Cost of redecoration of flat ~ 100k, paid for -- after a bit of fuss -- apparently by the PM. Cost to taxpayers -- zero. Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ billions.
Cost of mahossive Greensill Capital / Gupta corruption to taxpayers ~ up to 5 billion (source: Guardian). Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ at most a few hundred.
It is Filthy, Greedy Cameron who should be under the spotlight.
It is proof that most people are not actually interested in tackling serious fraud or corruption. They are only interested in using corruption as a party political stick.
Now that Cameron is no longer a front line politician -- and despite his behaviour being massively more expensive for the taxpayer -- no-one is very interested.
I think it is simple. People struggle to understand the complexity of the Greensill scandal, but do understand an extravagant woman overspending on home improvements, and a spendthrift man cadging loans off his mates. That is why #CarrieAntoinette resonates.
It’s sad that so many of the Commentariat seem to be gleefully talking up the dissolution of the country, purely as a means to get back at Johnson and Brexit.
It's really sad that the breakup of the United Kingdom is an inevitable consequence of Brexit
Actually, I think leaving the EU probably bought the Union a few more years. Support for Yes in Scotland was rising before the vote, while in the year after the referendum it actually fell somewhat. It has since resumed its gently rising trend.
Some fascinating detail in this, including the bafflingly surreal one that, while Scottish voters think the SNP Scottish Government has done badly on education, they think it has done well on immigration and defence.
Could someone please have a stern word with Scottish voters?
Maybe people give the SNP a plus on defence because they like the policies even if they don't have the powers? Which is worrying because it suggests what the SNP is good at requires independence.
That could well be the case
Have we all done our predictions on here for e Scottish elections yet? I still think SNP will fall short of a majority, but will be very tight.
I think SLAB will be in second place in the popular vote, and possibly seats. Voting SLAB is the way to kick both Sturgeon and Johnson in the arse.
I agree re Scottish Labour they have a good leader it seems, I've not followed the story but would be interested to see how he Scottish Tory vote performs...from my aging scottish relatives, spaffing 58k on kitchens plus other Toryisms (esp BJ) wont have gone down well at all, is there any indications of the SCon vote sliding..?
It’s sad that so many of the Commentariat seem to be gleefully talking up the dissolution of the country, purely as a means to get back at Johnson and Brexit.
It's really sad that the breakup of the United Kingdom is an inevitable consequence of Brexit
Actually, I think leaving the EU probably bought the Union a few more years. Support for Yes in Scotland was rising before the vote, while in the year after the referendum it actually fell somewhat. It has since resumed its gently rising trend.
Hmmm.. my feeling is that people are going to vote for Indy regardless of brexit or not. The only thing keeping the union together is finances now, not emotion or cultural identity. Ultimately that is the issue.
Cost of redecoration of flat ~ 100k, paid for -- after a bit of fuss -- apparently by the PM. Cost to taxpayers -- zero. Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ billions.
Cost of mahossive Greensill Capital / Gupta corruption to taxpayers ~ up to 5 billion (source: Guardian). Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ at most a few hundred.
It is Filthy, Greedy Cameron who should be under the spotlight.
It is proof that most people are not actually interested in tackling serious fraud or corruption. They are only interested in using corruption as a party political stick.
Now that Cameron is no longer a front line politician -- and despite his behaviour being massively more expensive for the taxpayer -- no-one is very interested.
The taxpayer have so far paid £30k for the flat, and are likely to pay £150k during this parliament for the redecoration of the flat.
There's another cost to the taxpayer which I flagged up earlier on this week and the Sunday Times have picked up on now.
Boris Johnson was given a loan by the Tory Party, it needed declaring on tax returns as a benefit in kind and there's tax implications, it appears Boris Johnson didn't declare it on his tax return in January, so....
So, can you do sums? By what factor has Cameron's behaviour cost the country over Johnson's
3 billion / (30 k) = 3 x 10^9 /3 X 10^4 = 10^5
By an enormous factor of 100,000, Cameron's behaviour has been the more costly.
It’s sad that so many of the Commentariat seem to be gleefully talking up the dissolution of the country, purely as a means to get back at Johnson and Brexit.
It's really sad that the breakup of the United Kingdom is an inevitable consequence of Brexit
Actually, I think leaving the EU probably bought the Union a few more years. Support for Yes in Scotland was rising before the vote, while in the year after the referendum it actually fell somewhat. It has since resumed its gently rising trend.
Hmmm.. my feeling is that people are going to vote for Indy regardless of brexit or not. The only thing keeping the union together is finances now, not emotion or cultural identity. Ultimately that is the issue.
So what, it was finances which helped ensure No got 55% in 2014
Cost of redecoration of flat ~ 100k, paid for -- after a bit of fuss -- apparently by the PM. Cost to taxpayers -- zero. Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ billions.
Cost of mahossive Greensill Capital / Gupta corruption to taxpayers ~ up to 5 billion (source: Guardian). Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ at most a few hundred.
It is Filthy, Greedy Cameron who should be under the spotlight.
It is proof that most people are not actually interested in tackling serious fraud or corruption. They are only interested in using corruption as a party political stick.
Now that Cameron is no longer a front line politician -- and despite his behaviour being massively more expensive for the taxpayer -- no-one is very interested.
The taxpayer have so far paid £30k for the flat, and are likely to pay £150k during this parliament for the redecoration of the flat.
There's another cost to the taxpayer which I flagged up earlier on this week and the Sunday Times have picked up on now.
Boris Johnson was given a loan by the Tory Party, it needed declaring on tax returns as a benefit in kind and there's tax implications, it appears Boris Johnson didn't declare it on his tax return in January, so....
So, can you do sums? By what factor has Cameron's behaviour cost the country over Johnson's
3 billion / (30 k) = 3 x 10^9 /3 X 10^4 = 10^5
By an enormous factor of 100,000, Cameron's behaviour has been the more costly.
Dirty, dirty Dave.
Bless, you're using Guardian figures when it comes to taxes and finances.
Next you'll be citing Carole Cadwalladr as an authority on the subject.
Some fascinating detail in this, including the bafflingly surreal one that, while Scottish voters think the SNP Scottish Government has done badly on education, they think it has done well on immigration and defence.
Could someone please have a stern word with Scottish voters?
Maybe people give the SNP a plus on defence because they like the policies even if they don't have the powers? Which is worrying because it suggests what the SNP is good at requires independence.
That could well be the case
Have we all done our predictions on here for e Scottish elections yet? I still think SNP will fall short of a majority, but will be very tight.
I think SLAB will be in second place in the popular vote, and possibly seats. Voting SLAB is the way to kick both Sturgeon and Johnson in the arse.
ScotCons are on for losing seats. Last night the Lord of Epping Forest insisted they help no seats in NE fishing towns - because their 4 MSPs here are only list members. With polls showing them losing somewhere round that number of seats, I think HYUFD's prediction is likely accurate - Tories are going to be punished up here for lying to the community.
They are only list seats, not one major fishing community in Scotland has a Conservative constituency MSP. However I think the Conservatives could gain Moray from the SNP, it was 49% Leave, has Ross as its Westminster MP and no major fishing port unlike its neighbour Banffshire and Buchan Coast
It’s sad that so many of the Commentariat seem to be gleefully talking up the dissolution of the country, purely as a means to get back at Johnson and Brexit.
It's really sad that the breakup of the United Kingdom is an inevitable consequence of Brexit
Actually, I think leaving the EU probably bought the Union a few more years. Support for Yes in Scotland was rising before the vote, while in the year after the referendum it actually fell somewhat. It has since resumed its gently rising trend.
Hmmm.. my feeling is that people are going to vote for Indy regardless of brexit or not. The only thing keeping the union together is finances now, not emotion or cultural identity. Ultimately that is the issue.
It’s sad that so many of the Commentariat seem to be gleefully talking up the dissolution of the country, purely as a means to get back at Johnson and Brexit.
It's really sad that the breakup of the United Kingdom is an inevitable consequence of Brexit
Actually, I think leaving the EU probably bought the Union a few more years. Support for Yes in Scotland was rising before the vote, while in the year after the referendum it actually fell somewhat. It has since resumed its gently rising trend.
Hmmm.. my feeling is that people are going to vote for Indy regardless of brexit or not. The only thing keeping the union together is finances now, not emotion or cultural identity. Ultimately that is the issue.
So what, it was finances which helped ensure No got 55% in 2014
What is the point of a union based solely on the principle of finances, having eroded a “British” identity over years.
If I were a Scot, I’d probably agree with the view that ultimately what England wants, it gets. (And I am a unionist).
I’ve seen little action from the conservatives to address this, and quite frankly, Johnson is not the man. He’d leave now if he valued the UK.
Cost of redecoration of flat ~ 100k, paid for -- after a bit of fuss -- apparently by the PM. Cost to taxpayers -- zero. Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ billions.
Cost of mahossive Greensill Capital / Gupta corruption to taxpayers ~ up to 5 billion (source: Guardian). Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ at most a few hundred.
It is Filthy, Greedy Cameron who should be under the spotlight.
It is proof that most people are not actually interested in tackling serious fraud or corruption. They are only interested in using corruption as a party political stick.
Now that Cameron is no longer a front line politician -- and despite his behaviour being massively more expensive for the taxpayer -- no-one is very interested.
I think it is simple. People struggle to understand the complexity of the Greensill scandal, but do understand an extravagant woman overspending on home improvements, and a spendthrift man cadging loans off his mates. That is why #CarrieAntoinette resonates.
Oh sure, that is the reason why it resonates. It is 'Parkinson's Law'.
I am bewailing Parkinson's Law.
We need a proper inquiry int Greensill/Gupta rather than Carrie's wallpaper.
It’s sad that so many of the Commentariat seem to be gleefully talking up the dissolution of the country, purely as a means to get back at Johnson and Brexit.
It's really sad that the breakup of the United Kingdom is an inevitable consequence of Brexit
Little Englanders for the win...
Wrong, if that was true Yes would be on over 60%+ to match the 62% Remain got in Scotland in 2016, instead it is under 50% and barely changed from 2014
Some fascinating detail in this, including the bafflingly surreal one that, while Scottish voters think the SNP Scottish Government has done badly on education, they think it has done well on immigration and defence.
Could someone please have a stern word with Scottish voters?
Cost of redecoration of flat ~ 100k, paid for -- after a bit of fuss -- apparently by the PM. Cost to taxpayers -- zero. Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ billions.
Cost of mahossive Greensill Capital / Gupta corruption to taxpayers ~ up to 5 billion (source: Guardian). Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ at most a few hundred.
It is Filthy, Greedy Cameron who should be under the spotlight.
It is proof that most people are not actually interested in tackling serious fraud or corruption. They are only interested in using corruption as a party political stick.
Now that Cameron is no longer a front line politician -- and despite his behaviour being massively more expensive for the taxpayer -- no-one is very interested.
The taxpayer have so far paid £30k for the flat, and are likely to pay £150k during this parliament for the redecoration of the flat.
There's another cost to the taxpayer which I flagged up earlier on this week and the Sunday Times have picked up on now.
Boris Johnson was given a loan by the Tory Party, it needed declaring on tax returns as a benefit in kind and there's tax implications, it appears Boris Johnson didn't declare it on his tax return in January, so....
So, can you do sums? By what factor has Cameron's behaviour cost the country over Johnson's
3 billion / (30 k) = 3 x 10^9 /3 X 10^4 = 10^5
By an enormous factor of 100,000, Cameron's behaviour has been the more costly.
Dirty, dirty Dave.
Bless, you're using Guardian figures when it comes to taxes and finances.
Next you'll be citing Carole Cadwalladr as an authority on the subject.
So what. Suppose the Guardian's figure is out by a factor of ten or a hundred.
There is plenty of slack in 10^5.
It just means that Dirty Dave cost the country only a thousand times more than Carrie Antoinette. Instead of a hundred thousand times.
Cost of redecoration of flat ~ 100k, paid for -- after a bit of fuss -- apparently by the PM. Cost to taxpayers -- zero. Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ billions.
Cost of mahossive Greensill Capital / Gupta corruption to taxpayers ~ up to 5 billion (source: Guardian). Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ at most a few hundred.
It is Filthy, Greedy Cameron who should be under the spotlight.
It is proof that most people are not actually interested in tackling serious fraud or corruption. They are only interested in using corruption as a party political stick.
Now that Cameron is no longer a front line politician -- and despite his behaviour being massively more expensive for the taxpayer -- no-one is very interested.
The taxpayer have so far paid £30k for the flat, and are likely to pay £150k during this parliament for the redecoration of the flat.
There's another cost to the taxpayer which I flagged up earlier on this week and the Sunday Times have picked up on now.
Boris Johnson was given a loan by the Tory Party, it needed declaring on tax returns as a benefit in kind and there's tax implications, it appears Boris Johnson didn't declare it on his tax return in January, so....
So, can you do sums? By what factor has Cameron's behaviour cost the country over Johnson's
3 billion / (30 k) = 3 x 10^9 /3 X 10^4 = 10^5
By an enormous factor of 100,000, Cameron's behaviour has been the more costly.
Dirty, dirty Dave.
Bless, you're using Guardian figures when it comes to taxes and finances.
Next you'll be citing Carole Cadwalladr as an authority on the subject.
