Sorry, but that Labour Uncut article is completely off the mark when it says "supporting Brexit" would be a black mark against any leadership candidates.
In case we've forgotten, Corbyn originally won the leadership in 2015 when he was saying he might well back a Leave vote.
Then he was easily re-elected last year when he said Labour should accept Brexit, against a candidate who made a LibDem-esque "let's have a second referendum" the centre of his pitch.
Most Labour members voted to Remain, but they really don't feel that strongly about it, and would rather the party considers other issues (especially economic ones) as red lines rather than Brexit, in my experience.
Brexit is the economy. For the next ten years or so.
Yes n no. We are all thinking that by 2030 or so it will become clear whether brexit was good or bad. This ignores the importance of events, dear boy, events - or putting it another way, of the fact that shit happens. It feels as if it is odds on that between now and 2030 we are due for shit at least as cataclysmic as 9/11 plus 2008, and the question will be for ever unanswered, except as a thought experiment - would brexit have caused the UK to prosper if it were not for the great collapsing hrung disaster of 2023?
But if someone were to come up with a well thought through plan for a federal UK, I'd be supportive (even, probably to @Morris_Dancer 's disgust) supporting the re-creation of Wessex, Mercia, London, East Anglia and Northumbria as states.
That's the only way it would be viable, I think.
Why do people have this idiotic need to create these artificial entities. If they can't shove disparate separate countries together to form federations they are trying to break up countries, and divide people all in the name of forming federations in reverse. It is lunacy.
Federalism works. That's why most of the Anglosphere does it.
Federations of like-minded states from people who spoke the same language and had largely the same culture yes. Not artificial federations of disparate peoples who speak dozens of different languages.
Sorry, but that Labour Uncut article is completely off the mark when it says "supporting Brexit" would be a black mark against any leadership candidates.
In case we've forgotten, Corbyn originally won the leadership in 2015 when he was saying he might well back a Leave vote.
Then he was easily re-elected last year when he said Labour should accept Brexit, against a candidate who made a LibDem-esque "let's have a second referendum" the centre of his pitch.
Most Labour members voted to Remain, but they really don't feel that strongly about it, and would rather the party considers other issues (especially economic ones) as red lines rather than Brexit, in my experience.
Brexit is the economy. For the next ten years or so.
Yes n no. We are all thinking that by 2030 or so it will become clear whether brexit was good or bad. This ignores the importance of events, dear boy, events - or putting it another way, of the fact that shit happens. It feels as if it is odds on that between now and 2030 we are due for shit at least as cataclysmic as 9/11 plus 2008, and the question will be for ever unanswered, except as a thought experiment - would brexit have caused the UK to prosper if it were not for the great collapsing hrung disaster of 2023?
Which will in turn be blamed on Brexit as a get out of jail card by the government of the time.
Molly Meacher is so full of it. "They say they’ve always lived here, they felt this was their home and suddenly they feel embarrassed about their accent." Yes dear. So why didn't they apply for citizenship then? Form too hard to fill in? The British state's concern here should be British people in EU27. EU27 citizens' interests should be looked after by EU27. These people are not refugees.
Sorry, but that Labour Uncut article is completely off the mark when it says "supporting Brexit" would be a black mark against any leadership candidates.
In case we've forgotten, Corbyn originally won the leadership in 2015 when he was saying he might well back a Leave vote.
Then he was easily re-elected last year when he said Labour should accept Brexit, against a candidate who made a LibDem-esque "let's have a second referendum" the centre of his pitch.
Most Labour members voted to Remain, but they really don't feel that strongly about it, and would rather the party considers other issues (especially economic ones) as red lines rather than Brexit, in my experience.
Brexit is the economy. For the next ten years or so.
Talking of decades, it is now possible, indeed very probable (barring terror attack, terminal cirrhosis, weird end of western civilisation), that I will do ten years in a row where I earn more than the prime minister in every one of those years. Just from writing.
For a writer that's meant to be impossible apart from the top 0.00000001%. So I must be in that 0.0000001%.
Odd feeling.
I can only bang on in this revolting boastful way because almost none of you know me so it doesn't matter if you hate me. I also realise that I might, nonetheless, be trying your patience just a tad, so I will now shut the F up and go and order some more ludicrously overpriced wine that I don't need.
Chin Chin.
Well done! You've earned every penny. I've read 'The Ice Twins' and at times I felt so ill with fear that I didn't want to continue - especially the bit where the little girl comes round to play.
The difficulty for Kier is he is not a woman. I detect a definite feeling that next time it must be a woman.
a leader is a concoction of things, and needs the right window to be the coming person. If the woman is an Eagle sister, that won't help. Kier has it all. Let's hope Abbott gets it instead.
O/T This will surely bring in tens of thousands to Tory Party coffers. This afternoon's e-mail/spam from party HQ:
Dear John,
It has now been a week since Trudy Harrison was elected in Copeland: THE FIRST VICTORY OF ITS KIND SINCE 1878 We have created a new, limited edition mug to commemorate the people of Copeland having their first Conservative MP since 1935.
It may become a collector's edition in 2187 though.
But if someone were to come up with a well thought through plan for a federal UK, I'd be supportive (even, probably to @Morris_Dancer 's disgust) supporting the re-creation of Wessex, Mercia, London, East Anglia and Northumbria as states.
That's the only way it would be viable, I think.
Why do people have this idiotic need to create these artificial entities. If they can't shove disparate separate countries together to form federations they are trying to break up countries, and divide people all in the name of forming federations in reverse. It is lunacy.
Not really artificial - archaic I'd accept
But basically it is saying London, the Home Counties and the North are different. And then there's the bit in the middle that's not the north or the south. And Norfolk. Norfolk's different.
Money given to opposition parties - so, for example, the SNP get it in Westminster, but not Holyrood, the Conservatives vice versa.
