No dissent from me. Only ill health is likely to stop him, John Smith style. He looks pretty healthy to me, certainly a lot healthier than Smith did.
Its team Starmer that is the problem in terms of succession. There is no standout candidate AFAIC that would be better the current incumbent.
Certainly not in Parliament. You have to be careful as you get older that your memories do not get tinged with nostalgia but I cannot recall a time when so few politicians of any party had any credibility or standing with the public as they do right now and Labour seem particularly badly affected although the Tories are far from immune. Starmer is as good as it gets in Labour.
Now, you've drawn me into a Starmer is crap post.
There are plenty of able Labour MPs , who are available, Benn, Kinnock, Cooper, Jarvis and plenty of others, plus people outside Parliament. Sadly after Corbyn there are also a raft of former quality Labour Politicians who are also outside the Party. And no I am not referring directly to Corbyn.
The key problem of why, for good or bad, we are lumbered with Starmer is the vague, but worrying prospect that he could be replaced by a moron like Burgon or RLB.
I think that there are few bright young things on the Labour benches is a feature of the massive defeat under Corbyn. It means that there are fewer new faces, and only those in the safest seats remain, therefore old timers or people like the useless Webbe in Leicester West, parachuted in under Corbyn following the purges.
I think the next Leader will be Nandy or Rayner, or someone else elected after 2010.
Leicester East, and Webbe replaced Keith Vaz who was not victim of a Corbynite purge, even if Webbe was parachuted in. Leicester West is Liz Kendall, who is just about hanging on.
Yes, of course. The infighting in Leicester East Labour Party is such that in the event of a by election they may well lose a lot more of the majority. For all his faults Vaz was good at cultivating his constituency vote.
Liz Kendall should be alright in LWest, as she held on in 2019, though the new boundaries are probably not going to help her.
Webbe is the next one (or next one but one) up before the beak. May be available soon,
.A 12 month sentence is required for a sacking I think. I don't think that severe an offense, and she is sitting as an independent at present. I don't think she would just resign out of shame, as she seems to have quite a brass neck.
I think that it’s twelve months to be disbarred from the House, a conviction with a lesser sentence triggers a recall petition (see Brecon and Radnor).
And I think she would be recalled. It’s clear she’s very unpopular in her seat.
Hopefully she doesn't avoid a recall by a technicality, like that creepy ex-Tory in Wales.
The technicality AIR (please correct me if I’m wrong) was that he was disciplined not prosecuted and convicted.
Although I agree that recall should be an option for disciplinary offences.
I didn't think it was that - suspension from the House is not prosecution or conviction, but he was suspended for long enough to be a recall criteria...but the decision to recommend suspension came from a body other than the Committee on Standards, which was not mentioned in the Recall Act (because the body in question did not exist at the time).
Right, I see what Philip means. Yes, that is a very silly technicality and tells me the legislation is badly worded.
It gets worse - a quick google shows a workaround should have been agreed to close the loophole, without needing to change legislation, but a game of one-upmanship meant it failed. Parties on both sides of the house want to close the loophole and house leader Jacob Rees-Mogg tabled a motion to that effect to the Commons on Tuesday.
But the bid failed after Labour tabled a rival amendment attempting to make it retrospective, meaning it would apply to Mr Roberts.
Parliamentary procedure meant that the Labour amendment was considered to be in itself an objection to Mr Rees-Mogg's changes, stopping them from being agreed.
Just seems stupid - everyone is angry about Roberts escaping due punishment, but making laws and rules retrospective should not be done lightly.
Roberts has got away lightly compared to the autistic guy in Hallam from the last Parliament who was pilloried and ridiculed for years on here ( I am not saying it wasn't totally deserved). Roberts on the other hand has got by more or less unscathed by the social commentariat. If the Conservatives are as ashamed of Roberts as they claim, and remember, they are sitting on an 80 seat majority, maybe he should be sacrificed for the common good.
He’s already been stripped of the whip by the party. What else are they supposed to do?
No dissent from me. Only ill health is likely to stop him, John Smith style. He looks pretty healthy to me, certainly a lot healthier than Smith did.