Cameron was a shitty PM who couldn't even win a majority against Gordon Brown for Christ's sake, but at least he got us out of the EU. So you're right to stick up for him. The £5bn that Greensill may have cost us is small compared to the £12bn/year in EU contributions that he saved us.
From reading the last thread it is clear that Boris can't afford to stay PM. He was just about financially viable before being PM when he could have other sources of income such as his Telegraph column. Without that the can't afford his lifestyle, particularly with Carrie's very high standards for interior decor.
I think there is a reasonable likelihood that Boris will step down after the country opens up again. Claim to be the PM who led the vaccine programme and start on the newly re-opened speech circuit making millions.
If he did so then the money spent on the Downing Street flat will turn out to be a collosal waste of money as I doubt it is to many others taste.
Whenever he leaves he can go back to earning the big money. But he will find it pretty difficult if not impossible to become PM again.
That is true. Retiring from Number 10 is a one-shot deal.
On the other hand, does Boris want to get bogged down in the minutiae of post-Brexit trade, Scottish independence and Northern Ireland border issues? Boris has done, or at least announced, the fun stuff already. And he had to be leant on to run for a second term as Mayor.
Boris is not old. He will turn 57 in June. But that is already older than David Cameron and Tony Blair when they retired.
I do not expect Boris to contest the 2024 election. I should not be surprised if he steps down this year.
Starmer is slightly older than Johnson. Both are likely to to be the last Boomer party leaders.
That reminds me of an old observation by Ken Livingstone, talking about MPs' salaries. For most Conservatives, it's a pay cut. For most Labour MPs, it's the most they've earned in their lives.
That was probably true when he said it. I don’t think that’s necessarily true now. Starmer, for example, must have been on better money as DPP than he was as an ordinary MP. Nick Thomas-Symonds probably earned about the same as a senior Fellow of St Edmund Hall as he does now.
Indeed and there are far more working class Tory MPs now than there have ever been and fewer Tory bankers and barristers post the 2019 general election while most Labour MPs now have professional backgrounds
It’s sad that so many of the Commentariat seem to be gleefully talking up the dissolution of the country, purely as a means to get back at Johnson and Brexit.
It's really sad that the breakup of the United Kingdom is an inevitable consequence of Brexit
Actually, I think leaving the EU probably bought the Union a few more years. Support for Yes in Scotland was rising before the vote, while in the year after the referendum it actually fell somewhat. It has since resumed its gently rising trend.
Hmmm.. my feeling is that people are going to vote for Indy regardless of brexit or not. The only thing keeping the union together is finances now, not emotion or cultural identity. Ultimately that is the issue.
It is, currently English money is spent in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, rather than in poorer English regions. There are two problems from this:
1) Because he who pays the piper calls the tune, those 3 countries resent being financially dependent on England. I think too that that this "aid" distorts economies to perpetuate dependence, much as poorly designed foreign aid does.
2) Increasingly English nationalists will resent paying the bills for people who abuse them in thanks. As austerity bites again, and the SE English taxpayer is expected to stump up the funds, I can only see that discontent getting worse.
It’s sad that so many of the Commentariat seem to be gleefully talking up the dissolution of the country, purely as a means to get back at Johnson and Brexit.
It's really sad that the breakup of the United Kingdom is an inevitable consequence of Brexit
Actually, I think leaving the EU probably bought the Union a few more years. Support for Yes in Scotland was rising before the vote, while in the year after the referendum it actually fell somewhat. It has since resumed its gently rising trend.
Hmmm.. my feeling is that people are going to vote for Indy regardless of brexit or not. The only thing keeping the union together is finances now, not emotion or cultural identity. Ultimately that is the issue.
It is, currently English money is spent in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, rather than in poorer English regions. There are two problems from this:
1) Because he who pays the piper calls the tune, those 3 countries resent being financially dependent on England. I think too that that this "aid" distorts economies to perpetuate dependence, much as poorly designed foreign aid does.
2) Increasingly English nationalists will resent paying the bills for people who abuse them in thanks. As austerity bites again, and the SE English taxpayer is expected to stump up the funds, I can only see that discontent getting worse.
Spot on - i think one of the major failures of devolution was the “English issue”.
Totally fudged, never addressed, hence we are where we are
Some fascinating detail in this, including the bafflingly surreal one that, while Scottish voters think the SNP Scottish Government has done badly on education, they think it has done well on immigration and defence.
Could someone please have a stern word with Scottish voters?
Maybe people give the SNP a plus on defence because they like the policies even if they don't have the powers? Which is worrying because it suggests what the SNP is good at requires independence.
That could well be the case
Have we all done our predictions on here for e Scottish elections yet? I still think SNP will fall short of a majority, but will be very tight.
I think SLAB will be in second place in the popular vote, and possibly seats. Voting SLAB is the way to kick both Sturgeon and Johnson in the arse.
ScotCons are on for losing seats. Last night the Lord of Epping Forest insisted they help no seats in NE fishing towns - because their 4 MSPs here are only list members. With polls showing them losing somewhere round that number of seats, I think HYUFD's prediction is likely accurate - Tories are going to be punished up here for lying to the community.
They are only list seats, not one major fishing community in Scotland has a Conservative constituency MSP. However I think the Conservatives could gain Moray from the SNP, it was 49% Leave, has Ross as its Westminster MP and no major fishing port unlike its neighbour Banffshire and Buchan Coast
If they are "only list seats" then you will be happy to lose them. You keep saying these list MSPs don't represent the fishing area. When I put my details into They Work For You it states - amazingly enough - that I have a stack of MSPs representing me including these 4 Tories:
Your MP (Member of Parliament) is David Duguid, Banff and Buchan Your constituency MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament) is Gillian Martin, Aberdeenshire East Your North East Scotland MSPs are: Peter Chapman Liam Kerr Lewis Macdonald Jenny Marra Mike Rumbles Bill Bowman Tom Mason
It’s sad that so many of the Commentariat seem to be gleefully talking up the dissolution of the country, purely as a means to get back at Johnson and Brexit.
It's really sad that the breakup of the United Kingdom is an inevitable consequence of Brexit
Actually, I think leaving the EU probably bought the Union a few more years. Support for Yes in Scotland was rising before the vote, while in the year after the referendum it actually fell somewhat. It has since resumed its gently rising trend.
Hmmm.. my feeling is that people are going to vote for Indy regardless of brexit or not. The only thing keeping the union together is finances now, not emotion or cultural identity. Ultimately that is the issue.
It’s sad that so many of the Commentariat seem to be gleefully talking up the dissolution of the country, purely as a means to get back at Johnson and Brexit.
It's really sad that the breakup of the United Kingdom is an inevitable consequence of Brexit
Actually, I think leaving the EU probably bought the Union a few more years. Support for Yes in Scotland was rising before the vote, while in the year after the referendum it actually fell somewhat. It has since resumed its gently rising trend.
Hmmm.. my feeling is that people are going to vote for Indy regardless of brexit or not. The only thing keeping the union together is finances now, not emotion or cultural identity. Ultimately that is the issue.
So what, it was finances which helped ensure No got 55% in 2014
What is the point of a union based solely on the principle of finances, having eroded a “British” identity over years.
If I were a Scot, I’d probably agree with the view that ultimately what England wants, it gets. (And I am a unionist).
I’ve seen little action from the conservatives to address this, and quite frankly, Johnson is not the man. He’d leave now if he valued the UK.
Well Boris is plastering Union Jacks all over the place but a Union based on finances is pretty important as people will lose their jobs, the economy will see slower growth and spending would have to be slashed in Scotland if it went.
It is also a myth that what England wants it always gets, indeed on the latest Survation poll Starmer would become UK PM in a hung parliament with support from the SNP and Welsh Labour MPs even despite another Tory majority in England and with no English Parliament as the Scots have either.
It would therefore be England disenfranchised, not Scotland
It is very rare that one persons taste is the same as another. A new neighbour recently ripped out a beautiful new kitchen @ circa 15k that had recently been installed about a year previously because she didn't like it, and spent probably 25k on a new one. Utter madness imho but there you go.
Always good to look for. I got a free John Lewis kitchen like that .
Cost of redecoration of flat ~ 100k, paid for -- after a bit of fuss -- apparently by the PM. Cost to taxpayers -- zero. Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ billions.
Cost of mahossive Greensill Capital / Gupta corruption to taxpayers ~ up to 5 billion (source: Guardian). Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ at most a few hundred.
It is Filthy, Greedy Cameron who should be under the spotlight.
It is proof that most people are not actually interested in tackling serious fraud or corruption. They are only interested in using corruption as a party political stick.
Now that Cameron is no longer a front line politician -- and despite his behaviour being massively more expensive for the taxpayer -- no-one is very interested.
The taxpayer have so far paid £30k for the flat, and are likely to pay £150k during this parliament for the redecoration of the flat.
There's another cost to the taxpayer which I flagged up earlier on this week and the Sunday Times have picked up on now.
Boris Johnson was given a loan by the Tory Party, it needed declaring on tax returns as a benefit in kind and there's tax implications, it appears Boris Johnson didn't declare it on his tax return in January, so....
So, can you do sums? By what factor has Cameron's behaviour cost the country over Johnson's
3 billion / (30 k) = 3 x 10^9 /3 X 10^4 = 10^5
By an enormous factor of 100,000, Cameron's behaviour has been the more costly.
Dirty, dirty Dave.
Bless, you're using Guardian figures when it comes to taxes and finances.
Next you'll be citing Carole Cadwalladr as an authority on the subject.
So what. Suppose the Guardian's figure is out by a factor of ten or a hundred.
There is plenty of slack in 10^5.
It just means that Dirty Dave cost the country only a thousand times more than Carrie Antoinette. Instead of a hundred thousand times.
Shady Dave. Crooked Cameron.
KGB Cameron? We know the Russki spies tried to recruit him.
Cost of redecoration of flat ~ 100k, paid for -- after a bit of fuss -- apparently by the PM. Cost to taxpayers -- zero. Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ billions.
Cost of mahossive Greensill Capital / Gupta corruption to taxpayers ~ up to 5 billion (source: Guardian). Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ at most a few hundred.
It is Filthy, Greedy Cameron who should be under the spotlight.
It is proof that most people are not actually interested in tackling serious fraud or corruption. They are only interested in using corruption as a party political stick.
Now that Cameron is no longer a front line politician -- and despite his behaviour being massively more expensive for the taxpayer -- no-one is very interested.
It's not the case that no one is very interested. The Greensill/Gupta/Cameron affair is being looked into by various Select Committees, the NAO, and an 'independent' (joke) inquiry set up by the PM under Nigel Boardman. There's not much to say on it until these various inquiries report, but the work is ongoing. It is obviously a much bigger scandal than redecoration, but it's also much more complex and therefore less accessible to the public. I'm sure it will be whitewashed in due course.
As 4 of these MSPs are Tory, I am represented by 4 Tory MPs. As are the rest of the 22% of Scottish food production that is the north east. In the real world these Tories are under threat having betrayed the brexit voters who wanted a boost for farming and fishing. In HYUFD world these MSPs don't exist.
Why do we bother listening to a word this fool writes about Scotland when he doesn't even know how the electoral system works or how many MSPs his own party has?
Some fascinating detail in this, including the bafflingly surreal one that, while Scottish voters think the SNP Scottish Government has done badly on education, they think it has done well on immigration and defence.
Could someone please have a stern word with Scottish voters?
Maybe people give the SNP a plus on defence because they like the policies even if they don't have the powers? Which is worrying because it suggests what the SNP is good at requires independence.
That could well be the case
Have we all done our predictions on here for e Scottish elections yet? I still think SNP will fall short of a majority, but will be very tight.
I think SLAB will be in second place in the popular vote, and possibly seats. Voting SLAB is the way to kick both Sturgeon and Johnson in the arse.
ScotCons are on for losing seats. Last night the Lord of Epping Forest insisted they help no seats in NE fishing towns - because their 4 MSPs here are only list members. With polls showing them losing somewhere round that number of seats, I think HYUFD's prediction is likely accurate - Tories are going to be punished up here for lying to the community.
They are only list seats, not one major fishing community in Scotland has a Conservative constituency MSP. However I think the Conservatives could gain Moray from the SNP, it was 49% Leave, has Ross as its Westminster MP and no major fishing port unlike its neighbour Banffshire and Buchan Coast
If they are "only list seats" then you will be happy to lose them. You keep saying these list MSPs don't represent the fishing area. When I put my details into They Work For You it states - amazingly enough - that I have a stack of MSPs representing me including these 4 Tories:
Your MP (Member of Parliament) is David Duguid, Banff and Buchan Your constituency MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament) is Gillian Martin, Aberdeenshire East Your North East Scotland MSPs are: Peter Chapman Liam Kerr Lewis Macdonald Jenny Marra Mike Rumbles Bill Bowman Tom Mason
You really are a clueless fool.
Not one represents a Holyrood fishing constituency of any significant size, every resident of Scotland has a Tory MSP on the list, Banffshire and Buchan coast which is where the largest fishing ports in Scotland are has an SNP constituency MSP, the next largest fishing ports in Shetland have a LD constituency MSP.
So yet again a completely irrelevant point from you
It’s sad that so many of the Commentariat seem to be gleefully talking up the dissolution of the country, purely as a means to get back at Johnson and Brexit.