The Scottish Greens get it, by some warped definition of "opposition" by which they count as "opposed" to an SNP government that relies on Green support to stay in office.
Vulgar boasting alert: just got offer for a new book deal which involved the word "million".
To be fair, a fraction thereof, but a hefty fraction.
I LOVE offers that include the word "million"
At the cost of what fraction of your soul?
Zero. I have no soul left. I sold out to Mammon years ago. It's very liberating. I used to worry about prizes and reviews and all that posterity shit. Now I don't give a picayune fucklet.
All that matters is lots of readers and LOTS of lovely moolah.
Well done.
Disappointing that you've given up on franking your bad sex award form, mind.
Money given to opposition parties - so, for example, the SNP get it in Westminster, but not Holyrood, the Conservatives vice versa.
The Scottish Greens get it, by some warped definition of "opposition" by which they count as "opposed" to an SNP government that relies on Green support to stay in office.
It's an SNP minority government without any Green ministers. If it was an SNP-Green coalition then they wouldn't just as the Lib Dems didn't.
Actually google tells me that she is actually saying that Brexit will lead to Scots Indy rather than she supports that outcome. Might be persuadable though!
Which is why there is a serious risk of the next referendum going for independence. Not that the case for it has improved - the opposite actually - but because there will be very few people arguing for the Union. The Conservatives will, but they only make up a quarter of the electorate even with their recent surge.
As someone who supports both unions for essentially the same reason, it sucks.
Indeed they do. But that's only a part of the story. I have no doubt at all the SNP will call another referendum sooner rather than later, regardless of the state of the polls. Their raison d'etre is independence for Scotland and they will always push for it. Tactically the leadership can say, we'll get a better result later so bide our time. They can only get away with that for a limited period before the pressure from their supporters for another referendum becomes too strong. The other thing is that Brexit is the material event that changes everything. If she sees a shadow of an opportunity there, Nicola Sturgeon won't want to be the one who lets it pass by.
So a IndyRef2 just after formal Brexit in 2019 is likely. The Brexit situation is likely to be very mediocre. What is certain is the Tories as the Brexit party will be blamed in Scotland for any downsides, which the people of Scotland mainly didn't vote for.
Now to the Indyref2 campaign. On one side you have enthusiastic nationalists; on the other Conservatives who only make up 25% of the vote and don't have any credibility anyway, because of Brexit. Labour and the "establishment" who ran the campaign the first time round will be out of the picture.
With three referendums in barely a half decade, it will go one of two ways with the public: (1) Just get on with it and become independent; (2) Enough! I think it really could go either way.
But if someone were to come up with a well thought through plan for a federal UK, I'd be supportive (even, probably to @Morris_Dancer 's disgust) supporting the re-creation of Wessex, Mercia, London, East Anglia and Northumbria as states.
That's the only way it would be viable, I think.
Why do people have this idiotic need to create these artificial entities. If they can't shove disparate separate countries together to form federations they are trying to break up countries, and divide people all in the name of forming federations in reverse. It is lunacy.
Not really artificial - archaic I'd accept
But basically it is saying London, the Home Counties and the North are different. And then there's the bit in the middle that's not the north or the south. And Norfolk. Norfolk's different.
It's the fingers on the hands!
No, it's the webs *between* the fingers on the hands.
Vulgar boasting alert: just got offer for a new book deal which involved the word "million".
To be fair, a fraction thereof, but a hefty fraction.
I LOVE offers that include the word "million"
At the cost of what fraction of your soul?
Zero. I have no soul left. I sold out to Mammon years ago. It's very liberating. I used to worry about prizes and reviews and all that posterity shit. Now I don't give a picayune fucklet.
All that matters is lots of readers and LOTS of lovely moolah.
On the subject of 'literature': I was reflecting last night that Julia Donaldson is a genius. She has a good claim to be our greatest living poet. Due to having a ridiculous number of young children, there must be at least 15 of her books that I have read, out loud, over 100 times, and still find them fun. That's more than just popular. Peppa Pig is popular (and justifiably so) but try reading it out loud and see how you find it. You need to do more than just tell a story to write stories that can be read, and read, and read again. You need to be able to make the language sing. And she can do it all in a way that three-year-olds can understand. No Booker Prize winner, no poet laureate, has a better mastery of the language.
Vulgar boasting alert: just got offer for a new book deal which involved the word "million".
To be fair, a fraction thereof, but a hefty fraction.
I LOVE offers that include the word "million"
At the cost of what fraction of your soul?
Zero. I have no soul left. I sold out to Mammon years ago. It's very liberating. I used to worry about prizes and reviews and all that posterity shit. Now I don't give a picayune fucklet.
All that matters is lots of readers and LOTS of lovely moolah.
On the subject of 'literature': I was reflecting last night that Julia Donaldson is a genius. She has a good claim to be our greatest living poet. Due to having a ridiculous number of young children, there must be at least 15 of her books that I have read, out loud, over 100 times, and still find them fun. That's more than just popular. Peppa Pig is popular (and justifiably so) but try reading it out loud and see how you find it. You need to do more than just tell a story to write stories that can be read, and read, and read again. You need to be able to make the language sing. And she can do it all in a way that three-year-olds can understand. No Booker Prize winner, no poet laureate, has a better mastery of the language.
As a parent of two young children I completely and wholeheartedly agree.
Just like the somali asylum seekers who murdered the bradford police woman,it was said it was to dangerous for them to be sent back there before the murder but it turns out these people were taking they holidays there.
Vulgar boasting alert: just got offer for a new book deal which involved the word "million".
To be fair, a fraction thereof, but a hefty fraction.
I LOVE offers that include the word "million"
At the cost of what fraction of your soul?
Zero. I have no soul left. I sold out to Mammon years ago. It's very liberating. I used to worry about prizes and reviews and all that posterity shit. Now I don't give a picayune fucklet.
All that matters is lots of readers and LOTS of lovely moolah.
