Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
You have to pass an entrance exam to get into Harrow too, Harrow may not be as academic as Eton or Winchester or Westminster but it is not Stowe either
Mandatory printing of car registration numbers on all Drive Thru packaging.
I would like to get all Drive Thru retailers to be required to print car registrations on all take away packaging. Hopefully, to cut down on the amount of litter that is blighting roadsides all over the country.
Who on earth has got time to go through every bit of litter to look for a car registration number?
Furthermore, are they expecting McDonalds etc to print a reg number on every single bit of packaging for each customer? That's going to take ages.
Have not thought it through.
Easy - print a label, stick it on. Stop the feckers littering.
Print a label, stick it on the bag. Print another label stick it on the chips. Print another label stick it on the burger. Print another label stick it on the drink. Repeat x4 for a family of 4.
Some takeaways already have label printing for operational reasons, eg Domino's and Papa Johns will have a label on every pizza.
Hartlepool has changed my view of Starmer. It was a totally unnecessary by-election for which he thoroughly deserves heavy flak. A leader should not be easily forgiven for such a self inflicted wound.
Was it? How could it have been avoided?
Didn't he parachute in a candidate?
No, Justin is saying the by election itself shouldn't have been held.
It didn't need to be held on 6th May which gave it a prominence that ultimately did Labour no favours at all and set the narrative for what were in fairness ultimately a rather mixed set of results with good results in Wales, Manchester, London and the West of England and some pretty poor results elsewhere.
This was very poor tactics, beyond a doubt. But these swings are absurd. Surely the end of lockdown is a bigger and short term factor?
With respect, there was no need to hold the by election at all! The MP concerned had not been convicted of a serious criminal offence for which he faced potential recall - as in the cases of Onasanya and the Brecon & Radnor MP. He was talked into resigning by Starmer - and perhaps the Chief Whip. It amounts to a very serious error of judgement on Starmer's part and raises questions re-his political 'nous' and antennae.
He's cut a pretty sorry figure at the Tribunal. If he was still a Labour MP that would have been even more damaging. How the hell the case has not been settled is beyond my comprehension.
The Whip should have been taken away - leaving him to sit as an Independent but no need for a by election.
Eh? Surely it was the MP's own choice to vacate the seat rather than Labour forcing him to?
Hartlepool has changed my view of Starmer. It was a totally unnecessary by-election for which he thoroughly deserves heavy flak. A leader should not be easily forgiven for such a self inflicted wound.
Was it? How could it have been avoided?
Didn't he parachute in a candidate?
No, Justin is saying the by election itself shouldn't have been held.
It didn't need to be held on 6th May which gave it a prominence that ultimately did Labour no favours at all and set the narrative for what were in fairness ultimately a rather mixed set of results with good results in Wales, Manchester, London and the West of England and some pretty poor results elsewhere.
This was very poor tactics, beyond a doubt. But these swings are absurd. Surely the end of lockdown is a bigger and short term factor?
With respect, there was no need to hold the by election at all! The MP concerned had not been convicted of a serious criminal offence for which he faced potential recall - as in the cases of Onasanya and the Brecon & Radnor MP. He was talked into resigning by Starmer - and perhaps the Chief Whip. It amounts to a very serious error of judgement on Starmer's part and raises questions re-his political 'nous' and antennae.
He's cut a pretty sorry figure at the Tribunal. If he was still a Labour MP that would have been even more damaging. How the hell the case has not been settled is beyond my comprehension.
The Whip should have been taken away - leaving him to sit as an Independent but no need for a by election.
Eh? Surely it was the MP's own choice to vacate the seat rather than Labour forcing him to?
He was persuaded to do so. They should simply have refrained from that and simply removed the Whip.
You're scraping the barrel here I think
I really think not. All Labour had to do was disown him by withdrawing the Whip. I have seen no suggestion that Hill resigned his seat out of petulance when threatened with that. Moreover, he denies the allegations - which were nothing like as serious as those made against the prominent Tory MP who was arrested by the police.
The allegations against the Tory MP proved to be unfounded. He wasn’t charged with any offence.
Hartlepool has changed my view of Starmer. It was a totally unnecessary by-election for which he thoroughly deserves heavy flak. A leader should not be easily forgiven for such a self inflicted wound.
Was it? How could it have been avoided?
Didn't he parachute in a candidate?
No, Justin is saying the by election itself shouldn't have been held.
It didn't need to be held on 6th May which gave it a prominence that ultimately did Labour no favours at all and set the narrative for what were in fairness ultimately a rather mixed set of results with good results in Wales, Manchester, London and the West of England and some pretty poor results elsewhere.
This was very poor tactics, beyond a doubt. But these swings are absurd. Surely the end of lockdown is a bigger and short term factor?
With respect, there was no need to hold the by election at all! The MP concerned had not been convicted of a serious criminal offence for which he faced potential recall - as in the cases of Onasanya and the Brecon & Radnor MP. He was talked into resigning by Starmer - and perhaps the Chief Whip. It amounts to a very serious error of judgement on Starmer's part and raises questions re-his political 'nous' and antennae.
He's cut a pretty sorry figure at the Tribunal. If he was still a Labour MP that would have been even more damaging. How the hell the case has not been settled is beyond my comprehension.
The Whip should have been taken away - leaving him to sit as an Independent but no need for a by election.
Eh? Surely it was the MP's own choice to vacate the seat rather than Labour forcing him to?
Hartlepool has changed my view of Starmer. It was a totally unnecessary by-election for which he thoroughly deserves heavy flak. A leader should not be easily forgiven for such a self inflicted wound.
Was it? How could it have been avoided?
Didn't he parachute in a candidate?
No, Justin is saying the by election itself shouldn't have been held.
It didn't need to be held on 6th May which gave it a prominence that ultimately did Labour no favours at all and set the narrative for what were in fairness ultimately a rather mixed set of results with good results in Wales, Manchester, London and the West of England and some pretty poor results elsewhere.
This was very poor tactics, beyond a doubt. But these swings are absurd. Surely the end of lockdown is a bigger and short term factor?
With respect, there was no need to hold the by election at all! The MP concerned had not been convicted of a serious criminal offence for which he faced potential recall - as in the cases of Onasanya and the Brecon & Radnor MP. He was talked into resigning by Starmer - and perhaps the Chief Whip. It amounts to a very serious error of judgement on Starmer's part and raises questions re-his political 'nous' and antennae.
He's cut a pretty sorry figure at the Tribunal. If he was still a Labour MP that would have been even more damaging. How the hell the case has not been settled is beyond my comprehension.
The Whip should have been taken away - leaving him to sit as an Independent but no need for a by election.
Eh? Surely it was the MP's own choice to vacate the seat rather than Labour forcing him to?
He was persuaded to do so. They should simply have refrained from that and simply removed the Whip.
You're scraping the barrel here I think
I really think not. All Labour had to do was disown him by withdrawing the Whip. I have seen no suggestion that Hill resigned his seat out of petulance when threatened with that. Moreover, he denies the allegations - which were nothing like as serious as those made against the prominent Tory MP who was arrested by the police.
The allegations against the Tory MP proved to be unfounded. He wasn’t charged with any offence.
That is a 'non sequitur'. It simply meant that the evidence was not sufficiently compelling to meet the threshold of 'beyond all reasonable doubt.' The police will surely have had good reason to justify arresting a prominent MP.
Wasn't Saville questioned by police and then let go?
Re header, gosh, terrible for Keir Starmer. He has a year to turn things around and I'd be lying if I said I'm confident he will. But let's see. I'm long of him at 7.6 to be next PM and I'm still expecting to be laying that back at much shorter well before the GE.
Anyway let's park Starmer, because I'd like to say a word about Boris Johnson for a change. It's depressing beyond measure that such a man sits astride English politics but sit astride English politics such a man doth sit. It’s the truth of the matter and it must be faced.
I hear the dissing of him that goes on. He’s lucky. People don’t really like him, it’s all vaccine bounce, or it’s Brexit. Plus the Foremain OGH thesis - ok he wins elections but look at the opponents, a fag end Ken Livingstone, the risible Jeremy Corbyn. Anyone could have beaten them.
I don’t buy this. Red Ken was a London icon and London is a Labour city. Johnson beat him then beat him again. Jeremy Corbyn was such a terrible candidate that in the GE of 2017 he racked up Labour’s best English vote share since the 97 landslide and came within a whisker of number ten. Yes, he’d become a whipping boy by GE19, but does anybody really think if Jeremy Hunt had won the Tory leadership (another Johnson electoral triumph, btw, right there) that he’d have managed anything close to the 80 seat majority that Johnson scored. Not a chance. 30 seats max.
And let’s not forget Johnson’s biggest election win of all, 23 June 2016, 52/48, against a certain David Cameron, super smooth, super confident PM of the time, fresh from a GE triumph of his own the year before, see-er off of the rampant Scots the year before that. DC knew he’d win until he heard Johnson had plumped for the other side. Then he started to worry and he was right to.
So there you go. It’s not a view I enjoy holding but it is my view. Boris Johnson IS the Heineken politician. He DOES reach the people and the parts that other Tories cannot reach. And those people and parts are perfectly situated for turning Tory votes into Tory seats in FPTP general elections.
I’m not as bearish on Labour for the next GE as many seem to be – sense there’s some herd thinking going on – but I confess here and now that I’d fancy their chances a lot more if they were facing any Tory leader bar Boris Johnson. The guy’s a menace.
Labour deluded if they don't recognise Boris Johnson is a formidable opponent who will be very tough to shift.
Unpopular opinion among left-wing circles: Boris Johnson is actually pretty funny. But why can't Labour find a politician who can tell a joke or two?
Herman Goering could be pretty funny and managed to connect with the wider German public in a way his fellow criminals failed to do.
Mandatory printing of car registration numbers on all Drive Thru packaging.
I would like to get all Drive Thru retailers to be required to print car registrations on all take away packaging. Hopefully, to cut down on the amount of litter that is blighting roadsides all over the country.
Who on earth has got time to go through every bit of litter to look for a car registration number?
Furthermore, are they expecting McDonalds etc to print a reg number on every single bit of packaging for each customer? That's going to take ages.
Have not thought it through.
Easy - print a label, stick it on. Stop the feckers littering.
Print a label, stick it on the bag. Print another label stick it on the chips. Print another label stick it on the burger. Print another label stick it on the drink. Repeat x4 for a family of 4.
Some takeaways already have label printing for operational reasons, eg Domino's and Papa Johns will have a label on every pizza.
Who gets a drive-through pizza?
It doesn't matter, the point is the technology is used within the industry already.
If McD's needed to hire another person in the team whose job it was to just stick labels onto takeaways, they'd do it.
Mandatory printing of car registration numbers on all Drive Thru packaging.
I would like to get all Drive Thru retailers to be required to print car registrations on all take away packaging. Hopefully, to cut down on the amount of litter that is blighting roadsides all over the country.
Who on earth has got time to go through every bit of litter to look for a car registration number?
Furthermore, are they expecting McDonalds etc to print a reg number on every single bit of packaging for each customer? That's going to take ages.
Have not thought it through.
You wouldn't have to go through very much litter and send each registered keeper a fine of say £1k to rather discourage the practice. The odds of getting caught don't need to be terribly high is the penalty is significant.
McDonalds already sticky label quite a lot of their packaging, and they already use your reg number to match up your order, payment, and food, so it shouldn't be a huge hardship to make them print the reg number on the stickers.
Mandatory printing of car registration numbers on all Drive Thru packaging.
I would like to get all Drive Thru retailers to be required to print car registrations on all take away packaging. Hopefully, to cut down on the amount of litter that is blighting roadsides all over the country.
Who on earth has got time to go through every bit of litter to look for a car registration number?
Furthermore, are they expecting McDonalds etc to print a reg number on every single bit of packaging for each customer? That's going to take ages.
Have not thought it through.
Easy - print a label, stick it on. Stop the feckers littering.
Print a label, stick it on the bag. Print another label stick it on the chips. Print another label stick it on the burger. Print another label stick it on the drink. Repeat x4 for a family of 4.
Some takeaways already have label printing for operational reasons, eg Domino's and Papa Johns will have a label on every pizza.
Who gets a drive-through pizza?
It doesn't matter, the point is the technology is used within the industry already.
If McD's needed to hire another person in the team whose job it was to just stick labels onto takeaways, they'd do it.
Well yeah, but I don't think they should have to. Pointless endeavour.
Re header, gosh, terrible for Keir Starmer. He has a year to turn things around and I'd be lying if I said I'm confident he will. But let's see. I'm long of him at 7.6 to be next PM and I'm still expecting to be laying that back at much shorter well before the GE.
Anyway let's park Starmer, because I'd like to say a word about Boris Johnson for a change. It's depressing beyond measure that such a man sits astride English politics but sit astride English politics such a man doth sit. It’s the truth of the matter and it must be faced.
I hear the dissing of him that goes on. He’s lucky. People don’t really like him, it’s all vaccine bounce, or it’s Brexit. Plus the Foremain OGH thesis - ok he wins elections but look at the opponents, a fag end Ken Livingstone, the risible Jeremy Corbyn. Anyone could have beaten them.
I don’t buy this. Red Ken was a London icon and London is a Labour city. Johnson beat him then beat him again. Jeremy Corbyn was such a terrible candidate that in the GE of 2017 he racked up Labour’s best English vote share since the 97 landslide and came within a whisker of number ten. Yes, he’d become a whipping boy by GE19, but does anybody really think if Jeremy Hunt had won the Tory leadership (another Johnson electoral triumph, btw, right there) that he’d have managed anything close to the 80 seat majority that Johnson scored. Not a chance. 30 seats max.
And let’s not forget Johnson’s biggest election win of all, 23 June 2016, 52/48, against a certain David Cameron, super smooth, super confident PM of the time, fresh from a GE triumph of his own the year before, see-er off of the rampant Scots the year before that. DC knew he’d win until he heard Johnson had plumped for the other side. Then he started to worry and he was right to.
So there you go. It’s not a view I enjoy holding but it is my view. Boris Johnson IS the Heineken politician. He DOES reach the people and the parts that other Tories cannot reach. And those people and parts are perfectly situated for turning Tory votes into Tory seats in FPTP general elections.