Its team Starmer that is the problem in terms of succession. There is no standout candidate AFAIC that would be better the current incumbent.
Certainly not in Parliament. You have to be careful as you get older that your memories do not get tinged with nostalgia but I cannot recall a time when so few politicians of any party had any credibility or standing with the public as they do right now and Labour seem particularly badly affected although the Tories are far from immune. Starmer is as good as it gets in Labour.
Now, you've drawn me into a Starmer is crap post.
There are plenty of able Labour MPs , who are available, Benn, Kinnock, Cooper, Jarvis and plenty of others, plus people outside Parliament. Sadly after Corbyn there are also a raft of former quality Labour Politicians who are also outside the Party. And no I am not referring directly to Corbyn.
The key problem of why, for good or bad, we are lumbered with Starmer is the vague, but worrying prospect that he could be replaced by a moron like Burgon or RLB.
I think that there are few bright young things on the Labour benches is a feature of the massive defeat under Corbyn. It means that there are fewer new faces, and only those in the safest seats remain, therefore old timers or people like the useless Webbe in Leicester West, parachuted in under Corbyn following the purges.
I think the next Leader will be Nandy or Rayner, or someone else elected after 2010.
Leicester East, and Webbe replaced Keith Vaz who was not victim of a Corbynite purge, even if Webbe was parachuted in. Leicester West is Liz Kendall, who is just about hanging on.
Yes, of course. The infighting in Leicester East Labour Party is such that in the event of a by election they may well lose a lot more of the majority. For all his faults Vaz was good at cultivating his constituency vote.
Liz Kendall should be alright in LWest, as she held on in 2019, though the new boundaries are probably not going to help her.
Webbe is the next one (or next one but one) up before the beak. May be available soon,
.A 12 month sentence is required for a sacking I think. I don't think that severe an offense, and she is sitting as an independent at present. I don't think she would just resign out of shame, as she seems to have quite a brass neck.
I think that it’s twelve months to be disbarred from the House, a conviction with a lesser sentence triggers a recall petition (see Brecon and Radnor).
And I think she would be recalled. It’s clear she’s very unpopular in her seat.
Hopefully she doesn't avoid a recall by a technicality, like that creepy ex-Tory in Wales.
The technicality AIR (please correct me if I’m wrong) was that he was disciplined not prosecuted and convicted.
Although I agree that recall should be an option for disciplinary offences.
I didn't think it was that - suspension from the House is not prosecution or conviction, but he was suspended for long enough to be a recall criteria...but the decision to recommend suspension came from a body other than the Committee on Standards, which was not mentioned in the Recall Act (because the body in question did not exist at the time).
Right, I see what Philip means. Yes, that is a very silly technicality and tells me the legislation is badly worded.
It gets worse - a quick google shows a workaround should have been agreed to close the loophole, without needing to change legislation, but a game of one-upmanship meant it failed. Parties on both sides of the house want to close the loophole and house leader Jacob Rees-Mogg tabled a motion to that effect to the Commons on Tuesday.
But the bid failed after Labour tabled a rival amendment attempting to make it retrospective, meaning it would apply to Mr Roberts.
Parliamentary procedure meant that the Labour amendment was considered to be in itself an objection to Mr Rees-Mogg's changes, stopping them from being agreed.
Just seems stupid - everyone is angry about Roberts escaping due punishment, but making laws and rules retrospective should not be done lightly.
Roberts has got away lightly compared to the autistic guy in Hallam from the last Parliament who was pilloried and ridiculed for years on here ( I am not saying it wasn't totally deserved). Roberts on the other hand has got by more or less unscathed by the social commentariat. If the Conservatives are as ashamed of Roberts as they claim, and remember, they are sitting on an 80 seat majority, maybe he should be sacrificed for the common good.
Which would mean introducing retrospective legislation.
O’Mara of course there were many issues - violence, misogyny, laziness, dishonesty and incompetence.
I’m not sure how far that applies to Roberts.
And the little issue that he (O'Mara) basically absconded, and made no attempt whatsover to do the job to which he was elected.