On the subject of 'literature': I was reflecting last night that Julia Donaldson is a genius. She has a good claim to be our greatest living poet. Due to having a ridiculous number of young children, there must be at least 15 of her books that I have read, out loud, over 100 times, and still find them fun. That's more than just popular. Peppa Pig is popular (and justifiably so) but try reading it out loud and see how you find it. You need to do more than just tell a story to write stories that can be read, and read, and read again. You need to be able to make the language sing. And she can do it all in a way that three-year-olds can understand. No Booker Prize winner, no poet laureate, has a better mastery of the language.
I hate "chocolate mousse for greedy goose"! (but do quite like Zog the Dragon)
Just like the somali asylum seekers who murdered the bradford police woman,it was said it was to dangerous for them to be sent back there before the murder but it turns out these people were taking they holidays there.
Vulgar boasting alert: just got offer for a new book deal which involved the word "million".
To be fair, a fraction thereof, but a hefty fraction.
I LOVE offers that include the word "million"
At the cost of what fraction of your soul?
Zero. I have no soul left. I sold out to Mammon years ago. It's very liberating. I used to worry about prizes and reviews and all that posterity shit. Now I don't give a picayune fucklet.
All that matters is lots of readers and LOTS of lovely moolah.
On the subject of 'literature': I was reflecting last night that Julia Donaldson is a genius. She has a good claim to be our greatest living poet. Due to having a ridiculous number of young children, there must be at least 15 of her books that I have read, out loud, over 100 times, and still find them fun. That's more than just popular. Peppa Pig is popular (and justifiably so) but try reading it out loud and see how you find it. You need to do more than just tell a story to write stories that can be read, and read, and read again. You need to be able to make the language sing. And she can do it all in a way that three-year-olds can understand. No Booker Prize winner, no poet laureate, has a better mastery of the language.
I hate "chocolate mousse for greedy goose"! (but do quite like Zog the Dragon)
I love Chocolate Mousse for Greedy Goose! But mainly because my two-year-old moved onto it after months and months of less edifying stuff. The stuff she writes for one- and two-year-olds is clever more for the way she engages one- and two-year-olds than the joy it brings adults - though it's still better than anything else out there for one- and two-year olds.
But I was thinking more of the stuff for two-and-a-half year olds and older. The Paper Dolls is my favourite. Almost haunting.
Germans, her aide told her, “think like Lego bricks.”
“You make decision A, B and C,” the aide explained.
“The Brits are very happy to suddenly go back and throw it all up in the air.
But the Germans would say, ‘no, no, we’ve made decision A, we’ve made decision B, so decision C can only be this, because we can’t revisit what we’ve done before.’”
Gells with my experience....'No, no, you can't do that because we've agreed X - what if we change X? Looks of horror....
I have worked closely with Germans for 31 years. This is so utterly true.
Just like the somali asylum seekers who murdered the bradford police woman,it was said it was to dangerous for them to be sent back there before the murder but it turns out these people were taking they holidays there.
Some lawyers have a lot to answer for.
To be fair, except for the female in Austria not going back to the hotel willingly, not boasting about it to her mates and pressing charges, what is the difference between this case and Ched Evans?
Vulgar boasting alert: just got offer for a new book deal which involved the word "million".
To be fair, a fraction thereof, but a hefty fraction.
I LOVE offers that include the word "million"
At the cost of what fraction of your soul?
Zero. I have no soul left. I sold out to Mammon years ago. It's very liberating. I used to worry about prizes and reviews and all that posterity shit. Now I don't give a picayune fucklet.
All that matters is lots of readers and LOTS of lovely moolah.
On the subject of 'literature': I was reflecting last night that Julia Donaldson is a genius. She has a good claim to be our greatest living poet. Due to having a ridiculous number of young children, there must be at least 15 of her books that I have read, out loud, over 100 times, and still find them fun. That's more than just popular. Peppa Pig is popular (and justifiably so) but try reading it out loud and see how you find it. You need to do more than just tell a story to write stories that can be read, and read, and read again. You need to be able to make the language sing. And she can do it all in a way that three-year-olds can understand. No Booker Prize winner, no poet laureate, has a better mastery of the language.
I hate "chocolate mousse for greedy goose"! (but do quite like Zog the Dragon)
looped the loop, did a swoop, and crashed into a tree.
Money given to opposition parties - so, for example, the SNP get it in Westminster, but not Holyrood, the Conservatives vice versa.
The idea - which I don't think anyone really argues with - is that the government of the day has a built-in advantage in the civil service which the opposition ought to be able to balance (to some extent) with professional researchers etc. You're not supposed to use it on adverts and the like, though, so it's less flexible than a straight donation or membership fees.
Chatted to a senior civil servant in a spending Department today. He's very concerned about the amount of staff time that Brexit will suck up. He's already lost a number of people from his team.
There's no slack in the system following the post-2010 redundancies and so little business as usual will get done over the next few years.
Germans, her aide told her, “think like Lego bricks.”
“You make decision A, B and C,” the aide explained.
“The Brits are very happy to suddenly go back and throw it all up in the air.
But the Germans would say, ‘no, no, we’ve made decision A, we’ve made decision B, so decision C can only be this, because we can’t revisit what we’ve done before.’”
Gells with my experience....'No, no, you can't do that because we've agreed X - what if we change X? Looks of horror....
I have worked closely with Germans for 31 years. This is so utterly true.
"But, we've already decided..."
Yes, I agree. I'm not sure most British executives are that different, though - the "seat of the pants" gifted amateur type is much rarer than used to be the case, and management by procedure is - sometimes annoyingly - dominant. British politicians tend to be much less systematic, though, and much more given to pursuing their instincts and trying to make the facts fit the ideas.
The difficulty for Kier is he is not a woman. I detect a definite feeling that next time it must be a woman.