I’m not as bearish on Labour for the next GE as many seem to be – sense there’s some herd thinking going on – but I confess here and now that I’d fancy their chances a lot more if they were facing any Tory leader bar Boris Johnson. The guy’s a menace.
Labour deluded if they don't recognise Boris Johnson is a formidable opponent who will be very tough to shift.
Unpopular opinion among left-wing circles: Boris Johnson is actually pretty funny. But why can't Labour find a politician who can tell a joke or two?
Herman Goering could be pretty funny and managed to connect with the wider German public in a way his fellow criminals failed to do.
Just stop. Jesus.
That is who Johnson reminds me of. Others see Berlusconi in him.
Re header, gosh, terrible for Keir Starmer. He has a year to turn things around and I'd be lying if I said I'm confident he will. But let's see. I'm long of him at 7.6 to be next PM and I'm still expecting to be laying that back at much shorter well before the GE.
Anyway let's park Starmer, because I'd like to say a word about Boris Johnson for a change. It's depressing beyond measure that such a man sits astride English politics but sit astride English politics such a man doth sit. It’s the truth of the matter and it must be faced.
I hear the dissing of him that goes on. He’s lucky. People don’t really like him, it’s all vaccine bounce, or it’s Brexit. Plus the Foremain OGH thesis - ok he wins elections but look at the opponents, a fag end Ken Livingstone, the risible Jeremy Corbyn. Anyone could have beaten them.
I don’t buy this. Red Ken was a London icon and London is a Labour city. Johnson beat him then beat him again. Jeremy Corbyn was such a terrible candidate that in the GE of 2017 he racked up Labour’s best English vote share since the 97 landslide and came within a whisker of number ten. Yes, he’d become a whipping boy by GE19, but does anybody really think if Jeremy Hunt had won the Tory leadership (another Johnson electoral triumph, btw, right there) that he’d have managed anything close to the 80 seat majority that Johnson scored. Not a chance. 30 seats max.
And let’s not forget Johnson’s biggest election win of all, 23 June 2016, 52/48, against a certain David Cameron, super smooth, super confident PM of the time, fresh from a GE triumph of his own the year before, see-er off of the rampant Scots the year before that. DC knew he’d win until he heard Johnson had plumped for the other side. Then he started to worry and he was right to.
So there you go. It’s not a view I enjoy holding but it is my view. Boris Johnson IS the Heineken politician. He DOES reach the people and the parts that other Tories cannot reach. And those people and parts are perfectly situated for turning Tory votes into Tory seats in FPTP general elections.
I’m not as bearish on Labour for the next GE as many seem to be – sense there’s some herd thinking going on – but I confess here and now that I’d fancy their chances a lot more if they were facing any Tory leader bar Boris Johnson. The guy’s a menace.
Re header, gosh, terrible for Keir Starmer. He has a year to turn things around and I'd be lying if I said I'm confident he will. But let's see. I'm long of him at 7.6 to be next PM and I'm still expecting to be laying that back at much shorter well before the GE.
Anyway let's park Starmer, because I'd like to say a word about Boris Johnson for a change. It's depressing beyond measure that such a man sits astride English politics but sit astride English politics such a man doth sit. It’s the truth of the matter and it must be faced.
I hear the dissing of him that goes on. He’s lucky. People don’t really like him, it’s all vaccine bounce, or it’s Brexit. Plus the Foremain OGH thesis - ok he wins elections but look at the opponents, a fag end Ken Livingstone, the risible Jeremy Corbyn. Anyone could have beaten them.
I don’t buy this. Red Ken was a London icon and London is a Labour city. Johnson beat him then beat him again. Jeremy Corbyn was such a terrible candidate that in the GE of 2017 he racked up Labour’s best English vote share since the 97 landslide and came within a whisker of number ten. Yes, he’d become a whipping boy by GE19, but does anybody really think if Jeremy Hunt had won the Tory leadership (another Johnson electoral triumph, btw, right there) that he’d have managed anything close to the 80 seat majority that Johnson scored. Not a chance. 30 seats max.
And let’s not forget Johnson’s biggest election win of all, 23 June 2016, 52/48, against a certain David Cameron, super smooth, super confident PM of the time, fresh from a GE triumph of his own the year before, see-er off of the rampant Scots the year before that. DC knew he’d win until he heard Johnson had plumped for the other side. Then he started to worry and he was right to.
So there you go. It’s not a view I enjoy holding but it is my view. Boris Johnson IS the Heineken politician. He DOES reach the people and the parts that other Tories cannot reach. And those people and parts are perfectly situated for turning Tory votes into Tory seats in FPTP general elections.
I’m not as bearish on Labour for the next GE as many seem to be – sense there’s some herd thinking going on – but I confess here and now that I’d fancy their chances a lot more if they were facing any Tory leader bar Boris Johnson. The guy’s a menace.
Boris is racking up the Falklands Moments with Brexit and COVID: Things the opposition told him were impossible and he was hopelessly mishandling. The demented screeching from Owen Jones, amongst others, just made that side of the argument look dim. He's allowed to have curtains. COVID - a natural disaster - was always going to be chaotic as natural disasters are. He was never going to be punished by the electorate for that.
I also take chasing away the French with boats on local election day as a sign the gods, who are obviously Greek, still want him in place, to steward the UK through choppy waters and then finish him off however they choose. I don't think Keir is chosen for much at all.
Re header, gosh, terrible for Keir Starmer. He has a year to turn things around and I'd be lying if I said I'm confident he will. But let's see. I'm long of him at 7.6 to be next PM and I'm still expecting to be laying that back at much shorter well before the GE.
Anyway let's park Starmer, because I'd like to say a word about Boris Johnson for a change. It's depressing beyond measure that such a man sits astride English politics but sit astride English politics such a man doth sit. It’s the truth of the matter and it must be faced.
I hear the dissing of him that goes on. He’s lucky. People don’t really like him, it’s all vaccine bounce, or it’s Brexit. Plus the Foremain OGH thesis - ok he wins elections but look at the opponents, a fag end Ken Livingstone, the risible Jeremy Corbyn. Anyone could have beaten them.
I don’t buy this. Red Ken was a London icon and London is a Labour city. Johnson beat him then beat him again. Jeremy Corbyn was such a terrible candidate that in the GE of 2017 he racked up Labour’s best English vote share since the 97 landslide and came within a whisker of number ten. Yes, he’d become a whipping boy by GE19, but does anybody really think if Jeremy Hunt had won the Tory leadership (another Johnson electoral triumph, btw, right there) that he’d have managed anything close to the 80 seat majority that Johnson scored. Not a chance. 30 seats max.
And let’s not forget Johnson’s biggest election win of all, 23 June 2016, 52/48, against a certain David Cameron, super smooth, super confident PM of the time, fresh from a GE triumph of his own the year before, see-er off of the rampant Scots the year before that. DC knew he’d win until he heard Johnson had plumped for the other side. Then he started to worry and he was right to.
So there you go. It’s not a view I enjoy holding but it is my view. Boris Johnson IS the Heineken politician. He DOES reach the people and the parts that other Tories cannot reach. And those people and parts are perfectly situated for turning Tory votes into Tory seats in FPTP general elections.
I’m not as bearish on Labour for the next GE as many seem to be – sense there’s some herd thinking going on – but I confess here and now that I’d fancy their chances a lot more if they were facing any Tory leader bar Boris Johnson. The guy’s a menace.
Labour deluded if they don't recognise Boris Johnson is a formidable opponent who will be very tough to shift.
Unpopular opinion among left-wing circles: Boris Johnson is actually pretty funny. But why can't Labour find a politician who can tell a joke or two?
Herman Goering could be pretty funny and managed to connect with the wider German public in a way his fellow criminals failed to do.
For a local councillor, any sort of neighbour dispute is always the worst.
Advise them to find an opportunity to talk to their neighbour, frighten them with some story of someone who was eventually bankrupted from legal fees arising from a dispute that started because their neighbour didn’t cut the hedge, and retreat.
As an MP I had a visit from a constituent who asked where she could get advice on how to deal with her unreasonable husband, giving lots of details. A few weeks later I had an enquiry from a constituent from a different address with a different name asking where he could get advice on dealing with his unreasonable wife, also giving lots of information. Looking at the details, it was apparent it was the same case. I carefully told them both that I couldn't be involved in the case at all and referred them to appropriate advice services - but keeping a poker face was tricky...
Re header, gosh, terrible for Keir Starmer. He has a year to turn things around and I'd be lying if I said I'm confident he will. But let's see. I'm long of him at 7.6 to be next PM and I'm still expecting to be laying that back at much shorter well before the GE.
Anyway let's park Starmer, because I'd like to say a word about Boris Johnson for a change. It's depressing beyond measure that such a man sits astride English politics but sit astride English politics such a man doth sit. It’s the truth of the matter and it must be faced.
I hear the dissing of him that goes on. He’s lucky. People don’t really like him, it’s all vaccine bounce, or it’s Brexit. Plus the Foremain OGH thesis - ok he wins elections but look at the opponents, a fag end Ken Livingstone, the risible Jeremy Corbyn. Anyone could have beaten them.
I don’t buy this. Red Ken was a London icon and London is a Labour city. Johnson beat him then beat him again. Jeremy Corbyn was such a terrible candidate that in the GE of 2017 he racked up Labour’s best English vote share since the 97 landslide and came within a whisker of number ten. Yes, he’d become a whipping boy by GE19, but does anybody really think if Jeremy Hunt had won the Tory leadership (another Johnson electoral triumph, btw, right there) that he’d have managed anything close to the 80 seat majority that Johnson scored. Not a chance. 30 seats max.
And let’s not forget Johnson’s biggest election win of all, 23 June 2016, 52/48, against a certain David Cameron, super smooth, super confident PM of the time, fresh from a GE triumph of his own the year before, see-er off of the rampant Scots the year before that. DC knew he’d win until he heard Johnson had plumped for the other side. Then he started to worry and he was right to.
So there you go. It’s not a view I enjoy holding but it is my view. Boris Johnson IS the Heineken politician. He DOES reach the people and the parts that other Tories cannot reach. And those people and parts are perfectly situated for turning Tory votes into Tory seats in FPTP general elections.
I’m not as bearish on Labour for the next GE as many seem to be – sense there’s some herd thinking going on – but I confess here and now that I’d fancy their chances a lot more if they were facing any Tory leader bar Boris Johnson. The guy’s a menace.
Labour deluded if they don't recognise Boris Johnson is a formidable opponent who will be very tough to shift.
Unpopular opinion among left-wing circles: Boris Johnson is actually pretty funny. But why can't Labour find a politician who can tell a joke or two?
Herman Goering could be pretty funny and managed to connect with the wider German public in a way his fellow criminals failed to do.
Just stop. Jesus.
That is who Johnson reminds me of. Others see Berlusconi in him.
A pretty offensive comparison. Berlusconi was a buffoon. Goering was a Nazi who helped murder millions.
Hartlepool has changed my view of Starmer. It was a totally unnecessary by-election for which he thoroughly deserves heavy flak. A leader should not be easily forgiven for such a self inflicted wound.
Was it? How could it have been avoided?
Didn't he parachute in a candidate?
No, Justin is saying the by election itself shouldn't have been held.
It didn't need to be held on 6th May which gave it a prominence that ultimately did Labour no favours at all and set the narrative for what were in fairness ultimately a rather mixed set of results with good results in Wales, Manchester, London and the West of England and some pretty poor results elsewhere.
This was very poor tactics, beyond a doubt. But these swings are absurd. Surely the end of lockdown is a bigger and short term factor?
With respect, there was no need to hold the by election at all! The MP concerned had not been convicted of a serious criminal offence for which he faced potential recall - as in the cases of Onasanya and the Brecon & Radnor MP. He was talked into resigning by Starmer - and perhaps the Chief Whip. It amounts to a very serious error of judgement on Starmer's part and raises questions re-his political 'nous' and antennae.
He's cut a pretty sorry figure at the Tribunal. If he was still a Labour MP that would have been even more damaging. How the hell the case has not been settled is beyond my comprehension.
The Whip should have been taken away - leaving him to sit as an Independent but no need for a by election.
Eh? Surely it was the MP's own choice to vacate the seat rather than Labour forcing him to?
Hartlepool has changed my view of Starmer. It was a totally unnecessary by-election for which he thoroughly deserves heavy flak. A leader should not be easily forgiven for such a self inflicted wound.
Was it? How could it have been avoided?
Didn't he parachute in a candidate?
No, Justin is saying the by election itself shouldn't have been held.
It didn't need to be held on 6th May which gave it a prominence that ultimately did Labour no favours at all and set the narrative for what were in fairness ultimately a rather mixed set of results with good results in Wales, Manchester, London and the West of England and some pretty poor results elsewhere.
This was very poor tactics, beyond a doubt. But these swings are absurd. Surely the end of lockdown is a bigger and short term factor?
With respect, there was no need to hold the by election at all! The MP concerned had not been convicted of a serious criminal offence for which he faced potential recall - as in the cases of Onasanya and the Brecon & Radnor MP. He was talked into resigning by Starmer - and perhaps the Chief Whip. It amounts to a very serious error of judgement on Starmer's part and raises questions re-his political 'nous' and antennae.
He's cut a pretty sorry figure at the Tribunal. If he was still a Labour MP that would have been even more damaging. How the hell the case has not been settled is beyond my comprehension.
The Whip should have been taken away - leaving him to sit as an Independent but no need for a by election.
Eh? Surely it was the MP's own choice to vacate the seat rather than Labour forcing him to?
He was persuaded to do so. They should simply have refrained from that and simply removed the Whip.
You're scraping the barrel here I think
I really think not. All Labour had to do was disown him by withdrawing the Whip. I have seen no suggestion that Hill resigned his seat out of petulance when threatened with that. Moreover, he denies the allegations - which were nothing like as serious as those made against the prominent Tory MP who was arrested by the police.
The allegations against the Tory MP proved to be unfounded. He wasn’t charged with any offence.
Hartlepool has changed my view of Starmer. It was a totally unnecessary by-election for which he thoroughly deserves heavy flak. A leader should not be easily forgiven for such a self inflicted wound.