If Britain is now Officially Shit at the Olympics again, then I am going to Officially Boycott it, and watch the Hundred instead
Take that, Olympics. First it was Covid-19, now someone in Camden, UK is refusing to watch you. Truly a cursed Games. HAHAHAHA
You should have watched the London bumper cars, I mean Formula E. Lots of action and controversy...
I’d like to think I was a pretty big motorsport fan, but FE is the most boring and contrived ‘Motor’ sport around.
Watching the Euro F3 and various GT races from Spa this weekend was much more exciting.
Except I can't get them on terrestrial TV.
I generally agree about FE: it's not the best. But it's three-quarters of an hour, so not too much time invested, and today's race was both interesting and fun.
Then again, I also find Formula W interesting ...
(But BTCC is the best of the bunch. Thanks to ITV for showing the entire day, including support races. Not that I get to watch them much nowadays...)
No dissent from me. Only ill health is likely to stop him, John Smith style. He looks pretty healthy to me, certainly a lot healthier than Smith did.
Its team Starmer that is the problem in terms of succession. There is no standout candidate AFAIC that would be better the current incumbent.
Certainly not in Parliament. You have to be careful as you get older that your memories do not get tinged with nostalgia but I cannot recall a time when so few politicians of any party had any credibility or standing with the public as they do right now and Labour seem particularly badly affected although the Tories are far from immune. Starmer is as good as it gets in Labour.
Now, you've drawn me into a Starmer is crap post.
There are plenty of able Labour MPs , who are available, Benn, Kinnock, Cooper, Jarvis and plenty of others, plus people outside Parliament. Sadly after Corbyn there are also a raft of former quality Labour Politicians who are also outside the Party. And no I am not referring directly to Corbyn.
The key problem of why, for good or bad, we are lumbered with Starmer is the vague, but worrying prospect that he could be replaced by a moron like Burgon or RLB.
I think that there are few bright young things on the Labour benches is a feature of the massive defeat under Corbyn. It means that there are fewer new faces, and only those in the safest seats remain, therefore old timers or people like the useless Webbe in Leicester West, parachuted in under Corbyn following the purges.
I think the next Leader will be Nandy or Rayner, or someone else elected after 2010.
Leicester East, and Webbe replaced Keith Vaz who was not victim of a Corbynite purge, even if Webbe was parachuted in. Leicester West is Liz Kendall, who is just about hanging on.
Yes, of course. The infighting in Leicester East Labour Party is such that in the event of a by election they may well lose a lot more of the majority. For all his faults Vaz was good at cultivating his constituency vote.
Liz Kendall should be alright in LWest, as she held on in 2019, though the new boundaries are probably not going to help her.
Webbe is the next one (or next one but one) up before the beak. May be available soon,
.A 12 month sentence is required for a sacking I think. I don't think that severe an offense, and she is sitting as an independent at present. I don't think she would just resign out of shame, as she seems to have quite a brass neck.
I think that it’s twelve months to be disbarred from the House, a conviction with a lesser sentence triggers a recall petition (see Brecon and Radnor).
And I think she would be recalled. It’s clear she’s very unpopular in her seat.
Hopefully she doesn't avoid a recall by a technicality, like that creepy ex-Tory in Wales.
The technicality AIR (please correct me if I’m wrong) was that he was disciplined not prosecuted and convicted.
Although I agree that recall should be an option for disciplinary offences.
I didn't think it was that - suspension from the House is not prosecution or conviction, but he was suspended for long enough to be a recall criteria...but the decision to recommend suspension came from a body other than the Committee on Standards, which was not mentioned in the Recall Act (because the body in question did not exist at the time).
Right, I see what Philip means. Yes, that is a very silly technicality and tells me the legislation is badly worded.
It gets worse - a quick google shows a workaround should have been agreed to close the loophole, without needing to change legislation, but a game of one-upmanship meant it failed. Parties on both sides of the house want to close the loophole and house leader Jacob Rees-Mogg tabled a motion to that effect to the Commons on Tuesday.
But the bid failed after Labour tabled a rival amendment attempting to make it retrospective, meaning it would apply to Mr Roberts.