It is almost starting to seem like, with the British public, any successful politician HAS to be a woman. God only knows why it is, though. Maybe it's just that people are so thoroughly fed up with the old "typical politicians" that just a different gender on its own seems like a breath of fresh air (even though May and Sturgeon have been involved in "politics as usual" since the last century). Or maybe it's that, in these uncertain times, people quite like the idea of having a sensible Mummy figure at the helm to protect us from the big bad world.
Actually google tells me that she is actually saying that Brexit will lead to Scots Indy rather than she supports that outcome. Might be persuadable though!
Which is why there is a serious risk of the next referendum going for independence. Not that the case for it has improved - the opposite actually - but because there will be very few people arguing for the Union. The Conservatives will, but they only make up a quarter of the electorate even with their recent surge.
It's my big worry too. Polls say it won't go that way at present, but it was still uncomfortably close even at 55-45 last time, and union supporters seem less enthused than before in some quarters, and it will only take a few percent more to switch, and few percent to not turn out, for them to win.
The difficulty for Kier is he is not a woman. I detect a definite feeling that next time it must be a woman.
It is almost starting to seem like, with the British public, any successful politician HAS to be a woman. God only knows why it is, though. Maybe it's just that people are so thoroughly fed up with the old "typical politicians" that just a different gender on its own seems like a breath of fresh air (even though May and Sturgeon have been involved in "politics as usual" since the last century). Or maybe it's that, in these uncertain times, people quite like the idea of having a sensible Mummy figure at the helm to protect us from the big bad world.
Germans, her aide told her, “think like Lego bricks.”
“You make decision A, B and C,” the aide explained.
“The Brits are very happy to suddenly go back and throw it all up in the air.
But the Germans would say, ‘no, no, we’ve made decision A, we’ve made decision B, so decision C can only be this, because we can’t revisit what we’ve done before.’”
Gells with my experience....'No, no, you can't do that because we've agreed X - what if we change X? Looks of horror....
I have worked closely with Germans for 31 years. This is so utterly true.
"But, we've already decided..."
In general the strength of someone like Merkel is being able to combine the consequential decision making process with a clear vision of the end goal.
'I know decision C should this, so therefore decision B would have to be this or this, and therefore decision A can only be this, this or this.' Then chose the most appealing of the options that doesn't close off your desired end point.
Sorry, but that Labour Uncut article is completely off the mark when it says "supporting Brexit" would be a black mark against any leadership candidates.
In case we've forgotten, Corbyn originally won the leadership in 2015 when he was saying he might well back a Leave vote.
Then he was easily re-elected last year when he said Labour should accept Brexit, against a candidate who made a LibDem-esque "let's have a second referendum" the centre of his pitch.
Most Labour members voted to Remain, but they really don't feel that strongly about it, and would rather the party considers other issues (especially economic ones) as red lines rather than Brexit, in my experience.
Brexit is the economy. For the next ten years or so.
Talking of decades, it is now possible, indeed very probable (barring terror attack, terminal cirrhosis, weird end of western civilisation), that I will do ten years in a row where I earn more than the prime minister in every one of those years. Just from writing.
For a writer that's meant to be impossible apart from the top 0.00000001%. So I must be in that 0.0000001%.
Odd feeling.
I can only bang on in this revolting boastful way because almost none of you know me so it doesn't matter if you hate me. I also realise that I might, nonetheless, be trying your patience just a tad, so I will now shut the F up and go and order some more ludicrously overpriced wine that I don't need.
Chin Chin.
Heh. Some of us remember when you started posting on PB as a struggling writer, years ago. I think we tend rather to look at you with affection, one of our own made good.
Good luck to you; hope the next decade goes as well as this one.
The next won't be as good, it is literally impossible. But I'm cool with that; all things must pass. I'm still on the roller coaster and will enjoy it to the end of the ride, then look back on it fondly (hopefully from my villa near Siena etc etc)
Anyway I really must go now. Champagne to buy. Different people to annoy.
Ave atque vale
Happy for you. Really. I know you keep going on about the money but I'm guessing that's only motivating you up to a point. It's the sense of success, the recognition and the opportunities you derive from it.
Chatted to a senior civil servant in a spending Department today. He's very concerned about the amount of staff time that Brexit will suck up. He's already lost a number of people from his team.
There's no slack in the system following the post-2010 redundancies and so little business as usual will get done over the next few years.
Having been a civil servant, I might suggest that we all may be better off and better governed the less they do at the senior (FDA) level.
Money given to opposition parties - so, for example, the SNP get it in Westminster, but not Holyrood, the Conservatives vice versa.
The idea - which I don't think anyone really argues with - is that the government of the day has a built-in advantage in the civil service which the opposition ought to be able to balance (to some extent) with professional researchers etc. You're not supposed to use it on adverts and the like, though, so it's less flexible than a straight donation or membership fees.
Though if you use all your short money on professional researchers etc then you can use all your donations on advertising etc
Germans, her aide told her, “think like Lego bricks.”
“You make decision A, B and C,” the aide explained.
“The Brits are very happy to suddenly go back and throw it all up in the air.
But the Germans would say, ‘no, no, we’ve made decision A, we’ve made decision B, so decision C can only be this, because we can’t revisit what we’ve done before.’”
Gells with my experience....'No, no, you can't do that because we've agreed X - what if we change X? Looks of horror....
I have worked closely with Germans for 31 years. This is so utterly true.
"But, we've already decided..."
Yes, I agree. I'm not sure most British executives are that different, though - the "seat of the pants" gifted amateur type is much rarer than used to be the case, and management by procedure is - sometimes annoyingly - dominant. British politicians tend to be much less systematic, though, and much more given to pursuing their instincts and trying to make the facts fit the ideas.
I would say Brits tend to the transactional - what's the deal? Which gives us a degree of flexibility but makes us less rigorous in thinking things through and working out the consequences. As we'll discover with Brexit.
Chatted to a senior civil servant in a spending Department today. He's very concerned about the amount of staff time that Brexit will suck up. He's already lost a number of people from his team.