Was it? How could it have been avoided?
Didn't he parachute in a candidate?
No, Justin is saying the by election itself shouldn't have been held.
It didn't need to be held on 6th May which gave it a prominence that ultimately did Labour no favours at all and set the narrative for what were in fairness ultimately a rather mixed set of results with good results in Wales, Manchester, London and the West of England and some pretty poor results elsewhere.
This was very poor tactics, beyond a doubt. But these swings are absurd. Surely the end of lockdown is a bigger and short term factor?
With respect, there was no need to hold the by election at all! The MP concerned had not been convicted of a serious criminal offence for which he faced potential recall - as in the cases of Onasanya and the Brecon & Radnor MP. He was talked into resigning by Starmer - and perhaps the Chief Whip. It amounts to a very serious error of judgement on Starmer's part and raises questions re-his political 'nous' and antennae.
He's cut a pretty sorry figure at the Tribunal. If he was still a Labour MP that would have been even more damaging. How the hell the case has not been settled is beyond my comprehension.
The Whip should have been taken away - leaving him to sit as an Independent but no need for a by election.
Eh? Surely it was the MP's own choice to vacate the seat rather than Labour forcing him to?
Hartlepool has changed my view of Starmer. It was a totally unnecessary by-election for which he thoroughly deserves heavy flak. A leader should not be easily forgiven for such a self inflicted wound.
Was it? How could it have been avoided?
Didn't he parachute in a candidate?
No, Justin is saying the by election itself shouldn't have been held.
It didn't need to be held on 6th May which gave it a prominence that ultimately did Labour no favours at all and set the narrative for what were in fairness ultimately a rather mixed set of results with good results in Wales, Manchester, London and the West of England and some pretty poor results elsewhere.
This was very poor tactics, beyond a doubt. But these swings are absurd. Surely the end of lockdown is a bigger and short term factor?
With respect, there was no need to hold the by election at all! The MP concerned had not been convicted of a serious criminal offence for which he faced potential recall - as in the cases of Onasanya and the Brecon & Radnor MP. He was talked into resigning by Starmer - and perhaps the Chief Whip. It amounts to a very serious error of judgement on Starmer's part and raises questions re-his political 'nous' and antennae.
He's cut a pretty sorry figure at the Tribunal. If he was still a Labour MP that would have been even more damaging. How the hell the case has not been settled is beyond my comprehension.
The Whip should have been taken away - leaving him to sit as an Independent but no need for a by election.
Eh? Surely it was the MP's own choice to vacate the seat rather than Labour forcing him to?
He was persuaded to do so. They should simply have refrained from that and simply removed the Whip.
You're scraping the barrel here I think
I really think not. All Labour had to do was disown him by withdrawing the Whip. I have seen no suggestion that Hill resigned his seat out of petulance when threatened with that. Moreover, he denies the allegations - which were nothing like as serious as those made against the prominent Tory MP who was arrested by the police.
The allegations against the Tory MP proved to be unfounded. He wasn’t charged with any offence.
That is a 'non sequitur'. It simply meant that the evidence was not sufficiently compelling to meet the threshold of 'beyond all reasonable doubt.' The police will surely have had good reason to justify arresting a prominent MP.
The bar for charging someone is not the same. That only has to be a suspicion.
No; resonable suspicion is grounds for arrest not charge. Charge is the start of court proceedings in which to get off the ground there has to be in the opinion of the CPS evidence disclosing a prima facie case upon which a properly directed jury could convict. Much much more than reasonable suspicion.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
You have to pass an entrance exam to get into Harrow too, Harrow may not be as academic as Eton or Winchester or Westminster but it is not Stowe either (and even Stowe requires 55% average at Common Entrance)
Did not David Cameron once muse that Eton was becoming too academically intensive and it was the thick sons of gentleman farmers and the aristocracy who made the place?
Yvette batting for Labour on BBC R4 WATO this lunchtime. The fightback begins?
Yvette is a shouty lightweight only mentioned on here because Mr Smithson talked her up
She's very effective on WATO.
As a critic, but not as an advocate.
Not really. She was very measured. Very much what one would hope to hear from a key opposition politician.
My point is that she is good at taking apart whatever the government is doing, but poor at advancing any original thoughts of her own.
As the leadership election when she bombed, without a single memorable thought or idea to her name, amply demonstrated.
Yep, shadow cabinet material. Real cabinet, should that situation arise. But as leader she lacks (or at least, certainly lacked it in the leadership election) the ability to set out a vision. Might as well keep Starmer, who has the same problem.
Yvette batting for Labour on BBC R4 WATO this lunchtime. The fightback begins?
Yvette is a shouty lightweight only mentioned on here because Mr Smithson talked her up
She's very effective on WATO.
As a critic, but not as an advocate.
Not really. She was very measured. Very much what one would hope to hear from a key opposition politician.
My point is that she is good at taking apart whatever the government is doing, but poor at advancing any original thoughts of her own.
As the leadership election when she bombed, without a single memorable thought or idea to her name, amply demonstrated.
Yep, shadow cabinet material. Real cabinet, should that situation arise. But as leader she lacks (or at least, certainly lacked it in the leadership election) the ability to set out a vision. Might as well keep Starmer, who has the same problem.
Isn't that Labour's issue.
They have people who can set out a vision. They have people who aren't batshit crazy.
The people are in entirely unconnected circles on a Venn diagram.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
You have to pass an entrance exam to get into Harrow too, Harrow may not be as academic as Eton or Winchester or Westminster but it is not Stowe either (and even Stowe requires 55% average at Common Entrance)
Did not David Cameron once muse that Eton was becoming too academically intensive and it was the thick sons of gentleman farmers and the aristocracy who made the place?
Eton is catching up with Winchester and Westminster, which have always traditionally been the most academically intense of the top rank public schools if slightly less socially exclusive than Eton, with scholarships and highly competitive entrance.
Before Cameron of course went to Eton as befits his class, along with Boris, even if their brains did not perhaps match those of Winchester educated Sunak
Hartlepool has changed my view of Starmer. It was a totally unnecessary by-election for which he thoroughly deserves heavy flak. A leader should not be easily forgiven for such a self inflicted wound.
Was it? How could it have been avoided?
Didn't he parachute in a candidate?
No, Justin is saying the by election itself shouldn't have been held.
It didn't need to be held on 6th May which gave it a prominence that ultimately did Labour no favours at all and set the narrative for what were in fairness ultimately a rather mixed set of results with good results in Wales, Manchester, London and the West of England and some pretty poor results elsewhere.
This was very poor tactics, beyond a doubt. But these swings are absurd. Surely the end of lockdown is a bigger and short term factor?
With respect, there was no need to hold the by election at all! The MP concerned had not been convicted of a serious criminal offence for which he faced potential recall - as in the cases of Onasanya and the Brecon & Radnor MP. He was talked into resigning by Starmer - and perhaps the Chief Whip. It amounts to a very serious error of judgement on Starmer's part and raises questions re-his political 'nous' and antennae.
He's cut a pretty sorry figure at the Tribunal. If he was still a Labour MP that would have been even more damaging. How the hell the case has not been settled is beyond my comprehension.
The Whip should have been taken away - leaving him to sit as an Independent but no need for a by election.
Eh? Surely it was the MP's own choice to vacate the seat rather than Labour forcing him to?
Hartlepool has changed my view of Starmer. It was a totally unnecessary by-election for which he thoroughly deserves heavy flak. A leader should not be easily forgiven for such a self inflicted wound.
Was it? How could it have been avoided?
Didn't he parachute in a candidate?
No, Justin is saying the by election itself shouldn't have been held.
It didn't need to be held on 6th May which gave it a prominence that ultimately did Labour no favours at all and set the narrative for what were in fairness ultimately a rather mixed set of results with good results in Wales, Manchester, London and the West of England and some pretty poor results elsewhere.
This was very poor tactics, beyond a doubt. But these swings are absurd. Surely the end of lockdown is a bigger and short term factor?
With respect, there was no need to hold the by election at all! The MP concerned had not been convicted of a serious criminal offence for which he faced potential recall - as in the cases of Onasanya and the Brecon & Radnor MP. He was talked into resigning by Starmer - and perhaps the Chief Whip. It amounts to a very serious error of judgement on Starmer's part and raises questions re-his political 'nous' and antennae.
He's cut a pretty sorry figure at the Tribunal. If he was still a Labour MP that would have been even more damaging. How the hell the case has not been settled is beyond my comprehension.
The Whip should have been taken away - leaving him to sit as an Independent but no need for a by election.
Eh? Surely it was the MP's own choice to vacate the seat rather than Labour forcing him to?
He was persuaded to do so. They should simply have refrained from that and simply removed the Whip.
You're scraping the barrel here I think
I really think not. All Labour had to do was disown him by withdrawing the Whip. I have seen no suggestion that Hill resigned his seat out of petulance when threatened with that. Moreover, he denies the allegations - which were nothing like as serious as those made against the prominent Tory MP who was arrested by the police.
The allegations against the Tory MP proved to be unfounded. He wasn’t charged with any offence.
Hartlepool has changed my view of Starmer. It was a totally unnecessary by-election for which he thoroughly deserves heavy flak. A leader should not be easily forgiven for such a self inflicted wound.
Was it? How could it have been avoided?
Didn't he parachute in a candidate?
No, Justin is saying the by election itself shouldn't have been held.
It didn't need to be held on 6th May which gave it a prominence that ultimately did Labour no favours at all and set the narrative for what were in fairness ultimately a rather mixed set of results with good results in Wales, Manchester, London and the West of England and some pretty poor results elsewhere.
This was very poor tactics, beyond a doubt. But these swings are absurd. Surely the end of lockdown is a bigger and short term factor?
With respect, there was no need to hold the by election at all! The MP concerned had not been convicted of a serious criminal offence for which he faced potential recall - as in the cases of Onasanya and the Brecon & Radnor MP. He was talked into resigning by Starmer - and perhaps the Chief Whip. It amounts to a very serious error of judgement on Starmer's part and raises questions re-his political 'nous' and antennae.
He's cut a pretty sorry figure at the Tribunal. If he was still a Labour MP that would have been even more damaging. How the hell the case has not been settled is beyond my comprehension.
The Whip should have been taken away - leaving him to sit as an Independent but no need for a by election.
Eh? Surely it was the MP's own choice to vacate the seat rather than Labour forcing him to?
Hartlepool has changed my view of Starmer. It was a totally unnecessary by-election for which he thoroughly deserves heavy flak. A leader should not be easily forgiven for such a self inflicted wound.
Was it? How could it have been avoided?
Didn't he parachute in a candidate?
No, Justin is saying the by election itself shouldn't have been held.
It didn't need to be held on 6th May which gave it a prominence that ultimately did Labour no favours at all and set the narrative for what were in fairness ultimately a rather mixed set of results with good results in Wales, Manchester, London and the West of England and some pretty poor results elsewhere.
This was very poor tactics, beyond a doubt. But these swings are absurd. Surely the end of lockdown is a bigger and short term factor?
With respect, there was no need to hold the by election at all! The MP concerned had not been convicted of a serious criminal offence for which he faced potential recall - as in the cases of Onasanya and the Brecon & Radnor MP. He was talked into resigning by Starmer - and perhaps the Chief Whip. It amounts to a very serious error of judgement on Starmer's part and raises questions re-his political 'nous' and antennae.
He's cut a pretty sorry figure at the Tribunal. If he was still a Labour MP that would have been even more damaging. How the hell the case has not been settled is beyond my comprehension.
The Whip should have been taken away - leaving him to sit as an Independent but no need for a by election.
Eh? Surely it was the MP's own choice to vacate the seat rather than Labour forcing him to?
He was persuaded to do so. They should simply have refrained from that and simply removed the Whip.
You're scraping the barrel here I think
I really think not. All Labour had to do was disown him by withdrawing the Whip. I have seen no suggestion that Hill resigned his seat out of petulance when threatened with that. Moreover, he denies the allegations - which were nothing like as serious as those made against the prominent Tory MP who was arrested by the police.
The allegations against the Tory MP proved to be unfounded. He wasn’t charged with any offence.
That is a 'non sequitur'. It simply meant that the evidence was not sufficiently compelling to meet the threshold of 'beyond all reasonable doubt.' The police will surely have had good reason to justify arresting a prominent MP.
The bar for charging someone is not the same. That only has to be a suspicion.
No; resonable suspicion is grounds for arrest not charge. Charge is the start of court proceedings in which to get off the ground there has to be in the opinion of the CPS evidence disclosing a prima facie case upon which a properly directed jury could convict. Much much more than reasonable suspicion.
Isn’t that the difference between charging and prosecuting? I has though the CPS only get involved at the latter stage.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
You have to pass an entrance exam to get into Harrow too, Harrow may not be as academic as Eton or Winchester or Westminster but it is not Stowe either (and even Stowe requires 55% average at Common Entrance)
Did not David Cameron once muse that Eton was becoming too academically intensive and it was the thick sons of gentleman farmers and the aristocracy who made the place?
Eton is catching up with Winchester and Westminster, which have always traditionally been the most academically intense of the top rank public schools if slightly less socially exclusive than Eton, with scholarships and highly competitive entrance.
Before Cameron of course went to Eton as befits his class, along with Boris, even if their brains did not perhaps match those of Winchester educated Sunak
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Re header, gosh, terrible for Keir Starmer. He has a year to turn things around and I'd be lying if I said I'm confident he will. But let's see. I'm long of him at 7.6 to be next PM and I'm still expecting to be laying that back at much shorter well before the GE.
Anyway let's park Starmer, because I'd like to say a word about Boris Johnson for a change. It's depressing beyond measure that such a man sits astride English politics but sit astride English politics such a man doth sit. It’s the truth of the matter and it must be faced.
I hear the dissing of him that goes on. He’s lucky. People don’t really like him, it’s all vaccine bounce, or it’s Brexit. Plus the Foremain OGH thesis - ok he wins elections but look at the opponents, a fag end Ken Livingstone, the risible Jeremy Corbyn. Anyone could have beaten them.