Parliamentary procedure meant that the Labour amendment was considered to be in itself an objection to Mr Rees-Mogg's changes, stopping them from being agreed.
Just seems stupid - everyone is angry about Roberts escaping due punishment, but making laws and rules retrospective should not be done lightly.
Roberts has got away lightly compared to the autistic guy in Hallam from the last Parliament who was pilloried and ridiculed for years on here ( I am not saying it wasn't totally deserved). Roberts on the other hand has got by more or less unscathed by the social commentariat. If the Conservatives are as ashamed of Roberts as they claim, and remember, they are sitting on an 80 seat majority, maybe he should be sacrificed for the common good.
Which would mean introducing retrospective legislation.
O’Mara of course there were many issues - violence, misogyny, laziness, dishonesty and incompetence.
I’m not sure how far that applies to Roberts.
In a game of Top Trumps Jared O'Mara may have more cards, but Roberts holds a very high value one.
I strongly opposed it at the time but I am going to hold my hands up and say we would have been much better off leaving on the deal May negotiated. And Labour should have voted for it.
I think in years to come, it will be come abundantly clear that May's deal was the best deal we could have ever possibly had, apart from remaining.
Thank goodness it was rejected.
A whole series of own goals by Remainers allowing us get out properly.
Nah, as a Remainer, I still think May's a pisspoor deal, though not as incompetent one as Johnson's Oven Ready Half Baked Deal.
I think that the pendulum will swing back to closer EU alignment with the next non Tory government.
Whicn is why there is a rush to get other trade deals to make close EU alignment an impossible task
That's clearly part of the theory- look at the Boris Boys' chortling at the prospect of low value deals whose main benefit is to salt the ground of the UK-EU relationship.
But what's the deal that makes Brexit permanent? Canada/Japan/Australia don't do it, and a deal with the USA ain't gonna happen.
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That ignores the fact that he's a massive Ayn Rand fan and he's quoting. I think he thought it would be a positive.
Is being an Ayn Rand fan a negative? I have an unopened copy of Atlas Shrugged about to be opened.
She is of interest, though like many "genius" authors, an editor cutting about 80% of the material would have been an advantage....
Well, we'll see. If you notice some additional irrationality about my posts in a few days time its either congratulations to my Vintners or the Ayn Rand meme.
(I just have a Penguin edition lined up. I wanted to buy the Folio Society edition, but it was just too expensive)
No dissent from me. Only ill health is likely to stop him, John Smith style. He looks pretty healthy to me, certainly a lot healthier than Smith did.
Its team Starmer that is the problem in terms of succession. There is no standout candidate AFAIC that would be better the current incumbent.
Certainly not in Parliament. You have to be careful as you get older that your memories do not get tinged with nostalgia but I cannot recall a time when so few politicians of any party had any credibility or standing with the public as they do right now and Labour seem particularly badly affected although the Tories are far from immune. Starmer is as good as it gets in Labour.
Now, you've drawn me into a Starmer is crap post.
There are plenty of able Labour MPs , who are available, Benn, Kinnock, Cooper, Jarvis and plenty of others, plus people outside Parliament. Sadly after Corbyn there are also a raft of former quality Labour Politicians who are also outside the Party. And no I am not referring directly to Corbyn.
The key problem of why, for good or bad, we are lumbered with Starmer is the vague, but worrying prospect that he could be replaced by a moron like Burgon or RLB.
I think that there are few bright young things on the Labour benches is a feature of the massive defeat under Corbyn. It means that there are fewer new faces, and only those in the safest seats remain, therefore old timers or people like the useless Webbe in Leicester West, parachuted in under Corbyn following the purges.
I think the next Leader will be Nandy or Rayner, or someone else elected after 2010.
Leicester East, and Webbe replaced Keith Vaz who was not victim of a Corbynite purge, even if Webbe was parachuted in. Leicester West is Liz Kendall, who is just about hanging on.
Yes, of course. The infighting in Leicester East Labour Party is such that in the event of a by election they may well lose a lot more of the majority. For all his faults Vaz was good at cultivating his constituency vote.