There's no slack in the system following the post-2010 redundancies and so little business as usual will get done over the next few years.
Having been a civil servant, I might suggest that we all may be better off and better governed the less they do at the senior (FDA) level.
Brexit is taking away middle ranking civil servants so more will have to be done at senior level, at greater cost and lesser effectiveness.
Chatted to a senior civil servant in a spending Department today. He's very concerned about the amount of staff time that Brexit will suck up. He's already lost a number of people from his team.
There's no slack in the system following the post-2010 redundancies and so little business as usual will get done over the next few years.
Having been a civil servant, I might suggest that we all may be better off and better governed the less they do at the senior (FDA) level.
Brexit is taking away middle ranking civil servants so more will have to be done at senior level, at greater cost and lesser effectiveness.
You might want to reflect on the implications of that for a few minutes.
Chatted to a senior civil servant in a spending Department today. He's very concerned about the amount of staff time that Brexit will suck up. He's already lost a number of people from his team.
There's no slack in the system following the post-2010 redundancies and so little business as usual will get done over the next few years.
Having been a civil servant, I might suggest that we all may be better off and better governed the less they do at the senior (FDA) level.
Brexit is taking away middle ranking civil servants so more will have to be done at senior level, at greater cost and lesser effectiveness.
You might want to reflect on the implications of that for a few minutes.
I have. And the implications aren't good for the industry the Department supports.
Money given to opposition parties - so, for example, the SNP get it in Westminster, but not Holyrood, the Conservatives vice versa.
The idea - which I don't think anyone really argues with - is that the government of the day has a built-in advantage in the civil service which the opposition ought to be able to balance (to some extent) with professional researchers etc. You're not supposed to use it on adverts and the like, though, so it's less flexible than a straight donation or membership fees.
I would prefer the German answer where money is paid to research foundations linked to political parties - Konrad Adenauer ( CDU), Friedrich Ebert (SPD), and Friedrich Naumann (FDP).
Sorry, but that Labour Uncut article is completely off the mark when it says "supporting Brexit" would be a black mark against any leadership candidates.
In case we've forgotten, Corbyn originally won the leadership in 2015 when he was saying he might well back a Leave vote.
Then he was easily re-elected last year when he said Labour should accept Brexit, against a candidate who made a LibDem-esque "let's have a second referendum" the centre of his pitch.
Most Labour members voted to Remain, but they really don't feel that strongly about it, and would rather the party considers other issues (especially economic ones) as red lines rather than Brexit, in my experience.
Brexit is the economy. For the next ten years or so.
Talking of decades, it is now possible, indeed very probable (barring terror attack, terminal cirrhosis, weird end of western civilisation), that I will do ten years in a row where I earn more than the prime minister in every one of those years. Just from writing.
For a writer that's meant to be impossible apart from the top 0.00000001%. So I must be in that 0.0000001%.
Odd feeling.
I can only bang on in this revolting boastful way because almost none of you know me so it doesn't matter if you hate me. I also realise that I might, nonetheless, be trying your patience just a tad, so I will now shut the F up and go and order some more ludicrously overpriced wine that I don't need.
Chin Chin.
Heh. Some of us remember when you started posting on PB as a struggling writer, years ago. I think we tend rather to look at you with affection, one of our own made good.
Good luck to you; hope the next decade goes as well as this one.
The next won't be as good, it is literally impossible. But I'm cool with that; all things must pass. I'm still on the roller coaster and will enjoy it to the end of the ride, then look back on it fondly (hopefully from my villa near Siena etc etc)
Anyway I really must go now. Champagne to buy. Different people to annoy.
Ave atque vale
Villa near Siena? Champagne to buy? Are you turning into a PB Labourite?
I shall await your next offering appearing on the shelves of one of my local charity shops.
Germans, her aide told her, “think like Lego bricks.”
“You make decision A, B and C,” the aide explained.
“The Brits are very happy to suddenly go back and throw it all up in the air.
But the Germans would say, ‘no, no, we’ve made decision A, we’ve made decision B, so decision C can only be this, because we can’t revisit what we’ve done before.’”
Gells with my experience....'No, no, you can't do that because we've agreed X - what if we change X? Looks of horror....
I have worked closely with Germans for 31 years. This is so utterly true.
"But, we've already decided..."
No wonder they are more productive. Endlessly revisiting decisions and debating them is a problem in British management. Of course, this wouldn't be necessary were the decision making processes better in the first place.
The difficulty for Kier is he is not a woman. I detect a definite feeling that next time it must be a woman.
That's what Atul Hatwal said in the Labour-Uncut piece linked earlier. I'm interested to hear where this feeling is showing itself. Even at the last Labour leadership election, it was looking to me as though a majority of Labour members found voting for a woman unthinkable.
The difficulty for Kier is he is not a woman. I detect a definite feeling that next time it must be a woman.
That's what Atul Hatwal said in the Labour-Uncut piece linked earlier. I'm interested to hear where this feeling is showing itself. Even at the last Labour leadership election, it was looking to me as though a majority of Labour members found voting for a woman unthinkable.
Good evening, everyone.
Not finding any of the particular women on offer good enough =/= finding voting for any woman unthinkable
Germans, her aide told her, “think like Lego bricks.”
“You make decision A, B and C,” the aide explained.
“The Brits are very happy to suddenly go back and throw it all up in the air.
But the Germans would say, ‘no, no, we’ve made decision A, we’ve made decision B, so decision C can only be this, because we can’t revisit what we’ve done before.’”
Gells with my experience....'No, no, you can't do that because we've agreed X - what if we change X? Looks of horror....
I have worked closely with Germans for 31 years. This is so utterly true.
"But, we've already decided..."
No wonder they are more productive. Endlessly revisiting decisions and debating them is a problem in British management. Of course, this wouldn't be necessary were the decision making processes better in the first place.