I don’t buy this. Red Ken was a London icon and London is a Labour city. Johnson beat him then beat him again. Jeremy Corbyn was such a terrible candidate that in the GE of 2017 he racked up Labour’s best English vote share since the 97 landslide and came within a whisker of number ten. Yes, he’d become a whipping boy by GE19, but does anybody really think if Jeremy Hunt had won the Tory leadership (another Johnson electoral triumph, btw, right there) that he’d have managed anything close to the 80 seat majority that Johnson scored. Not a chance. 30 seats max.
And let’s not forget Johnson’s biggest election win of all, 23 June 2016, 52/48, against a certain David Cameron, super smooth, super confident PM of the time, fresh from a GE triumph of his own the year before, see-er off of the rampant Scots the year before that. DC knew he’d win until he heard Johnson had plumped for the other side. Then he started to worry and he was right to.
So there you go. It’s not a view I enjoy holding but it is my view. Boris Johnson IS the Heineken politician. He DOES reach the people and the parts that other Tories cannot reach. And those people and parts are perfectly situated for turning Tory votes into Tory seats in FPTP general elections.
I’m not as bearish on Labour for the next GE as many seem to be – sense there’s some herd thinking going on – but I confess here and now that I’d fancy their chances a lot more if they were facing any Tory leader bar Boris Johnson. The guy’s a menace.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Harry inherited £10 million from Diana, so he knew he would be able to live a top 1% lifestyle no matter what his grades were and even if he no longer receives any Sovereign Grant or Duchy of Cornwall funds he still can
I don’t think his poor grades were the result of a lack of effort…
Re header, gosh, terrible for Keir Starmer. He has a year to turn things around and I'd be lying if I said I'm confident he will. But let's see. I'm long of him at 7.6 to be next PM and I'm still expecting to be laying that back at much shorter well before the GE.
Anyway let's park Starmer, because I'd like to say a word about Boris Johnson for a change. It's depressing beyond measure that such a man sits astride English politics but sit astride English politics such a man doth sit. It’s the truth of the matter and it must be faced.
I hear the dissing of him that goes on. He’s lucky. People don’t really like him, it’s all vaccine bounce, or it’s Brexit. Plus the Foremain OGH thesis - ok he wins elections but look at the opponents, a fag end Ken Livingstone, the risible Jeremy Corbyn. Anyone could have beaten them.
I don’t buy this. Red Ken was a London icon and London is a Labour city. Johnson beat him then beat him again. Jeremy Corbyn was such a terrible candidate that in the GE of 2017 he racked up Labour’s best English vote share since the 97 landslide and came within a whisker of number ten. Yes, he’d become a whipping boy by GE19, but does anybody really think if Jeremy Hunt had won the Tory leadership (another Johnson electoral triumph, btw, right there) that he’d have managed anything close to the 80 seat majority that Johnson scored. Not a chance. 30 seats max.
And let’s not forget Johnson’s biggest election win of all, 23 June 2016, 52/48, against a certain David Cameron, super smooth, super confident PM of the time, fresh from a GE triumph of his own the year before, see-er off of the rampant Scots the year before that. DC knew he’d win until he heard Johnson had plumped for the other side. Then he started to worry and he was right to.
So there you go. It’s not a view I enjoy holding but it is my view. Boris Johnson IS the Heineken politician. He DOES reach the people and the parts that other Tories cannot reach. And those people and parts are perfectly situated for turning Tory votes into Tory seats in FPTP general elections.
I’m not as bearish on Labour for the next GE as many seem to be – sense there’s some herd thinking going on – but I confess here and now that I’d fancy their chances a lot more if they were facing any Tory leader bar Boris Johnson. The guy’s a menace.
You said it
Yep. Know thine enemy.
Saw you trying to throw your big grand around on PT btw. It's a fair price you ask for - evens on a Con majority at the next GE is in line with Betfair - but I'll pass. I price it as an odds on shot. Guess you do too.
If Boris orders pubs and restaurants to close down again because he fucked up over the Indian variant, I will not be responsible for my actions.
Enough.
It's highly unlikely, but not impossible.
The reason the government can't tell you what will happen in June is the sheer number of cases of the new variant which came in from India. It could be a while before there's sufficient data to determine whether it's showing increased transmissibility, or if the sudden large number of cases is just an artefact of allowing travellers in from a country experiencing a pandemic peak.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
You have to pass an entrance exam to get into Harrow too, Harrow may not be as academic as Eton or Winchester or Westminster but it is not Stowe either (and even Stowe requires 55% average at Common Entrance)
Did not David Cameron once muse that Eton was becoming too academically intensive and it was the thick sons of gentleman farmers and the aristocracy who made the place?
Eton is catching up with Winchester and Westminster, which have always traditionally been the most academically intense of the top rank public schools if slightly less socially exclusive than Eton, with scholarships and highly competitive entrance.
Before Cameron of course went to Eton as befits his class, along with Boris, even if their brains did not perhaps match those of Winchester educated Sunak
The last debating competition my son was in at Durham had 8 teams from Eton, one of which ultimately won. They haven’t given up on teaching future cabinet ministers just yet.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
I wouldn’t call Harry’s current situation an improvement.
If Boris orders pubs and restaurants to close down again because he fucked up over the Indian variant, I will not be responsible for my actions.
Enough.
It's highly unlikely, but not impossible.
The reason the government can't tell you what will happen in June is the sheer number of cases of the new variant which came in from India. It could be a while before there's sufficient data to determine whether it's showing increased transmissibility, or if the sudden large number of cases is just an artefact of allowing travellers in from a country experiencing a pandemic peak.
What's interesting is that if the UK can simply absorb these cases without any issues (as should be the case) it does mean we can probably afford to be much less restrictive on returning travellers who have been double jabbed.
Re header, gosh, terrible for Keir Starmer. He has a year to turn things around and I'd be lying if I said I'm confident he will. But let's see. I'm long of him at 7.6 to be next PM and I'm still expecting to be laying that back at much shorter well before the GE.
Anyway let's park Starmer, because I'd like to say a word about Boris Johnson for a change. It's depressing beyond measure that such a man sits astride English politics but sit astride English politics such a man doth sit. It’s the truth of the matter and it must be faced.
I hear the dissing of him that goes on. He’s lucky. People don’t really like him, it’s all vaccine bounce, or it’s Brexit. Plus the Foremain OGH thesis - ok he wins elections but look at the opponents, a fag end Ken Livingstone, the risible Jeremy Corbyn. Anyone could have beaten them.
I don’t buy this. Red Ken was a London icon and London is a Labour city. Johnson beat him then beat him again. Jeremy Corbyn was such a terrible candidate that in the GE of 2017 he racked up Labour’s best English vote share since the 97 landslide and came within a whisker of number ten. Yes, he’d become a whipping boy by GE19, but does anybody really think if Jeremy Hunt had won the Tory leadership (another Johnson electoral triumph, btw, right there) that he’d have managed anything close to the 80 seat majority that Johnson scored. Not a chance. 30 seats max.
And let’s not forget Johnson’s biggest election win of all, 23 June 2016, 52/48, against a certain David Cameron, super smooth, super confident PM of the time, fresh from a GE triumph of his own the year before, see-er off of the rampant Scots the year before that. DC knew he’d win until he heard Johnson had plumped for the other side. Then he started to worry and he was right to.
So there you go. It’s not a view I enjoy holding but it is my view. Boris Johnson IS the Heineken politician. He DOES reach the people and the parts that other Tories cannot reach. And those people and parts are perfectly situated for turning Tory votes into Tory seats in FPTP general elections.
I’m not as bearish on Labour for the next GE as many seem to be – sense there’s some herd thinking going on – but I confess here and now that I’d fancy their chances a lot more if they were facing any Tory leader bar Boris Johnson. The guy’s a menace.
You said it
Yep. Know thine enemy.
Saw you trying to throw your big grand around on PT btw. It's a fair price you ask for - evens on a Con majority at the next GE is in line with Betfair - but I'll pass. I price it as an odds on shot. Guess you do too.
I am as below atm -
Con maj 60% Hung parl 33% Lab maj 7%
And there was me thinking that you were being realistic about Labour’s predicament.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
You have to pass an entrance exam to get into Harrow too, Harrow may not be as academic as Eton or Winchester or Westminster but it is not Stowe either (and even Stowe requires 55% average at Common Entrance)
I suppose Q1 on the paper is "Can your parents afford the fees?"
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
You have to pass an entrance exam to get into Harrow too, Harrow may not be as academic as Eton or Winchester or Westminster but it is not Stowe either (and even Stowe requires 55% average at Common Entrance)
I suppose Q1 on the paper is "Can your parents afford the fees?"
The answer being no if your parent's initials are BJ
We were talking about covid and then India and I mentioned how bad it was. And he went quiet and then said ‘Yes, my uncle and my brother in law died last week, one was just 40, and healthy’
And other family members are ill...
Very sobering. Probably the first time I have encountered someone who has lost so much to this vile disease
If Boris orders pubs and restaurants to close down again because he fucked up over the Indian variant, I will not be responsible for my actions.
Enough.
It's highly unlikely, but not impossible.
The reason the government can't tell you what will happen in June is the sheer number of cases of the new variant which came in from India. It could be a while before there's sufficient data to determine whether it's showing increased transmissibility, or if the sudden large number of cases is just an artefact of allowing travellers in from a country experiencing a pandemic peak.
What's interesting is that if the UK can simply absorb these cases without any issues (as should be the case) it does mean we can probably afford to be much less restrictive on returning travellers who have been double jabbed.
After 21 June.
If 100% of domestic social distancing regulations have gone, that's when its time to start getting rid of foreign travel ones.
If Boris orders pubs and restaurants to close down again because he fucked up over the Indian variant, I will not be responsible for my actions.
Enough.
It's highly unlikely, but not impossible.
The reason the government can't tell you what will happen in June is the sheer number of cases of the new variant which came in from India. It could be a while before there's sufficient data to determine whether it's showing increased transmissibility, or if the sudden large number of cases is just an artefact of allowing travellers in from a country experiencing a pandemic peak.
The government delayed even once it knew there was a new strain and despite all the terrible scenes from India. It is Italy all over again. It is the Kent strain all over again.
That is why we have a problem now. And if it leads to continuing lockdown / restrictions and destruction of businesses, the government should be crucified for its negligence.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Harry inherited £10 million from Diana, so he knew he would be able to live a top 1% lifestyle no matter what his grades were and even if he no longer receives any Sovereign Grant or Duchy of Cornwall funds he still can
I don’t think his poor grades were the result of a lack of effort…
Well he did inherit Diana's IQ too to be fair, not just her millions
We were talking about covid and then India and I mentioned how bad it was. And he went quiet and then said ‘Yes, my uncle and my brother in law died last week, one was just 40, and healthy’
And other family members are ill...
Very sobering. Probably the first time I have encountered someone who has lost so much to this vile disease
You just can’t get decent Albanians driving your cab, nowadays?
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Harry inherited £10 million from Diana, so he knew he would be able to live a top 1% lifestyle no matter what his grades were and even if he no longer receives any Sovereign Grant or Duchy of Cornwall funds he still can
I don’t think his poor grades were the result of a lack of effort…
Well he did inherit Diana's IQ too to be fair, not just her millions
In re Cosplay SAGE - from the BBC’s Nick Tiggle a couple of hours ago -
There have been plenty of experts questioning whether Monday's unlocking was worth the risk, including members of Independent Sage and the British Medical Association.
But it is worth noting that these are the same critics who warned against the full re-opening of schools in March, saying it would lead to a surge. They also said the January lockdown was not tough enough to bring cases of the UK variant down and objected to delaying the gap between vaccine doses to 12 weeks. (my emphasis)
"We know if it goes wrong the critics will say 'we told you so'. But... those people criticising now have been wrong before," another of those involved in the meetings last week said.
That, of course, is the price that comes with power - and if cases and, crucially, hospitalisations do take off it will look like a mistake.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
We could elect a House of Commons who would repeal or amend the Act of Settlement 1701, which both varied and defined the line of succession, contrary, in fact, to the wishes of the arguably rightful monarch in the sense of hereditary succession. So succession to the throne and arguably retention of the throne is, in law, at the sufferance of Parliament, and, thus, not in fact hereditary, still less as of right. So are we not in theory if not form or substance, a republic?
Going further, since Parliament can make or unmake any law whatsoever including its own historic act, and in fact has continued to do so as recently as the Succession to the Crown Act 2013; were it tomorrow to appoint one Doug Seal and his heirs as King Douglas I, I would have no more or less technically legitimate claim to the throne than Elizabeth I.
While theoretically the Queen could withhold assent to such a course of action, it would not become law, but that would not necessarily detract from the principle, because Parliament has passed laws which have governed the succession by which that monarch took the throne; thus this merely highlights the existence of a poorly planned republic rather than the absence of one. In principle Parliament may be able to pass an ordinance; a form of act where Royal Assent is not sought. The constitutional power to do so is questionable but interesting.
Incidentally, the monarch might also theoretically pick a random member of Sinn Fein as Prime Minister or veto every single act of Parliament just for shits and giggles. But it wouldn’t, just as HMQ would not withhold consent from a change to the Act of Settlement.
Re header, gosh, terrible for Keir Starmer. He has a year to turn things around and I'd be lying if I said I'm confident he will. But let's see. I'm long of him at 7.6 to be next PM and I'm still expecting to be laying that back at much shorter well before the GE.
Anyway let's park Starmer, because I'd like to say a word about Boris Johnson for a change. It's depressing beyond measure that such a man sits astride English politics but sit astride English politics such a man doth sit. It’s the truth of the matter and it must be faced.
I hear the dissing of him that goes on. He’s lucky. People don’t really like him, it’s all vaccine bounce, or it’s Brexit. Plus the Foremain OGH thesis - ok he wins elections but look at the opponents, a fag end Ken Livingstone, the risible Jeremy Corbyn. Anyone could have beaten them.
I don’t buy this. Red Ken was a London icon and London is a Labour city. Johnson beat him then beat him again. Jeremy Corbyn was such a terrible candidate that in the GE of 2017 he racked up Labour’s best English vote share since the 97 landslide and came within a whisker of number ten. Yes, he’d become a whipping boy by GE19, but does anybody really think if Jeremy Hunt had won the Tory leadership (another Johnson electoral triumph, btw, right there) that he’d have managed anything close to the 80 seat majority that Johnson scored. Not a chance. 30 seats max.
