From the comments below, it seems that the Labourites and leaver 'Conservatives' are against her.
She must be doing something right!
Spot on - everything on here atm is viewed through the Brexit prism. Pathetic and too tedious.
Look in the mirror.
It has nothing to do with BrExit and everything to do with her being a lightweight, replacing an exceptional, although disliked by teachers, education secretary. I and others have been criticizing her on this basis since Gove left if you look back in the archives, the fact that you think it's all about BrExit says more about you than us.
Re N Morgan and others: doesn't it all show that after Cameron, there is not really that much talent within the Tory party - at least not of the type that is leadership material?
Given that Corbyn is likely to stay and Cameron will go, the Tories are being far too complacent in assuming that whoever replaces Cameron will obviously be - and be seen by the voters as being - a better leader/PM than Corbyn.
The pluses and minuses of possible Tory leaders by comparison with Corbyn would make an interesting thread header.
For anyone travelling from out of town to the PB Meet, there are some good deals on hotels Friday evening - Saturday morning, I bagged a "Lucky 8" 4* in Ilford for £35.91 !
That's a bit of a trek isn't it? And it's in Essex!
Alas I won't be able to make it.
I'm in Dortmund Thursday then seeing Muse on Friday and Saturday.
Not really. 21 minutes on the tube "Liverpool St" to "Gants Hill".
Makes me laugh when PB Tories think there is a wealth of talent to replace Dave and then list
Gove (Toxic) Morgan (Lightweight) BoJo (joke candidate) Master Strategist (Toxic) Hunt (Compete failure in current role/lightweight) Javid (Doesnt know the differenence between an Australian jolly and doing everything we can) May (The silent one)
Re N Morgan and others: doesn't it all show that after Cameron, there is not really that much talent within the Tory party - at least not of the type that is leadership material?
Given that Corbyn is likely to stay and Cameron will go, the Tories are being far too complacent in assuming that whoever replaces Cameron will obviously be - and be seen by the voters as being - a better leader/PM than Corbyn.
The pluses and minuses of possible Tory leaders by comparison with Corbyn would make an interesting thread header.
People never look like leaders till they become one. May or Gove look competent enough.
The Saturn V rocket did 0 - 60 in 1.5 seconds with ~ 1 billion horsepower, whereas a top fuel dragster can go 0 - 60 in 0.8 seconds (10,000 hp)
Amazing to watch videos of the Saturn V take offs now - simply awe-inspiring.
And also bloody dangerous. It's worth remembering that astronauts were basically riding a giant and highly volatile controlled explosion.
I'm amazed there weren't more disasters than there were, even though each one that did occur was still an incredible tragedy.
'were' ? You're talking about astronauts as if they are an extinct breed ! Tim Peake rode a rocket based largely off 1967 Soviet tech to the space station very recently.
Spaceflight isn't dead yet, you know(*)
(*) Sadly the Saturn V is.
That kind of shows my point: the West (unless under private enterprise) have really taken a back seat in space exploration now, largely due to budget cuts and safety fears.
There may be a new golden age of space travel yet but not for quite a long time, I fear.
From the comments below, it seems that the Labourites and leaver 'Conservatives' are against her.
She must be doing something right!
Spot on - everything on here atm is viewed through the Brexit prism. Pathetic and too tedious.
Look in the mirror.
It has nothing to do with BrExit and everything to do with her being a lightweight, replacing an exceptional, although disliked by teachers, education secretary. I and others have been criticizing her on this basis since Gove left if you look back in the archives, the fact that you think it's all about BrExit says more about you than us.
Re N Morgan and others: doesn't it all show that after Cameron, there is not really that much talent within the Tory party - at least not of the type that is leadership material?
Given that Corbyn is likely to stay and Cameron will go, the Tories are being far too complacent in assuming that whoever replaces Cameron will obviously be - and be seen by the voters as being - a better leader/PM than Corbyn.
The pluses and minuses of possible Tory leaders by comparison with Corbyn would make an interesting thread header.
People never look like leaders till they become one. May or Gove look competent enough.
Makes me laugh when PB Tories think there is a wealth of talent to replace Dave and then list
Gove (Toxic) Morgan (Lightweight) BoJo (joke candidate) Master Strategist (Toxic) Hunt (Compete failure in current role/lightweight) Javid (Doesnt know the differenence between an Australian jolly and doing everything we can) May (The silent one)
Christ both main parties have a lack of talent!!
Using Sherlock Holmes methodology, that only leaves one result, however improbable...
Makes me laugh when PB Tories think there is a wealth of talent to replace Dave and then list
Gove (Toxic) Morgan (Lightweight) BoJo (joke candidate) Master Strategist (Toxic) Hunt (Compete failure in current role/lightweight) Javid (Doesnt know the differenence between an Australian jolly and doing everything we can) May (The silent one)
Christ both main parties have a lack of talent!!
Don't misunderestimate Matt Hancock, my 80/1 tip for next Tory leader.
For anyone travelling from out of town to the PB Meet, there are some good deals on hotels Friday evening - Saturday morning, I bagged a "Lucky 8" 4* in Ilford for £35.91 !
That's a bit of a trek isn't it? And it's in Essex!
Alas I won't be able to make it.
I'm in Dortmund Thursday then seeing Muse on Friday and Saturday.
Not really. 21 minutes on the tube "Liverpool St" to "Gants Hill".
Makes me laugh when PB Tories think there is a wealth of talent to replace Dave and then list
Gove (Toxic) Morgan (Lightweight) BoJo (joke candidate) Master Strategist (Toxic) Hunt (Compete failure in current role/lightweight) Javid (Doesnt know the differenence between an Australian jolly and doing everything we can) May (The silent one)
Christ both main parties have a lack of talent!!
Don't misunderestimate Matt Hancock, my 80/1 tip for next Tory leader.
Makes me laugh when PB Tories think there is a wealth of talent to replace Dave and then list
Gove (Toxic) Morgan (Lightweight) BoJo (joke candidate) Master Strategist (Toxic) Hunt (Compete failure in current role/lightweight) Javid (Doesnt know the differenence between an Australian jolly and doing everything we can) May (The silent one)
Christ both main parties have a lack of talent!!
Being toxic to Labour voters isn't necessarily a handicap as a Tory leader, being toxic to Tory voters is another matter (Osbrown). Bojo and Gove would both easily be able to pull in 38% of voters which is all it needs these days, especially if a big chunk of Old Labour either stay at home or vote Kipper.
Makes me laugh when PB Tories think there is a wealth of talent to replace Dave and then list
Gove (Toxic) Morgan (Lightweight) BoJo (joke candidate) Master Strategist (Toxic) Hunt (Compete failure in current role/lightweight) Javid (Doesnt know the differenence between an Australian jolly and doing everything we can) May (The silent one)
Christ both main parties have a lack of talent!!
Using Sherlock Holmes methodology, that only leaves one result, however improbable...
Makes me laugh when PB Tories think there is a wealth of talent to replace Dave and then list
Gove (Toxic) Morgan (Lightweight) BoJo (joke candidate) Master Strategist (Toxic) Hunt (Compete failure in current role/lightweight) Javid (Doesnt know the differenence between an Australian jolly and doing everything we can) May (The silent one)
Christ both main parties have a lack of talent!!
Being toxic to Labour voters isn't necessarily a handicap as a Tory leader, being toxic to Tory voters is another matter (Osbrown). Bojo and Gove would both easily be able to pull in 38% of voters which is all it needs these days, especially if a big chunk of Old Labour either stay at home or vote Kipper.
The Saturn V rocket did 0 - 60 in 1.5 seconds with ~ 1 billion horsepower, whereas a top fuel dragster can go 0 - 60 in 0.8 seconds (10,000 hp)
Amazing to watch videos of the Saturn V take offs now - simply awe-inspiring.
And also bloody dangerous. It's worth remembering that astronauts were basically riding a giant and highly volatile controlled explosion.
I'm amazed there weren't more disasters than there were, even though each one that did occur was still an incredible tragedy.
'were' ? You're talking about astronauts as if they are an extinct breed ! Tim Peake rode a rocket based largely off 1967 Soviet tech to the space station very recently.
Spaceflight isn't dead yet, you know(*)
(*) Sadly the Saturn V is.
That kind of shows my point: the West (unless under private enterprise) have really taken a back seat in space exploration now, largely due to budget cuts and safety fears.
There may be a new golden age of space travel yet but not for quite a long time, I fear.
Hmm - well we're not back to the halycon days of Appollo or w/e(&), but Spacex's launch pace and economies are pushing things forward quickly.(*)
(&) @JosiasJessop might require some rose tints on his spectacles
(*) Next attempt at a barge landing is on Friday ! The previous attempt was from a geostationary launch so the probability of sticking the landing should be higher.
From the comments below, it seems that the Labourites and leaver 'Conservatives' are against her.
She must be doing something right!
Spot on - everything on here atm is viewed through the Brexit prism. Pathetic and too tedious.
Look in the mirror.
It has nothing to do with BrExit and everything to do with her being a lightweight, replacing an exceptional, although disliked by teachers, education secretary. I and others have been criticizing her on this basis since Gove left if you look back in the archives, the fact that you think it's all about BrExit says more about you than us.
When did you last post something positive on here about a pro-remain Conservative?
Re N Morgan and others: doesn't it all show that after Cameron, there is not really that much talent within the Tory party - at least not of the type that is leadership material?
Given that Corbyn is likely to stay and Cameron will go, the Tories are being far too complacent in assuming that whoever replaces Cameron will obviously be - and be seen by the voters as being - a better leader/PM than Corbyn.
The pluses and minuses of possible Tory leaders by comparison with Corbyn would make an interesting thread header.
People never look like leaders till they become one. May or Gove look competent enough.
I'm not sure that's true, unless by leader you simply mean "the person who holds the office of party leader". Thinking back through recent candidates, Blair and Cameron both looked like well-presenting confidence-winning figureheads well before they led the parties. Blair was surprisingly "leaderlike" from time to time. Cameron continues to look like more of a follower than a leader.