Might be good for general industrial productivity, but not for creativity or crisis management.
Germans, her aide told her, “think like Lego bricks.”
“You make decision A, B and C,” the aide explained.
“The Brits are very happy to suddenly go back and throw it all up in the air.
But the Germans would say, ‘no, no, we’ve made decision A, we’ve made decision B, so decision C can only be this, because we can’t revisit what we’ve done before.’”
Gells with my experience....'No, no, you can't do that because we've agreed X - what if we change X? Looks of horror....
I have worked closely with Germans for 31 years. This is so utterly true.
"But, we've already decided..."
No wonder they are more productive. Endlessly revisiting decisions and debating them is a problem in British management. Of course, this wouldn't be necessary were the decision making processes better in the first place.
Might be good for general industrial productivity, but not for creativity or crisis management.
Is it really true that the British are more willing to revisit past decisions in the light of subsequent events? We seem to treat many choices made decades ago as utterly sacrosanct.
Mr. Meeks, one never knows. Sometimes, clever people can be very stupid.
I remember hearing of one chap, very high IQ (not that that's intelligence), who broke into next door and robbed it. He was located by the ingenious method of following the trail of muddy footprints that led to his door.
The difficulty for Kier is he is not a woman. I detect a definite feeling that next time it must be a woman.
That's what Atul Hatwal said in the Labour-Uncut piece linked earlier. I'm interested to hear where this feeling is showing itself. Even at the last Labour leadership election, it was looking to me as though a majority of Labour members found voting for a woman unthinkable.
Good evening, everyone.
Not finding any of the particular women on offer good enough =/= finding voting for any woman unthinkable
No female candidate for Labour leader has ever beaten any male candidate.
The difficulty for Kier is he is not a woman. I detect a definite feeling that next time it must be a woman.
That's what Atul Hatwal said in the Labour-Uncut piece linked earlier. I'm interested to hear where this feeling is showing itself. Even at the last Labour leadership election, it was looking to me as though a majority of Labour members found voting for a woman unthinkable.
Good evening, everyone.
Not finding any of the particular women on offer good enough =/= finding voting for any woman unthinkable
No female candidate for Labour leader has ever beaten any male candidate.
But two women have been elected as Deputy Leader.
I can't really understand the thought process that Labour members would be so virulently sexist that they would refuse to have a female leader, yet somehow at the same time that sexism doesn't stop them from being happy to have a female Deputy.
The difficulty for Kier is he is not a woman. I detect a definite feeling that next time it must be a woman.
That's what Atul Hatwal said in the Labour-Uncut piece linked earlier. I'm interested to hear where this feeling is showing itself. Even at the last Labour leadership election, it was looking to me as though a majority of Labour members found voting for a woman unthinkable.
Good evening, everyone.
Not finding any of the particular women on offer good enough =/= finding voting for any woman unthinkable
I voted Yvette #1 and Burnham #2. I wouldn't vote Kendall for anything.
But this does not mean I would necessarily vote for a woman, however desirable that maybe.
The Tory party had a horrible choice: Either so Not charismatic or Very Loathsome [ who understands the world better because she is a mother ].
I would have thought the current Chancellor would have been a far superior choice.
The difficulty for Kier is he is not a woman. I detect a definite feeling that next time it must be a woman.
That's what Atul Hatwal said in the Labour-Uncut piece linked earlier. I'm interested to hear where this feeling is showing itself. Even at the last Labour leadership election, it was looking to me as though a majority of Labour members found voting for a woman unthinkable.
Good evening, everyone.
Not finding any of the particular women on offer good enough =/= finding voting for any woman unthinkable
No female candidate for Labour leader has ever beaten any male candidate.
Tory members have never elected a woman as leader.
The difficulty for Kier is he is not a woman. I detect a definite feeling that next time it must be a woman.
That's what Atul Hatwal said in the Labour-Uncut piece linked earlier. I'm interested to hear where this feeling is showing itself. Even at the last Labour leadership election, it was looking to me as though a majority of Labour members found voting for a woman unthinkable.
Good evening, everyone.
Not finding any of the particular women on offer good enough =/= finding voting for any woman unthinkable
No female candidate for Labour leader has ever beaten any male candidate.
Tory members have never elected a woman as leader.
They could have elected one of two but an arrangement was done.
The difficulty for Kier is he is not a woman. I detect a definite feeling that next time it must be a woman.
That's what Atul Hatwal said in the Labour-Uncut piece linked earlier. I'm interested to hear where this feeling is showing itself. Even at the last Labour leadership election, it was looking to me as though a majority of Labour members found voting for a woman unthinkable.
Good evening, everyone.
Not finding any of the particular women on offer good enough =/= finding voting for any woman unthinkable
No female candidate for Labour leader has ever beaten any male candidate.
Tory members have never elected a woman as leader.
Germans, her aide told her, “think like Lego bricks.”
“You make decision A, B and C,” the aide explained.
“The Brits are very happy to suddenly go back and throw it all up in the air.
But the Germans would say, ‘no, no, we’ve made decision A, we’ve made decision B, so decision C can only be this, because we can’t revisit what we’ve done before.’”
Gells with my experience....'No, no, you can't do that because we've agreed X - what if we change X? Looks of horror....
I have worked closely with Germans for 31 years. This is so utterly true.
"But, we've already decided..."
No wonder they are more productive. Endlessly revisiting decisions and debating them is a problem in British management. Of course, this wouldn't be necessary were the decision making processes better in the first place.
To be fair, they have the patience to discuss endlessly before coming to a decision. However, once it has been decided,.......................
The difficulty for Kier is he is not a woman. I detect a definite feeling that next time it must be a woman.
That's what Atul Hatwal said in the Labour-Uncut piece linked earlier. I'm interested to hear where this feeling is showing itself. Even at the last Labour leadership election, it was looking to me as though a majority of Labour members found voting for a woman unthinkable.