It's really sad that the breakup of the United Kingdom is an inevitable consequence of Brexit
Actually, I think leaving the EU probably bought the Union a few more years. Support for Yes in Scotland was rising before the vote, while in the year after the referendum it actually fell somewhat. It has since resumed its gently rising trend.
Hmmm.. my feeling is that people are going to vote for Indy regardless of brexit or not. The only thing keeping the union together is finances now, not emotion or cultural identity. Ultimately that is the issue.
It is, currently English money is spent in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, rather than in poorer English regions. There are two problems from this:
1) Because he who pays the piper calls the tune, those 3 countries resent being financially dependent on England. I think too that that this "aid" distorts economies to perpetuate dependence, much as poorly designed foreign aid does.
2) Increasingly English nationalists will resent paying the bills for people who abuse them in thanks. As austerity bites again, and the SE English taxpayer is expected to stump up the funds, I can only see that discontent getting worse.
What makes it even worse is that the EU regional development money has gone. As the government aren't going to spend targeted money in the poorer areas as the EU did, people will really start to feel the effects.
Some fascinating detail in this, including the bafflingly surreal one that, while Scottish voters think the SNP Scottish Government has done badly on education, they think it has done well on immigration and defence.
Could someone please have a stern word with Scottish voters?
Maybe people give the SNP a plus on defence because they like the policies even if they don't have the powers? Which is worrying because it suggests what the SNP is good at requires independence.
That could well be the case
Have we all done our predictions on here for e Scottish elections yet? I still think SNP will fall short of a majority, but will be very tight.
I think SLAB will be in second place in the popular vote, and possibly seats. Voting SLAB is the way to kick both Sturgeon and Johnson in the arse.
ScotCons are on for losing seats. Last night the Lord of Epping Forest insisted they help no seats in NE fishing towns - because their 4 MSPs here are only list members. With polls showing them losing somewhere round that number of seats, I think HYUFD's prediction is likely accurate - Tories are going to be punished up here for lying to the community.
They are only list seats, not one major fishing community in Scotland has a Conservative constituency MSP. However I think the Conservatives could gain Moray from the SNP, it was 49% Leave, has Ross as its Westminster MP and no major fishing port unlike its neighbour Banffshire and Buchan Coast
If they are "only list seats" then you will be happy to lose them. You keep saying these list MSPs don't represent the fishing area. When I put my details into They Work For You it states - amazingly enough - that I have a stack of MSPs representing me including these 4 Tories:
Your MP (Member of Parliament) is David Duguid, Banff and Buchan Your constituency MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament) is Gillian Martin, Aberdeenshire East Your North East Scotland MSPs are: Peter Chapman Liam Kerr Lewis Macdonald Jenny Marra Mike Rumbles Bill Bowman Tom Mason
You really are a clueless fool.
Not one represents a Holyrood fishing constituency of any size, every resident of Scotland has a Tory MSP on the list, Banffshire and Buchan coast which is where the largest fishing ports in Scotland are has an SNP constituency MSP, the second largest fishing ports around Orkney and Shetland have LD constituency MSPs.
So yet again a completely irrelevant point from you
So do these MSPs represent me or not? The Scottish Parliament says Yes.. You say No.
It’s sad that so many of the Commentariat seem to be gleefully talking up the dissolution of the country, purely as a means to get back at Johnson and Brexit.
It's really sad that the breakup of the United Kingdom is an inevitable consequence of Brexit
Actually, I think leaving the EU probably bought the Union a few more years. Support for Yes in Scotland was rising before the vote, while in the year after the referendum it actually fell somewhat. It has since resumed its gently rising trend.
Hmmm.. my feeling is that people are going to vote for Indy regardless of brexit or not. The only thing keeping the union together is finances now, not emotion or cultural identity. Ultimately that is the issue.
It is, currently English money is spent in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, rather than in poorer English regions. There are two problems from this:
1) Because he who pays the piper calls the tune, those 3 countries resent being financially dependent on England. I think too that that this "aid" distorts economies to perpetuate dependence, much as poorly designed foreign aid does.
2) Increasingly English nationalists will resent paying the bills for people who abuse them in thanks. As austerity bites again, and the SE English taxpayer is expected to stump up the funds, I can only see that discontent getting worse.
Spot on - i think one of the major failures of devolution was the “English issue”.
Totally fudged, never addressed, hence we are where we are
While England does have a higher Gross Household Disposeable Income (GHDI) than the other nations, when this is broken down more locally, the difference is stark. Leicester is second lowest, behind Nottingham.
"In terms of GDHI per head in 2018, all the top 10 NUTS3 local areas were in London or the South East NUTS1 regions, the top six of which were in London; the bottom 10 local areas were all within the North West, Yorkshire and The Humber, East Midlands, West Midlands, and Northern Ireland regions"
Supposedly this government is redistributing to level up the North of England. How much of that is to be squeezed out of the SE taxpayer, and how much from reducing other forms of regional aid, such as farming and other subsidies? I can see further discontent with that.
Cost of redecoration of flat ~ 100k, paid for -- after a bit of fuss -- apparently by the PM. Cost to taxpayers -- zero. Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ billions.
Cost of mahossive Greensill Capital / Gupta corruption to taxpayers ~ up to 5 billion (source: Guardian). Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ at most a few hundred.
It is Filthy, Greedy Cameron who should be under the spotlight.
It is proof that most people are not actually interested in tackling serious fraud or corruption. They are only interested in using corruption as a party political stick.
Now that Cameron is no longer a front line politician -- and despite his behaviour being massively more expensive for the taxpayer -- no-one is very interested.
It's not the case that no one is very interested. The Greensill/Gupta/Cameron affair is being looked into by various Select Committees, the NAO, and an 'independent' (joke) inquiry set up by the PM under Nigel Boardman. There's not much to say on it until these various inquiries report, but the work is ongoing. It is obviously a much bigger scandal than redecoration, but it's also much more complex and therefore less accessible to the public. I'm sure it will be whitewashed in due course.
The header says "Size Matters"
The thing about corruption is that "Size Doesn't Matter".
A politician caught dodging a train ticket would have to resign. A politician instigating a multi-billion pound fraud would not.
I think there is a reasonable likelihood that Boris will step down after the country opens up again. Claim to be the PM who led the vaccine programme and start on the newly re-opened speech circuit making millions.
He has just procured and had painted (at vast expense and with taxpayers' money) a VVIP A321 - not to be confused with VIP A330 and its million quid paint job. There is zero chance he (and FLOTUK) are going to relinquish the post-covid junkets in that to the Goldman-Sachs Elf and his Mrs any time soon.
Quite, "Imperial purple makes the best burial sheet" and a couple of years in the job does not make him the kind of transformational Prime Minister that he aspires to be. Also it misses the point that he is stunningly entitled "I am so important to the country that I should have my chaotic finances looked after and my needs fulfilled", then there is Lady Macbeth, she is as much a political animal as he is and adores the power and the perquisites. So I do not think that he will go willingly any time soon.
Unwillingly, however, he could soon be hanging by a thread. There are plenty of rumours and after a while the MPs will get restive. This will be epecially true if the electorate gets bored with the current clown show and delivers regular kickings in locals and by elections. I think the Tories will not enjoy this weeks results but there will be a solid year of nasties followed by awful results in 2022 before they would do anything about it. So point of max danger is summer next year, unless the camel he is found in bed with sells the story of how he defrauded the Queen and took money from Putin for a new gazebo (and of course such a shit storm can not be ruled out).
I've had two through the door. They mention climate change a lot.
It's the mood music and what underlies it that worries people.
People will vote for it if it makes their lives better. If it entails lots of sacrifices, taxes and restrictions then they will tell them to get stuffed, regardless of what they tell pollsters now.
It's interesting politics. The Tory core vote hates it passionately. Maybe it appeals to the more middle of the road types, its hard to tell. I suspect it turns as many off as it gains.
The problem for those who think this is unbounded stupidity is that this is the political concensus. There is no serious alternative party to the green/vegan/woke lunacy currently being rammed down our throats - the best we can do is to sit on our hands, which doesn't show up nearly as clearly in the results. We need a UKIP type force which allows us to register our disapproval by eating into the Tory vote in the same way that UKIP's ever growing vote set in motion our path out of the EU, against the wishes of almost every front-bench politican from every party.
I'm quite surprised Farrage isn't making the running on this - he'd be well placed to do so, there is a substantial overlap between being a Brexiter and not being into eco nonsense, with potential for a strong sideswipe at continuing social distancing/mask wear etc after the pandemic has obviously run its course. He also knows a thing or two about how to launch a "pressure group" party from scratch. If he couldn't knock 10% off the Tories poll lead a month after launch I'd probably be willing to fry and eat my flat cap. Maybe he believes in green hair-shirtism, or feels its someone else's turn to shake up British politics.
The Green madness that stops you from buying a car with a petrol engine? The Green madness that prevents you from buying a steak or a McDonalds?
What Green madness?
The UK offers some fairly modest tax benefits for cutting down your carbon consumption. But you know what, even if global warming wasn't a thing, they would still be a good idea, because they'd reduce our dependence on foreigners who don't like us very much. Minimising the amount of British pounds shipped off the Middle East to buy oil sounds like quite a sensible strategy, irrespective of whether global warming is real or not.
And for all the talk of woke, I struggle to see any actual "woke" in my actual life.
The sum total of people who have asked me to call the by an obscure pronoun is... ummmm... none. I read more about woke on-line, and here people bewailing it, but the reality is that outside the fevered imagination of Meghan, it doesn't really exist for 99% of people. But you know what, if someone said to me, please call me "she" I'd do it anyway. That's not woke, that's common courtesy, just as I'd call someone Moon Unit, if that was what they wanted to be called.
And vegans? They exist. So what? In my 46 years on Planet Earth, exactly one person (a rather attractive young German lady) has ever prostheliyzed veganism. Which led me to say "show me a man who's a vegan, and I'll show you a man who's trying to shag a vegan". Suffice to say, it didn't go down well.
It seems that you (and Farage these days as well) like railing against a threat that doesn't really exist.
The green madness that means in 10 years time I probably won't be able to buy an affordable car that's suitable for my needs.
The green madness that is currently making my electricity so expensive I might as well be generating it from natural gas myself (we've discussed this before).
The green madness that has passed binding future commitments on emissions that if followed through mean an end to natural gas for home heating in the next 20 years.
The green madness that's just prevented a coal mine being opened in Cumbria, because that's the sort of job we'd rather export abroad.
The green madness that is about to outlaw the use of domestic house coal (mainly used by a small number of older people in rural areas) despite there being no real alternative that works in most of the appliances that burn it.
Currently there is an obvious concerted effort to shift the Overton window on stuff like meat eating - give it 10 years, and there will probably be a special meat tax of some sort.
An Australian government lost office over much milder attempt at emission reduction via a carbon tax. "The great big tax on everything" the successful opposition dubbed it, so this is definitely can have electoral salience - it just requires a fairly politically skillful operator to smash the current political concensus. As I say, I'm surprised Farage isn't up for this gig - it wouldn't sweep him to power, but it would force the Tories to change tack pretty promptly.
Cost of redecoration of flat ~ 100k, paid for -- after a bit of fuss -- apparently by the PM. Cost to taxpayers -- zero. Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ billions.
Cost of mahossive Greensill Capital / Gupta corruption to taxpayers ~ up to 5 billion (source: Guardian). Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ at most a few hundred.
It is Filthy, Greedy Cameron who should be under the spotlight.
It is proof that most people are not actually interested in tackling serious fraud or corruption. They are only interested in using corruption as a party political stick.
Now that Cameron is no longer a front line politician -- and despite his behaviour being massively more expensive for the taxpayer -- no-one is very interested.
Your defence of Johnson and condemnation of Cameron is fascinating. I am old enough to remember political scandals going back to Polson, T. Dan Smith and of course closer to home Graham Jenkins. Scoundrels with both red and blue stripes. I call them all out.
The Cameron/ Greensill affair stinks to high heaven, and the pong seems to be circling Downing Street. From what we have heard of Greensill so far, Johnson seems to have avoided it which is great, and Cameron is a busted flush anyway, so nothing to see until the inquiry and/or court cases tell us more. Any allegations of Greensill impropriety amongst Ministers counld and should be dealt with today by Johnson.
So what of the wallpaper? I, like you, up until last night thought there was nothing to see. Fifty grand on curtains? My wife could manage that, if only I had it, and Carrie's chap just saved 67m people from imminent death, so what's the fuss? However TSE's revelations regarding donors paying contractors directly adds a new and very alarming dimension to the case. Johnson can survive the tasteless wallpaper, but should he survive the deceipt and rulebreaking?
Excepting that cell in The Hague with Blair's name on it, we don't want to see serving and former Prime Ministers in handcuffs (this is not France). But a life of charitable recantation, a la John Profumo, might be called for, and for both Cameron and Johnson.
It’s sad that so many of the Commentariat seem to be gleefully talking up the dissolution of the country, purely as a means to get back at Johnson and Brexit.
It's really sad that the breakup of the United Kingdom is an inevitable consequence of Brexit
Actually, I think leaving the EU probably bought the Union a few more years. Support for Yes in Scotland was rising before the vote, while in the year after the referendum it actually fell somewhat. It has since resumed its gently rising trend.