Brown never looked like a leader before he became PM. Nothing much changed, except he was a few degrees worse than those of us who supported him hoped.
John Smith had more of an air of competent, compassionate manager and looked set to get elected on that basis before events tragically intervened.
IDS and Howard never looked like leaders before, after or during.
John Major is an interesting example. In terms of popular perception he looked like a grey drone before becoming PM and in some ways became a bit more of a perceived leader through Iraq etc, before being seen as a failure at exerting any control over his party or leadership in the country during 5 years of drift and cones hotlines. However many people who have met him have been astonished by how charismatic he is in person, which perhaps explains his success within the party and contrasting perception failure with the wider electorate who only saw him mediated through TV and newspaper criticism.
Makes me laugh when PB Tories think there is a wealth of talent to replace Dave and then list
Gove (Toxic) Morgan (Lightweight) BoJo (joke candidate) Master Strategist (Toxic) Hunt (Compete failure in current role/lightweight) Javid (Doesnt know the differenence between an Australian jolly and doing everything we can) May (The silent one)
Christ both main parties have a lack of talent!!
Being toxic to Labour voters isn't necessarily a handicap as a Tory leader, being toxic to Tory voters is another matter (Osbrown). Bojo and Gove would both easily be able to pull in 38% of voters which is all it needs these days, especially if a big chunk of Old Labour either stay at home or vote Kipper.
Gove please
Suits me, all you Labour voters who weren't going to vote Tory can now not vote Tory because you don't like Gove. Meanwhile a intelligent, principled leader would fire up the Tory base in a way that hasn't been seen since Thatcher.
Mr. Rentool, I would be very satisfied if Priti Patel ended up on top.
Well over to the right, poor at interviews.
But probably does better than someone who things that reading out letters at PMQ is a good idea. The next Tory leader doesn't need to be good, although that would be a bonus, just better than Corbyn, not a challenging hurdle on the whole.
The Saturn V rocket did 0 - 60 in 1.5 seconds with ~ 1 billion horsepower, whereas a top fuel dragster can go 0 - 60 in 0.8 seconds (10,000 hp)
Amazing to watch videos of the Saturn V take offs now - simply awe-inspiring.
And also bloody dangerous. It's worth remembering that astronauts were basically riding a giant and highly volatile controlled explosion.
I'm amazed there weren't more disasters than there were, even though each one that did occur was still an incredible tragedy.
'were' ? You're talking about astronauts as if they are an extinct breed ! Tim Peake rode a rocket based largely off 1967 Soviet tech to the space station very recently.
Spaceflight isn't dead yet, you know(*)
(*) Sadly the Saturn V is.
That kind of shows my point: the West (unless under private enterprise) have really taken a back seat in space exploration now, largely due to budget cuts and safety fears.
There may be a new golden age of space travel yet but not for quite a long time, I fear.
That's really not right. We have many 'western' launchers, including the first successful private-enterprise one.
It's just that we (meaning the west) have invested more in unmanned technology over manned. This makes sense as there is rather a lot of money in satellites. And as the Mars Rovers, Cassini, Juno, Rosetta, New Horizons etc show, it is as much 'space exploration' as manned flight.
We have probably learnt more about the solar system from a couple of these probes than we have from all manned space flight.
(Note that this is not to say I'm against manned space flight. Just that unmanned space flight is still exploration).
Makes me laugh when PB Tories think there is a wealth of talent to replace Dave and then list
Gove (Toxic) Morgan (Lightweight) BoJo (joke candidate) Master Strategist (Toxic) Hunt (Compete failure in current role/lightweight) Javid (Doesnt know the differenence between an Australian jolly and doing everything we can) May (The silent one)
Christ both main parties have a lack of talent!!
Being toxic to Labour voters isn't necessarily a handicap as a Tory leader, being toxic to Tory voters is another matter (Osbrown). Bojo and Gove would both easily be able to pull in 38% of voters which is all it needs these days, especially if a big chunk of Old Labour either stay at home or vote Kipper.
Gove please
Suits me, all you Labour voters who weren't going to vote Tory can now not vote Tory because you don't like Gove. Meanwhile a intelligent, principled leader would fire up the Tory base in a way that hasn't been seen since Thatcher.
Makes me laugh when PB Tories think there is a wealth of talent to replace Dave and then list
Gove (Toxic) Morgan (Lightweight) BoJo (joke candidate) Master Strategist (Toxic) Hunt (Compete failure in current role/lightweight) Javid (Doesnt know the differenence between an Australian jolly and doing everything we can) May (The silent one)
Christ both main parties have a lack of talent!!
Being toxic to Labour voters isn't necessarily a handicap as a Tory leader, being toxic to Tory voters is another matter (Osbrown). Bojo and Gove would both easily be able to pull in 38% of voters which is all it needs these days, especially if a big chunk of Old Labour either stay at home or vote Kipper.
Gove please
Suits me, all you Labour voters who weren't going to vote Tory can now not vote Tory because you don't like Gove. Meanwhile a intelligent, principled leader would fire up the Tory base in a way that hasn't been seen since Thatcher.
We agree lets not bother with a leadership contest.
The Saturn V rocket did 0 - 60 in 1.5 seconds with ~ 1 billion horsepower, whereas a top fuel dragster can go 0 - 60 in 0.8 seconds (10,000 hp)
Amazing to watch videos of the Saturn V take offs now - simply awe-inspiring.
And also bloody dangerous. It's worth remembering that astronauts were basically riding a giant and highly volatile controlled explosion.
I'm amazed there weren't more disasters than there were, even though each one that did occur was still an incredible tragedy.
'were' ? You're talking about astronauts as if they are an extinct breed ! Tim Peake rode a rocket based largely off 1967 Soviet tech to the space station very recently.
Spaceflight isn't dead yet, you know(*)
(*) Sadly the Saturn V is.
That kind of shows my point: the West (unless under private enterprise) have really taken a back seat in space exploration now, largely due to budget cuts and safety fears.
There may be a new golden age of space travel yet but not for quite a long time, I fear.
Hmm - well we're not back to the halycon days of Appollo or w/e(&), but Spacex's launch pace and economies are pushing things forward quickly.(*)
(&) @JosiasJessop might require some rose tints on his spectacles
(*) Next attempt at a barge landing is on Friday ! The previous attempt was from a geostationary launch so the probability of sticking the landing should be higher.
SpaceX has delightfully proved me wrong. Tesla is annoyingly starting to prove me wrong. Hyperloop will never prove me wrong.
The Saturn V rocket did 0 - 60 in 1.5 seconds with ~ 1 billion horsepower, whereas a top fuel dragster can go 0 - 60 in 0.8 seconds (10,000 hp)
Amazing to watch videos of the Saturn V take offs now - simply awe-inspiring.
And also bloody dangerous. It's worth remembering that astronauts were basically riding a giant and highly volatile controlled explosion.
I'm amazed there weren't more disasters than there were, even though each one that did occur was still an incredible tragedy.
'were' ? You're talking about astronauts as if they are an extinct breed ! Tim Peake rode a rocket based largely off 1967 Soviet tech to the space station very recently.
Spaceflight isn't dead yet, you know(*)
(*) Sadly the Saturn V is.
That kind of shows my point: the West (unless under private enterprise) have really taken a back seat in space exploration now, largely due to budget cuts and safety fears.
There may be a new golden age of space travel yet but not for quite a long time, I fear.
That's really not right. We have many 'western' launchers, including the first successful private-enterprise one.
It's just that we (meaning the west) have invested more in unmanned technology over manned. This makes sense as there is rather a lot of money in satellites. And as the Mars Rovers, Cassini, Juno, Rosetta, New Horizons etc show, it is as much 'space exploration' as manned flight.
We have probably learnt more about the solar system from a couple of these probes than we have from all manned space flight.
(Note that this is not to say I'm against manned space flight. Just that unmanned space flight is still exploration).
Sorry, manned exploration is what I meant. I still think (others may disagree) that that's the most inspiring and glamorous aspect of space exploration to humanity, but it is bloody expensive and dangerous. And, as you say, not always the most scientifically insightful.
Makes me laugh when PB Tories think there is a wealth of talent to replace Dave and then list
Gove (Toxic) Morgan (Lightweight) BoJo (joke candidate) Master Strategist (Toxic) Hunt (Compete failure in current role/lightweight) Javid (Doesnt know the differenence between an Australian jolly and doing everything we can) May (The silent one)
Christ both main parties have a lack of talent!!
Being toxic to Labour voters isn't necessarily a handicap as a Tory leader, being toxic to Tory voters is another matter (Osbrown). Bojo and Gove would both easily be able to pull in 38% of voters which is all it needs these days, especially if a big chunk of Old Labour either stay at home or vote Kipper.
Gove please
Suits me, all you Labour voters who weren't going to vote Tory can now not vote Tory because you don't like Gove. Meanwhile a intelligent, principled leader would fire up the Tory base in a way that hasn't been seen since Thatcher.
Gove = Tory Corbyn
Lets see if the voters prefer the privately educated metropolitan marxist anti-British, anti-Business, anti-western, unilateralist terrorist sympathiser, or man of modest beginnings that vastly improved our education system and massively improved our adoption system at the expense of annoying some vested producer interests.
Re N Morgan and others: doesn't it all show that after Cameron, there is not really that much talent within the Tory party - at least not of the type that is leadership material?
Given that Corbyn is likely to stay and Cameron will go, the Tories are being far too complacent in assuming that whoever replaces Cameron will obviously be - and be seen by the voters as being - a better leader/PM than Corbyn.
The pluses and minuses of possible Tory leaders by comparison with Corbyn would make an interesting thread header.
People never look like leaders till they become one. May or Gove look competent enough.
I'm not sure that's true. Some people have leadership potential or charisma or something special - some ability to connect, to inspire trust, even if you might disagree on some policy issue. Competence is good but not sufficient.
Leadership at this level is about bringing out the best in others in your team and inspiring confidence in the voters. There may be plenty who can do the former but far fewer who do the latter.