Good evening, everyone.
Not finding any of the particular women on offer good enough =/= finding voting for any woman unthinkable
No female candidate for Labour leader has ever beaten any male candidate.
Tory members have never elected a woman as leader.
They could have elected one of two but an arrangement was done.
Yes, the PCP is the only party to come up with an all-women shortlist.
A Juppe candidacy now would be Le Pen's ideal scenario, he would eat into Macron's vote while Le Pen would be able to appeal to some of Fillon's voters on the nationalist right
The difficulty for Kier is he is not a woman. I detect a definite feeling that next time it must be a woman.
That's what Atul Hatwal said in the Labour-Uncut piece linked earlier. I'm interested to hear where this feeling is showing itself. Even at the last Labour leadership election, it was looking to me as though a majority of Labour members found voting for a woman unthinkable.
Good evening, everyone.
Not finding any of the particular women on offer good enough =/= finding voting for any woman unthinkable
No female candidate for Labour leader has ever beaten any male candidate.
But two women have been elected as Deputy Leader.
I can't really understand the thought process that Labour members would be so virulently sexist that they would refuse to have a female leader, yet somehow at the same time that sexism doesn't stop them from being happy to have a female Deputy.
The other thing is, who exactly are the Labour women that people think were passed over for the leadership because of sexism.
Is anyone (whatever their political views) really going to argue that Labour members were sexist in 1994 because they didn't think Margaret Beckett was a more impressive politician than Tony Blair?!?!
The difficulty for Kier is he is not a woman. I detect a definite feeling that next time it must be a woman.
That's what Atul Hatwal said in the Labour-Uncut piece linked earlier. I'm interested to hear where this feeling is showing itself. Even at the last Labour leadership election, it was looking to me as though a majority of Labour members found voting for a woman unthinkable.
Good evening, everyone.
Not finding any of the particular women on offer good enough =/= finding voting for any woman unthinkable
No female candidate for Labour leader has ever beaten any male candidate.
Tory members have never elected a woman as leader.
They could have elected one of two but an arrangement was done.
Yes, the PCP is the only party to come up with an all-women shortlist.
The difficulty for Kier is he is not a woman. I detect a definite feeling that next time it must be a woman.
That's what Atul Hatwal said in the Labour-Uncut piece linked earlier. I'm interested to hear where this feeling is showing itself. Even at the last Labour leadership election, it was looking to me as though a majority of Labour members found voting for a woman unthinkable.
Good evening, everyone.
Not finding any of the particular women on offer good enough =/= finding voting for any woman unthinkable
No female candidate for Labour leader has ever beaten any male candidate.
But two women have been elected as Deputy Leader.
I can't really understand the thought process that Labour members would be so virulently sexist that they would refuse to have a female leader, yet somehow at the same time that sexism doesn't stop them from being happy to have a female Deputy.
The other thing is, who exactly are the Labour women that people think were passed over for the leadership because of sexism.
Is anyone (whatever their political views) really going to argue that Labour members were sexist in 1994 because they didn't think Margaret Beckett was a more impressive politician than Tony Blair?!?!
Sexism and racism stopped Diane Abbott winning the Labour leadership in 2010
For what it's worth, as a Labour member who voted Corbyn last year (though not originally in 2015), my choice would be Yvette Cooper in the next contest.
She's not great, but in terms of political positioning, she's just about tolerable (unlike the ridiculous hardcore Blairite stuff that Kendall/Chuka/Tristram and the like were coming out with in the aftermath of the 2015 election), and although she hardly set the world alight with her media performances as Shadow Home Secretary in the last parliament, she atleast showed she has some basic political and presentational skills.
The newbies like Lisa Nandy, Dan Jarvis, Clive Lewis, Angela Rayner et al are nowhere close to being ready for the big time. And I barely noticed this Heidi Alexander in all the time that she was (allegedly) Labour's health spokesperson.
This would be the same Yvette who got just 17% in the 2015 Labour leadership contest from the Labour membership and came not just miles behind Corbyn but was also beaten by Burnham too
I would prefer the German answer where money is paid to research foundations linked to political parties - Konrad Adenauer ( CDU), Friedrich Ebert (SPD), and Friedrich Naumann (FDP).
Yes, seems to work well. There is a bias to cnetre parties, though - I don't think either Linke or AfD institutions get tuppence. Perhaps they should.
I always liked the Swedish media balancing system. There's a tax on advertising which is ring-fenced to use in supporting media with opinions that are rarely expressed in the media - the idea is to ensure that consumers have a good choice of opinions to consider. The classic test case on the edge of being ridiculous was a Trotskyist group which sought funding on the basis that they favoured dictatorship of the proletariat and that this was a rarely-expressed view in the media. They got a modest sum.
Of course, the system will be misused by people whose ideas any of us might find hateful - Trotskyists as above, or Nazis, say - and perhaps there should need to be evidence that the idea does have a significant number of supporters to make it worth representing (so you don't get the Flat Earth Society getting a subsidy). But the general idea of ensuring diversity seems hard to argue with, and a glance at the media in most countries shows the market doesn't do it, as only media which attract a well-paying or large audience survive.
The difficulty for Kier is he is not a woman. I detect a definite feeling that next time it must be a woman.
That's what Atul Hatwal said in the Labour-Uncut piece linked earlier. I'm interested to hear where this feeling is showing itself. Even at the last Labour leadership election, it was looking to me as though a majority of Labour members found voting for a woman unthinkable.
Good evening, everyone.
Not finding any of the particular women on offer good enough =/= finding voting for any woman unthinkable
No female candidate for Labour leader has ever beaten any male candidate.
But two women have been elected as Deputy Leader.
I can't really understand the thought process that Labour members would be so virulently sexist that they would refuse to have a female leader, yet somehow at the same time that sexism doesn't stop them from being happy to have a female Deputy.