Liz Kendall should be alright in LWest, as she held on in 2019, though the new boundaries are probably not going to help her.
Webbe is the next one (or next one but one) up before the beak. May be available soon,
.A 12 month sentence is required for a sacking I think. I don't think that severe an offense, and she is sitting as an independent at present. I don't think she would just resign out of shame, as she seems to have quite a brass neck.
I think that it’s twelve months to be disbarred from the House, a conviction with a lesser sentence triggers a recall petition (see Brecon and Radnor).
And I think she would be recalled. It’s clear she’s very unpopular in her seat.
Hopefully she doesn't avoid a recall by a technicality, like that creepy ex-Tory in Wales.
The technicality AIR (please correct me if I’m wrong) was that he was disciplined not prosecuted and convicted.
Although I agree that recall should be an option for disciplinary offences.
I didn't think it was that - suspension from the House is not prosecution or conviction, but he was suspended for long enough to be a recall criteria...but the decision to recommend suspension came from a body other than the Committee on Standards, which was not mentioned in the Recall Act (because the body in question did not exist at the time).
Right, I see what Philip means. Yes, that is a very silly technicality and tells me the legislation is badly worded.
It gets worse - a quick google shows a workaround should have been agreed to close the loophole, without needing to change legislation, but a game of one-upmanship meant it failed. Parties on both sides of the house want to close the loophole and house leader Jacob Rees-Mogg tabled a motion to that effect to the Commons on Tuesday.
But the bid failed after Labour tabled a rival amendment attempting to make it retrospective, meaning it would apply to Mr Roberts.
Parliamentary procedure meant that the Labour amendment was considered to be in itself an objection to Mr Rees-Mogg's changes, stopping them from being agreed.
Just seems stupid - everyone is angry about Roberts escaping due punishment, but making laws and rules retrospective should not be done lightly.
Roberts has got away lightly compared to the autistic guy in Hallam from the last Parliament who was pilloried and ridiculed for years on here ( I am not saying it wasn't totally deserved). Roberts on the other hand has got by more or less unscathed by the social commentariat. If the Conservatives are as ashamed of Roberts as they claim, and remember, they are sitting on an 80 seat majority, maybe he should be sacrificed for the common good.
He’s already been stripped of the whip by the party. What else are they supposed to do?
How about stripping and whipping him instead?
(Not a serious suggestion, in case anyone was in no doubt.)
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That ignores the fact that he's a massive Ayn Rand fan and he's quoting. I think he thought it would be a positive.
Is being an Ayn Rand fan a negative? I have an unopened copy of Atlas Shrugged about to be opened.
She is adored by very militant libertarians on the far right of the GOP. I've not read it myself so can't judge, but her friends are uninspiring (to me at least).
Right at the beginning of the pandemic… I was told by a very senior figure that there was “a lot of worry” the Queen could be killed by Covid, with incalculable effects on public morale and trust in government.
While elaborate precautions were put in motion to safeguard the Queen, someone in government did not get the memo. Or he did receive the memo, but couldn’t be arsed to read it. In mid-March of last year, when staff at Number 10 were already falling ill as the virus rampaged around that rabbit-warren building, Boris Johnson told aides that he was going to carry on with his weekly in-person audience with the Queen. He answered protests that this was sensationally reckless by responding: “That’s what I do every Wednesday. Sod this, I’m gonna go and see her.”
In the initial phase of this crisis, it was “sod this” to attending meetings Cobra because he was too busy dealing with his divorce. Then it was “sod this” to agreeing to a timely first lockdown because that involved accepting how serious the situation had become. Last autumn, it was “sod this” to the scientists when they warned that the disease would accelerate wildly out of control if he didn’t impose a second lockdown. And “sod this” to acting in time to save lives because he had made a baseless promise that the nation could revel through a “normal Christmas”. It was also “sod this” to the fatality rate because the data suggested to him that the median age of those claimed by Covid was 82. “That is above life expectancy,” he flippantly declared. “So get Covid and live longer.” He went on to say: “I no longer buy all this NHS overwhelmed stuff.” That’s something Number 10 can’t deny because it was recorded in WhatsApp messages.