Hmmm.. my feeling is that people are going to vote for Indy regardless of brexit or not. The only thing keeping the union together is finances now, not emotion or cultural identity. Ultimately that is the issue.
It is, currently English money is spent in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, rather than in poorer English regions. There are two problems from this:
1) Because he who pays the piper calls the tune, those 3 countries resent being financially dependent on England. I think too that that this "aid" distorts economies to perpetuate dependence, much as poorly designed foreign aid does.
2) Increasingly English nationalists will resent paying the bills for people who abuse them in thanks. As austerity bites again, and the SE English taxpayer is expected to stump up the funds, I can only see that discontent getting worse.
Spot on - i think one of the major failures of devolution was the “English issue”.
Totally fudged, never addressed, hence we are where we are
No, devolution has little to do with it.
Northern Ireland is hard because it is hard with Brexit, the border and the GFA, and recent SoS Karen Bradley and Boris who never watched the news during the troubles.
Scotland goes back to Mrs Thatcher spaffing the oil money up the wall and imposing the poll tax. Until then between a quarter and third of Scottish seats were Conservative but the 1980s saw this drop by half and then to zero.
Surely reviews are really only necessary when there is a complex tangle of factors & people involved in a situation that needs to be teased out? Not a straight question of who initially paid for a flat refurb.
Then there’s the total irony in the Foreign Sec saying the PM has been “crystal clear” over who paid for the refurb but also saying that there are a number of reviews looking at unanswered questions. Both can’t be true.
Some fascinating detail in this, including the bafflingly surreal one that, while Scottish voters think the SNP Scottish Government has done badly on education, they think it has done well on immigration and defence.
Could someone please have a stern word with Scottish voters?
Maybe people give the SNP a plus on defence because they like the policies even if they don't have the powers? Which is worrying because it suggests what the SNP is good at requires independence.
That could well be the case
Have we all done our predictions on here for e Scottish elections yet? I still think SNP will fall short of a majority, but will be very tight.
I think SLAB will be in second place in the popular vote, and possibly seats. Voting SLAB is the way to kick both Sturgeon and Johnson in the arse.
ScotCons are on for losing seats. Last night the Lord of Epping Forest insisted they help no seats in NE fishing towns - because their 4 MSPs here are only list members. With polls showing them losing somewhere round that number of seats, I think HYUFD's prediction is likely accurate - Tories are going to be punished up here for lying to the community.
They are only list seats, not one major fishing community in Scotland has a Conservative constituency MSP. However I think the Conservatives could gain Moray from the SNP, it was 49% Leave, has Ross as its Westminster MP and no major fishing port unlike its neighbour Banffshire and Buchan Coast
If they are "only list seats" then you will be happy to lose them. You keep saying these list MSPs don't represent the fishing area. When I put my details into They Work For You it states - amazingly enough - that I have a stack of MSPs representing me including these 4 Tories:
Your MP (Member of Parliament) is David Duguid, Banff and Buchan Your constituency MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament) is Gillian Martin, Aberdeenshire East Your North East Scotland MSPs are: Peter Chapman Liam Kerr Lewis Macdonald Jenny Marra Mike Rumbles Bill Bowman Tom Mason
You really are a clueless fool.
Not one represents a Holyrood fishing constituency of any size, every resident of Scotland has a Tory MSP on the list, Banffshire and Buchan coast which is where the largest fishing ports in Scotland are has an SNP constituency MSP, the second largest fishing ports around Orkney and Shetland have LD constituency MSPs.
So yet again a completely irrelevant point from you
So do these MSPs represent me or not? The Scottish Parliament says Yes.. You say No.
Who is right? You? Or the Scottish parliament?
Panelbase today has the Tories holding all 4 of their North East list seats anyway.
Cost of redecoration of flat ~ 100k, paid for -- after a bit of fuss -- apparently by the PM. Cost to taxpayers -- zero. Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ billions.
Cost of mahossive Greensill Capital / Gupta corruption to taxpayers ~ up to 5 billion (source: Guardian). Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ at most a few hundred.
It is Filthy, Greedy Cameron who should be under the spotlight.
It is proof that most people are not actually interested in tackling serious fraud or corruption. They are only interested in using corruption as a party political stick.
Now that Cameron is no longer a front line politician -- and despite his behaviour being massively more expensive for the taxpayer -- no-one is very interested.
Your defence of Johnson and condemnation of Cameron is fascinating. I am old enough to remember political scandals going back to Polson, T. Dan Smith and of course closer to home Graham Jenkins. Scoundrels with both red and blue stripes. I call them all out.
The Cameron/ Greensill affair stinks to high heaven, and the pong seems to be circling Downing Street. From what we have heard of Greensill so far, Johnson seems to have avoided it which is great, and Cameron is a busted flush anyway, so nothing to see until the inquiry and/or court cases tell us more. Any allegations of Greensill impropriety amongst Ministers counld and should be dealt with today by Johnson.
So what of the wallpaper? I, like you, up until last night thought there was nothing to see. Fifty grand on curtains? My wife could manage that, if only I had it, and Carrie's chap just saved 67m people from imminent death, so what's the fuss? However TSE revelations regarding donors paying contractors directly adds a new and very alarming dimension to the case. He can survive the tasteless wallpaper, but should he survive the receipt and rulebreaking?
Excepting that cell in The Hague with Blair's name on it, we don't want to see serving and former Prime Ministers in handcuffs (this is not France). But a life of charitable recantation, a la John Profumo, might be called for,, and for both Cameron and Johnson.
For me the issue isn’t the wallpaper - ultimately (yada yada) that becomes an asset owned by the state. I think we should provide a better standard of living for the PM anyway.
If true, the “pay the nanny’s wages” story is far more disturbing. That’s just a straight payment to the PM.
Cost of redecoration of flat ~ 100k, paid for -- after a bit of fuss -- apparently by the PM. Cost to taxpayers -- zero. Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ billions.
Cost of mahossive Greensill Capital / Gupta corruption to taxpayers ~ up to 5 billion (source: Guardian). Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ at most a few hundred.
It is Filthy, Greedy Cameron who should be under the spotlight.
It is proof that most people are not actually interested in tackling serious fraud or corruption. They are only interested in using corruption as a party political stick.
Now that Cameron is no longer a front line politician -- and despite his behaviour being massively more expensive for the taxpayer -- no-one is very interested.
It's not the case that no one is very interested. The Greensill/Gupta/Cameron affair is being looked into by various Select Committees, the NAO, and an 'independent' (joke) inquiry set up by the PM under Nigel Boardman. There's not much to say on it until these various inquiries report, but the work is ongoing. It is obviously a much bigger scandal than redecoration, but it's also much more complex and therefore less accessible to the public. I'm sure it will be whitewashed in due course.
The header says "Size Matters"
The thing about corruption is that "Size Doesn't Matter".
A politician caught dodging a train ticket would have to resign. A politician instigating a multi-billion pound fraud would not.
Just ask Richard Nixon. Watergate was a failed break-in to fix a phone bug. No-one died. No-one got rich. Nixon won the following election by the American equivalent of Boris's 80 seats.
Cost of redecoration of flat ~ 100k, paid for -- after a bit of fuss -- apparently by the PM. Cost to taxpayers -- zero. Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ billions.
Cost of mahossive Greensill Capital / Gupta corruption to taxpayers ~ up to 5 billion (source: Guardian). Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ at most a few hundred.
It is Filthy, Greedy Cameron who should be under the spotlight.
It is proof that most people are not actually interested in tackling serious fraud or corruption. They are only interested in using corruption as a party political stick.
Now that Cameron is no longer a front line politician -- and despite his behaviour being massively more expensive for the taxpayer -- no-one is very interested.
Your defence of Johnson and condemnation of Cameron is fascinating. I am old enough to remember political scandals going back to Polson, T. Dan Smith and of course closer to home Graham Jenkins. Scoundrels with both red and blue stripes. I call them all out.
The Cameron/ Greensill affair stinks to high heaven, and the pong seems to be circling Downing Street. From what we have heard of Greensill so far, Johnson seems to have avoided it which is great, and Cameron is a busted flush anyway, so nothing to see until the inquiry and/or court cases tell us more. Any allegations of Greensill impropriety amongst Ministers counld and should be dealt with today by Johnson.
So what of the wallpaper? I, like you, up until last night thought there was nothing to see. Fifty grand on curtains? My wife could manage that, if only I had it, and Carrie's chap just saved 67m people from imminent death, so what's the fuss? However TSE revelations regarding donors paying contractors directly adds a new and very alarming dimension to the case. He can survive the tasteless wallpaper, but should he survive the receipt and rulebreaking?
Excepting that cell in The Hague with Blair's name on it, we don't want to see serving and former Prime Ministers in handcuffs (this is not France). But a life of charitable recantation, a la John Profumo, might be called for,, and for both Cameron and Johnson.
Your defence of Johnson and condemnation of Cameron ....
I am not defending Johnson. I think he is a chancer. I am pointing out that there is a little crook and a big crook. Let's spend some time on the infamous Mr Big.
Some fascinating detail in this, including the bafflingly surreal one that, while Scottish voters think the SNP Scottish Government has done badly on education, they think it has done well on immigration and defence.
Could someone please have a stern word with Scottish voters?
Maybe people give the SNP a plus on defence because they like the policies even if they don't have the powers? Which is worrying because it suggests what the SNP is good at requires independence.
That could well be the case
Have we all done our predictions on here for e Scottish elections yet? I still think SNP will fall short of a majority, but will be very tight.
I think SLAB will be in second place in the popular vote, and possibly seats. Voting SLAB is the way to kick both Sturgeon and Johnson in the arse.
ScotCons are on for losing seats. Last night the Lord of Epping Forest insisted they help no seats in NE fishing towns - because their 4 MSPs here are only list members. With polls showing them losing somewhere round that number of seats, I think HYUFD's prediction is likely accurate - Tories are going to be punished up here for lying to the community.
They are only list seats, not one major fishing community in Scotland has a Conservative constituency MSP. However I think the Conservatives could gain Moray from the SNP, it was 49% Leave, has Ross as its Westminster MP and no major fishing port unlike its neighbour Banffshire and Buchan Coast
If they are "only list seats" then you will be happy to lose them. You keep saying these list MSPs don't represent the fishing area. When I put my details into They Work For You it states - amazingly enough - that I have a stack of MSPs representing me including these 4 Tories:
Your MP (Member of Parliament) is David Duguid, Banff and Buchan Your constituency MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament) is Gillian Martin, Aberdeenshire East Your North East Scotland MSPs are: Peter Chapman Liam Kerr Lewis Macdonald Jenny Marra Mike Rumbles Bill Bowman Tom Mason
You really are a clueless fool.
Not one represents a Holyrood fishing constituency of any significant size, every resident of Scotland has a Tory MSP on the list, Banffshire and Buchan coast which is where the largest fishing ports in Scotland are has an SNP constituency MSP, the next largest fishing ports in Shetland have a LD constituency MSP.
So yet again a completely irrelevant point from you
As always you prove pretty ignorant about Scotland, the workings of the Scottish Parliament, the constitutional position of the Parliament and indeed the economics and politics of fishing. I think the Blues are not going to enjoy the results as they come in next weekend and am curious as to how you will manage to spin them from your point of view of relentless but one eyed partisanship. The only poll that matters is happening now and when the reuslts come in I think there will be some interesting surprises.
Cost of redecoration of flat ~ 100k, paid for -- after a bit of fuss -- apparently by the PM. Cost to taxpayers -- zero. Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ billions.
Cost of mahossive Greensill Capital / Gupta corruption to taxpayers ~ up to 5 billion (source: Guardian). Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ at most a few hundred.
It is Filthy, Greedy Cameron who should be under the spotlight.
It is proof that most people are not actually interested in tackling serious fraud or corruption. They are only interested in using corruption as a party political stick.
Now that Cameron is no longer a front line politician -- and despite his behaviour being massively more expensive for the taxpayer -- no-one is very interested.
Your defence of Johnson and condemnation of Cameron is fascinating. I am old enough to remember political scandals going back to Polson, T. Dan Smith and of course closer to home Graham Jenkins. Scoundrels with both red and blue stripes. I call them all out.
The Cameron/ Greensill affair stinks to high heaven, and the pong seems to be circling Downing Street. From what we have heard of Greensill so far, Johnson seems to have avoided it which is great, and Cameron is a busted flush anyway, so nothing to see until the inquiry and/or court cases tell us more. Any allegations of Greensill impropriety amongst Ministers counld and should be dealt with today by Johnson.
So what of the wallpaper? I, like you, up until last night thought there was nothing to see. Fifty grand on curtains? My wife could manage that, if only I had it, and Carrie's chap just saved 67m people from imminent death, so what's the fuss? However TSE revelations regarding donors paying contractors directly adds a new and very alarming dimension to the case. He can survive the tasteless wallpaper, but should he survive the receipt and rulebreaking?
Excepting that cell in The Hague with Blair's name on it, we don't want to see serving and former Prime Ministers in handcuffs (this is not France). But a life of charitable recantation, a la John Profumo, might be called for,, and for both Cameron and Johnson.
For me the issue isn’t the wallpaper - ultimately (yada yada) that becomes an asset owned by the state. I think we should provide a better standard of living for the PM anyway.