The other thing is, who exactly are the Labour women that people think were passed over for the leadership because of sexism.
Is anyone (whatever their political views) really going to argue that Labour members were sexist in 1994 because they didn't think Margaret Beckett was a more impressive politician than Tony Blair?!?!
It's trolling! Same as when people say "Farage failed 7 times to become an MP" ...it is true, but on 5 of those occasions he was 100/1 & UKIP were on less than 3% in the polls, whereas the implication is he was a big failure 7 times
Comments
....I'll get my coat.
Money given to opposition parties - so, for example, the SNP get it in Westminster, but not Holyrood, the Conservatives vice versa.
Disappointing that you've given up on franking your bad sex award form, mind.
Iraq isn't safe enough for them to be deported apparently. Let them go back I say, the more dangerous the better
https://twitter.com/mailonline/status/837313089708167169
---
Indeed they do. But that's only a part of the story. I have no doubt at all the SNP will call another referendum sooner rather than later, regardless of the state of the polls. Their raison d'etre is independence for Scotland and they will always push for it. Tactically the leadership can say, we'll get a better result later so bide our time. They can only get away with that for a limited period before the pressure from their supporters for another referendum becomes too strong. The other thing is that Brexit is the material event that changes everything. If she sees a shadow of an opportunity there, Nicola Sturgeon won't want to be the one who lets it pass by.
So a IndyRef2 just after formal Brexit in 2019 is likely. The Brexit situation is likely to be very mediocre. What is certain is the Tories as the Brexit party will be blamed in Scotland for any downsides, which the people of Scotland mainly didn't vote for.
Now to the Indyref2 campaign. On one side you have enthusiastic nationalists; on the other Conservatives who only make up 25% of the vote and don't have any credibility anyway, because of Brexit. Labour and the "establishment" who ran the campaign the first time round will be out of the picture.
With three referendums in barely a half decade, it will go one of two ways with the public: (1) Just get on with it and become independent; (2) Enough! I think it really could go either way.
I was reflecting last night that Julia Donaldson is a genius. She has a good claim to be our greatest living poet.
Due to having a ridiculous number of young children, there must be at least 15 of her books that I have read, out loud, over 100 times, and still find them fun. That's more than just popular. Peppa Pig is popular (and justifiably so) but try reading it out loud and see how you find it. You need to do more than just tell a story to write stories that can be read, and read, and read again. You need to be able to make the language sing.
And she can do it all in a way that three-year-olds can understand.
No Booker Prize winner, no poet laureate, has a better mastery of the language.
http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/thoughts-on-first-pre-season-test.html
Just like the somali asylum seekers who murdered the bradford police woman,it was said it was to dangerous for them to be sent back there before the murder but it turns out these people were taking they holidays there.
Genuine comment.
But I was thinking more of the stuff for two-and-a-half year olds and older. The Paper Dolls is my favourite. Almost haunting.
"But, we've already decided..."
There's no slack in the system following the post-2010 redundancies and so little business as usual will get done over the next few years.
She, like a lot of pro-EU unionists, had a tiny spasm after the EU vote then got straight back to mocking Independence.
«On ne peut pas diriger la France si on n'est pas irréprochable»
(roughly: To rule France, one needs to be irreproachable)
On the face of it, that does seem like a slight hostage to fortune giving the current circumstances
'I know decision C should this, so therefore decision B would have to be this or this, and therefore decision A can only be this, this or this.' Then chose the most appealing of the options that doesn't close off your desired end point.
I would say Brits tend to the transactional - what's the deal? Which gives us a degree of flexibility but makes us less rigorous in thinking things through and working out the consequences. As we'll discover with Brexit.
I wonder, is it worth staying up to see no change !
I shall await your next offering appearing on the shelves of one of my local charity shops.
https://twitter.com/AFP/status/837369723939663873
Edited extra bit: Betfair not moving, as yet. 65 for Baroin, 16 for Juppe.
So, obviously a candidate's flat being raided is bad, but it doesn't really tell us anything we didn't know yesterday.
Good evening, everyone.
https://twitter.com/fdeligne/status/836997714185502727
Mr. 565, merde.
I remember hearing of one chap, very high IQ (not that that's intelligence), who broke into next door and robbed it. He was located by the ingenious method of following the trail of muddy footprints that led to his door.
http://int.soccerway.com/players/thomas-teye-partey/250434/
I can't really understand the thought process that Labour members would be so virulently sexist that they would refuse to have a female leader, yet somehow at the same time that sexism doesn't stop them from being happy to have a female Deputy.
But this does not mean I would necessarily vote for a woman, however desirable that maybe.
The Tory party had a horrible choice: Either so Not charismatic or Very Loathsome [ who understands the world better because she is a mother ].
I would have thought the current Chancellor would have been a far superior choice.
Oh sorry, that was MP's votes
Is anyone (whatever their political views) really going to argue that Labour members were sexist in 1994 because they didn't think Margaret Beckett was a more impressive politician than Tony Blair?!?!
https://twitter.com/AFP/status/837379685579374592
I always liked the Swedish media balancing system. There's a tax on advertising which is ring-fenced to use in supporting media with opinions that are rarely expressed in the media - the idea is to ensure that consumers have a good choice of opinions to consider. The classic test case on the edge of being ridiculous was a Trotskyist group which sought funding on the basis that they favoured dictatorship of the proletariat and that this was a rarely-expressed view in the media. They got a modest sum.
Of course, the system will be misused by people whose ideas any of us might find hateful - Trotskyists as above, or Nazis, say - and perhaps there should need to be evidence that the idea does have a significant number of supporters to make it worth representing (so you don't get the Flat Earth Society getting a subsidy). But the general idea of ensuring diversity seems hard to argue with, and a glance at the media in most countries shows the market doesn't do it, as only media which attract a well-paying or large audience survive.
Still, simple things please simple minds!
It's ridiculous Fillon's seemingly going to cruise through.