And let’s not forget Johnson’s biggest election win of all, 23 June 2016, 52/48, against a certain David Cameron, super smooth, super confident PM of the time, fresh from a GE triumph of his own the year before, see-er off of the rampant Scots the year before that. DC knew he’d win until he heard Johnson had plumped for the other side. Then he started to worry and he was right to.
So there you go. It’s not a view I enjoy holding but it is my view. Boris Johnson IS the Heineken politician. He DOES reach the people and the parts that other Tories cannot reach. And those people and parts are perfectly situated for turning Tory votes into Tory seats in FPTP general elections.
I’m not as bearish on Labour for the next GE as many seem to be – sense there’s some herd thinking going on – but I confess here and now that I’d fancy their chances a lot more if they were facing any Tory leader bar Boris Johnson. The guy’s a menace.
Labour deluded if they don't recognise Boris Johnson is a formidable opponent who will be very tough to shift.
Unpopular opinion among left-wing circles: Boris Johnson is actually pretty funny. But why can't Labour find a politician who can tell a joke or two?
Herman Goering could be pretty funny and managed to connect with the wider German public in a way his fellow criminals failed to do.
Just stop. Jesus.
That is who Johnson reminds me of. Others see Berlusconi in him.
A pretty offensive comparison. Berlusconi was a buffoon. Goering was a Nazi who helped murder millions.
He's not entirely dissimilar to Gouverneur Morris (though shorter and fatter).
A Founding Father reckoned by his contemporaries to be a brilliant speaker - ". no man has more wit, nor can anyone engage the attention more than Mr. Morris " - he was also thought fickle and inconsistent.
His dubious morals were common currency: "...the world allows greater credit for his abilities than his integrity..." , as was his philandering. When he lost his lower leg, as a result of a carriage accident, John Jay wrote: "Gouverneur's leg has been a tax on my heart. I am almost tempted to wish he had lost something else...".
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Harry inherited £10 million from Diana, so he knew he would be able to live a top 1% lifestyle no matter what his grades were and even if he no longer receives any Sovereign Grant or Duchy of Cornwall funds he still can
I don’t think his poor grades were the result of a lack of effort…
Well he did inherit Diana's IQ too to be fair, not just her millions
Lucky him.
At least he didn't inherit his dad's genetics.
He did inherit half of them though, Diana's beauty just ensured he got above average looks rather than the very average looks of his father
If Boris orders pubs and restaurants to close down again because he fucked up over the Indian variant, I will not be responsible for my actions.
Enough.
It's highly unlikely, but not impossible.
The reason the government can't tell you what will happen in June is the sheer number of cases of the new variant which came in from India. It could be a while before there's sufficient data to determine whether it's showing increased transmissibility, or if the sudden large number of cases is just an artefact of allowing travellers in from a country experiencing a pandemic peak.
What's interesting is that if the UK can simply absorb these cases without any issues (as should be the case) it does mean we can probably afford to be much less restrictive on returning travellers who have been double jabbed.
You're saying it was all a cunning plan, rather than a somewhat reckless gamble ?
If Boris orders pubs and restaurants to close down again because he fucked up over the Indian variant, I will not be responsible for my actions.
Enough.
It's highly unlikely, but not impossible.
The reason the government can't tell you what will happen in June is the sheer number of cases of the new variant which came in from India. It could be a while before there's sufficient data to determine whether it's showing increased transmissibility, or if the sudden large number of cases is just an artefact of allowing travellers in from a country experiencing a pandemic peak.
What's interesting is that if the UK can simply absorb these cases without any issues (as should be the case) it does mean we can probably afford to be much less restrictive on returning travellers who have been double jabbed.
After 21 June.
If 100% of domestic social distancing regulations have gone, that's when its time to start getting rid of foreign travel ones.
Yes, of course. I wouldn't reintroduce any easy travel pathways until we've fully unlocked here and there would still need to be some safeguards but less than today and we'd probably still want a realist for countries like Brazil.
Hartlepool has changed my view of Starmer. It was a totally unnecessary by-election for which he thoroughly deserves heavy flak. A leader should not be easily forgiven for such a self inflicted wound.
Was it? How could it have been avoided?
Didn't he parachute in a candidate?
No, Justin is saying the by election itself shouldn't have been held.
It didn't need to be held on 6th May which gave it a prominence that ultimately did Labour no favours at all and set the narrative for what were in fairness ultimately a rather mixed set of results with good results in Wales, Manchester, London and the West of England and some pretty poor results elsewhere.
This was very poor tactics, beyond a doubt. But these swings are absurd. Surely the end of lockdown is a bigger and short term factor?
With respect, there was no need to hold the by election at all! The MP concerned had not been convicted of a serious criminal offence for which he faced potential recall - as in the cases of Onasanya and the Brecon & Radnor MP. He was talked into resigning by Starmer - and perhaps the Chief Whip. It amounts to a very serious error of judgement on Starmer's part and raises questions re-his political 'nous' and antennae.
He's cut a pretty sorry figure at the Tribunal. If he was still a Labour MP that would have been even more damaging. How the hell the case has not been settled is beyond my comprehension.
The Whip should have been taken away - leaving him to sit as an Independent but no need for a by election.
Eh? Surely it was the MP's own choice to vacate the seat rather than Labour forcing him to?
Hartlepool has changed my view of Starmer. It was a totally unnecessary by-election for which he thoroughly deserves heavy flak. A leader should not be easily forgiven for such a self inflicted wound.
Was it? How could it have been avoided?
Didn't he parachute in a candidate?
No, Justin is saying the by election itself shouldn't have been held.
It didn't need to be held on 6th May which gave it a prominence that ultimately did Labour no favours at all and set the narrative for what were in fairness ultimately a rather mixed set of results with good results in Wales, Manchester, London and the West of England and some pretty poor results elsewhere.
This was very poor tactics, beyond a doubt. But these swings are absurd. Surely the end of lockdown is a bigger and short term factor?
With respect, there was no need to hold the by election at all! The MP concerned had not been convicted of a serious criminal offence for which he faced potential recall - as in the cases of Onasanya and the Brecon & Radnor MP. He was talked into resigning by Starmer - and perhaps the Chief Whip. It amounts to a very serious error of judgement on Starmer's part and raises questions re-his political 'nous' and antennae.
He's cut a pretty sorry figure at the Tribunal. If he was still a Labour MP that would have been even more damaging. How the hell the case has not been settled is beyond my comprehension.
The Whip should have been taken away - leaving him to sit as an Independent but no need for a by election.
Eh? Surely it was the MP's own choice to vacate the seat rather than Labour forcing him to?
He was persuaded to do so. They should simply have refrained from that and simply removed the Whip.
You're scraping the barrel here I think
I really think not. All Labour had to do was disown him by withdrawing the Whip. I have seen no suggestion that Hill resigned his seat out of petulance when threatened with that. Moreover, he denies the allegations - which were nothing like as serious as those made against the prominent Tory MP who was arrested by the police.
The allegations against the Tory MP proved to be unfounded. He wasn’t charged with any offence.
Hartlepool has changed my view of Starmer. It was a totally unnecessary by-election for which he thoroughly deserves heavy flak. A leader should not be easily forgiven for such a self inflicted wound.
Was it? How could it have been avoided?
Didn't he parachute in a candidate?
No, Justin is saying the by election itself shouldn't have been held.
It didn't need to be held on 6th May which gave it a prominence that ultimately did Labour no favours at all and set the narrative for what were in fairness ultimately a rather mixed set of results with good results in Wales, Manchester, London and the West of England and some pretty poor results elsewhere.
This was very poor tactics, beyond a doubt. But these swings are absurd. Surely the end of lockdown is a bigger and short term factor?
With respect, there was no need to hold the by election at all! The MP concerned had not been convicted of a serious criminal offence for which he faced potential recall - as in the cases of Onasanya and the Brecon & Radnor MP. He was talked into resigning by Starmer - and perhaps the Chief Whip. It amounts to a very serious error of judgement on Starmer's part and raises questions re-his political 'nous' and antennae.
He's cut a pretty sorry figure at the Tribunal. If he was still a Labour MP that would have been even more damaging. How the hell the case has not been settled is beyond my comprehension.
The Whip should have been taken away - leaving him to sit as an Independent but no need for a by election.
Eh? Surely it was the MP's own choice to vacate the seat rather than Labour forcing him to?
Hartlepool has changed my view of Starmer. It was a totally unnecessary by-election for which he thoroughly deserves heavy flak. A leader should not be easily forgiven for such a self inflicted wound.
Was it? How could it have been avoided?
Didn't he parachute in a candidate?
No, Justin is saying the by election itself shouldn't have been held.
It didn't need to be held on 6th May which gave it a prominence that ultimately did Labour no favours at all and set the narrative for what were in fairness ultimately a rather mixed set of results with good results in Wales, Manchester, London and the West of England and some pretty poor results elsewhere.
This was very poor tactics, beyond a doubt. But these swings are absurd. Surely the end of lockdown is a bigger and short term factor?
With respect, there was no need to hold the by election at all! The MP concerned had not been convicted of a serious criminal offence for which he faced potential recall - as in the cases of Onasanya and the Brecon & Radnor MP. He was talked into resigning by Starmer - and perhaps the Chief Whip. It amounts to a very serious error of judgement on Starmer's part and raises questions re-his political 'nous' and antennae.
He's cut a pretty sorry figure at the Tribunal. If he was still a Labour MP that would have been even more damaging. How the hell the case has not been settled is beyond my comprehension.
The Whip should have been taken away - leaving him to sit as an Independent but no need for a by election.
Eh? Surely it was the MP's own choice to vacate the seat rather than Labour forcing him to?
He was persuaded to do so. They should simply have refrained from that and simply removed the Whip.
You're scraping the barrel here I think
I really think not. All Labour had to do was disown him by withdrawing the Whip. I have seen no suggestion that Hill resigned his seat out of petulance when threatened with that. Moreover, he denies the allegations - which were nothing like as serious as those made against the prominent Tory MP who was arrested by the police.
The allegations against the Tory MP proved to be unfounded. He wasn’t charged with any offence.
That is a 'non sequitur'. It simply meant that the evidence was not sufficiently compelling to meet the threshold of 'beyond all reasonable doubt.' The police will surely have had good reason to justify arresting a prominent MP.
The bar for charging someone is not the same. That only has to be a suspicion.
No; resonable suspicion is grounds for arrest not charge. Charge is the start of court proceedings in which to get off the ground there has to be in the opinion of the CPS evidence disclosing a prima facie case upon which a properly directed jury could convict. Much much more than reasonable suspicion.
Isn’t that the difference between charging and prosecuting? I has though the CPS only get involved at the latter stage.
No; charge is the stage where the judgement comes in about whether the case actually has sufficient legs. The next thing that happens after charge is the first appearance before a court. The charge itself kicks off that process, so the CPS is involved in giving permission to proceed to charge.
Re header, gosh, terrible for Keir Starmer. He has a year to turn things around and I'd be lying if I said I'm confident he will. But let's see. I'm long of him at 7.6 to be next PM and I'm still expecting to be laying that back at much shorter well before the GE.
Anyway let's park Starmer, because I'd like to say a word about Boris Johnson for a change. It's depressing beyond measure that such a man sits astride English politics but sit astride English politics such a man doth sit. It’s the truth of the matter and it must be faced.
I hear the dissing of him that goes on. He’s lucky. People don’t really like him, it’s all vaccine bounce, or it’s Brexit. Plus the Foremain OGH thesis - ok he wins elections but look at the opponents, a fag end Ken Livingstone, the risible Jeremy Corbyn. Anyone could have beaten them.
I don’t buy this. Red Ken was a London icon and London is a Labour city. Johnson beat him then beat him again. Jeremy Corbyn was such a terrible candidate that in the GE of 2017 he racked up Labour’s best English vote share since the 97 landslide and came within a whisker of number ten. Yes, he’d become a whipping boy by GE19, but does anybody really think if Jeremy Hunt had won the Tory leadership (another Johnson electoral triumph, btw, right there) that he’d have managed anything close to the 80 seat majority that Johnson scored. Not a chance. 30 seats max.
And let’s not forget Johnson’s biggest election win of all, 23 June 2016, 52/48, against a certain David Cameron, super smooth, super confident PM of the time, fresh from a GE triumph of his own the year before, see-er off of the rampant Scots the year before that. DC knew he’d win until he heard Johnson had plumped for the other side. Then he started to worry and he was right to.
So there you go. It’s not a view I enjoy holding but it is my view. Boris Johnson IS the Heineken politician. He DOES reach the people and the parts that other Tories cannot reach. And those people and parts are perfectly situated for turning Tory votes into Tory seats in FPTP general elections.
I’m not as bearish on Labour for the next GE as many seem to be – sense there’s some herd thinking going on – but I confess here and now that I’d fancy their chances a lot more if they were facing any Tory leader bar Boris Johnson. The guy’s a menace.
Labour deluded if they don't recognise Boris Johnson is a formidable opponent who will be very tough to shift.
Unpopular opinion among left-wing circles: Boris Johnson is actually pretty funny. But why can't Labour find a politician who can tell a joke or two?
Herman Goering could be pretty funny and managed to connect with the wider German public in a way his fellow criminals failed to do.
The issue here is the same as the issue in the US and it is an issue that's completely ignored by many on here.
Pollsters struggle to register brexity white working class voters here in the same way as they struggle to register Trumpist republicans in the US.
And so the pollsters here were totally wrongfooted ahead of Hartlepool in the same way and many of the US pollsters were wrongfooted in Iowa, Ohio, Texas, Florida and North Carolina.
We can debate why, but its a definite phenomenon.
The pollsters who predicted a smashing Conservative victory in Hartlepool?
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
We could elect a House of Commons who would repeal or amend the Act of Settlement 1701, which both varied and defined the line of succession, contrary, in fact, to the wishes of the arguably rightful monarch in the sense of hereditary succession. So succession to the throne and arguably retention of the throne is, in law, at the sufferance of Parliament, and, thus, not in fact hereditary, still less as of right. So are we not in theory if not form or substance, a republic?