I don't see the Tories as particularly over-endowed with such people. The Tories will miss Cameron when he is gone and should stop beating him up prematurely over Europe. Shooting at your own feet is never a good idea, even if you think your opponent is a dribbling fool.
I agree Gove puts off a lot of people but he's not a unilateralist who can't be trusted with Defence, nor is he a socialist.
The similarities are obvious between Gove and Corbyn. Not least Indigo's comments that he is 'intelligent and principled' and 'can energise the base in a way not seen since Thatcher'.
I would argue that they share a lot when it comes to charisma and reach beyond their base. He inspires much the same feelings as Corbyn.
I certainly wouldn't trust Gove with key services.
I agree Gove puts off a lot of people but he's not a unilateralist who can't be trusted with Defence, nor is he a socialist.
The similarities are obvious between Gove and Corbyn. Not least Indigo's comments that he is 'intelligent and principled' and 'can energise the base in a way not seen since Thatcher'.
I would argue that they share a lot when it comes to charisma and reach beyond their base. He inspires much the same feelings as Corbyn.
I certainly wouldn't trust Gove with key services.
What on earth makes you think Corbyn is intelligent?
Sorry, manned exploration is what I meant. I still think (others may disagree) that that's the most inspiring and glamorous aspect of space exploration to humanity, but it is bloody expensive and dangerous. And, as you say, not always the most scientifically insightful.
The rest of your post is fair enough.
SpaceX will start ferrying astronauts to and from the Space Station soon enough. There is (quite rightly) alot of proving that needs to be done for human rated spaceflight stuff. Once proven, the same kit can be used over and over and... (See Soyuz).
They're uber competitive on Satellite launches, and design their own engines. One thing their main competitor, ULA doesn't - instead relying on Russian engines (Cough sanctions cough). If the sanctions were properly applied, SpaceX would be pretty much the ONLY game in town for satellite launches in the USA I think.
That's really not right. We have many 'western' launchers, including the first successful private-enterprise one.
It's just that we (meaning the west) have invested more in unmanned technology over manned. This makes sense as there is rather a lot of money in satellites. And as the Mars Rovers, Cassini, Juno, Rosetta, New Horizons etc show, it is as much 'space exploration' as manned flight.
We have probably learnt more about the solar system from a couple of these probes than we have from all manned space flight.
(Note that this is not to say I'm against manned space flight. Just that unmanned space flight is still exploration).
Sorry, manned exploration is what I meant. I still think (others may disagree) that that's the most inspiring and glamorous aspect of space exploration to humanity, but it is bloody expensive and dangerous. And, as you say, not always the most scientifically insightful.
The rest of your post is fair enough.
I agree. I'm not one of the anti-manned spaceflight crowd. But I do think the Shuttle, and to a lesser extent the ISS, have been pretty disastrous for manned spaceflight. The ISS needs a solid reason to exist, and the Shuttle needed to better management and to have a clearer purpose.
If SpaceX and others managed to cut the cost of spaceflight significantly then there are few reasons why the Moon or Mars should not be regularly visited from orbital station(s). From memory, the magic figure is 1/10th of the 1980s cost per pound lifted to low earth orbit.
That would be inspirational. Bigelow are also doing interesting things with their inflatable habitats.
I read last year that a problem with unmanned space probes is getting the scientists who can manipulate and understand the resultant science: there are so many projects (including things like Hubble) that good guys and gals can be stretched rather thin, especially in specialisms.
I don't see the Tories as particularly over-endowed with such people. The Tories will miss Cameron when he is gone and should stop beating him up prematurely over Europe. Shooting at your own feet is never a good idea, even if you think your opponent is a dribbling fool.
I think the Tories actually need The Mogg as their next leader, beautifully spoken, immaculately educated, unfailing polite, sharp as a tack, personable and good on TV. Also an authentic toff that doesn't try and deny it, the public don't mind toffs (see Boris) they just hate phonies.
'were' ? You're talking about astronauts as if they are an extinct breed ! Tim Peake rode a rocket based largely off 1967 Soviet tech to the space station very recently.
Spaceflight isn't dead yet, you know(*)
(*) Sadly the Saturn V is.
That kind of shows my point: the West (unless under private enterprise) have really taken a back seat in space exploration now, largely due to budget cuts and safety fears.
There may be a new golden age of space travel yet but not for quite a long time, I fear.
Hmm - well we're not back to the halycon days of Appollo or w/e(&), but Spacex's launch pace and economies are pushing things forward quickly.(*)
(&) @JosiasJessop might require some rose tints on his spectacles
(*) Next attempt at a barge landing is on Friday ! The previous attempt was from a geostationary launch so the probability of sticking the landing should be higher.
The fact is that, much as I wish it were otherwise, the public isn't that interested in the exploration of space. Apollo was driven by a Cold War patriotic surge, not something that can be reproduced at will.
Imo NASA has done quite amazing things with the budget it has, most obviously with unmanned vehicles. And on the manned side we have the ISS. The problem is that the next obvious big goal for manned flight is getting to Mars and, without an Apolloesque cash splurge, that is so long-term a project that there will be no big political pay-off within currently serving politicians' lifetimes.
But yes, SpaceX is exciting, with its promise of greatly lowering the cost of putting a payload in orbit.
One thing I wonder is whether we will accept the (perhaps inevitable) fatal accidents that will occur while we are in the process of upgrading manned flight from 1960s to 2000s technology. I mean, Soyuz is safe and reliable now. It wasn't in 1967 (and neither was Apollo).
Mr. Rentool, I would be very satisfied if Priti Patel ended up on top.
Well over to the right, poor at interviews.
But probably does better than someone who things that reading out letters at PMQ is a good idea. The next Tory leader doesn't need to be good, although that would be a bonus, just better than Corbyn, not a challenging hurdle on the whole.
The Tories would not need to lose many votes to lose their majority. And not everyone (probably not many) are as fired up about Corbyn's general ghastliness as I am.
If Khan wins in London despite his occasional dubious alliances and off-judgment, then Labour will assume that Corbyn's negatives won't matter that much or can be passed off as stuff from the past, as some are already doing.
Is the Tory party ruthless enough to make sure that Corbyn's negatives are not airbrushed away? As ruthless as Corbyn, McDonnell and Milne certainly are in relation to getting a grip of Labour? Goldsmith in London certainly hasn't been.
Mr. Jonathan, you're (wilfully?) ignoring just how mad Corbyn is. Gove lacks charisma and puts a lot of people off, but in political terms, he's normal. Corbyn's leftwingery has been rightly consigned to history.
Sorry, manned exploration is what I meant. I still think (others may disagree) that that's the most inspiring and glamorous aspect of space exploration to humanity, but it is bloody expensive and dangerous. And, as you say, not always the most scientifically insightful.
The rest of your post is fair enough.
SpaceX will start ferrying astronauts to and from the Space Station soon enough. There is (quite rightly) alot of proving that needs to be done for human rated spaceflight stuff. Once proven, the same kit can be used over and over and... (See Soyuz).
They're uber competitive on Satellite launches, and design their own engines. One thing their main competitor, ULA doesn't - instead relying on Russian engines (Cough sanctions cough). If the sanctions were properly applied, SpaceX would be pretty much the ONLY game in town for satellite launches in the USA I think.
The long term solution is Alan Bond's amazing sabre engine. If it works, it will make traditional rockets look pretty primitive, maybe even obselete.
Re N Morgan and others: doesn't it all show that after Cameron, there is not really that much talent within the Tory party - at least not of the type that is leadership material?
Given that Corbyn is likely to stay and Cameron will go, the Tories are being far too complacent in assuming that whoever replaces Cameron will obviously be - and be seen by the voters as being - a better leader/PM than Corbyn.
The pluses and minuses of possible Tory leaders by comparison with Corbyn would make an interesting thread header.
People never look like leaders till they become one. May or Gove look competent enough.
I'm not sure that's true. Some people have leadership potential or charisma or something special - some ability to connect, to inspire trust, even if you might disagree on some policy issue. Competence is good but not sufficient.
Leadership at this level is about bringing out the best in others in your team and inspiring confidence in the voters. There may be plenty who can do the former but far fewer who do the latter.
I don't see the Tories as particularly over-endowed with such people. The Tories will miss Cameron when he is gone and should stop beating him up prematurely over Europe. Shooting at your own feet is never a good idea, even if you think your opponent is a dribbling fool.
A really remarkable piece of work excellently delivered. The Tories got seriously lucky. Whether they will be that lucky again in the near future is open to debate but my guess would be not. Leaders chosen when a party is already in power tend to be more managerial, safer, duller and ultimately disappointing. I do not think it is a coincidence that both Blair and Cameron were selected by their parties when they were getting tired of losing.
Mr. Rentool, I would be very satisfied if Priti Patel ended up on top.
Well over to the right, poor at interviews.
But probably does better than someone who things that reading out letters at PMQ is a good idea. The next Tory leader doesn't need to be good, although that would be a bonus, just better than Corbyn, not a challenging hurdle on the whole.
The Tories would not need to lose many votes to lose their majority. And not everyone (probably not many) are as fired up about Corbyn's general ghastliness as I am.
If Khan wins in London despite his occasional dubious alliances and off-judgment, then Labour will assume that Corbyn's negatives won't matter that much or can be passed off as stuff from the past, as some are already doing.
Is the Tory party ruthless enough to make sure that Corbyn's negatives are not airbrushed away? As ruthless as Corbyn, McDonnell and Milne certainly are in relation to getting a grip of Labour? Goldsmith in London certainly hasn't been.
Not sure Goldsmith is a good example, he isnt even sure he is a Tory, he appears to be a hobby politician resting in Richmond Park before moving on to greater things.
Makes me laugh when PB Tories think there is a wealth of talent to replace Dave and then list
Gove (Toxic) Morgan (Lightweight) BoJo (joke candidate) Master Strategist (Toxic) Hunt (Compete failure in current role/lightweight) Javid (Doesnt know the differenence between an Australian jolly and doing everything we can) May (The silent one)
Christ both main parties have a lack of talent!!