Mr Johnson feared a monstering at the hands of the rightwing media and a big revolt by Tory MPs, a chunk of whom turned up in the chamber of the Commons ostentatiously refusing to wear masks. On Mr Cummings’ account, the prime minister regards the Daily Telegraph, for which he once wrote a highly remunerative column, as “my real boss”. That puts everyone else in their place. It is to this minority faction of opinion, not to parliament or the public, that he sees himself as answerable.
Few can claim to have got everything right about this pandemic, but none has been more consistently wrong than the threat-deniers, lockdown-haters, mask-defiers and let-it-rippers. Yet this is the one group to whom the prime minister is never capable of saying “sod this”.
All will be forgiven as far as Johnson is concerned if cases drop to very low levels in the next few weeks.
Not if we have been queuing for petrol in the meantime.
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That ignores the fact that he's a massive Ayn Rand fan and he's quoting. I think he thought it would be a positive.
Is being an Ayn Rand fan a negative? I have an unopened copy of Atlas Shrugged about to be opened.
She is adored by very militant libertarians on the far right of the GOP. I've not read it myself so can't judge, but her friends are uninspiring (to me at least).
Or as they are called these days, "the sane ones".
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That ignores the fact that he's a massive Ayn Rand fan and he's quoting. I think he thought it would be a positive.
Is being an Ayn Rand fan a negative? I have an unopened copy of Atlas Shrugged about to be opened.
She is of interest, though like many "genius" authors, an editor cutting about 80% of the material would have been an advantage....
Well, we'll see. If you notice some additional irrationality about my posts in a few days time its either congratulations to my Vintners or the Ayn Rand meme.
(I just have a Penguin edition lined up. I wanted to buy the Folio Society edition, but it was just too expensive)
She's a bit like Nietzsche - utterly misunderstood by a number of their so-called followers, and an inspiration, as a result, for a quite a few nutters.
Continuing Wilson's book on past PMs - he discreetly stops with Macmillan, feeling that he can't properly comment on more recent ones. He's interesting (and suitably respectful) about Churchill, who he says was subject to an attempted putsch towards the end of his premiership "the details of which have not entered the public domain". Have they come out since?
He has a touching anecdote. He'd resigned from Attlee's government over arms spending in 1950. Churchill sent him a message at midnight saying that of course he would be exploiting it politically, but he wanted to send sympathies to Mary (Wilson's wife) as he knew how unpleasant it was to have people making mischief about their spouses. Mary burst into tears and asked Harold to thank Churchill for his thoughtfulness. He did so next day, and Churchill then burst into tears (as he often did in private life) and thanked him, reminiscing about other cases where spouses had suffered. Harold says wryly that he felt strange acting as go-between for them both.
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That ignores the fact that he's a massive Ayn Rand fan and he's quoting. I think he thought it would be a positive.
Is being an Ayn Rand fan a negative? I have an unopened copy of Atlas Shrugged about to be opened.
She is of interest, though like many "genius" authors, an editor cutting about 80% of the material would have been an advantage....
Well, we'll see. If you notice some additional irrationality about my posts in a few days time its either congratulations to my Vintners or the Ayn Rand meme.
(I just have a Penguin edition lined up. I wanted to buy the Folio Society edition, but it was just too expensive)
Folio was too expensive, so you decided to p-p-p-p-pick up a p-p-penguin?
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That ignores the fact that he's a massive Ayn Rand fan and he's quoting. I think he thought it would be a positive.
Is being an Ayn Rand fan a negative? I have an unopened copy of Atlas Shrugged about to be opened.
She is adored by very militant libertarians on the far right of the GOP. I've not read it myself so can't judge, but her friends are uninspiring (to me at least).
For once Dr P, you're telling me stuff that I know. I agree about her friends. I half heard a R4 programme about her some weeks ago (I was driving).
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That ignores the fact that he's a massive Ayn Rand fan and he's quoting. I think he thought it would be a positive.
Is being an Ayn Rand fan a negative? I have an unopened copy of Atlas Shrugged about to be opened.
