summer of 2025 and has enjoyed a meteoric rise.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd7zl5njnqeo
I am trying to think of a Democrat ticket that I wouldn’t have instantly voted for over Trump/Vance.
AOC/Bernie - no hesitation.
Can anyone come up with a ticket that wouldn’t obviously have been better than Trump?
Leave the DUP and TUV to battle it out for hardline Protestant Unionist leadership
MyEngland's 2026 predictions:
1. Dems in House: -3
2. Dems in Senate: -1
3. SNP MSPs: 52
4. Plaid Cymru AMs: 11
5. Largest poll lead: Reform 12%
6. Labour PNS local elections: 28%
7. Reform MPs end 2026: 7
8. UK PM 31 Dec 2026: Keir Starmer
9. Burnham MP by year-end: Yes
10. UK borrowing Nov 2026: £145bn
11. UK GDP growth Oct 2026: 0.8%
12. World Cup winners: Brazil