If true, the “pay the nanny’s wages” story is far more disturbing. That’s just a straight payment to the PM.
I agree with you Charles, and we had this concersation a week or two ago. A sensible salary and pension for the PM, and a post PM non-profiteering clause in the pension contract.
I am not sure the (alleged) five years of maintenance to the flat is blown on lurid wallpaper sits well with me, but I can live with that. What makes me nervous is the impression given by the direct payment from donors to contractors and nannies. If I was paying, I would expect something in return. Now in Boris' defence, this is how he has lived his life to date, a call from a creditor and a lucrative collumnists 'job' turns up and pays the bill. It's not how the rest of us roll, and it certainly isn't how someone with the highest office in the land should behave.
Cost of redecoration of flat ~ 100k, paid for -- after a bit of fuss -- apparently by the PM. Cost to taxpayers -- zero. Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ billions.
Cost of mahossive Greensill Capital / Gupta corruption to taxpayers ~ up to 5 billion (source: Guardian). Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ at most a few hundred.
It is Filthy, Greedy Cameron who should be under the spotlight.
It is proof that most people are not actually interested in tackling serious fraud or corruption. They are only interested in using corruption as a party political stick.
Now that Cameron is no longer a front line politician -- and despite his behaviour being massively more expensive for the taxpayer -- no-one is very interested.
It's not the case that no one is very interested. The Greensill/Gupta/Cameron affair is being looked into by various Select Committees, the NAO, and an 'independent' (joke) inquiry set up by the PM under Nigel Boardman. There's not much to say on it until these various inquiries report, but the work is ongoing. It is obviously a much bigger scandal than redecoration, but it's also much more complex and therefore less accessible to the public. I'm sure it will be whitewashed in due course.
The header says "Size Matters"
The thing about corruption is that "Size Doesn't Matter".
A politician caught dodging a train ticket would have to resign. A politician instigating a multi-billion pound fraud would not.
Just ask Richard Nixon. Watergate was a failed break-in to fix a phone bug. No-one died. No-one got rich. Nixon won the following election by the American equivalent of Boris's 80 seats.
But, I think Watergate had not been tied to the Republicans by the election of 72, no?
McGovern was always behind, but the 'Eagleton Scandal' turned it into a historic defeat. At least as judged from Fear and Loathing o t C T.
Some fascinating detail in this, including the bafflingly surreal one that, while Scottish voters think the SNP Scottish Government has done badly on education, they think it has done well on immigration and defence.
Could someone please have a stern word with Scottish voters?
Maybe people give the SNP a plus on defence because they like the policies even if they don't have the powers? Which is worrying because it suggests what the SNP is good at requires independence.
That could well be the case
Have we all done our predictions on here for e Scottish elections yet? I still think SNP will fall short of a majority, but will be very tight.
I think SLAB will be in second place in the popular vote, and possibly seats. Voting SLAB is the way to kick both Sturgeon and Johnson in the arse.
ScotCons are on for losing seats. Last night the Lord of Epping Forest insisted they help no seats in NE fishing towns - because their 4 MSPs here are only list members. With polls showing them losing somewhere round that number of seats, I think HYUFD's prediction is likely accurate - Tories are going to be punished up here for lying to the community.
They are only list seats, not one major fishing community in Scotland has a Conservative constituency MSP. However I think the Conservatives could gain Moray from the SNP, it was 49% Leave, has Ross as its Westminster MP and no major fishing port unlike its neighbour Banffshire and Buchan Coast
If they are "only list seats" then you will be happy to lose them. You keep saying these list MSPs don't represent the fishing area. When I put my details into They Work For You it states - amazingly enough - that I have a stack of MSPs representing me including these 4 Tories:
Your MP (Member of Parliament) is David Duguid, Banff and Buchan Your constituency MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament) is Gillian Martin, Aberdeenshire East Your North East Scotland MSPs are: Peter Chapman Liam Kerr Lewis Macdonald Jenny Marra Mike Rumbles Bill Bowman Tom Mason
You really are a clueless fool.
Not one represents a Holyrood fishing constituency of any significant size, every resident of Scotland has a Tory MSP on the list, Banffshire and Buchan coast which is where the largest fishing ports in Scotland are has an SNP constituency MSP, the next largest fishing ports in Shetland have a LD constituency MSP.
So yet again a completely irrelevant point from you
As always you prove pretty ignorant about Scotland, the workings of the Scottish Parliament, the constitutional position of the Parliament and indeed the economics and politics of fishing. I think the Blues are not going to enjoy the results as they come in next weekend and am curious as to how you will manage to spin them from your point of view of relentless but one eyed partisanship. The only poll that matters is happening now and when the reuslts come in I think there will be some interesting surprises.
I think the Tories will hold all their Holyrood constituencies except maybe Edinburgh Central (which I think Labour would win not the SNP anyway) and the Tories will also gain Moray from the SNP
I'm not a Herald subscriber so can't give any more detail than the Constituency vote but I see the SNP are actually up in the latest BMG poll to 49% from BMG's mid March poll.
Cost of redecoration of flat ~ 100k, paid for -- after a bit of fuss -- apparently by the PM. Cost to taxpayers -- zero. Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ billions.
Cost of mahossive Greensill Capital / Gupta corruption to taxpayers ~ up to 5 billion (source: Guardian). Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ at most a few hundred.
It is Filthy, Greedy Cameron who should be under the spotlight.
It is proof that most people are not actually interested in tackling serious fraud or corruption. They are only interested in using corruption as a party political stick.
Now that Cameron is no longer a front line politician -- and despite his behaviour being massively more expensive for the taxpayer -- no-one is very interested.
Your defence of Johnson and condemnation of Cameron is fascinating. I am old enough to remember political scandals going back to Polson, T. Dan Smith and of course closer to home Graham Jenkins. Scoundrels with both red and blue stripes. I call them all out.
The Cameron/ Greensill affair stinks to high heaven, and the pong seems to be circling Downing Street. From what we have heard of Greensill so far, Johnson seems to have avoided it which is great, and Cameron is a busted flush anyway, so nothing to see until the inquiry and/or court cases tell us more. Any allegations of Greensill impropriety amongst Ministers counld and should be dealt with today by Johnson.
So what of the wallpaper? I, like you, up until last night thought there was nothing to see. Fifty grand on curtains? My wife could manage that, if only I had it, and Carrie's chap just saved 67m people from imminent death, so what's the fuss? However TSE revelations regarding donors paying contractors directly adds a new and very alarming dimension to the case. He can survive the tasteless wallpaper, but should he survive the receipt and rulebreaking?
Excepting that cell in The Hague with Blair's name on it, we don't want to see serving and former Prime Ministers in handcuffs (this is not France). But a life of charitable recantation, a la John Profumo, might be called for,, and for both Cameron and Johnson.
For me the issue isn’t the wallpaper - ultimately (yada yada) that becomes an asset owned by the state. I think we should provide a better standard of living for the PM anyway.
If true, the “pay the nanny’s wages” story is far more disturbing. That’s just a straight payment to the PM.
State will be delighted we have some horrific second hand wallpaper asset. He lives in the lap of luxury as it is , pays for nothing and has 150K pocket money. I would rather tar and feather the pair of them and run them out of town.
I think there is a reasonable likelihood that Boris will step down after the country opens up again. Claim to be the PM who led the vaccine programme and start on the newly re-opened speech circuit making millions.
He has just procured and had painted (at vast expense and with taxpayers' money) a VVIP A321 - not to be confused with VIP A330 and its million quid paint job. There is zero chance he (and FLOTUK) are going to relinquish the post-covid junkets in that to the Goldman-Sachs Elf and his Mrs any time soon.
Some fascinating detail in this, including the bafflingly surreal one that, while Scottish voters think the SNP Scottish Government has done badly on education, they think it has done well on immigration and defence.
Could someone please have a stern word with Scottish voters?
Maybe people give the SNP a plus on defence because they like the policies even if they don't have the powers? Which is worrying because it suggests what the SNP is good at requires independence.
That could well be the case
Have we all done our predictions on here for e Scottish elections yet? I still think SNP will fall short of a majority, but will be very tight.
I think SLAB will be in second place in the popular vote, and possibly seats. Voting SLAB is the way to kick both Sturgeon and Johnson in the arse.
ScotCons are on for losing seats. Last night the Lord of Epping Forest insisted they help no seats in NE fishing towns - because their 4 MSPs here are only list members. With polls showing them losing somewhere round that number of seats, I think HYUFD's prediction is likely accurate - Tories are going to be punished up here for lying to the community.
They are only list seats, not one major fishing community in Scotland has a Conservative constituency MSP. However I think the Conservatives could gain Moray from the SNP, it was 49% Leave, has Ross as its Westminster MP and no major fishing port unlike its neighbour Banffshire and Buchan Coast
If they are "only list seats" then you will be happy to lose them. You keep saying these list MSPs don't represent the fishing area. When I put my details into They Work For You it states - amazingly enough - that I have a stack of MSPs representing me including these 4 Tories:
Your MP (Member of Parliament) is David Duguid, Banff and Buchan Your constituency MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament) is Gillian Martin, Aberdeenshire East Your North East Scotland MSPs are: Peter Chapman Liam Kerr Lewis Macdonald Jenny Marra Mike Rumbles Bill Bowman Tom Mason
You really are a clueless fool.
Not one represents a Holyrood fishing constituency of any size, every resident of Scotland has a Tory MSP on the list, Banffshire and Buchan coast which is where the largest fishing ports in Scotland are has an SNP constituency MSP, the second largest fishing ports around Orkney and Shetland have LD constituency MSPs.
So yet again a completely irrelevant point from you
So do these MSPs represent me or not? The Scottish Parliament says Yes.. You say No.
Who is right? You? Or the Scottish parliament?
Panelbase today has the Tories holding all 4 of their North East list seats anyway.
Cost of redecoration of flat ~ 100k, paid for -- after a bit of fuss -- apparently by the PM. Cost to taxpayers -- zero. Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ billions.
Cost of mahossive Greensill Capital / Gupta corruption to taxpayers ~ up to 5 billion (source: Guardian). Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ at most a few hundred.
It is Filthy, Greedy Cameron who should be under the spotlight.
It is proof that most people are not actually interested in tackling serious fraud or corruption. They are only interested in using corruption as a party political stick.
Now that Cameron is no longer a front line politician -- and despite his behaviour being massively more expensive for the taxpayer -- no-one is very interested.
Your defence of Johnson and condemnation of Cameron is fascinating. I am old enough to remember political scandals going back to Polson, T. Dan Smith and of course closer to home Graham Jenkins. Scoundrels with both red and blue stripes. I call them all out.
The Cameron/ Greensill affair stinks to high heaven, and the pong seems to be circling Downing Street. From what we have heard of Greensill so far, Johnson seems to have avoided it which is great, and Cameron is a busted flush anyway, so nothing to see until the inquiry and/or court cases tell us more. Any allegations of Greensill impropriety amongst Ministers counld and should be dealt with today by Johnson.
So what of the wallpaper? I, like you, up until last night thought there was nothing to see. Fifty grand on curtains? My wife could manage that, if only I had it, and Carrie's chap just saved 67m people from imminent death, so what's the fuss? However TSE revelations regarding donors paying contractors directly adds a new and very alarming dimension to the case. He can survive the tasteless wallpaper, but should he survive the receipt and rulebreaking?
Excepting that cell in The Hague with Blair's name on it, we don't want to see serving and former Prime Ministers in handcuffs (this is not France). But a life of charitable recantation, a la John Profumo, might be called for,, and for both Cameron and Johnson.
Your defence of Johnson and condemnation of Cameron ....
I am not defending Johnson. I think he is a chancer. I am pointing out that there is a little crook and a big crook. Let's spend some time on the infamous Mr Big.
As I recall (and I haven't looked up your link) the airport purchase had the unpleasant aroma of an ageing Peter's pie about it. If Carwyn and Drakeford should be locked away forever, so be it. I don't see how that lets your boy off the hook though.
I'm not a Herald subscriber so can't give any more detail than the Constituency vote but I see the SNP are actually up in the latest BMG poll to 49% from BMG's mid March poll.
The Conservative, Labour and LD votes combined though are also on 49%, so I think the Unionist parties will win significantly more than the 1 Conservative and 4 LD constituency seats they are projected via Unionist tactical voting to beat the SNP
It’s sad that so many of the Commentariat seem to be gleefully talking up the dissolution of the country, purely as a means to get back at Johnson and Brexit.
It's really sad that the breakup of the United Kingdom is an inevitable consequence of Brexit
Actually, I think leaving the EU probably bought the Union a few more years. Support for Yes in Scotland was rising before the vote, while in the year after the referendum it actually fell somewhat. It has since resumed its gently rising trend.
Hmmm.. my feeling is that people are going to vote for Indy regardless of brexit or not. The only thing keeping the union together is finances now, not emotion or cultural identity. Ultimately that is the issue.
It is, currently English money is spent in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, rather than in poorer English regions. There are two problems from this:
1) Because he who pays the piper calls the tune, those 3 countries resent being financially dependent on England. I think too that that this "aid" distorts economies to perpetuate dependence, much as poorly designed foreign aid does.
2) Increasingly English nationalists will resent paying the bills for people who abuse them in thanks. As austerity bites again, and the SE English taxpayer is expected to stump up the funds, I can only see that discontent getting worse.