She is of interest, though like many "genius" authors, an editor cutting about 80% of the material would have been an advantage....
Well, we'll see. If you notice some additional irrationality about my posts in a few days time its either congratulations to my Vintners or the Ayn Rand meme.
(I just have a Penguin edition lined up. I wanted to buy the Folio Society edition, but it was just too expensive)
Folio was too expensive, so you decided to p-p-p-p-pick up a p-p-penguin?
No dissent from me. Only ill health is likely to stop him, John Smith style. He looks pretty healthy to me, certainly a lot healthier than Smith did.
Its team Starmer that is the problem in terms of succession. There is no standout candidate AFAIC that would be better the current incumbent.
Certainly not in Parliament. You have to be careful as you get older that your memories do not get tinged with nostalgia but I cannot recall a time when so few politicians of any party had any credibility or standing with the public as they do right now and Labour seem particularly badly affected although the Tories are far from immune. Starmer is as good as it gets in Labour.
Now, you've drawn me into a Starmer is crap post.
There are plenty of able Labour MPs , who are available, Benn, Kinnock, Cooper, Jarvis and plenty of others, plus people outside Parliament. Sadly after Corbyn there are also a raft of former quality Labour Politicians who are also outside the Party. And no I am not referring directly to Corbyn.
The key problem of why, for good or bad, we are lumbered with Starmer is the vague, but worrying prospect that he could be replaced by a moron like Burgon or RLB.
I think that there are few bright young things on the Labour benches is a feature of the massive defeat under Corbyn. It means that there are fewer new faces, and only those in the safest seats remain, therefore old timers or people like the useless Webbe in Leicester West, parachuted in under Corbyn following the purges.
I think the next Leader will be Nandy or Rayner, or someone else elected after 2010.
Leicester East, and Webbe replaced Keith Vaz who was not victim of a Corbynite purge, even if Webbe was parachuted in. Leicester West is Liz Kendall, who is just about hanging on.
Yes, of course. The infighting in Leicester East Labour Party is such that in the event of a by election they may well lose a lot more of the majority. For all his faults Vaz was good at cultivating his constituency vote.
Liz Kendall should be alright in LWest, as she held on in 2019, though the new boundaries are probably not going to help her.
Webbe is the next one (or next one but one) up before the beak. May be available soon,
.A 12 month sentence is required for a sacking I think. I don't think that severe an offense, and she is sitting as an independent at present. I don't think she would just resign out of shame, as she seems to have quite a brass neck.
I think that it’s twelve months to be disbarred from the House, a conviction with a lesser sentence triggers a recall petition (see Brecon and Radnor).
And I think she would be recalled. It’s clear she’s very unpopular in her seat.
Hopefully she doesn't avoid a recall by a technicality, like that creepy ex-Tory in Wales.
The technicality AIR (please correct me if I’m wrong) was that he was disciplined not prosecuted and convicted.
Although I agree that recall should be an option for disciplinary offences.
I didn't think it was that - suspension from the House is not prosecution or conviction, but he was suspended for long enough to be a recall criteria...but the decision to recommend suspension came from a body other than the Committee on Standards, which was not mentioned in the Recall Act (because the body in question did not exist at the time).
Right, I see what Philip means. Yes, that is a very silly technicality and tells me the legislation is badly worded.
It gets worse - a quick google shows a workaround should have been agreed to close the loophole, without needing to change legislation, but a game of one-upmanship meant it failed. Parties on both sides of the house want to close the loophole and house leader Jacob Rees-Mogg tabled a motion to that effect to the Commons on Tuesday.
But the bid failed after Labour tabled a rival amendment attempting to make it retrospective, meaning it would apply to Mr Roberts.
Parliamentary procedure meant that the Labour amendment was considered to be in itself an objection to Mr Rees-Mogg's changes, stopping them from being agreed.
Just seems stupid - everyone is angry about Roberts escaping due punishment, but making laws and rules retrospective should not be done lightly.