Being toxic to Labour voters isn't necessarily a handicap as a Tory leader, being toxic to Tory voters is another matter (Osbrown). Bojo and Gove would both easily be able to pull in 38% of voters which is all it needs these days, especially if a big chunk of Old Labour either stay at home or vote Kipper.
Gove please
Suits me, all you Labour voters who weren't going to vote Tory can now not vote Tory because you don't like Gove. Meanwhile a intelligent, principled leader would fire up the Tory base in a way that hasn't been seen since Thatcher.
Gove = Tory Corbyn
Lets see if the voters prefer the privately educated metropolitan marxist anti-British, anti-Business, anti-western, unilateralist terrorist sympathiser, or man of modest beginnings that vastly improved our education system and massively improved our adoption system at the expense of annoying some vested producer interests.
Gove was privately educated, as a scholarship boy. In fact, in educational terms their backgrounds are almost identical. Gove went to a private school for free, Corbyn went to first a private school, then a boarding school that didn't charge fees for day boys.
I agree with Jonathan that he is also toxic in other ways. He gives many hostages to fortune, a bit like Roy Jenkins maybe.
Sorry, manned exploration is what I meant. I still think (others may disagree) that that's the most inspiring and glamorous aspect of space exploration to humanity, but it is bloody expensive and dangerous. And, as you say, not always the most scientifically insightful.
The rest of your post is fair enough.
SpaceX will start ferrying astronauts to and from the Space Station soon enough. There is (quite rightly) alot of proving that needs to be done for human rated spaceflight stuff. Once proven, the same kit can be used over and over and... (See Soyuz).
They're uber competitive on Satellite launches, and design their own engines. One thing their main competitor, ULA doesn't - instead relying on Russian engines (Cough sanctions cough). If the sanctions were properly applied, SpaceX would be pretty much the ONLY game in town for satellite launches in the USA I think.
The long term solution is Alan Bond's amazing sabre engine. If it works, it will make traditional rockets look pretty primitive, maybe even obselete.
Indeed. Sabre is the sort of thing we should be tentatively investing in as a nation: there is sadly a small chance of success, but it could be truly disruptive if it works. High risks, but massive rewards. And they've done good work so far.
Makes me laugh when PB Tories think there is a wealth of talent to replace Dave and then list
Gove (Toxic) Morgan (Lightweight) BoJo (joke candidate) Master Strategist (Toxic) Hunt (Compete failure in current role/lightweight) Javid (Doesnt know the differenence between an Australian jolly and doing everything we can) May (The silent one)
Christ both main parties have a lack of talent!!
Don't misunderestimate Matt Hancock, my 80/1 tip for next Tory leader.
I thought your tip was Javeed?
I back them long and trade out.
Javid has to be the biggest disappointment since The Phantom Menace
That's really not right. We have many 'western' launchers, including the first successful private-enterprise one.
It's just that we (meaning the west) have invested more in unmanned technology over manned. This makes sense as there is rather a lot of money in satellites. And as the Mars Rovers, Cassini, Juno, Rosetta, New Horizons etc show, it is as much 'space exploration' as manned flight.
We have probably learnt more about the solar system from a couple of these probes than we have from all manned space flight.
(Note that this is not to say I'm against manned space flight. Just that unmanned space flight is still exploration).
Sorry, manned exploration is what I meant. I still think (others may disagree) that that's the most inspiring and glamorous aspect of space exploration to humanity, but it is bloody expensive and dangerous. And, as you say, not always the most scientifically insightful.
The rest of your post is fair enough.
I agree. I'm not one of the anti-manned spaceflight crowd. But I do think the Shuttle, and to a lesser extent the ISS, have been pretty disastrous for manned spaceflight. The ISS needs a solid reason to exist, and the Shuttle needed to better management and to have a clearer purpose.
If SpaceX and others managed to cut the cost of spaceflight significantly then there are few reasons why the Moon or Mars should not be regularly visited from orbital station(s). From memory, the magic figure is 1/10th of the 1980s cost per pound lifted to low earth orbit.
That would be inspirational. Bigelow are also doing interesting things with their inflatable habitats.
I read last year that a problem with unmanned space probes is getting the scientists who can manipulate and understand the resultant science: there are so many projects (including things like Hubble) that good guys and gals can be stretched rather thin, especially in specialisms.
The unmanned exploration has been the most incredible achievement. I know people ooh and ah over the pictures but I don't think we appreciate enough how extraordinary the engineering has been.
Gove was privately educated, as a scholarship boy. In fact, in educational terms their backgrounds are almost identical. Gove went to a private school for free, Corbyn went to first a private school, then a boarding school that didn't charge fees for day boys.
I agree with Jonathan that he is also toxic in other ways. He gives many hostages to fortune, a bit like Roy Jenkins maybe.
Gove was the adopted son of the manager of a fish factory who get a scholarship because he was clever.
Corbyn grew up in a seven bedroom manor house in Shropshire and got 2 E's because he wasn't.
Makes me laugh when PB Tories think there is a wealth of talent to replace Dave and then list
Gove (Toxic) Morgan (Lightweight) BoJo (joke candidate) Master Strategist (Toxic) Hunt (Compete failure in current role/lightweight) Javid (Doesnt know the differenence between an Australian jolly and doing everything we can) May (The silent one)
Christ both main parties have a lack of talent!!
Don't misunderestimate Matt Hancock, my 80/1 tip for next Tory leader.
I thought your tip was Javeed?
I back them long and trade out.
Javid has to be the biggest disappointment since The Phantom Menace
He fell in to bad company and killed his potential.
Gove was privately educated, as a scholarship boy. In fact, in educational terms their backgrounds are almost identical. Gove went to a private school for free, Corbyn went to first a private school, then a boarding school that didn't charge fees for day boys.
I agree with Jonathan that he is also toxic in other ways. He gives many hostages to fortune, a bit like Roy Jenkins maybe.
Gove was the adopted son of the manager of a fish factory who get a scholarship because he was clever.
Corbyn grew up in a seven bedroom manor house in Shropshire and got 2 E's because he wasn't.
Sorry, manned exploration is what I meant. I still think (others may disagree) that that's the most inspiring and glamorous aspect of space exploration to humanity, but it is bloody expensive and dangerous. And, as you say, not always the most scientifically insightful.
The rest of your post is fair enough.
SpaceX will start ferrying astronauts to and from the Space Station soon enough. There is (quite rightly) alot of proving that needs to be done for human rated spaceflight stuff. Once proven, the same kit can be used over and over and... (See Soyuz).
They're uber competitive on Satellite launches, and design their own engines. One thing their main competitor, ULA doesn't - instead relying on Russian engines (Cough sanctions cough). If the sanctions were properly applied, SpaceX would be pretty much the ONLY game in town for satellite launches in the USA I think.
The long term solution is Alan Bond's amazing sabre engine. If it works, it will make traditional rockets look pretty primitive, maybe even obselete.
Indeed. Sabre is the sort of thing we should be tentatively investing in as a nation: there is sadly a small chance of success, but it could be truly disruptive if it works. High risks, but massive rewards. And they've done good work so far.
I may be wrong but I think Osborne did kick a considerable sum their way...??
Makes me laugh when PB Tories think there is a wealth of talent to replace Dave and then list
Gove (Toxic) Morgan (Lightweight) BoJo (joke candidate) Master Strategist (Toxic) Hunt (Compete failure in current role/lightweight) Javid (Doesnt know the differenence between an Australian jolly and doing everything we can) May (The silent one)
Christ both main parties have a lack of talent!!
Being toxic to Labour voters isn't necessarily a handicap as a Tory leader, being toxic to Tory voters is another matter (Osbrown). Bojo and Gove would both easily be able to pull in 38% of voters which is all it needs these days, especially if a big chunk of Old Labour either stay at home or vote Kipper.
Gove please
Suits me, all you Labour voters who weren't going to vote Tory can now not vote Tory because you don't like Gove. Meanwhile a intelligent, principled leader would fire up the Tory base in a way that hasn't been seen since Thatcher.
Gove = Tory Corbyn
Lets see if the voters prefer the privately educated metropolitan marxist anti-British, anti-Business, anti-western, unilateralist terrorist sympathiser, or man of modest beginnings that vastly improved our education system and massively improved our adoption system at the expense of annoying some vested producer interests.
Why do you think he's improved the education system? What's your day to day experience of the changes made?
'were' ? You're talking about astronauts as if they are an extinct breed ! Tim Peake rode a rocket based largely off 1967 Soviet tech to the space station very recently.
Spaceflight isn't dead yet, you know(*)
(*) Sadly the Saturn V is.
That kind of shows my point: the West (unless under private enterprise) have really taken a back seat in space exploration now, largely due to budget cuts and safety fears.
There may be a new golden age of space travel yet but not for quite a long time, I fear.
Hmm - well we're not back to the halycon days of Appollo or w/e(&), but Spacex's launch pace and economies are pushing things forward quickly.(*)
(&) @JosiasJessop might require some rose tints on his spectacles
(*) Next attempt at a barge landing is on Friday ! The previous attempt was from a geostationary launch so the probability of sticking the landing should be higher.
The fact is that, much as I wish it were otherwise, the public isn't that interested in the exploration of space. Apollo was driven by a Cold War patriotic surge, not something that can be reproduced at will.
Imo NASA has done quite amazing things with the budget it has, most obviously with unmanned vehicles. And on the manned side we have the ISS. The problem is that the next obvious big goal for manned flight is getting to Mars and, without an Apolloesque cash splurge, that is so long-term a project that there will be no big political pay-off within currently serving politicians' lifetimes.
But yes, SpaceX is exciting, with its promise of greatly lowering the cost of putting a payload in orbit.
One thing I wonder is whether we will accept the (perhaps inevitable) fatal accidents that will occur while we are in the process of upgrading manned flight from 1960s to 2000s technology. I mean, Soyuz is safe and reliable now. It wasn't in 1967 (and neither was Apollo).
AIUI the modern Soyuz has little in common with the original 1960s launcher. It's like comparing a 1970s Transit van with a modern one. I think even the RD107/108 engines are significantly different, whilst still having roughly the same model number.