Spot on - i think one of the major failures of devolution was the “English issue”.
Totally fudged, never addressed, hence we are where we are
Leaving England with 100% of the power was and even more so now is the issue. Even fearties will only take so much before they grow a backbone of sorts.
"For a government struggling with the perception that lucrative opportunities are available if you know the right people — rules and merit be damned — not requiring an interrogation of Vennells and her senior colleagues under oath is, to put it lightly, not a great look.
Sub-postmasters and their families are not calling for an indiscriminate witch-hunt — that, after all, would make them no different from the faceless bureaucracy at the Post Office that pursued them so relentlessly without care for evidence or consequence. But “lessons learnt” without any repercussions for those who necessitated those lessons in the first place is not justice; it is absolution. We need a full, statutory inquiry, empowered by the state to hear all pertinent evidence and testimony."
Additionally, there is no problem with Ms Symmonds getting a job if she wants to decorate the flat at one go, rather than do a few rooms at a time.
She has one as Head of Something Or Other at an animal charity. Presumably her nightly exposure to Johnson on the vinegars was good preparation for working with gorillas.
No she doesn't - I do know about the animal welfare sector. She's a patron of the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation, which is literally just lending her name to a voluntary campaign group (the counterpart to the Labour Animal Welfare Society), at a salary of £0.
As I said yesterday, the attempt to have a go at Johnson's partner as a proxy for attacking him is dodgy and has an element of misogyny. She's keen on animals, but to be fair he has quite a good record on the issue too (as I expect we shall see on Tuesday week in the Queen's Speech). Others may disagree, but if so they should criticise Johnson. not his partner who happens to be of similar mind on this.
Cost of redecoration of flat ~ 100k, paid for -- after a bit of fuss -- apparently by the PM. Cost to taxpayers -- zero. Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ billions.
Cost of mahossive Greensill Capital / Gupta corruption to taxpayers ~ up to 5 billion (source: Guardian). Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ at most a few hundred.
It is Filthy, Greedy Cameron who should be under the spotlight.
It is proof that most people are not actually interested in tackling serious fraud or corruption. They are only interested in using corruption as a party political stick.
Now that Cameron is no longer a front line politician -- and despite his behaviour being massively more expensive for the taxpayer -- no-one is very interested.
Your defence of Johnson and condemnation of Cameron is fascinating. I am old enough to remember political scandals going back to Polson, T. Dan Smith and of course closer to home Graham Jenkins. Scoundrels with both red and blue stripes. I call them all out.
The Cameron/ Greensill affair stinks to high heaven, and the pong seems to be circling Downing Street. From what we have heard of Greensill so far, Johnson seems to have avoided it which is great, and Cameron is a busted flush anyway, so nothing to see until the inquiry and/or court cases tell us more. Any allegations of Greensill impropriety amongst Ministers counld and should be dealt with today by Johnson.
So what of the wallpaper? I, like you, up until last night thought there was nothing to see. Fifty grand on curtains? My wife could manage that, if only I had it, and Carrie's chap just saved 67m people from imminent death, so what's the fuss? However TSE revelations regarding donors paying contractors directly adds a new and very alarming dimension to the case. He can survive the tasteless wallpaper, but should he survive the receipt and rulebreaking?
Excepting that cell in The Hague with Blair's name on it, we don't want to see serving and former Prime Ministers in handcuffs (this is not France). But a life of charitable recantation, a la John Profumo, might be called for,, and for both Cameron and Johnson.
Your defence of Johnson and condemnation of Cameron ....
I am not defending Johnson. I think he is a chancer. I am pointing out that there is a little crook and a big crook. Let's spend some time on the infamous Mr Big.
As I recall (and I haven't looked up your link) the airport purchase had the unpleasant aroma of an ageing Peter's pie about it. If Carwyn and Drakeford should be locked away forever, so be it. I don't see how that lets your boy off the hook though.
"...your boy ..." ??????????????????
I don't have any boy.
My only thesis is most people are mainly interested in corruption from a partisan, party political POV.
Johnson is the PM, and so minor misdemeanours from him are of vastly more interest than major misdemeanours by Cameron.
From the information in the public domain, Cameron seems to have behaved in a much more grave manner.
Some fascinating detail in this, including the bafflingly surreal one that, while Scottish voters think the SNP Scottish Government has done badly on education, they think it has done well on immigration and defence.
Could someone please have a stern word with Scottish voters?
Maybe people give the SNP a plus on defence because they like the policies even if they don't have the powers? Which is worrying because it suggests what the SNP is good at requires independence.
That could well be the case
Have we all done our predictions on here for e Scottish elections yet? I still think SNP will fall short of a majority, but will be very tight.
I think SLAB will be in second place in the popular vote, and possibly seats. Voting SLAB is the way to kick both Sturgeon and Johnson in the arse.
ScotCons are on for losing seats. Last night the Lord of Epping Forest insisted they help no seats in NE fishing towns - because their 4 MSPs here are only list members. With polls showing them losing somewhere round that number of seats, I think HYUFD's prediction is likely accurate - Tories are going to be punished up here for lying to the community.
They are only list seats, not one major fishing community in Scotland has a Conservative constituency MSP. However I think the Conservatives could gain Moray from the SNP, it was 49% Leave, has Ross as its Westminster MP and no major fishing port unlike its neighbour Banffshire and Buchan Coast
If they are "only list seats" then you will be happy to lose them. You keep saying these list MSPs don't represent the fishing area. When I put my details into They Work For You it states - amazingly enough - that I have a stack of MSPs representing me including these 4 Tories:
Your MP (Member of Parliament) is David Duguid, Banff and Buchan Your constituency MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament) is Gillian Martin, Aberdeenshire East Your North East Scotland MSPs are: Peter Chapman Liam Kerr Lewis Macdonald Jenny Marra Mike Rumbles Bill Bowman Tom Mason
You really are a clueless fool.
Not one represents a Holyrood fishing constituency of any significant size, every resident of Scotland has a Tory MSP on the list, Banffshire and Buchan coast which is where the largest fishing ports in Scotland are has an SNP constituency MSP, the next largest fishing ports in Shetland have a LD constituency MSP.
So yet again a completely irrelevant point from you
I responded to you last night and will do so again as you quite clearly do not get it
'Take it from me who married the daughter of one of the most successful Scottish fishing skippers and has a fishing heritage going back to the Stotfield fishing disaster that you do not know what you are talking about'
Indeed, it is for this connection with the Scottish Fishing Community going back 60 years provides the answer to why I have such an interest in Scotland and its politics
I'm not a Herald subscriber so can't give any more detail than the Constituency vote but I see the SNP are actually up in the latest BMG poll to 49% from BMG's mid March poll.
The Conservative, Labour and LD votes combined though are also on 49%, so I think the Unionist parties will win significantly more than the 1 Conservative and 4 LD constituency seats they are projected via Unionist tactical voting to beat the SNP
Genuine question, to my fellow Essex man, and not trying to make a political point. What evidence is there for significant tactical pro-Unionist voting?
That is paywalled. Is there a report of the Poll elsewhere?
New Scottish Parliament poll, BMG 27 - 30 Apr (changes vs 16 - 19 Mar):
List: SNP ~ 37% (-5) Con ~ 22% (nc) Lab ~ 17% (nc) Grn ~ 9% (+1) LD ~ 8% (nc) Alba ~ 4% (+4)
Constituency: SNP ~ 49% (+1) Lab ~ 21% (+1) Con ~ 19% (-2) LD ~ 9% (+1)
So Unionist parties on 49% on the constituency vote combined and equal to the 49% the SNP are on, so Unionist tactical voting on Thursday for the party best placed to beat the SNP in each constituency will be key
I'm not a Herald subscriber so can't give any more detail than the Constituency vote but I see the SNP are actually up in the latest BMG poll to 49% from BMG's mid March poll.
I am a Herald subscriber, so let me help. BMG show the SNP winning 68 seats, the Greens 9 seats and Alba 2 seats (including the NE, presumably taking one of HYUFD's "these aren't MSPs" Tory seats).
That means 70 of 129 MSPs elected on a platform of independence. The full list: SNP 68 (+5) Tories 25 (-6 hahaha HYUFD) Labour 18 (-6) Greens 9 (+3) LibDems 7 (+2) Al(a)ba 2 (+2)
The interesting line from a betting perspective is this: "The margin of error - a feature of all polls - means there is the possibility that Alba could achieve closer to 6%, the number required for a more widespread electoral breakthrough."
Some fascinating detail in this, including the bafflingly surreal one that, while Scottish voters think the SNP Scottish Government has done badly on education, they think it has done well on immigration and defence.
Could someone please have a stern word with Scottish voters?
Maybe people give the SNP a plus on defence because they like the policies even if they don't have the powers? Which is worrying because it suggests what the SNP is good at requires independence.
That could well be the case
Have we all done our predictions on here for e Scottish elections yet? I still think SNP will fall short of a majority, but will be very tight.
I think SLAB will be in second place in the popular vote, and possibly seats. Voting SLAB is the way to kick both Sturgeon and Johnson in the arse.
ScotCons are on for losing seats. Last night the Lord of Epping Forest insisted they help no seats in NE fishing towns - because their 4 MSPs here are only list members. With polls showing them losing somewhere round that number of seats, I think HYUFD's prediction is likely accurate - Tories are going to be punished up here for lying to the community.
They are only list seats, not one major fishing community in Scotland has a Conservative constituency MSP. However I think the Conservatives could gain Moray from the SNP, it was 49% Leave, has Ross as its Westminster MP and no major fishing port unlike its neighbour Banffshire and Buchan Coast
If they are "only list seats" then you will be happy to lose them. You keep saying these list MSPs don't represent the fishing area. When I put my details into They Work For You it states - amazingly enough - that I have a stack of MSPs representing me including these 4 Tories:
Your MP (Member of Parliament) is David Duguid, Banff and Buchan Your constituency MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament) is Gillian Martin, Aberdeenshire East Your North East Scotland MSPs are: Peter Chapman Liam Kerr Lewis Macdonald Jenny Marra Mike Rumbles Bill Bowman Tom Mason
You really are a clueless fool.
Not one represents a Holyrood fishing constituency of any significant size, every resident of Scotland has a Tory MSP on the list, Banffshire and Buchan coast which is where the largest fishing ports in Scotland are has an SNP constituency MSP, the next largest fishing ports in Shetland have a LD constituency MSP.
So yet again a completely irrelevant point from you
As always you prove pretty ignorant about Scotland, the workings of the Scottish Parliament, the constitutional position of the Parliament and indeed the economics and politics of fishing. I think the Blues are not going to enjoy the results as they come in next weekend and am curious as to how you will manage to spin them from your point of view of relentless but one eyed partisanship. The only poll that matters is happening now and when the reuslts come in I think there will be some interesting surprises.
I think the Tories will hold all their Holyrood constituencies except maybe Edinburgh Central (which I think Labour would win not the SNP anyway) and the Tories will also gain Moray from the SNP
Not what the polls are saying. We will say when the results come in.
I'm not a Herald subscriber so can't give any more detail than the Constituency vote but I see the SNP are actually up in the latest BMG poll to 49% from BMG's mid March poll.
I am a Herald subscriber, so let me help. BMG show the SNP winning 68 seats, the Greens 9 seats and Alba 2 seats (including the NE, presumably taking one of HYUFD's "these aren't MSPs" Tory seats).
That means 70 of 129 MSPs elected on a platform of independence. The full list: SNP 68 (+5) Tories 25 (-6 hahaha HYUFD) Labour 18 (-6) Greens 9 (+3) LibDems 7 (+2) Al(a)ba 2 (+2)
The interesting line from a betting perspective is this: "The margin of error - a feature of all polls - means there is the possibility that Alba could achieve closer to 6%, the number required for a more widespread electoral breakthrough."
Though presumably that margin of error works both ways I.e overestimates SNP and they don’t hit a majority
If you google 'Romney booed' you can access what has to be some of the most remarkable political footage in some time.
Mitt Romney takes the stage to address the Republican convention in his home backyard state of Utah. It is like Kamala Harris took the stage. Actually Kamala might have got a better reception. Reports say the booing and insults were so bad at one point the moderator had to intervene to ask the crowd to show respect to Romney.
Civil war has erupted in the Republican Party between the Trump base and the neo-con leadership, and currently the party is a basket case.
This set me to wondering what reception Boris Johnson might get if he entered a tory convention in, say, Henley or Uxbridge. Outwardly all is sweetness and light. But I reckon tory canvassing has unearthed some very disturbing trends. I got approached by mail to do some legwork because I used to deliver leaflets for the conservatives. You may imagine from my posts on here what my response was. And I made sure I sent it.
Hence the 'return to freedom' mood music this week. A massive attempt to hold the Johnson coalition together. Whatever the result, its clear that what the conservatives fear is not labour. It is vote strikes and splintering.
Additionally, there is no problem with Ms Symmonds getting a job if she wants to decorate the flat at one go, rather than do a few rooms at a time.
She has one as Head of Something Or Other at an animal charity. Presumably her nightly exposure to Johnson on the vinegars was good preparation for working with gorillas.