Going further, since Parliament can make or unmake any law whatsoever including its own historic act, and in fact has continued to do so as recently as the Succession to the Crown Act 2013; were it tomorrow to appoint one Doug Seal and his heirs as King Douglas I, I would have no more or less technically legitimate claim to the throne than Elizabeth I.
While theoretically the Queen could withhold assent to such a course of action, it would not become law, but that would not necessarily detract from the principle, because Parliament has passed laws which have governed the succession by which that monarch took the throne; thus this merely highlights the existence of a poorly planned republic rather than the absence of one. In principle Parliament may be able to pass an ordinance; a form of act where Royal Assent is not sought. The constitutional power to do so is questionable but interesting.
Incidentally, the monarch might also theoretically pick a random member of Sinn Fein as Prime Minister or veto every single act of Parliament just for shits and giggles. But it wouldn’t, just as HMQ would not withhold consent from a change to the Act of Settlement.
I have a monarchist friend who is convinced King Charles III* will refuse to give Royal Assent on at least one bill.
You can see a scenario for example when a government introduces legislation, that wasn't in their manifesto, that will harm the environment, tree hugger Charles will say no.
If Boris orders pubs and restaurants to close down again because he fucked up over the Indian variant, I will not be responsible for my actions.
Enough.
It's highly unlikely, but not impossible.
The reason the government can't tell you what will happen in June is the sheer number of cases of the new variant which came in from India. It could be a while before there's sufficient data to determine whether it's showing increased transmissibility, or if the sudden large number of cases is just an artefact of allowing travellers in from a country experiencing a pandemic peak.
What's interesting is that if the UK can simply absorb these cases without any issues (as should be the case) it does mean we can probably afford to be much less restrictive on returning travellers who have been double jabbed.
You're saying it was all a cunning plan, rather than a somewhat reckless gamble ?
Surely a plan by politicians to keep cases up so they can hold on to lockdown.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Bollocks. I went to a Grammar School. I got 3 As at A level in 1978. I didn't go to Oxbridge - because I was working class. Other kids in my year got 3 As and did go to Oxbridge - the middle class kids.
If Boris orders pubs and restaurants to close down again because he fucked up over the Indian variant, I will not be responsible for my actions.
Enough.
It's highly unlikely, but not impossible.
The reason the government can't tell you what will happen in June is the sheer number of cases of the new variant which came in from India. It could be a while before there's sufficient data to determine whether it's showing increased transmissibility, or if the sudden large number of cases is just an artefact of allowing travellers in from a country experiencing a pandemic peak.
What's interesting is that if the UK can simply absorb these cases without any issues (as should be the case) it does mean we can probably afford to be much less restrictive on returning travellers who have been double jabbed.
After 21 June.
If 100% of domestic social distancing regulations have gone, that's when its time to start getting rid of foreign travel ones.
Yes, of course. I wouldn't reintroduce any easy travel pathways until we've fully unlocked here and there would still need to be some safeguards but less than today and we'd probably still want a realist for countries like Brazil.
After 21 June I'd probably go for something like
Red List: As now. Amber List: As now, except Double Vaccinated (at least 3 weeks prior) follow current Green List rules (so no quarantine). Green List: As now, except Double Vaccinated (at least 3 weeks prior) can take a cheaper LFT Test instead of a PCR Test.
The issue here is the same as the issue in the US and it is an issue that's completely ignored by many on here.
Pollsters struggle to register brexity white working class voters here in the same way as they struggle to register Trumpist republicans in the US.
And so the pollsters here were totally wrongfooted ahead of Hartlepool in the same way and many of the US pollsters were wrongfooted in Iowa, Ohio, Texas, Florida and North Carolina.
We can debate why, but its a definite phenomenon.
The pollsters who predicted a smashing Conservative victory in Hartlepool?
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Indeed. First rule of being in someone else's country is that you slag off their traditions and institutions at your peril. He is showing the poor judgement of a man who has always had his judgements made for him.
Silly of him to attack the US press, especially if any of the rumours about what they have in their cuttings library about his wife are true.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Bollocks. I went to a Grammar School. I got 3 As at A level in 1978. I didn't go to Oxbridge - because I was working class. Other kids in my year got 3 As and did go to Oxbridge - the middle class kids.
I also got 3 As at A level and went to a public school and did not go to Oxbridge.
69% of Oxford offers go to state schools now which is about right considering a third of A grade A levels go to private school pupils.
Re header, gosh, terrible for Keir Starmer. He has a year to turn things around and I'd be lying if I said I'm confident he will. But let's see. I'm long of him at 7.6 to be next PM and I'm still expecting to be laying that back at much shorter well before the GE.
Anyway let's park Starmer, because I'd like to say a word about Boris Johnson for a change. It's depressing beyond measure that such a man sits astride English politics but sit astride English politics such a man doth sit. It’s the truth of the matter and it must be faced.
I hear the dissing of him that goes on. He’s lucky. People don’t really like him, it’s all vaccine bounce, or it’s Brexit. Plus the Foremain OGH thesis - ok he wins elections but look at the opponents, a fag end Ken Livingstone, the risible Jeremy Corbyn. Anyone could have beaten them.
I don’t buy this. Red Ken was a London icon and London is a Labour city. Johnson beat him then beat him again. Jeremy Corbyn was such a terrible candidate that in the GE of 2017 he racked up Labour’s best English vote share since the 97 landslide and came within a whisker of number ten. Yes, he’d become a whipping boy by GE19, but does anybody really think if Jeremy Hunt had won the Tory leadership (another Johnson electoral triumph, btw, right there) that he’d have managed anything close to the 80 seat majority that Johnson scored. Not a chance. 30 seats max.
And let’s not forget Johnson’s biggest election win of all, 23 June 2016, 52/48, against a certain David Cameron, super smooth, super confident PM of the time, fresh from a GE triumph of his own the year before, see-er off of the rampant Scots the year before that. DC knew he’d win until he heard Johnson had plumped for the other side. Then he started to worry and he was right to.
So there you go. It’s not a view I enjoy holding but it is my view. Boris Johnson IS the Heineken politician. He DOES reach the people and the parts that other Tories cannot reach. And those people and parts are perfectly situated for turning Tory votes into Tory seats in FPTP general elections.
I’m not as bearish on Labour for the next GE as many seem to be – sense there’s some herd thinking going on – but I confess here and now that I’d fancy their chances a lot more if they were facing any Tory leader bar Boris Johnson. The guy’s a menace.
Labour deluded if they don't recognise Boris Johnson is a formidable opponent who will be very tough to shift.
Unpopular opinion among left-wing circles: Boris Johnson is actually pretty funny. But why can't Labour find a politician who can tell a joke or two?
Mexican Pete has advanced a Benny Hill thesis that I think has merit. There's some Tommy Cooper in there too for me. As with both of those 2 titans of titter, it's not what they say, there's precious little wit, it's in the slapstick tomfoolery tradition. Quite a thing for a politician to have.
Also unique to him, so I don't think Labour should chase it. But, yes, we do need to see some relaxation and humour from Keir Starmer. The rub is, you need confidence for that, and it's hard to be confident when everyone's on your back telling you to shape up. My advice to Keir, should he come to me, would be to chill and start acting like he's miles ahead in the polls not miles behind.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
You have to pass an entrance exam to get into Harrow too, Harrow may not be as academic as Eton or Winchester or Westminster but it is not Stowe either (and even Stowe requires 55% average at Common Entrance)
Did not David Cameron once muse that Eton was becoming too academically intensive and it was the thick sons of gentleman farmers and the aristocracy who made the place?
Eton is catching up with Winchester and Westminster, which have always traditionally been the most academically intense of the top rank public schools if slightly less socially exclusive than Eton, with scholarships and highly competitive entrance.
Before Cameron of course went to Eton as befits his class, along with Boris, even if their brains did not perhaps match those of Winchester educated Sunak
The last debating competition my son was in at Durham had 8 teams from Eton, one of which ultimately won. They haven’t given up on teaching future cabinet ministers just yet.
Oxbridge has become very wary of taking Etonians (one per college per year) so for those who miss out Durham, Exeter or St. Andrews remain popular choices. My nephew ended up at Durham.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
You have to pass an entrance exam to get into Harrow too, Harrow may not be as academic as Eton or Winchester or Westminster but it is not Stowe either (and even Stowe requires 55% average at Common Entrance)
Did not David Cameron once muse that Eton was becoming too academically intensive and it was the thick sons of gentleman farmers and the aristocracy who made the place?
Eton is catching up with Winchester and Westminster, which have always traditionally been the most academically intense of the top rank public schools if slightly less socially exclusive than Eton, with scholarships and highly competitive entrance.
Before Cameron of course went to Eton as befits his class, along with Boris, even if their brains did not perhaps match those of Winchester educated Sunak
The last debating competition my son was in at Durham had 8 teams from Eton, one of which ultimately won. They haven’t given up on teaching future cabinet ministers just yet.
Oxbridge has become very wary of taking Etonians (one per college per year) so for those who miss out Durham, Exeter or St. Andrews remain popular choices. My nephew ended up at Durham.
Ascot going ahead max 4,000/day. No one who didn't buy tickets last year at this stage.
Royal Ascot will be a poignant affair for Her Majesty. Her first without the Duke of Edinburgh, in all likelihood. It is also a shame it falls the week before 21st June's freedom-ish day.
I do find the way racecourses have been treated as daft. They are huge outside venues. At the snooker final 900 people were allowed in a 900 seater venue. Ascot is a vast area and could easily take 50,000+ in comfort. 4000 is such a small number, especially when the majority of Ascot is outside.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
You have to pass an entrance exam to get into Harrow too, Harrow may not be as academic as Eton or Winchester or Westminster but it is not Stowe either (and even Stowe requires 55% average at Common Entrance)
I suppose Q1 on the paper is "Can your parents afford the fees?"
Plenty of scholarships for all those schools. But it does cost £400 to register just to be able to line up to be considered for Eton, no idea about the others.
Indeed. First rule of being in someone else's country is that you slag off their traditions and institutions at your peril. He is showing the poor judgement of a man who has always had his judgements made for him.
Silly of him to attack the US press, especially if any of the rumours about what they have in their cuttings library about his wife are true.
Also stupid given how easy they've been going on the both of them. Why antagonise them? They've literally been signal boosting all of their crap for months.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
We could elect a House of Commons who would repeal or amend the Act of Settlement 1701, which both varied and defined the line of succession, contrary, in fact, to the wishes of the arguably rightful monarch in the sense of hereditary succession. So succession to the throne and arguably retention of the throne is, in law, at the sufferance of Parliament, and, thus, not in fact hereditary, still less as of right. So are we not in theory if not form or substance, a republic?
Going further, since Parliament can make or unmake any law whatsoever including its own historic act, and in fact has continued to do so as recently as the Succession to the Crown Act 2013; were it tomorrow to appoint one Doug Seal and his heirs as King Douglas I, I would have no more or less technically legitimate claim to the throne than Elizabeth I.
While theoretically the Queen could withhold assent to such a course of action, it would not become law, but that would not necessarily detract from the principle, because Parliament has passed laws which have governed the succession by which that monarch took the throne; thus this merely highlights the existence of a poorly planned republic rather than the absence of one. In principle Parliament may be able to pass an ordinance; a form of act where Royal Assent is not sought. The constitutional power to do so is questionable but interesting.
Incidentally, the monarch might also theoretically pick a random member of Sinn Fein as Prime Minister or veto every single act of Parliament just for shits and giggles. But it wouldn’t, just as HMQ would not withhold consent from a change to the Act of Settlement.
There has never been a pure peaceful hereditary monarchy in the long run. Lots of the time the best qualified relative/claimant got it by a combination of men in grey suits and force (eg the tanist system). Force majeure often gets it - William I, Henry VII - with the hereditary idea being a legitimation method after the event.
Our current system derives directly from both conquest, however peaceful, (William III) and exclusion (no Catholics allowed), hence protestant George (direct descent from James I but way off being first in line) and parliament intervention - by way of abdication and abolition of male primogeniture (bumping Charlotte up the list).
Having said all that our beloved HM is a direct descendent of Alfred the Great, each step of which is known and recorded. And if she lives another three years will overtake Louis XIV for length of reign.
Hartlepool has changed my view of Starmer. It was a totally unnecessary by-election for which he thoroughly deserves heavy flak. A leader should not be easily forgiven for such a self inflicted wound.
Was it? How could it have been avoided?
Didn't he parachute in a candidate?
No, Justin is saying the by election itself shouldn't have been held.
Ah. No idea of the background of it. Did someone die/resign/etc? Surely SKS didn't just think "let's have a by election"?
An MP resigned because they were facing an employment tribunal regarding allegations of sexual harassment.
The evidence from that has been...interesting. Yes I did want to have an affair with her. Yes I did rub myself up against her. Yes I did purport to sack her by text. Yes, I did try to have her put out of the house she was renting from me. But she is vindictive and this is all so unfair.
That's just driving a coach and fours through all the basic principles of professionalism, isn't it?
Better that a person like that with no concept of ethical boundary is down the road anyway.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Bollocks. I went to a Grammar School. I got 3 As at A level in 1978. I didn't go to Oxbridge - because I was working class. Other kids in my year got 3 As and did go to Oxbridge - the middle class kids.
I also got 3 As at A level and went to a public school and did not go to Oxbridge.
69% of Oxford offers go to state schools now which is about right considering a third of A grade A levels go to private school pupils.
I am informed that Labour actually got a swing from the Cons of 2.2% in the locals. What do they need to win a General, is it 3.3%?. The left of centre vote held up very well, of course the right wing media will not tell you this, neither will TV news, it is not a story for them. Lib Dems got 17%, which is pretty good and the Greens must be in double figures.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
You have to pass an entrance exam to get into Harrow too, Harrow may not be as academic as Eton or Winchester or Westminster but it is not Stowe either (and even Stowe requires 55% average at Common Entrance)
Did not David Cameron once muse that Eton was becoming too academically intensive and it was the thick sons of gentleman farmers and the aristocracy who made the place?