Soyuz's success has been near-constant iterative improvements.
Mr. Rentool, I would be very satisfied if Priti Patel ended up on top.
Well over to the right, poor at interviews.
But probably does better than someone who things that reading out letters at PMQ is a good idea. The next Tory leader doesn't need to be good, although that would be a bonus, just better than Corbyn, not a challenging hurdle on the whole.
The Tories would not need to lose many votes to lose their majority. And not everyone (probably not many) are as fired up about Corbyn's general ghastliness as I am.
If Khan wins in London despite his occasional dubious alliances and off-judgment, then Labour will assume that Corbyn's negatives won't matter that much or can be passed off as stuff from the past, as some are already doing.
Is the Tory party ruthless enough to make sure that Corbyn's negatives are not airbrushed away? As ruthless as Corbyn, McDonnell and Milne certainly are in relation to getting a grip of Labour? Goldsmith in London certainly hasn't been.
Totally agree.
On your last point, one of Cameron's strengths lately is that he has been very effective at exploiting Corbyn's weaknesses by pushing them up the news agenda with things like the "terrorist sympathisers" and "wear a proper suit" remarks. It's low politics but effective.
Makes me laugh when PB Tories think there is a wealth of talent to replace Dave and then list
Gove (Toxic) Morgan (Lightweight) BoJo (joke candidate) Master Strategist (Toxic) Hunt (Compete failure in current role/lightweight) Javid (Doesnt know the differenence between an Australian jolly and doing everything we can) May (The silent one)
Christ both main parties have a lack of talent!!
Being toxic to Labour voters isn't necessarily a handicap as a Tory leader, being toxic to Tory voters is another matter (Osbrown). Bojo and Gove would both easily be able to pull in 38% of voters which is all it needs these days, especially if a big chunk of Old Labour either stay at home or vote Kipper.
Gove please
Suits me, all you Labour voters who weren't going to vote Tory can now not vote Tory because you don't like Gove. Meanwhile a intelligent, principled leader would fire up the Tory base in a way that hasn't been seen since Thatcher.
Gove = Tory Corbyn
Lets see if the voters prefer the privately educated metropolitan marxist anti-British, anti-Business, anti-western, unilateralist terrorist sympathiser, or man of modest beginnings that vastly improved our education system and massively improved our adoption system at the expense of annoying some vested producer interests.
Gove was privately educated, as a scholarship boy. In fact, in educational terms their backgrounds are almost identical. Gove went to a private school for free, Corbyn went to first a private school, then a boarding school that didn't charge fees for day boys.
I agree with Jonathan that he is also toxic in other ways. He gives many hostages to fortune, a bit like Roy Jenkins maybe.
I really don't care about a politician's education. All it tells you is about the decisions his/her parents made and I don't criticise any parent for trying to do the best for their children. All I care about is that the politician is educated - in the widest sense - and shows some signs of intelligent life, judgment and common-sense. This is rarer than one might suppose, even among the apparently highly educated.
I meet lots of very educated people in the City. And some of them are the stupidest people I've encountered.
Sorry, manned exploration is what I meant. I still think (others may disagree) that that's the most inspiring and glamorous aspect of space exploration to humanity, but it is bloody expensive and dangerous. And, as you say, not always the most scientifically insightful.
The rest of your post is fair enough.
SpaceX will start ferrying astronauts to and from the Space Station soon enough. There is (quite rightly) alot of proving that needs to be done for human rated spaceflight stuff. Once proven, the same kit can be used over and over and... (See Soyuz).
They're uber competitive on Satellite launches, and design their own engines. One thing their main competitor, ULA doesn't - instead relying on Russian engines (Cough sanctions cough). If the sanctions were properly applied, SpaceX would be pretty much the ONLY game in town for satellite launches in the USA I think.
The long term solution is Alan Bond's amazing sabre engine. If it works, it will make traditional rockets look pretty primitive, maybe even obselete.
Indeed. Sabre is the sort of thing we should be tentatively investing in as a nation: there is sadly a small chance of success, but it could be truly disruptive if it works. High risks, but massive rewards. And they've done good work so far.
I may be wrong but I think Osborne did kick a considerable sum their way...??
He did, and I think the ESA and (whisper it quietly) the EU did too.
'were' ? You're talking about astronauts as if they are an extinct breed ! Tim Peake rode a rocket based largely off 1967 Soviet tech to the space station very recently.
Spaceflight isn't dead yet, you know(*)
(*) Sadly the Saturn V is.
That kind of shows my point: the West (unless under private enterprise) have really taken a back seat in space exploration now, largely due to budget cuts and safety fears.
There may be a new golden age of space travel yet but not for quite a long time, I fear.
Hmm - well we're not back to the halycon days of Appollo or w/e(&), but Spacex's launch pace and economies are pushing things forward quickly.(*)
(&) @JosiasJessop might require some rose tints on his spectacles
(*) Next attempt at a barge landing is on Friday ! The previous attempt was from a geostationary launch so the probability of sticking the landing should be higher.
The fact is that, much as I wish it were otherwise, the public isn't that interested in the exploration of space. Apollo was driven by a Cold War patriotic surge, not something that can be reproduced at will.
Imo NASA has done quite amazing things with the budget it has, most obviously with unmanned vehicles. And on the manned side we have the ISS. The problem is that the next obvious big goal for manned flight is getting to Mars and, without an Apolloesque cash splurge, that is so long-term a project that there will be no big political pay-off within currently serving politicians' lifetimes.
But yes, SpaceX is exciting, with its promise of greatly lowering the cost of putting a payload in orbit.
One thing I wonder is whether we will accept the (perhaps inevitable) fatal accidents that will occur while we are in the process of upgrading manned flight from 1960s to 2000s technology. I mean, Soyuz is safe and reliable now. It wasn't in 1967 (and neither was Apollo).
AIUI the modern Soyuz has little in common with the original 1960s launcher. It's like comparing a 1970s Transit van with a modern one. I think even the RD107/108 engines are significantly different, whilst still having roughly the same model number.
Soyuz's success has been near-constant iterative improvements.
That's interesting. Tbh I don't know much about the history of Soyuz after about 1975.
It seems remarkable that they could sustain iterative improvement over such a long period.
Makes me laugh when PB Tories think there is a wealth of talent to replace Dave and then list
Gove (Toxic) Morgan (Lightweight) BoJo (joke candidate) Master Strategist (Toxic) Hunt (Compete failure in current role/lightweight) Javid (Doesnt know the differenence between an Australian jolly and doing everything we can) May (The silent one)
Christ both main parties have a lack of talent!!
Being toxic to Labour voters isn't necessarily a handicap as a Tory leader, being toxic to Tory voters is another matter (Osbrown). Bojo and Gove would both easily be able to pull in 38% of voters which is all it needs these days, especially if a big chunk of Old Labour either stay at home or vote Kipper.
Gove please
Suits me, all you Labour voters who weren't going to vote Tory can now not vote Tory because you don't like Gove. Meanwhile a intelligent, principled leader would fire up the Tory base in a way that hasn't been seen since Thatcher.
Gove = Tory Corbyn
Lets see if the voters prefer the privately educated metropolitan marxist anti-British, anti-Business, anti-western, unilateralist terrorist sympathiser, or man of modest beginnings that vastly improved our education system and massively improved our adoption system at the expense of annoying some vested producer interests.
Why do you think he's improved the education system? What's your day to day experience of the changes made?
Not that I have to justify myself to you, but my mother was a teacher for 45 years, her sister is a teacher, 5 of my 7 cousins are teachers, and I have two children in school in the UK. The end of the relentless dumbing down in standards even if not perfect in many ways is to be welcomed, as is the ditching of the execrable ICT course and bringing in an excellent Computing course which granted needs more able staff to teach it. Starting to move away from idiotic "all must have prizes" can't be bad either.
Makes me laugh when PB Tories think there is a wealth of talent to replace Dave and then list
Gove (Toxic) Morgan (Lightweight) BoJo (joke candidate) Master Strategist (Toxic) Hunt (Compete failure in current role/lightweight) Javid (Doesnt know the differenence between an Australian jolly and doing everything we can) May (The silent one)
Christ both main parties have a lack of talent!!
Don't misunderestimate Matt Hancock, my 80/1 tip for next Tory leader.
I thought your tip was Javeed?
I back them long and trade out.
Javid has to be the biggest disappointment since The Phantom Menace
Why are you disappointed? The minute I learnt he was a banker from Deutsche Bank I knew he'd be no more than p*ss and wind.
There are good investment bankers around but they are the minority - and are worth their weight in gold. The rest are mainly flannel. In another era they'd have been estate agents.
PS I will never get that lunch off Charles now.....
Gove was privately educated, as a scholarship boy. In fact, in educational terms their backgrounds are almost identical. Gove went to a private school for free, Corbyn went to first a private school, then a boarding school that didn't charge fees for day boys.
I agree with Jonathan that he is also toxic in other ways. He gives many hostages to fortune, a bit like Roy Jenkins maybe.
Gove was the adopted son of the manager of a fish factory who get a scholarship because he was clever.
Corbyn grew up in a seven bedroom manor house in Shropshire and got 2 E's because he wasn't.
And I have been a constant critic of those who try to hide Corbyn's wealthy background or his de facto (partially facto) private education.
I was pointing out that Gove actually had a very similar education. Indeed, I think this is part of the problem. He never quite understood that what worked for him, and catapulted him from the adopted son of a fishmonger to one of the most powerful men in the country, doesn't work so well when you try to apply it across a state system that is already struggling with massive social problems and a fundamental disengagement from learning.
This is why many of his reforms have been outstandingly helpful for those schools that are really good already (let's take Gloucestershire - Pates is now doing as well as it ever has) and mind-bendingly disastrous for those that are struggling (Gloucester Academy continues to have a massive problem with violent pupils, which is actually getting worse as academy chains with weak and/or remote management structures take over). I've worked in both types (although not in those two specific examples) and seen the results for myself. Gove has visited, and as Horowitz noted, sees what he wants to see. Crucially, the NUT members tend only to teach in the latter, which goes a long way towards explaining their hatred of him.