No she doesn't - I do know about the animal welfare sector. She's a patron of the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation, which is literally just lending her name to a voluntary campaign group (the counterpart to the Labour Animal Welfare Society), at a salary of £0.
As I said yesterday, the attempt to have a go at Johnson's partner as a proxy for attacking him is dodgy and has an element of misogyny. She's keen on animals, but to be fair he has quite a good record on the issue too (as I expect we shall see on Tuesday week in the Queen's Speech). Others may disagree, but if so they should criticise Johnson. not his partner who happens to be of similar mind on this.
So she doesn’t have a full time job, but still needs a full time nanny?
Some fascinating detail in this, including the bafflingly surreal one that, while Scottish voters think the SNP Scottish Government has done badly on education, they think it has done well on immigration and defence.
Could someone please have a stern word with Scottish voters?
Maybe people give the SNP a plus on defence because they like the policies even if they don't have the powers? Which is worrying because it suggests what the SNP is good at requires independence.
That could well be the case
Have we all done our predictions on here for e Scottish elections yet? I still think SNP will fall short of a majority, but will be very tight.
I think SLAB will be in second place in the popular vote, and possibly seats. Voting SLAB is the way to kick both Sturgeon and Johnson in the arse.
ScotCons are on for losing seats. Last night the Lord of Epping Forest insisted they help no seats in NE fishing towns - because their 4 MSPs here are only list members. With polls showing them losing somewhere round that number of seats, I think HYUFD's prediction is likely accurate - Tories are going to be punished up here for lying to the community.
They are only list seats, not one major fishing community in Scotland has a Conservative constituency MSP. However I think the Conservatives could gain Moray from the SNP, it was 49% Leave, has Ross as its Westminster MP and no major fishing port unlike its neighbour Banffshire and Buchan Coast
If they are "only list seats" then you will be happy to lose them. You keep saying these list MSPs don't represent the fishing area. When I put my details into They Work For You it states - amazingly enough - that I have a stack of MSPs representing me including these 4 Tories:
Your MP (Member of Parliament) is David Duguid, Banff and Buchan Your constituency MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament) is Gillian Martin, Aberdeenshire East Your North East Scotland MSPs are: Peter Chapman Liam Kerr Lewis Macdonald Jenny Marra Mike Rumbles Bill Bowman Tom Mason
You really are a clueless fool.
Not one represents a Holyrood fishing constituency of any size, every resident of Scotland has a Tory MSP on the list, Banffshire and Buchan coast which is where the largest fishing ports in Scotland are has an SNP constituency MSP, the second largest fishing ports around Orkney and Shetland have LD constituency MSPs.
So yet again a completely irrelevant point from you
So do these MSPs represent me or not? The Scottish Parliament says Yes.. You say No.
Who is right? You? Or the Scottish parliament?
Panelbase today has the Tories holding all 4 of their North East list seats anyway.
What do you care? These Tory MSPs don't exist according to you.
The real point HY doesn't understand is that fishing - and to a much lesser extent farming - has a symbolic importance beyond just the number of people working in it, which objectively is tiny. An odd point to miss, for anyone who has been paying attention.
The fisherfolk down these parts would love to meet the likes of our Philip for a little chat, so that he could explain to them in person his proposition that 'shit happens'.
I'm not a Herald subscriber so can't give any more detail than the Constituency vote but I see the SNP are actually up in the latest BMG poll to 49% from BMG's mid March poll.
I am a Herald subscriber, so let me help. BMG show the SNP winning 68 seats, the Greens 9 seats and Alba 2 seats (including the NE, presumably taking one of HYUFD's "these aren't MSPs" Tory seats).
That means 70 of 129 MSPs elected on a platform of independence. The full list: SNP 68 (+5) Tories 25 (-6 hahaha HYUFD) Labour 18 (-6) Greens 9 (+3) LibDems 7 (+2) Al(a)ba 2 (+2)
The interesting line from a betting perspective is this: "The margin of error - a feature of all polls - means there is the possibility that Alba could achieve closer to 6%, the number required for a more widespread electoral breakthrough."
Though presumably that margin of error works both ways I.e overestimates SNP and they don’t hit a majority
Of course! Though the SNP not quote making it to 65 has been widely billed so wouldn't be a surprise. Going the other way and Alaba having "a more widespread electoral breakthrough" would be a real surprise.
I'm not a Herald subscriber so can't give any more detail than the Constituency vote but I see the SNP are actually up in the latest BMG poll to 49% from BMG's mid March poll.
I am a Herald subscriber, so let me help. BMG show the SNP winning 68 seats, the Greens 9 seats and Alba 2 seats (including the NE, presumably taking one of HYUFD's "these aren't MSPs" Tory seats).
That means 70 of 129 MSPs elected on a platform of independence. The full list: SNP 68 (+5) Tories 25 (-6 hahaha HYUFD) Labour 18 (-6) Greens 9 (+3) LibDems 7 (+2) Al(a)ba 2 (+2)
The interesting line from a betting perspective is this: "The margin of error - a feature of all polls - means there is the possibility that Alba could achieve closer to 6%, the number required for a more widespread electoral breakthrough."
BMG has Labour losing all 3 of its constituency seats and the Tories losing 6 out of 7 of their constituencies to get to those numbers which is highly unlikely once you factor in Unionist tactical voting. The LDs could also gain Caithness and Sutherland from the SNP with Unionist tactical voting as they did in 2019 at Westminster.
Those numbers also see the Tories holding all 4 of their NE list seats however, Alba would not elect a single MSP
Is the proposal to spend £200 million on another Royal Yacht a serious one?
If so, just no.
The Royal Family can buy their own bloody yacht. And government ministers don't need one.
It seems to be real.
Do the Royals actually want one? Apart from Philip, I don't think anyone else was bothered about boats and the sea.
It is just another plaything for the PM and government ministers on foreign jollies.
The Princess Royal is keen on sailing. She opened disabled facilities at the sailing club my family belongs to and apparently she had a long natter with members there about sailing. But I doubt if this yacht proposal is the result of her lobbying.
"For a government struggling with the perception that lucrative opportunities are available if you know the right people — rules and merit be damned — not requiring an interrogation of Vennells and her senior colleagues under oath is, to put it lightly, not a great look.
Sub-postmasters and their families are not calling for an indiscriminate witch-hunt — that, after all, would make them no different from the faceless bureaucracy at the Post Office that pursued them so relentlessly without care for evidence or consequence. But “lessons learnt” without any repercussions for those who necessitated those lessons in the first place is not justice; it is absolution. We need a full, statutory inquiry, empowered by the state to hear all pertinent evidence and testimony."
We have a full inquiry into Grenfell, and I don't think there's much difference as far as 'lives ruined' are concerned. Even if a number of middle rank Post Office staff are convicted of perjury, that still doesn't absolve the people at the top who must have had questions.
I'm not a Herald subscriber so can't give any more detail than the Constituency vote but I see the SNP are actually up in the latest BMG poll to 49% from BMG's mid March poll.
The Conservative, Labour and LD votes combined though are also on 49%, so I think the Unionist parties will win significantly more than the 1 Conservative and 4 LD constituency seats they are projected via Unionist tactical voting to beat the SNP
Genuine question, to my fellow Essex man, and not trying to make a political point. What evidence is there for significant tactical pro-Unionist voting?
No - it's an utter waste of money. A vanity project for a vainglorious government.
We Tories have a majority of 80, all that matters is what Tory voters think until 2024
The authentic and repellent voice of Toryism today.
Go away and look up what follows hubris.
Elections have consequences, we Tories won a majority of 80 in 2019 and as a consequence legally and constitutionally will deliver our manifesto and what our voters want regardless of what anyone else thinks until the next general election in 2024. Tough
Cost of redecoration of flat ~ 100k, paid for -- after a bit of fuss -- apparently by the PM. Cost to taxpayers -- zero. Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ billions.
Cost of mahossive Greensill Capital / Gupta corruption to taxpayers ~ up to 5 billion (source: Guardian). Total amount of postings on blogs and words in newspapers ~ at most a few hundred.
It is Filthy, Greedy Cameron who should be under the spotlight.
It is proof that most people are not actually interested in tackling serious fraud or corruption. They are only interested in using corruption as a party political stick.
Now that Cameron is no longer a front line politician -- and despite his behaviour being massively more expensive for the taxpayer -- no-one is very interested.
Your defence of Johnson and condemnation of Cameron is fascinating. I am old enough to remember political scandals going back to Polson, T. Dan Smith and of course closer to home Graham Jenkins. Scoundrels with both red and blue stripes. I call them all out.
The Cameron/ Greensill affair stinks to high heaven, and the pong seems to be circling Downing Street. From what we have heard of Greensill so far, Johnson seems to have avoided it which is great, and Cameron is a busted flush anyway, so nothing to see until the inquiry and/or court cases tell us more. Any allegations of Greensill impropriety amongst Ministers counld and should be dealt with today by Johnson.
So what of the wallpaper? I, like you, up until last night thought there was nothing to see. Fifty grand on curtains? My wife could manage that, if only I had it, and Carrie's chap just saved 67m people from imminent death, so what's the fuss? However TSE revelations regarding donors paying contractors directly adds a new and very alarming dimension to the case. He can survive the tasteless wallpaper, but should he survive the receipt and rulebreaking?
Excepting that cell in The Hague with Blair's name on it, we don't want to see serving and former Prime Ministers in handcuffs (this is not France). But a life of charitable recantation, a la John Profumo, might be called for,, and for both Cameron and Johnson.
For me the issue isn’t the wallpaper - ultimately (yada yada) that becomes an asset owned by the state. I think we should provide a better standard of living for the PM anyway.
If true, the “pay the nanny’s wages” story is far more disturbing. That’s just a straight payment to the PM.
One of those rare occasions when I absolutely agree with Charles.
If proven, Nannygate could spell the end. Millions of working couples really struggle with the cost of childcare, and it would not go down well if the PM was shown not be able to afford appropriate childcare on his household salary.
Some fascinating detail in this, including the bafflingly surreal one that, while Scottish voters think the SNP Scottish Government has done badly on education, they think it has done well on immigration and defence.
Could someone please have a stern word with Scottish voters?
Maybe people give the SNP a plus on defence because they like the policies even if they don't have the powers? Which is worrying because it suggests what the SNP is good at requires independence.
That could well be the case
Have we all done our predictions on here for e Scottish elections yet? I still think SNP will fall short of a majority, but will be very tight.
I think SLAB will be in second place in the popular vote, and possibly seats. Voting SLAB is the way to kick both Sturgeon and Johnson in the arse.
ScotCons are on for losing seats. Last night the Lord of Epping Forest insisted they help no seats in NE fishing towns - because their 4 MSPs here are only list members. With polls showing them losing somewhere round that number of seats, I think HYUFD's prediction is likely accurate - Tories are going to be punished up here for lying to the community.
They are only list seats, not one major fishing community in Scotland has a Conservative constituency MSP. However I think the Conservatives could gain Moray from the SNP, it was 49% Leave, has Ross as its Westminster MP and no major fishing port unlike its neighbour Banffshire and Buchan Coast
If they are "only list seats" then you will be happy to lose them. You keep saying these list MSPs don't represent the fishing area. When I put my details into They Work For You it states - amazingly enough - that I have a stack of MSPs representing me including these 4 Tories:
Your MP (Member of Parliament) is David Duguid, Banff and Buchan Your constituency MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament) is Gillian Martin, Aberdeenshire East Your North East Scotland MSPs are: Peter Chapman Liam Kerr Lewis Macdonald Jenny Marra Mike Rumbles Bill Bowman Tom Mason
You really are a clueless fool.
Not one represents a Holyrood fishing constituency of any size, every resident of Scotland has a Tory MSP on the list, Banffshire and Buchan coast which is where the largest fishing ports in Scotland are has an SNP constituency MSP, the second largest fishing ports around Orkney and Shetland have LD constituency MSPs.
So yet again a completely irrelevant point from you
So do these MSPs represent me or not? The Scottish Parliament says Yes.. You say No.
Who is right? You? Or the Scottish parliament?
Panelbase today has the Tories holding all 4 of their North East list seats anyway.
What do you care? These Tory MSPs don't exist according to you.
The real point HY doesn't understand is that fishing - and to a much lesser extent farming - has a symbolic importance beyond just the number of people working in it, which objectively is tiny. An odd point to miss, for anyone who has been paying attention.
The fisherfolk down these parts would love to meet the likes of our Philip for a little chat, so that he could explain to them in person his proposition that 'shit happens'.
TBF, the fishing industry is also important because Food Security.
I was wondering how HYUFD would react to the recent polling - after his assurances that the ScoTories would be sswept to triumph by the voting of the fishing industry (which he based on a single survey by a non BPC actor, an academic, of self-selected skippers of larger fishing boats).
Comments
I'll leave the excitable anti-Johnsonites and Remainers to have a Sunday love-in.
Why do they need a nanny?
Even if they are both working, they live literally above the shop.
https://thecritic.co.uk/nothing-matters-to-careless-people/ https://twitter.com/RobDotHutton/status/1388767392981999626/photo/1
https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1388641572774981632?s=19
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56624437 https://twitter.com/janemerrick23/status/1388768538031280128/photo/1
3 billion / (30 k) = 3 x 10^9 /3 X 10^4 = 10^5
By an enormous factor of 100,000, Cameron's behaviour has been the more costly.