Eton is catching up with Winchester and Westminster, which have always traditionally been the most academically intense of the top rank public schools if slightly less socially exclusive than Eton, with scholarships and highly competitive entrance.
Before Cameron of course went to Eton as befits his class, along with Boris, even if their brains did not perhaps match those of Winchester educated Sunak
The last debating competition my son was in at Durham had 8 teams from Eton, one of which ultimately won. They haven’t given up on teaching future cabinet ministers just yet.
Oxbridge has become very wary of taking Etonians (one per college per year) so for those who miss out Durham, Exeter or St. Andrews remain popular choices. My nephew ended up at Durham.
I was not aware of that. Interesting. Somewhat weirdly, my son's college will have 2 students from High School of Dundee!
Re header, gosh, terrible for Keir Starmer. He has a year to turn things around and I'd be lying if I said I'm confident he will. But let's see. I'm long of him at 7.6 to be next PM and I'm still expecting to be laying that back at much shorter well before the GE.
Anyway let's park Starmer, because I'd like to say a word about Boris Johnson for a change. It's depressing beyond measure that such a man sits astride English politics but sit astride English politics such a man doth sit. It’s the truth of the matter and it must be faced.
I hear the dissing of him that goes on. He’s lucky. People don’t really like him, it’s all vaccine bounce, or it’s Brexit. Plus the Foremain OGH thesis - ok he wins elections but look at the opponents, a fag end Ken Livingstone, the risible Jeremy Corbyn. Anyone could have beaten them.
I don’t buy this. Red Ken was a London icon and London is a Labour city. Johnson beat him then beat him again. Jeremy Corbyn was such a terrible candidate that in the GE of 2017 he racked up Labour’s best English vote share since the 97 landslide and came within a whisker of number ten. Yes, he’d become a whipping boy by GE19, but does anybody really think if Jeremy Hunt had won the Tory leadership (another Johnson electoral triumph, btw, right there) that he’d have managed anything close to the 80 seat majority that Johnson scored. Not a chance. 30 seats max.
And let’s not forget Johnson’s biggest election win of all, 23 June 2016, 52/48, against a certain David Cameron, super smooth, super confident PM of the time, fresh from a GE triumph of his own the year before, see-er off of the rampant Scots the year before that. DC knew he’d win until he heard Johnson had plumped for the other side. Then he started to worry and he was right to.
So there you go. It’s not a view I enjoy holding but it is my view. Boris Johnson IS the Heineken politician. He DOES reach the people and the parts that other Tories cannot reach. And those people and parts are perfectly situated for turning Tory votes into Tory seats in FPTP general elections.
I’m not as bearish on Labour for the next GE as many seem to be – sense there’s some herd thinking going on – but I confess here and now that I’d fancy their chances a lot more if they were facing any Tory leader bar Boris Johnson. The guy’s a menace.
Who could refuse you at least an ovatio and myrtle crown for that post?
Boris saying he'll make the decision "in a few days" sounds like he wants to say yes we're opening before any meaningful stats from May 17th start appearing.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Bollocks. I went to a Grammar School. I got 3 As at A level in 1978. I didn't go to Oxbridge - because I was working class. Other kids in my year got 3 As and did go to Oxbridge - the middle class kids.
I also got 3 As at A level and went to a public school and did not go to Oxbridge.
69% of Oxford offers go to state schools now which is about right considering a third of A grade A levels go to private school pupils.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
You have to pass an entrance exam to get into Harrow too, Harrow may not be as academic as Eton or Winchester or Westminster but it is not Stowe either (and even Stowe requires 55% average at Common Entrance)
Did not David Cameron once muse that Eton was becoming too academically intensive and it was the thick sons of gentleman farmers and the aristocracy who made the place?
Eton is catching up with Winchester and Westminster, which have always traditionally been the most academically intense of the top rank public schools if slightly less socially exclusive than Eton, with scholarships and highly competitive entrance.
Before Cameron of course went to Eton as befits his class, along with Boris, even if their brains did not perhaps match those of Winchester educated Sunak
The last debating competition my son was in at Durham had 8 teams from Eton, one of which ultimately won. They haven’t given up on teaching future cabinet ministers just yet.
Oxbridge has become very wary of taking Etonians (one per college per year) so for those who miss out Durham, Exeter or St. Andrews remain popular choices. My nephew ended up at Durham.
Plenty of Etonians at Bristol too
Yep and Universities that they might have thought twice about previously such as Newcastle and Leeds. Very rah those now.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
We could elect a House of Commons who would repeal or amend the Act of Settlement 1701, which both varied and defined the line of succession, contrary, in fact, to the wishes of the arguably rightful monarch in the sense of hereditary succession. So succession to the throne and arguably retention of the throne is, in law, at the sufferance of Parliament, and, thus, not in fact hereditary, still less as of right. So are we not in theory if not form or substance, a republic?
Going further, since Parliament can make or unmake any law whatsoever including its own historic act, and in fact has continued to do so as recently as the Succession to the Crown Act 2013; were it tomorrow to appoint one Doug Seal and his heirs as King Douglas I, I would have no more or less technically legitimate claim to the throne than Elizabeth I.
While theoretically the Queen could withhold assent to such a course of action, it would not become law, but that would not necessarily detract from the principle, because Parliament has passed laws which have governed the succession by which that monarch took the throne; thus this merely highlights the existence of a poorly planned republic rather than the absence of one. In principle Parliament may be able to pass an ordinance; a form of act where Royal Assent is not sought. The constitutional power to do so is questionable but interesting.
Incidentally, the monarch might also theoretically pick a random member of Sinn Fein as Prime Minister or veto every single act of Parliament just for shits and giggles. But it wouldn’t, just as HMQ would not withhold consent from a change to the Act of Settlement.
I have a monarchist friend who is convinced King Charles III* will refuse to give Royal Assent on at least one bill.
You can see a scenario for example when a government introduces legislation, that wasn't in their manifesto, that will harm the environment, tree hugger Charles will say no.
*Or whatever regnal name he chooses.
I could definitely see Charles doing that. He hasn't got the constitutional discipline.
I am informed that Labour actually got a swing from the Cons of 2.2% in the locals. What do they need to win a General, is it 3.3%?. The left of centre vote held up very well, of course the right wing media will not tell you this, neither will TV news, it is not a story for them. Lib Dems got 17%, which is pretty good and the Greens must be in double figures.
To win a majority Labour need a huge swing of 10.52%, however they can deprive the Tories of their majority and get a hung parliament with a swing of just 3.84% yes and this time the DUP may refuse to support the Tories until the Irish Sea border is removed, especially with Poots now in charge
Boris saying he'll make the decision "in a few days" sounds like he wants to say yes we're opening before any meaningful stats from May 17th start appearing.
That’s odd. I thought the decision is made a week before the date, not four weeks.
Given the discussion of the First Amendment today, I'd say that Harry's ignorance is massively preferable to the last administration's complete contempt for it.
Boris saying he'll make the decision "in a few days" sounds like he wants to say yes we're opening before any meaningful stats from May 17th start appearing.
That’s odd. I thought the decision is made a week before the date, not four weeks.
A few days is what I think I just heard on the voxpop.
Hartlepool has changed my view of Starmer. It was a totally unnecessary by-election for which he thoroughly deserves heavy flak. A leader should not be easily forgiven for such a self inflicted wound.
Was it? How could it have been avoided?
Didn't he parachute in a candidate?
No, Justin is saying the by election itself shouldn't have been held.
Ah. No idea of the background of it. Did someone die/resign/etc? Surely SKS didn't just think "let's have a by election"?
An MP resigned because they were facing an employment tribunal regarding allegations of sexual harassment.
The evidence from that has been...interesting. Yes I did want to have an affair with her. Yes I did rub myself up against her. Yes I did purport to sack her by text. Yes, I did try to have her put out of the house she was renting from me. But she is vindictive and this is all so unfair.
That's just driving a coach and fours through all the basic principles of professionalism, isn't it?
Better that a person like that with no concept of ethical boundary is down the road anyway.
Absolutely. According to the BBC he was also asked if he had problems separating the professional and the personal. I am not sure his answer convinced.
@justin124 suggests that getting him to resign was a serious tactical error by SKS. Personally, I think it is to his credit. But no good deed etc...
Ascot going ahead max 4,000/day. No one who didn't buy tickets last year at this stage.
Royal Ascot will be a poignant affair for Her Majesty. Her first without the Duke of Edinburgh, in all likelihood. It is also a shame it falls the week before 21st June's freedom-ish day.
I do find the way racecourses have been treated as daft. They are huge outside venues. At the snooker final 900 people were allowed in a 900 seater venue. Ascot is a vast area and could easily take 50,000+ in comfort. 4000 is such a small number, especially when the majority of Ascot is outside.
Yes, it does seem overly heavy-handed, especially given restrictions are due to be lifted a few days later!
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
You have just reminded me why I am not a Conservative.
Selection at aged 11 is immoral. Wealthy parents paying for 11 plus tuition to pass the exam at the expense of smarter kids who can't afford that luxury.
I went to a great, properly funded comprehensive in the mid seventies. Students in my year were high achievers in later life. This was followed by a grammar school where the second (bottom) set students were referred to as "less able". These "less able" students were the council house kids who didn't make 5 gces. In my book if 30 children passed the 11 plus and yet failed to achieve a mere 5 O levels that proves the system failed.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
We could elect a House of Commons who would repeal or amend the Act of Settlement 1701, which both varied and defined the line of succession, contrary, in fact, to the wishes of the arguably rightful monarch in the sense of hereditary succession. So succession to the throne and arguably retention of the throne is, in law, at the sufferance of Parliament, and, thus, not in fact hereditary, still less as of right. So are we not in theory if not form or substance, a republic?
Going further, since Parliament can make or unmake any law whatsoever including its own historic act, and in fact has continued to do so as recently as the Succession to the Crown Act 2013; were it tomorrow to appoint one Doug Seal and his heirs as King Douglas I, I would have no more or less technically legitimate claim to the throne than Elizabeth I.
While theoretically the Queen could withhold assent to such a course of action, it would not become law, but that would not necessarily detract from the principle, because Parliament has passed laws which have governed the succession by which that monarch took the throne; thus this merely highlights the existence of a poorly planned republic rather than the absence of one. In principle Parliament may be able to pass an ordinance; a form of act where Royal Assent is not sought. The constitutional power to do so is questionable but interesting.
Incidentally, the monarch might also theoretically pick a random member of Sinn Fein as Prime Minister or veto every single act of Parliament just for shits and giggles. But it wouldn’t, just as HMQ would not withhold consent from a change to the Act of Settlement.
There has never been a pure peaceful hereditary monarchy in the long run. Lots of the time the best qualified relative/claimant got it by a combination of men in grey suits and force (eg the tanist system). Force majeure often gets it - William I, Henry VII - with the hereditary idea being a legitimation method after the event.
Our current system derives directly from both conquest, however peaceful, (William III) and exclusion (no Catholics allowed), hence protestant George (direct descent from James I but way off being first in line) and parliament intervention - by way of abdication and abolition of male primogeniture (bumping Charlotte up the list).
Having said all that our beloved HM is a direct descendent of Alfred the Great, each step of which is known and recorded. And if she lives another three years will overtake Louis XIV for length of reign.
Re header, gosh, terrible for Keir Starmer. He has a year to turn things around and I'd be lying if I said I'm confident he will. But let's see. I'm long of him at 7.6 to be next PM and I'm still expecting to be laying that back at much shorter well before the GE.
Anyway let's park Starmer, because I'd like to say a word about Boris Johnson for a change. It's depressing beyond measure that such a man sits astride English politics but sit astride English politics such a man doth sit. It’s the truth of the matter and it must be faced.
I hear the dissing of him that goes on. He’s lucky. People don’t really like him, it’s all vaccine bounce, or it’s Brexit. Plus the Foremain OGH thesis - ok he wins elections but look at the opponents, a fag end Ken Livingstone, the risible Jeremy Corbyn. Anyone could have beaten them.
I don’t buy this. Red Ken was a London icon and London is a Labour city. Johnson beat him then beat him again. Jeremy Corbyn was such a terrible candidate that in the GE of 2017 he racked up Labour’s best English vote share since the 97 landslide and came within a whisker of number ten. Yes, he’d become a whipping boy by GE19, but does anybody really think if Jeremy Hunt had won the Tory leadership (another Johnson electoral triumph, btw, right there) that he’d have managed anything close to the 80 seat majority that Johnson scored. Not a chance. 30 seats max.
And let’s not forget Johnson’s biggest election win of all, 23 June 2016, 52/48, against a certain David Cameron, super smooth, super confident PM of the time, fresh from a GE triumph of his own the year before, see-er off of the rampant Scots the year before that. DC knew he’d win until he heard Johnson had plumped for the other side. Then he started to worry and he was right to.
So there you go. It’s not a view I enjoy holding but it is my view. Boris Johnson IS the Heineken politician. He DOES reach the people and the parts that other Tories cannot reach. And those people and parts are perfectly situated for turning Tory votes into Tory seats in FPTP general elections.
I’m not as bearish on Labour for the next GE as many seem to be – sense there’s some herd thinking going on – but I confess here and now that I’d fancy their chances a lot more if they were facing any Tory leader bar Boris Johnson. The guy’s a menace.
You said it
Yep. Know thine enemy.
Saw you trying to throw your big grand around on PT btw. It's a fair price you ask for - evens on a Con majority at the next GE is in line with Betfair - but I'll pass. I price it as an odds on shot. Guess you do too.
I am as below atm -
Con maj 60% Hung parl 33% Lab maj 7%
Just some loose change I found in my trousers after they came back from the laundry!
Ascot going ahead max 4,000/day. No one who didn't buy tickets last year at this stage.
Royal Ascot will be a poignant affair for Her Majesty. Her first without the Duke of Edinburgh, in all likelihood. It is also a shame it falls the week before 21st June's freedom-ish day.
I do find the way racecourses have been treated as daft. They are huge outside venues. At the snooker final 900 people were allowed in a 900 seater venue. Ascot is a vast area and could easily take 50,000+ in comfort. 4000 is such a small number, especially when the majority of Ascot is outside.