Makes me laugh when PB Tories think there is a wealth of talent to replace Dave and then list
Gove (Toxic) Morgan (Lightweight) BoJo (joke candidate) Master Strategist (Toxic) Hunt (Compete failure in current role/lightweight) Javid (Doesnt know the differenence between an Australian jolly and doing everything we can) May (The silent one)
Christ both main parties have a lack of talent!!
Don't misunderestimate Matt Hancock, my 80/1 tip for next Tory leader.
I thought your tip was Javeed?
I back them long and trade out.
Javid has to be the biggest disappointment since The Phantom Menace
He fell in to bad company and killed his potential.
Yesterday's man.
He'd be great simply for the meltdown it would cause on the left if the Tories elected as leader a non white Muslim.
Sorry, manned exploration is what I meant. I still think (others may disagree) that that's the most inspiring and glamorous aspect of space exploration to humanity, but it is bloody expensive and dangerous. And, as you say, not always the most scientifically insightful.
The rest of your post is fair enough.
SpaceX will start ferrying astronauts to and from the Space Station soon enough. There is (quite rightly) alot of proving that needs to be done for human rated spaceflight stuff. Once proven, the same kit can be used over and over and... (See Soyuz).
They're uber competitive on Satellite launches, and design their own engines. One thing their main competitor, ULA doesn't - instead relying on Russian engines (Cough sanctions cough). If the sanctions were properly applied, SpaceX would be pretty much the ONLY game in town for satellite launches in the USA I think.
The long term solution is Alan Bond's amazing sabre engine. If it works, it will make traditional rockets look pretty primitive, maybe even obselete.
Indeed. Sabre is the sort of thing we should be tentatively investing in as a nation: there is sadly a small chance of success, but it could be truly disruptive if it works. High risks, but massive rewards. And they've done good work so far.
Dunno about that, Mr. J.. I have been following the Sabre development for some time and it looks to be coming on very nicely. If I had serious money to invest I would be trying to get a chunk of the action.
On a side note when you say, "we should be tentatively investing in as a nation", I hope you don't mean HMG should be putting money into such projects. Not for ideological reasons but I can imagine no better way of buggering up a development project than by having civil servants meddle with it on the grounds of "protecting the taxpayers investment".
Makes me laugh when PB Tories think there is a wealth of talent to replace Dave and then list
Gove (Toxic) Morgan (Lightweight) BoJo (joke candidate) Master Strategist (Toxic) Hunt (Compete failure in current role/lightweight) Javid (Doesnt know the differenence between an Australian jolly and doing everything we can) May (The silent one)
Christ both main parties have a lack of talent!!
Don't misunderestimate Matt Hancock, my 80/1 tip for next Tory leader.
I thought your tip was Javeed?
I back them long and trade out.
Javid has to be the biggest disappointment since The Phantom Menace
Why are you disappointed? The minute I learnt he was a banker from Deutsche Bank I knew he'd be no more than p*ss and wind.
There are good investment bankers around but they are the minority - and are worth their weight in gold. The rest are mainly flannel. In another era they'd have been estate agents.
PS I will never get that lunch off Charles now.....
I heard him speak at a Tory event a few years ago, he understand what Toryism should be about, and what the UK should be about. The most ardent Thatcherite and One Nation Tories liked what he said.
The party should be about aspiration and helping everyone achieve the best.
If it turns out that there are several hundred thousand more EU nationals here than the government has previously claimed, it ought to shift a few votes. And make May look a less likely Tory leadership candidate.
Makes me laugh when PB Tories think there is a wealth of talent to replace Dave and then list
Gove (Toxic) Morgan (Lightweight) BoJo (joke candidate) Master Strategist (Toxic) Hunt (Compete failure in current role/lightweight) Javid (Doesnt know the differenence between an Australian jolly and doing everything we can) May (The silent one)
Christ both main parties have a lack of talent!!
Don't misunderestimate Matt Hancock, my 80/1 tip for next Tory leader.
I thought your tip was Javeed?
I back them long and trade out.
Javid has to be the biggest disappointment since The Phantom Menace
Why are you disappointed? The minute I learnt he was a banker from Deutsche Bank I knew he'd be no more than p*ss and wind.
There are good investment bankers around but they are the minority - and are worth their weight in gold. The rest are mainly flannel. In another era they'd have been estate agents.
PS I will never get that lunch off Charles now.....
I heard him speak at a Tory event a few years ago, he understand what Toryism should be about, and what the UK should be about. The most ardent Thatcherite and One Nation Tories liked what he said.
The party should be about aspiration and helping everyone achieve the best.
I agree with your last sentence.
I have not heard him speak other than on TV where he has always seemed underwhelming. I don't think politicians help themselves by touting themselves or letting others do it as the next best thing. Look at Liz Kendall, for instance. Maybe a few years actually doing the job and showing rather than telling would be more effective?
Still, if you've seen him speak and like him I bow to your greater knowledge.
Not that I have to justify myself to you, but my mother was a teacher for 45 years, her sister is a teacher, 5 of my 7 cousins are teachers, and I have two children in school in the UK.** The end of the relentless dumbing down in standards even if not perfect in many ways is to be welcomed, as is the ditching of the execrable ICT course and bringing in an excellent Computing course which granted needs more able staff to teach it. Starting to move away from idiotic "all must have prizes" can't be bad either.
Can't speak for ICT/Computing. The new exams for History at GCSE and A-level are much less rigorous (in terms of assessment) than the ones they replace.* RE there is little noticeable difference (although I am changing boards to one which asks passably sane questions).
*The content for History is much broader, and much better formulated, which is good. I will enjoy teaching it. It should also end the farcical situation where so-called 'history' graduates from many universities will not have studied anything from before 1890 since the Christmas of Year 9. Alas, the exams are currently pitched at about the level of current KS2 exams. For RE, there is again little discernable difference except where we used to choose about 80% of what was on offer, now we have to do all of it. Not terribly helpful in a subject where you seldom have more than 1-2 lessons a week.
**If we're going to go in for this sort of thing - I am a teacher, my late mother was a teacher for 40 years, my sister is a school governor, two of my cousins are teachers, my grandmother was a teacher, my great-grandfather and great-grandmother were teachers, and my great-great-grandfather ran a public house, a location to which teachers invariably repair to drown their sorrows at the end of a working week.
If it turns out that there are several hundred thousand more EU nationals here than the government has previously claimed, it ought to shift a few votes. And make May look a less likely Tory leadership candidate.
That is just several hundred thousand more in one year. The overall figure could top 1 million more.
If it turns out that there are several hundred thousand more EU nationals here than the government has previously claimed, it ought to shift a few votes. And make May look a less likely Tory leadership candidate.
Thats the problem when you get a politician on the back foot. Of course anti semitism has to be eradicated as all racism does but when McDonnel says things like "I believe we should take the advice of the British Board of Deputies" you begin to worry that all his research is as suspect.
The board of Deputies had as their leader Granville Janner for almost a decade and to suggest he and they represented British Jews is just ignorance. There are more different types and mixes of British Jew than there have ever been. Which one exactly does The Board of Deputies represent? Janner like his father was a Zionist and it's largely thanks to him that disapproving of Israeli policies has now become classified as anti semitism.
I don't particularly want to attack him after he's just died but I can honestly say I've never encountered a more unpleasant person
Sorry, manned exploration is what I meant. I still think (others may disagree) that that's the most inspiring and glamorous aspect of space exploration to humanity, but it is bloody expensive and dangerous. And, as you say, not always the most scientifically insightful.
The rest of your post is fair enough.
SpaceX will start ferrying astronauts to and from the Space Station soon enough. There is (quite rightly) alot of proving that needs to be done for human rated spaceflight stuff. Once proven, the same kit can be used over and over and... (See Soyuz).
They're uber competitive on Satellite launches, and design their own engines. One thing their main competitor, ULA doesn't - instead relying on Russian engines (Cough sanctions cough). If the sanctions were properly applied, SpaceX would be pretty much the ONLY game in town for satellite launches in the USA I think.
The long term solution is Alan Bond's amazing sabre engine. If it works, it will make traditional rockets look pretty primitive, maybe even obselete.
Indeed. Sabre is the sort of thing we should be tentatively investing in as a nation: there is sadly a small chance of success, but it could be truly disruptive if it works. High risks, but massive rewards. And they've done good work so far.
Dunno about that, Mr. J.. I have been following the Sabre development for some time and it looks to be coming on very nicely. If I had serious money to invest I would be trying to get a chunk of the action.
On a side note when you say, "we should be tentatively investing in as a nation", I hope you don't mean HMG should be putting money into such projects. Not for ideological reasons but I can imagine no better way of buggering up a development project than by having civil servants meddle with it on the grounds of "protecting the taxpayers investment".
The success of the project rests on being able to successfully cool air from 1000 degress centigrate to minus 150C in 100th of a second.
The company reckons they've cracked it, but its some challenge.
Makes me laugh when PB Tories think there is a wealth of talent to replace Dave and then list
Gove (Toxic) Morgan (Lightweight) BoJo (joke candidate) Master Strategist (Toxic) Hunt (Compete failure in current role/lightweight) Javid (Doesnt know the differenence between an Australian jolly and doing everything we can) May (The silent one)
Christ both main parties have a lack of talent!!
Don't misunderestimate Matt Hancock, my 80/1 tip for next Tory leader.
I thought your tip was Javeed?
I back them long and trade out.
Javid has to be the biggest disappointment since The Phantom Menace
He fell in to bad company and killed his potential.
Yesterday's man.
He'd be great simply for the meltdown it would cause on the left if the Tories elected as leader a non white Muslim.
I suspect the meltdown in Port Talbot will put paid to that.
he has had a bad run:
- spineless in EUref - buried his head in sand before steel crisis - bonus arrangements while a banker - jolly to Oz
Makes me laugh when PB Tories think there is a wealth of talent to replace Dave and then list
Gove (Toxic) Morgan (Lightweight) BoJo (joke candidate) Master Strategist (Toxic) Hunt (Compete failure in current role/lightweight) Javid (Doesnt know the differenence between an Australian jolly and doing everything we can) May (The silent one)
Christ both main parties have a lack of talent!!