Dirty, dirty Dave.
Favours.
Quite right Mr Scott. Literally above the shop.
Next you'll be citing Carole Cadwalladr as an authority on the subject.
If I were a Scot, I’d probably agree with the view that ultimately what England wants, it gets. (And I am a unionist).
I’ve seen little action from the conservatives to address this, and quite frankly, Johnson is not the man. He’d leave now if he valued the UK.
I am bewailing Parkinson's Law.
We need a proper inquiry int Greensill/Gupta rather than Carrie's wallpaper.
There is an interview with Kate Garraway (Derek Draper's partner) on Times Radio at 10am this morning.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/radio/live
I think the interviewer is Gloria de Piero.
There is plenty of slack in 10^5.
It just means that Dirty Dave cost the country only a thousand times more than Carrie Antoinette. Instead of a hundred thousand times.
Shady Dave. Crooked Cameron.
I’m wondering whether he’s an undercover SNP operative !
1) Because he who pays the piper calls the tune, those 3 countries resent being financially dependent on England. I think too that that this "aid" distorts economies to perpetuate dependence, much as poorly designed foreign aid does.
2) Increasingly English nationalists will resent paying the bills for people who abuse them in thanks. As austerity bites again, and the SE English taxpayer is expected to stump up the funds, I can only see that discontent getting worse.
Totally fudged, never addressed, hence we are where we are
Your MP (Member of Parliament) is David Duguid, Banff and Buchan
Your constituency MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament) is Gillian Martin, Aberdeenshire East
Your North East Scotland MSPs are:
Peter Chapman
Liam Kerr
Lewis Macdonald
Jenny Marra
Mike Rumbles
Bill Bowman
Tom Mason
You really are a clueless fool.
It is also a myth that what England wants it always gets, indeed on the latest Survation poll Starmer would become UK PM in a hung parliament with support from the SNP and Welsh Labour MPs even despite another Tory majority in England and with no English Parliament as the Scots have either.
It would therefore be England disenfranchised, not Scotland
It is very rare that one persons taste is the same as another. A new neighbour recently ripped out a beautiful new kitchen @ circa 15k that had recently been installed about a year previously because she didn't like it, and spent probably 25k on a new one. Utter madness imho but there you go.
Always good to look for. I got a free John Lewis kitchen like that
2nd hand kitchens off ebay are fantastic value.
https://news.sky.com/story/cameron-greensill-row-the-seven-inquiries-looking-into-government-lobbying-12276439
https://www.parliament.scot/msps/current-and-previous-msps/search-results?postcode=ab436nf
As 4 of these MSPs are Tory, I am represented by 4 Tory MPs. As are the rest of the 22% of Scottish food production that is the north east. In the real world these Tories are under threat having betrayed the brexit voters who wanted a boost for farming and fishing. In HYUFD world these MSPs don't exist.
Why do we bother listening to a word this fool writes about Scotland when he doesn't even know how the electoral system works or how many MSPs his own party has?
So yet again a completely irrelevant point from you
Who is right? You? Or the Scottish parliament?
"In terms of GDHI per head in 2018, all the top 10 NUTS3 local areas were in London or the South East NUTS1 regions, the top six of which were in London; the bottom 10 local areas were all within the North West, Yorkshire and The Humber, East Midlands, West Midlands, and Northern Ireland regions"
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/regionalaccounts/grossdisposablehouseholdincome/bulletins/regionalgrossdisposablehouseholdincomegdhi/1997to2018
Supposedly this government is redistributing to level up the North of England. How much of that is to be squeezed out of the SE taxpayer, and how much from reducing other forms of regional aid, such as farming and other subsidies? I can see further discontent with that.
The thing about corruption is that "Size Doesn't Matter".
A politician caught dodging a train ticket would have to resign. A politician instigating a multi-billion pound fraud would not.
Unwillingly, however, he could soon be hanging by a thread. There are plenty of rumours and after a while the MPs will get restive. This will be epecially true if the electorate gets bored with the current clown show and delivers regular kickings in locals and by elections. I think the Tories will not enjoy this weeks results but there will be a solid year of nasties followed by awful results in 2022 before they would do anything about it. So point of max danger is summer next year, unless the camel he is found in bed with sells the story of how he defrauded the Queen and took money from Putin for a new gazebo (and of course such a shit storm can not be ruled out).
The green madness that is currently making my electricity so expensive I might as well be generating it from natural gas myself (we've discussed this before).
The green madness that has passed binding future commitments on emissions that if followed through mean an end to natural gas for home heating in the next 20 years.
The green madness that's just prevented a coal mine being opened in Cumbria, because that's the sort of job we'd rather export abroad.
The green madness that is about to outlaw the use of domestic house coal (mainly used by a small number of older people in rural areas) despite there being no real alternative that works in most of the appliances that burn it.
Currently there is an obvious concerted effort to shift the Overton window on stuff like meat eating - give it 10 years, and there will probably be a special meat tax of some sort.
An Australian government lost office over much milder attempt at emission reduction via a carbon tax. "The great big tax on everything" the successful opposition dubbed it, so this is definitely can have electoral salience - it just requires a fairly politically skillful operator to smash the current political concensus. As I say, I'm surprised Farage isn't up for this gig - it wouldn't sweep him to power, but it would force the Tories to change tack pretty promptly.
The Cameron/ Greensill affair stinks to high heaven, and the pong seems to be circling Downing Street. From what we have heard of Greensill so far, Johnson seems to have avoided it which is great, and Cameron is a busted flush anyway, so nothing to see until the inquiry and/or court cases tell us more. Any allegations of Greensill impropriety amongst Ministers counld and should be dealt with today by Johnson.
So what of the wallpaper? I, like you, up until last night thought there was nothing to see. Fifty grand on curtains? My wife could manage that, if only I had it, and Carrie's chap just saved 67m people from imminent death, so what's the fuss? However TSE's revelations regarding donors paying contractors directly adds a new and very alarming dimension to the case. Johnson can survive the tasteless wallpaper, but should he survive the deceipt and rulebreaking?
Excepting that cell in The Hague with Blair's name on it, we don't want to see serving and former Prime Ministers in handcuffs (this is not France). But a life of charitable recantation, a la John Profumo, might be called for, and for both Cameron and Johnson.
Northern Ireland is hard because it is hard with Brexit, the border and the GFA, and recent SoS Karen Bradley and Boris who never watched the news during the troubles.
Scotland goes back to Mrs Thatcher spaffing the oil money up the wall and imposing the poll tax. Until then between a quarter and third of Scottish seats were Conservative but the 1980s saw this drop by half and then to zero.
Then there’s the total irony in the Foreign Sec saying the PM has been “crystal clear” over who paid for the refurb but also saying that there are a number of reviews looking at unanswered questions. Both can’t be true.
https://twitter.com/robpowellnews/status/1388775363963244544
https://twitter.com/BallotBoxScot/status/1388641177226944515?s=20
If true, the “pay the nanny’s wages” story is far more disturbing. That’s just a straight payment to the PM.
Scottish Tory leader says Boris Johnson should resign if he broke ministerial rules
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/scottish-tory-leader-says-boris-johnson-should-resign-if-he-broke-ministerial-rules_uk_608e611ee4b0462027087804
I am not defending Johnson. I think he is a chancer. I am pointing out that there is a little crook and a big crook. Let's spend some time on the infamous Mr Big.
However TSE revelations regarding donors paying contractors directly ....
I wasn't aware that TSE was on the spot ..... although he always has a bit of hearsay gossip, for sure.
As a "caller out" of corruption, you might look into the purchase of that airport by the Welsh Government
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-56350712
It is in your patch.
If so, just no.
The Royal Family can buy their own bloody yacht. And government ministers don't need one.
An excellent Tory idea from this Tory majority government and backed by 51% of Tory voters to just 31% opposed.
https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/wpapp9bzh5/Internal_RoyalYacht_210414 .pdf
I am not sure the (alleged) five years of maintenance to the flat is blown on lurid wallpaper sits well with me, but I can live with that. What makes me nervous is the impression given by the direct payment from donors to contractors and nannies. If I was paying, I would expect something in return. Now in Boris' defence, this is how he has lived his life to date, a call from a creditor and a lucrative collumnists 'job' turns up and pays the bill. It's not how the rest of us roll, and it certainly isn't how someone with the highest office in the land should behave.
Get a grip man.
McGovern was always behind, but the 'Eagleton Scandal' turned it into a historic defeat. At least as judged from Fear and Loathing o t C T.
Do the Royals actually want one? Apart from Philip, I don't think anyone else was bothered about boats and the sea.
It is just another plaything for the PM and government ministers on foreign jollies.
As I recall (and I haven't looked up your link) the airport purchase had the unpleasant aroma of an ageing Peter's pie about it. If Carwyn and Drakeford should be locked away forever, so be it. I don't see how that lets your boy off the hook though.
https://twitter.com/heraldscotland/status/1388766395664584709
https://twitter.com/BallotBoxScot/status/1388776663689965568?s=20
https://twitter.com/BallotBoxScot/status/1388779988632100866?s=20
No - it's an utter waste of money. A vanity project for a vainglorious government.
Sub-postmasters and their families are not calling for an indiscriminate witch-hunt — that, after all, would make them no different from the faceless bureaucracy at the Post Office that pursued them so relentlessly without care for evidence or consequence. But “lessons learnt” without any repercussions for those who necessitated those lessons in the first place is not justice; it is absolution. We need a full, statutory inquiry, empowered by the state to hear all pertinent evidence and testimony."
From this harrowing article on the human cost of the Post Office Horizon scandal - https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/post-office-scandal-justice-was-delivered-too-late-for-my-uncle-q6q0tk8zs.
As I said yesterday, the attempt to have a go at Johnson's partner as a proxy for attacking him is dodgy and has an element of misogyny. She's keen on animals, but to be fair he has quite a good record on the issue too (as I expect we shall see on Tuesday week in the Queen's Speech). Others may disagree, but if so they should criticise Johnson. not his partner who happens to be of similar mind on this.
https://metro.co.uk/video/women-s-brawl-overshadows-ukip-rally-1455657/
I don't have any boy.
My only thesis is most people are mainly interested in corruption from a partisan, party political POV.
Johnson is the PM, and so minor misdemeanours from him are of vastly more interest than major misdemeanours by Cameron.
From the information in the public domain, Cameron seems to have behaved in a much more grave manner.
List:
SNP ~ 37% (-5)
Con ~ 22% (nc)
Lab ~ 17% (nc)
Grn ~ 9% (+1)
LD ~ 8% (nc)
Alba ~ 4% (+4)
Constituency:
SNP ~ 49% (+1)
Lab ~ 21% (+1)
Con ~ 19% (-2)
LD ~ 9% (+1)
'Take it from me who married the daughter of one of the most successful Scottish fishing skippers and has a fishing heritage going back to the Stotfield fishing disaster that you do not know what you are talking about'
Indeed, it is for this connection with the Scottish Fishing Community going back 60 years provides the answer to why I have such an interest in Scotland and its politics
Fireworks ahoy
That means 70 of 129 MSPs elected on a platform of independence. The full list:
SNP 68 (+5)
Tories 25 (-6 hahaha HYUFD)
Labour 18 (-6)
Greens 9 (+3)
LibDems 7 (+2)
Al(a)ba 2 (+2)
The interesting line from a betting perspective is this: "The margin of error - a feature of all polls - means there is the possibility that Alba could achieve closer to 6%, the number required for a more widespread electoral breakthrough."
Mitt Romney takes the stage to address the Republican convention in his home backyard state of Utah. It is like Kamala Harris took the stage. Actually Kamala might have got a better reception. Reports say the booing and insults were so bad at one point the moderator had to intervene to ask the crowd to show respect to Romney.
Civil war has erupted in the Republican Party between the Trump base and the neo-con leadership, and currently the party is a basket case.
This set me to wondering what reception Boris Johnson might get if he entered a tory convention in, say, Henley or Uxbridge. Outwardly all is sweetness and light. But I reckon tory canvassing has unearthed some very disturbing trends. I got approached by mail to do some legwork because I used to deliver leaflets for the conservatives. You may imagine from my posts on here what my response was. And I made sure I sent it.
Hence the 'return to freedom' mood music this week. A massive attempt to hold the Johnson coalition together. Whatever the result, its clear that what the conservatives fear is not labour. It is vote strikes and splintering.
The fisherfolk down these parts would love to meet the likes of our Philip for a little chat, so that he could explain to them in person his proposition that 'shit happens'.
Go away and look up what follows hubris.
Those numbers also see the Tories holding all 4 of their NE list seats however, Alba would not elect a single MSP
https://twitter.com/BallotBoxScot/status/1388779988632100866?s=20
Even if a number of middle rank Post Office staff are convicted of perjury, that still doesn't absolve the people at the top who must have had questions.
If proven, Nannygate could spell the end. Millions of working couples really struggle with the cost of childcare, and it would not go down well if the PM was shown not be able to afford appropriate childcare on his household salary.
I was wondering how HYUFD would react to the recent polling - after his assurances that the ScoTories would be sswept to triumph by the voting of the fishing industry (which he based on a single survey by a non BPC actor, an academic, of self-selected skippers of larger fishing boats).