As I mentioned last week, I am going to a point to point soon and there will likely be no limit and I very much hope more than 4,000 people there. It's in a field.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Bollocks. I went to a Grammar School. I got 3 As at A level in 1978. I didn't go to Oxbridge - because I was working class. Other kids in my year got 3 As and did go to Oxbridge - the middle class kids.
I also got 3 As at A level and went to a public school and did not go to Oxbridge.
69% of Oxford offers go to state schools now which is about right considering a third of A grade A levels go to private school pupils.
Re header, gosh, terrible for Keir Starmer. He has a year to turn things around and I'd be lying if I said I'm confident he will. But let's see. I'm long of him at 7.6 to be next PM and I'm still expecting to be laying that back at much shorter well before the GE.
Anyway let's park Starmer, because I'd like to say a word about Boris Johnson for a change. It's depressing beyond measure that such a man sits astride English politics but sit astride English politics such a man doth sit. It’s the truth of the matter and it must be faced.
I hear the dissing of him that goes on. He’s lucky. People don’t really like him, it’s all vaccine bounce, or it’s Brexit. Plus the Foremain OGH thesis - ok he wins elections but look at the opponents, a fag end Ken Livingstone, the risible Jeremy Corbyn. Anyone could have beaten them.
I don’t buy this. Red Ken was a London icon and London is a Labour city. Johnson beat him then beat him again. Jeremy Corbyn was such a terrible candidate that in the GE of 2017 he racked up Labour’s best English vote share since the 97 landslide and came within a whisker of number ten. Yes, he’d become a whipping boy by GE19, but does anybody really think if Jeremy Hunt had won the Tory leadership (another Johnson electoral triumph, btw, right there) that he’d have managed anything close to the 80 seat majority that Johnson scored. Not a chance. 30 seats max.
And let’s not forget Johnson’s biggest election win of all, 23 June 2016, 52/48, against a certain David Cameron, super smooth, super confident PM of the time, fresh from a GE triumph of his own the year before, see-er off of the rampant Scots the year before that. DC knew he’d win until he heard Johnson had plumped for the other side. Then he started to worry and he was right to.
So there you go. It’s not a view I enjoy holding but it is my view. Boris Johnson IS the Heineken politician. He DOES reach the people and the parts that other Tories cannot reach. And those people and parts are perfectly situated for turning Tory votes into Tory seats in FPTP general elections.
I’m not as bearish on Labour for the next GE as many seem to be – sense there’s some herd thinking going on – but I confess here and now that I’d fancy their chances a lot more if they were facing any Tory leader bar Boris Johnson. The guy’s a menace.
Boris is racking up the Falklands Moments with Brexit and COVID: Things the opposition told him were impossible and he was hopelessly mishandling. The demented screeching from Owen Jones, amongst others, just made that side of the argument look dim. He's allowed to have curtains. COVID - a natural disaster - was always going to be chaotic as natural disasters are. He was never going to be punished by the electorate for that.
I also take chasing away the French with boats on local election day as a sign the gods, who are obviously Greek, still want him in place, to steward the UK through choppy waters and then finish him off however they choose. I don't think Keir is chosen for much at all.
OJ's 'demented screeching' = having the cheek to expose the insouciant complacency and rank incompetence that cost £50 billion pounds and 50,000 lives.
But, yes, on your main point, I agree. As well as the political gifts there's the destiny - aka luck. He's run the tables with it.
One example of many. The Brexit into Covid sequence. He got the big positive buzz of the former - with the choreographed Christmas Eve deal which Got It Done - and then the pandemic came along to blot out the dreary aftermath.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
You have just reminded me why I am not a Conservative.
Selection at aged 11 is immoral. Wealthy parents paying for 11 plus tuition to pass the exam at the expense of smarter kids who can't afford that luxury.
I went to a great, properly funded comprehensive in the mid seventies. Students in my year were high achievers in later life. This was followed by a grammar school where the second (bottom) set students were referred to as "less able". These "less able" students were the council house kids who didn't make 5 gces. In my book if 30 children passed the 11 plus and yet failed to achieve a mere 5 O levels that proves the system failed.
There is already selection for state schools, just by house price or church attendance.
Plus if you have a genuinely high IQ you would pass the 11 plus or 13 plus whether tutored or not.
Now most grammar schools have well over 90% getting 5 or more good GCSEs, back then only a minority got 5 good O levels whereever they studied
Ascot going ahead max 4,000/day. No one who didn't buy tickets last year at this stage.
Royal Ascot will be a poignant affair for Her Majesty. Her first without the Duke of Edinburgh, in all likelihood. It is also a shame it falls the week before 21st June's freedom-ish day.
I do find the way racecourses have been treated as daft. They are huge outside venues. At the snooker final 900 people were allowed in a 900 seater venue. Ascot is a vast area and could easily take 50,000+ in comfort. 4000 is such a small number, especially when the majority of Ascot is outside.
A lot of the issues around large sporting events are more to do with getting the crowd in and out, rather than at the event itself. Most of the Ascot crowd will be arriving by train.
If Boris orders pubs and restaurants to close down again because he fucked up over the Indian variant, I will not be responsible for my actions.
Enough.
It's highly unlikely, but not impossible.
The reason the government can't tell you what will happen in June is the sheer number of cases of the new variant which came in from India. It could be a while before there's sufficient data to determine whether it's showing increased transmissibility, or if the sudden large number of cases is just an artefact of allowing travellers in from a country experiencing a pandemic peak.
The government delayed even once it knew there was a new strain and despite all the terrible scenes from India. It is Italy all over again. It is the Kent strain all over again.
That is why we have a problem now. And if it leads to continuing lockdown / restrictions and destruction of businesses, the government should be crucified for its negligence.
I'm reasonably sure it's not Italy all over again, but it was indeed irresponsible.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
You have just reminded me why I am not a Conservative.
Selection at aged 11 is immoral. Wealthy parents paying for 11 plus tuition to pass the exam at the expense of smarter kids who can't afford that luxury.
I went to a great, properly funded comprehensive in the mid seventies. Students in my year were high achievers in later life. This was followed by a grammar school where the second (bottom) set students were referred to as "less able". These "less able" students were the council house kids who didn't make 5 gces. In my book if 30 children passed the 11 plus and yet failed to achieve a mere 5 O levels that proves the system failed.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
You have just reminded me why I am not a Conservative.
Selection at aged 11 is immoral. Wealthy parents paying for 11 plus tuition to pass the exam at the expense of smarter kids who can't afford that luxury.
I went to a great, properly funded comprehensive in the mid seventies. Students in my year were high achievers in later life. This was followed by a grammar school where the second (bottom) set students were referred to as "less able". These "less able" students were the council house kids who didn't make 5 gces. In my book if 30 children passed the 11 plus and yet failed to achieve a mere 5 O levels that proves the system failed.
I have to admit I got my self confidence when I was 11 when I was preparing for the equivalent of the 11 plus and my father was about to pay tutors to help me pass it. Every teacher said I didn't need the tuition and they'd feel bad about taking my father's money.
Epilogue - My father still paid, he wasn't taking any chances. Most of the extra tuition was spent on preparing me for the interview stage.
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As the leadership election when she bombed, without a single memorable thought or idea to her name, amply demonstrated.
If McD's needed to hire another person in the team whose job it was to just stick labels onto takeaways, they'd do it.
McDonalds already sticky label quite a lot of their packaging, and they already use your reg number to match up your order, payment, and food, so it shouldn't be a huge hardship to make them print the reg number on the stickers.
I also take chasing away the French with boats on local election day as a sign the gods, who are obviously Greek, still want him in place, to steward the UK through choppy waters and then finish him off however they choose. I don't think Keir is chosen for much at all.
Hong Kong police national security director caught during raid on unlicensed massage parlour cleared of any illegal or immoral conduct
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and-crime/article/3133928/hong-kong-police-national-security-director-caught
They have people who can set out a vision.
They have people who aren't batshit crazy.
The people are in entirely unconnected circles on a Venn diagram.
Before Cameron of course went to Eton as befits his class, along with Boris, even if their brains did not perhaps match those of Winchester educated Sunak
‘/it·can·be·done/
London // England ♥’
https://twitter.com/leahfigs/status/1394390265679466497?s=21
More please
What have they done there? Reclad or knock-down and build again?Ignore me. Is obviously a rebuild.
Saw you trying to throw your big grand around on PT btw. It's a fair price you ask for - evens on a Con majority at the next GE is in line with Betfair - but I'll pass. I price it as an odds on shot. Guess you do too.
I am as below atm -
Con maj 60%
Hung parl 33%
Lab maj 7%
The reason the government can't tell you what will happen in June is the sheer number of cases of the new variant which came in from India.
It could be a while before there's sufficient data to determine whether it's showing increased transmissibility, or if the sudden large number of cases is just an artefact of allowing travellers in from a country experiencing a pandemic peak.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
We were talking about covid and then India and I mentioned how bad it was. And he went quiet and then said ‘Yes, my uncle and my brother in law died last week, one was just 40, and healthy’
And other family members are ill...
Very sobering. Probably the first time I have encountered someone who has lost so much to this vile disease
If 100% of domestic social distancing regulations have gone, that's when its time to start getting rid of foreign travel ones.
That is why we have a problem now. And if it leads to continuing lockdown / restrictions and destruction of businesses, the government should be crucified for its negligence.
At least he didn't inherit his dad's genetics.
Going further, since Parliament can make or unmake any law whatsoever including its own historic act, and in fact has continued to do so as recently as the Succession to the Crown Act 2013; were it tomorrow to appoint one Doug Seal and his heirs as King Douglas I, I would have no more or less technically legitimate claim to the throne than Elizabeth I.
While theoretically the Queen could withhold assent to such a course of action, it would not become law, but that would not necessarily detract from the principle, because Parliament has passed laws which have governed the succession by which that monarch took the throne; thus this merely highlights the existence of a poorly planned republic rather than the absence of one. In principle Parliament may be able to pass an ordinance; a form of act where Royal Assent is not sought. The constitutional power to do so is questionable but interesting.
Incidentally, the monarch might also theoretically pick a random member of Sinn Fein as Prime Minister or veto every single act of Parliament just for shits and giggles. But it wouldn’t, just as HMQ would not withhold consent from a change to the Act of Settlement.
A Founding Father reckoned by his contemporaries to be a brilliant speaker - ". no man has more wit, nor can anyone engage the attention more than Mr. Morris " - he was also thought fickle and inconsistent.
His dubious morals were common currency: "...the world allows greater credit for his abilities than his integrity..." , as was his philandering.
When he lost his lower leg, as a result of a carriage accident, John Jay wrote: "Gouverneur's leg has been a tax on my heart. I am almost tempted to wish he had lost something else...".
PRESTONOMICS: TAKING BACK CONTROL OF LOCAL ECONOMIES
You can see a scenario for example when a government introduces legislation, that wasn't in their manifesto, that will harm the environment, tree hugger Charles will say no.
*Or whatever regnal name he chooses.
I didn't go to Oxbridge - because I was working class.
Other kids in my year got 3 As and did go to Oxbridge - the middle class kids.
Red List: As now.
Amber List: As now, except Double Vaccinated (at least 3 weeks prior) follow current Green List rules (so no quarantine).
Green List: As now, except Double Vaccinated (at least 3 weeks prior) can take a cheaper LFT Test instead of a PCR Test.
69% of Oxford offers go to state schools now which is about right considering a third of A grade A levels go to private school pupils.
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-01-15-oxford-student-offers-show-significant-state-school-increase
It was also your going to a grammar school which helped get you the 3 A grades to be eligible for a top university place, whether Oxbridge or not
Also unique to him, so I don't think Labour should chase it. But, yes, we do need to see some relaxation and humour from Keir Starmer. The rub is, you need confidence for that, and it's hard to be confident when everyone's on your back telling you to shape up. My advice to Keir, should he come to me, would be to chill and start acting like he's miles ahead in the polls not miles behind.
Our current system derives directly from both conquest, however peaceful, (William III) and exclusion (no Catholics allowed), hence protestant George (direct descent from James I but way off being first in line) and parliament intervention - by way of abdication and abolition of male primogeniture (bumping Charlotte up the list).
Having said all that our beloved HM is a direct descendent of Alfred the Great, each step of which is known and recorded. And if she lives another three years will overtake Louis XIV for length of reign.
Better that a person like that with no concept of ethical boundary is down the road anyway.
The left of centre vote held up very well, of course the right wing media will not tell you this, neither will TV news, it is not a story for them. Lib Dems got 17%, which is pretty good and the Greens must be in double figures.
https://twitter.com/kpoulsen/status/1394344671761993731
This was just unsealed. In the last weeks of the Trump administration, William Barr's Justice Department tried to use a secret grand jury subpoena to unmask
@NunesAlt, a Devin Nunes parody account.
The US had a very narrow escape last November.
@justin124 suggests that getting him to resign was a serious tactical error by SKS. Personally, I think it is to his credit. But no good deed etc...
He's clearly the smartest guy in the room.
Selection at aged 11 is immoral. Wealthy parents paying for 11 plus tuition to pass the exam at the expense of smarter kids who can't afford that luxury.
I went to a great, properly funded comprehensive in the mid seventies. Students in my year were high achievers in later life. This was followed by a grammar school where the second (bottom) set students were referred to as "less able". These "less able" students were the council house kids who didn't make 5 gces. In my book if 30 children passed the 11 plus and yet failed to achieve a mere 5 O levels that proves the system failed.
And at the end of the day so is Ascot.
Perhaps you are ? 😀
But, yes, on your main point, I agree. As well as the political gifts there's the destiny - aka luck. He's run the tables with it.
One example of many. The Brexit into Covid sequence. He got the big positive buzz of the former - with the choreographed Christmas Eve deal which Got It Done - and then the pandemic came along to blot out the dreary aftermath.
Grrr.
Plus if you have a genuinely high IQ you would pass the 11 plus or 13 plus whether tutored or not.
Now most grammar schools have well over 90% getting 5 or more good GCSEs, back then only a minority got 5 good O levels whereever they studied
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
Epilogue - My father still paid, he wasn't taking any chances. Most of the extra tuition was spent on preparing me for the interview stage.