Don't misunderestimate Matt Hancock, my 80/1 tip for next Tory leader.
I thought your tip was Javeed?
I back them long and trade out.
Javid has to be the biggest disappointment since The Phantom Menace
He fell in to bad company and killed his potential.
Yesterday's man.
He'd be great simply for the meltdown it would cause on the left if the Tories elected as leader a non white Muslim.
I suspect the meltdown in Port Talbot will put paid to that.
he has had a bad run:
- spineless in EUref - buried his head in sand before steel crisis - bonus arrangements while a banker - jolly to Oz
Makes me laugh when PB Tories think there is a wealth of talent to replace Dave and then list
Gove (Toxic) Morgan (Lightweight) BoJo (joke candidate) Master Strategist (Toxic) Hunt (Compete failure in current role/lightweight) Javid (Doesnt know the differenence between an Australian jolly and doing everything we can) May (The silent one)
Christ both main parties have a lack of talent!!
Don't misunderestimate Matt Hancock, my 80/1 tip for next Tory leader.
I thought your tip was Javeed?
I back them long and trade out.
Javid has to be the biggest disappointment since The Phantom Menace
Yup. I now think the next Conservative leader will be one of the ladies, but who? Theresa May is too old and too worn out for the job (she looks worse than even Hillary Clinton). One of the younger ladies then. Truss, she of the wonderful blues eyes and sardonic half-smile, has been almost as big a disappointment as Javid. Dunno, but the only one I can see with the necessary steel is Patel.
Ok, she is not perfect but she has, I think, what in previous times would have been called "bottom" and has, from a Conservative point of view, sound instincts. The next time I am passing the bookies I think I'll put a few quid on her.
Dunno about that, Mr. J.. I have been following the Sabre development for some time and it looks to be coming on very nicely. If I had serious money to invest I would be trying to get a chunk of the action.
On a side note when you say, "we should be tentatively investing in as a nation", I hope you don't mean HMG should be putting money into such projects. Not for ideological reasons but I can imagine no better way of buggering up a development project than by having civil servants meddle with it on the grounds of "protecting the taxpayers investment".
The work they've done on the air precooler is amazing, and will almost certainly have other industrial applications. But they've still got a long way to go to have a working, usable engine under the sort of conditions it is supposed to work at, yet alone a workable airframe.
But their progress so far is worthy of further investment IMO. Just as the near-perfect (ahem) chancellor has.
The UK Government is expected to confirm grant funding of £60 million for Reaction Engines to further SABRE’s development towards a ground based test engine and to investigate its applications for space access vehicles. Together with BAE Systems’ investment, this significant injection of capital will support Reaction Engines’ transition from a successful research phase into development and testing of the engine, including plans to expand its workforce of skilled engineers.
Thats the problem when you get a politician on the back foot. Of course anti semitism has to be eradicated as all racism does but when McDonnel says things like "I believe we should take the advice of the British Board of Deputies" you begin to worry that all his research is as suspect.
The board of Deputies had as their leader Granville Janner for almost a decade and to suggest he and they represented British Jews is just ignorance. There are more different types and mixes of British Jew than there have ever been. Which one exactly does The Board of Deputies represent? Janner like his father was a Zionist and it's largely thanks to him that disapproving of Israeli policies has now become classified as anti semitism.
I don't particularly want to attack him after he's just died but I can honestly say I've never encountered a more unpleasant person
I'm not a McDonnell cheer leader by any means. But I think it is good that he recognises that there is- or may be - a problem and that he is trying to address it. Let's see what action it leads to.
And the question of whom one should consult can be addressed by talking to a range of people within a community, including - for instance - some of the Labour MPs who have suffered some pretty vile abuse. Luciana Berger, for instance. A number of Labour MPs have shown admirable clarity on this: Chris Bryant comes to mind.
I suspect the meltdown in Port Talbot will put paid to that.
he has had a bad run:
- spineless in EUref - buried his head in sand before steel crisis - bonus arrangements while a banker - jolly to Oz
can't really see him recovering from that.
None of those actually matter in reality ('spineless' means he's taken a pragmatic view on the risks, not clear what he could have done on steel, bankers who are any good get bonuses, unclear why he shouldn't go to Oz), although I agree some will hold those against him.
What does matter IMO is that he hasn't actually been very good at BIS. Where's the deregulation he's supposed to be leading across all areas of government? The fact that he doesn't seem to have achieved anything at all suggests he's not capable of driving change through in the face of bureaucratic inertia. Therefore, not a good candidate for leader.
Has this been posted here yet? Looks like the LD to Tory switchers who helped the Conservatives win in May are starting to switch back. Tory complacency and head-banging is going to lose the next election for them at this rate.
March 2016 Westminster VI poll from BMG Research (Online Fieldwork 24-29 March 2016):
36% (-2) – Conservatives 31% (+1) – Labour 7% (+2) – Liberal Democrats 16% (nc) – UKIP 5% (nc) – Green 7% (nc) – All other
I really don't care about a politician's education. All it tells you is about the decisions his/her parents made and I don't criticise any parent for trying to do the best for their children. All I care about is that the politician is educated - in the widest sense - and shows some signs of intelligent life, judgment and common-sense. This is rarer than one might suppose, even among the apparently highly educated.
I meet lots of very educated people in the City. And some of them are the stupidest people I've encountered.
Politics seems to me to be a bit like that.
I'm sure you're right about education being primarily parents' choice and I've never taken the "Eton boys" line. The only thing is that I think that as one grows up, one needs if one's interested in politics (maybe even if one isn't) to think about what kinds of life one hasn't experienced at all, and either do something to experience them or at least acknowledge that there's a gap. Nobody can experience everything, after all. My dad went to Winchester, but then spent a year lodging in the East End (iron bath under the kitchen table used once a week), helping to run a boys' club: he felt it was a helpful way of understanding life beyond what he'd been used to. "You used to speak funny when you came but you sound more normal now," one of the kids said.
I think Cameron makes a passable shot at that - he doesn't give the impression of being uninterested in what it's like to be educated in a Liverpool comp, and he doesn't pretend to know it all personally. Gove is bright enough to deal with everyone at an intellectual level, and doesn't give a snobbish impression, just rather an abstract one. Osborne gives the impression of cruising serenely in his comfort zone. Boris is so much about Boris that I don't think it matters where he was educated - I doubt if he's very interested in anyone else regardless of their background.
**If we're going to go in for this sort of thing - I am a teacher, my late mother was a teacher for 40 years, my sister is a school governor, two of my cousins are teachers, my grandmother was a teacher, my great-grandfather and great-grandmother were teachers, and my great-great-grandfather ran a public house, a location to which teachers invariably repair to drown their sorrows at the end of a working week.
Your credentials speak for themselves. But you were not subject to the (typically) sneering question from Matt.
Comments
It has nothing to do with BrExit and everything to do with her being a lightweight, replacing an exceptional, although disliked by teachers, education secretary. I and others have been criticizing her on this basis since Gove left if you look back in the archives, the fact that you think it's all about BrExit says more about you than us.
http://labourlist.org/2016/04/mcdonnell-we-cant-allow-anti-semitism-too-infect-the-labour-party/
Can't see it somehow.
Re N Morgan and others: doesn't it all show that after Cameron, there is not really that much talent within the Tory party - at least not of the type that is leadership material?
Given that Corbyn is likely to stay and Cameron will go, the Tories are being far too complacent in assuming that whoever replaces Cameron will obviously be - and be seen by the voters as being - a better leader/PM than Corbyn.
The pluses and minuses of possible Tory leaders by comparison with Corbyn would make an interesting thread header.
https://tfl.gov.uk/tube/timetable/central?FromId=940GZZLULVT&ToId=940GZZLUGTH&btnGo=Go&SelectedDate=mondayfriday&SelectedTime=24&direction=
Gove (Toxic)
Morgan (Lightweight)
BoJo (joke candidate)
Master Strategist (Toxic)
Hunt (Compete failure in current role/lightweight)
Javid (Doesnt know the differenence between an Australian jolly and doing everything we can)
May (The silent one)
Christ both main parties have a lack of talent!!
There may be a new golden age of space travel yet but not for quite a long time, I fear.
It really isn't, I struggled to think of any Tory here who's said anything positive about her ever.
In general some seem to be rediscovering their Irishness (& implicitly their European-ness).
'Rush for Irish passports brought on by Brexit fears'
http://tinyurl.com/gps5hyh
#Priti4Leader
He looks OK
(&) @JosiasJessop might require some rose tints on his spectacles
(*) Next attempt at a barge landing is on Friday ! The previous attempt was from a geostationary launch so the probability of sticking the landing should be higher.
Brown never looked like a leader before he became PM. Nothing much changed, except he was a few degrees worse than those of us who supported him hoped.
John Smith had more of an air of competent, compassionate manager and looked set to get elected on that basis before events tragically intervened.
IDS and Howard never looked like leaders before, after or during.
John Major is an interesting example. In terms of popular perception he looked like a grey drone before becoming PM and in some ways became a bit more of a perceived leader through Iraq etc, before being seen as a failure at exerting any control over his party or leadership in the country during 5 years of drift and cones hotlines. However many people who have met him have been astonished by how charismatic he is in person, which perhaps explains his success within the party and contrasting perception failure with the wider electorate who only saw him mediated through TV and newspaper criticism.
It's just that we (meaning the west) have invested more in unmanned technology over manned. This makes sense as there is rather a lot of money in satellites. And as the Mars Rovers, Cassini, Juno, Rosetta, New Horizons etc show, it is as much 'space exploration' as manned flight.
We have probably learnt more about the solar system from a couple of these probes than we have from all manned space flight.
(Note that this is not to say I'm against manned space flight. Just that unmanned space flight is still exploration).
Leave's messages are consistently stronger than Remain's.
James Morris
Exhibit 3: https://t.co/LYc9C0GJBd
Exhibit 2: https://t.co/cOvcVHTY4N
Lots of scary data for Remain in our poll for the Fabians. Exhibit 1: https://t.co/BaXqQhDZ4n
Meanwhile, the Dutch are expected to give the EU a kicking later this week.
The rest of your post is fair enough.
I agree Gove puts off a lot of people but he's not a unilateralist who can't be trusted with Defence, nor is he a socialist.
Remain saying that EU Directive EC553/42/4R55 will on balance be better for our apple growers doesn't quite swing it.
Leadership at this level is about bringing out the best in others in your team and inspiring confidence in the voters. There may be plenty who can do the former but far fewer who do the latter.
I don't see the Tories as particularly over-endowed with such people. The Tories will miss Cameron when he is gone and should stop beating him up prematurely over Europe. Shooting at your own feet is never a good idea, even if you think your opponent is a dribbling fool.
You could add Philip Hollobone to that list too.
Red Box
Only fear can keep us in the EU writes @jamesdmorris this morning on new GQRR data.
https://t.co/atFcjeeS2t https://t.co/GOZqh27zfl
I would argue that they share a lot when it comes to charisma and reach beyond their base. He inspires much the same feelings as Corbyn.
I certainly wouldn't trust Gove with key services.
I don;t like referencing this paper but it does quote the latest opinion poll, showing a rejection of the Ukraine deal by a huge 66/25.
They're uber competitive on Satellite launches, and design their own engines. One thing their main competitor, ULA doesn't - instead relying on Russian engines (Cough sanctions cough). If the sanctions were properly applied, SpaceX would be pretty much the ONLY game in town for satellite launches in the USA I think.
If SpaceX and others managed to cut the cost of spaceflight significantly then there are few reasons why the Moon or Mars should not be regularly visited from orbital station(s). From memory, the magic figure is 1/10th of the 1980s cost per pound lifted to low earth orbit.
That would be inspirational. Bigelow are also doing interesting things with their inflatable habitats.
I read last year that a problem with unmanned space probes is getting the scientists who can manipulate and understand the resultant science: there are so many projects (including things like Hubble) that good guys and gals can be stretched rather thin, especially in specialisms.
Imo NASA has done quite amazing things with the budget it has, most obviously with unmanned vehicles. And on the manned side we have the ISS. The problem is that the next obvious big goal for manned flight is getting to Mars and, without an Apolloesque cash splurge, that is so long-term a project that there will be no big political pay-off within currently serving politicians' lifetimes.
But yes, SpaceX is exciting, with its promise of greatly lowering the cost of putting a payload in orbit.
One thing I wonder is whether we will accept the (perhaps inevitable) fatal accidents that will occur while we are in the process of upgrading manned flight from 1960s to 2000s technology. I mean, Soyuz is safe and reliable now. It wasn't in 1967 (and neither was Apollo).
If Khan wins in London despite his occasional dubious alliances and off-judgment, then Labour will assume that Corbyn's negatives won't matter that much or can be passed off as stuff from the past, as some are already doing.
Is the Tory party ruthless enough to make sure that Corbyn's negatives are not airbrushed away? As ruthless as Corbyn, McDonnell and Milne certainly are in relation to getting a grip of Labour? Goldsmith in London certainly hasn't been.
Mr. Taffys, cheers.
A really remarkable piece of work excellently delivered. The Tories got seriously lucky. Whether they will be that lucky again in the near future is open to debate but my guess would be not. Leaders chosen when a party is already in power tend to be more managerial, safer, duller and ultimately disappointing. I do not think it is a coincidence that both Blair and Cameron were selected by their parties when they were getting tired of losing.
I agree with Jonathan that he is also toxic in other ways. He gives many hostages to fortune, a bit like Roy Jenkins maybe.
"The UK government should lead on reforming the global tax system to tackle tax avoidance around the world."
That's like saying foxes should lead on reforming henhouse security.
Javid has to be the biggest disappointment since The Phantom Menace
Corbyn grew up in a seven bedroom manor house in Shropshire and got 2 E's because he wasn't.
Yesterday's man.
Soyuz's success has been near-constant iterative improvements.
On your last point, one of Cameron's strengths lately is that he has been very effective at exploiting Corbyn's weaknesses by pushing them up the news agenda with things like the "terrorist sympathisers" and "wear a proper suit" remarks. It's low politics but effective.
I meet lots of very educated people in the City. And some of them are the stupidest people I've encountered.
Politics seems to me to be a bit like that.
It seems remarkable that they could sustain iterative improvement over such a long period.
There are good investment bankers around but they are the minority - and are worth their weight in gold. The rest are mainly flannel. In another era they'd have been estate agents.
PS I will never get that lunch off Charles now.....
I was pointing out that Gove actually had a very similar education. Indeed, I think this is part of the problem. He never quite understood that what worked for him, and catapulted him from the adopted son of a fishmonger to one of the most powerful men in the country, doesn't work so well when you try to apply it across a state system that is already struggling with massive social problems and a fundamental disengagement from learning.
This is why many of his reforms have been outstandingly helpful for those schools that are really good already (let's take Gloucestershire - Pates is now doing as well as it ever has) and mind-bendingly disastrous for those that are struggling (Gloucester Academy continues to have a massive problem with violent pupils, which is actually getting worse as academy chains with weak and/or remote management structures take over). I've worked in both types (although not in those two specific examples) and seen the results for myself. Gove has visited, and as Horowitz noted, sees what he wants to see. Crucially, the NUT members tend only to teach in the latter, which goes a long way towards explaining their hatred of him.
On a side note when you say, "we should be tentatively investing in as a nation", I hope you don't mean HMG should be putting money into such projects. Not for ideological reasons but I can imagine no better way of buggering up a development project than by having civil servants meddle with it on the grounds of "protecting the taxpayers investment".
The party should be about aspiration and helping everyone achieve the best.
UK Elections
Should Britain remain a member of or leave the European Union?
Remain: 41%
Leave: 59%
Source: UK Elections
"EU referendum: Migrant job data to be published"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35958689
If it turns out that there are several hundred thousand more EU nationals here than the government has previously claimed, it ought to shift a few votes. And make May look a less likely Tory leadership candidate.
I have not heard him speak other than on TV where he has always seemed underwhelming. I don't think politicians help themselves by touting themselves or letting others do it as the next best thing. Look at Liz Kendall, for instance. Maybe a few years actually doing the job and showing rather than telling would be more effective?
Still, if you've seen him speak and like him I bow to your greater knowledge.
*The content for History is much broader, and much better formulated, which is good. I will enjoy teaching it. It should also end the farcical situation where so-called 'history' graduates from many universities will not have studied anything from before 1890 since the Christmas of Year 9. Alas, the exams are currently pitched at about the level of current KS2 exams. For RE, there is again little discernable difference except where we used to choose about 80% of what was on offer, now we have to do all of it. Not terribly helpful in a subject where you seldom have more than 1-2 lessons a week.
**If we're going to go in for this sort of thing - I am a teacher, my late mother was a teacher for 40 years, my sister is a school governor, two of my cousins are teachers, my grandmother was a teacher, my great-grandfather and great-grandmother were teachers, and my great-great-grandfather ran a public house, a location to which teachers invariably repair to drown their sorrows at the end of a working week.
The board of Deputies had as their leader Granville Janner for almost a decade and to suggest he and they represented British Jews is just ignorance. There are more different types and mixes of British Jew than there have ever been. Which one exactly does The Board of Deputies represent? Janner like his father was a Zionist and it's largely thanks to him that disapproving of Israeli policies has now become classified as anti semitism.
I don't particularly want to attack him after he's just died but I can honestly say I've never encountered a more unpleasant person
Trump 38 .. Cruz 31 .. Kasich 19
Clinton 45 .. Sanders 44
Clinton 47 .. Trump 35
Clinton 44 .. Cruz 39
Clinton 38 .. Kasich 45
Sanders 53 .. Trump 36
Sanders 50 .. Cruz 38
Sanders 45 .. Kasich 42
http://www.investors.com/politics/trump-support-fades-as-mistakes-grow-sanders-clinton-tied-ibdtipp-poll/
The company reckons they've cracked it, but its some challenge.
he has had a bad run:
- spineless in EUref
- buried his head in sand before steel crisis
- bonus arrangements while a banker
- jolly to Oz
can't really see him recovering from that.
Ok, she is not perfect but she has, I think, what in previous times would have been called "bottom" and has, from a Conservative point of view, sound instincts. The next time I am passing the bookies I think I'll put a few quid on her.
But their progress so far is worthy of further investment IMO. Just as the near-perfect (ahem) chancellor has.
And the question of whom one should consult can be addressed by talking to a range of people within a community, including - for instance - some of the Labour MPs who have suffered some pretty vile abuse. Luciana Berger, for instance. A number of Labour MPs have shown admirable clarity on this: Chris Bryant comes to mind.
What does matter IMO is that he hasn't actually been very good at BIS. Where's the deregulation he's supposed to be leading across all areas of government? The fact that he doesn't seem to have achieved anything at all suggests he's not capable of driving change through in the face of bureaucratic inertia. Therefore, not a good candidate for leader.
March 2016 Westminster VI poll from BMG Research (Online Fieldwork 24-29 March 2016):
36% (-2) – Conservatives
31% (+1) – Labour
7% (+2) – Liberal Democrats
16% (nc) – UKIP
5% (nc) – Green
7% (nc) – All other
http://www.bmgresearch.co.uk/bmg-poll-westminster-voting-intention-results-for-march/
I think Cameron makes a passable shot at that - he doesn't give the impression of being uninterested in what it's like to be educated in a Liverpool comp, and he doesn't pretend to know it all personally. Gove is bright enough to deal with everyone at an intellectual level, and doesn't give a snobbish impression, just rather an abstract one. Osborne gives the impression of cruising serenely in his comfort zone. Boris is so much about Boris that I don't think it matters where he was educated - I doubt if he's very interested in anyone else regardless of their background.