Roberts has got away lightly compared to the autistic guy in Hallam from the last Parliament who was pilloried and ridiculed for years on here ( I am not saying it wasn't totally deserved). Roberts on the other hand has got by more or less unscathed by the social commentariat. If the Conservatives are as ashamed of Roberts as they claim, and remember, they are sitting on an 80 seat majority, maybe he should be sacrificed for the common good.
He’s already been stripped of the whip by the party. What else are they supposed to do?
How about stripping and whipping him instead?
(Not a serious suggestion, in case anyone was in no doubt.)
So, Jon Rahm, I think this merits a bit more comment than it's had.
3 possibilities. 1. He didn't have Covid last time. False positive cost him the Memorial tournament which he had to pull out of, leading by 10 with 1 round to go. 2. He has caught Covid again just 6 weeks after recovering from it the 1st time. 3. He never did recover from it. False negative. Therefore won the US Open by 4 shots while having Covid.
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That ignores the fact that he's a massive Ayn Rand fan and he's quoting. I think he thought it would be a positive.
Is being an Ayn Rand fan a negative? I have an unopened copy of Atlas Shrugged about to be opened.
She is of interest, though like many "genius" authors, an editor cutting about 80% of the material would have been an advantage....
Well, we'll see. If you notice some additional irrationality about my posts in a few days time its either congratulations to my Vintners or the Ayn Rand meme.
(I just have a Penguin edition lined up. I wanted to buy the Folio Society edition, but it was just too expensive)
Folio was too expensive, so you decided to p-p-p-p-pick up a p-p-penguin?
You realise, given it's age, only 99% of PB readers will get that don't you!?
Continuing Wilson's book on past PMs - he discreetly stops with Macmillan, feeling that he can't properly comment on more recent ones. He's interesting (and suitably respectful) about Churchill, who he says was subject to an attempted putsch towards the end of his premiership "the details of which have not entered the public domain". Have they come out since? (Snip)
I forget the details, but ISTR there was a radio play back in about 2003 that covered it. Or it might have been an audio book I was listening to. It was an open secret he was ill: but so was Eden.
So, Jon Rahm, I think this merits a bit more comment than it's had.
3 possibilities. 1. He didn't have Covid last time. False positive cost him the Memorial tournament which he had to pull out of, leading by 10 with 1 round to go. 2. He has caught Covid again just 6 weeks after recovering from it the 1st time. 3. He never did recover from it. False negative. Therefore won the US Open by 4 shots while having Covid.
Which are we going for?
4. He doesn't have it now (false positive) 5. He never had it. 6. (subset of 4) He doesn't like Japan and/or doesn't really want to compete in the Olympics.
So, Jon Rahm, I think this merits a bit more comment than it's had.
3 possibilities. 1. He didn't have Covid last time. False positive cost him the Memorial tournament which he had to pull out of, leading by 10 with 1 round to go. 2. He has caught Covid again just 6 weeks after recovering from it the 1st time. 3. He never did recover from it. False negative. Therefore won the US Open by 4 shots while having Covid.
Which are we going for?
Personally, I'd got for 3. He never fully fought off the virus, but it was at low enough levels in his system for it not to be picked up by the PCR test(s).
I wonder if there's a fourth option: shortly before the second test, he coughed up a little phlegm that contained lots of dead virus that had been in his lungs. Would that give a positive result?
Continuing Wilson's book on past PMs - he discreetly stops with Macmillan, feeling that he can't properly comment on more recent ones. He's interesting (and suitably respectful) about Churchill, who he says was subject to an attempted putsch towards the end of his premiership "the details of which have not entered the public domain". Have they come out since?
He has a touching anecdote. He'd resigned from Attlee's government over arms spending in 1950. Churchill sent him a message at midnight saying that of course he would be exploiting it politically, but he wanted to send sympathies to Mary (Wilson's wife) as he knew how unpleasant it was to have people making mischief about their spouses. Mary burst into tears and asked Harold to thank Churchill for his thoughtfulness. He did so next day, and Churchill then burst into tears (as he often did in private life) and thanked him, reminiscing about other cases where spouses had suffered. Harold says wryly that he felt strange acting as go-between for them both.
Presumably the book accompanies Wilson's television series of the same name? I've got the DVD somewhere but can't quite find it to check.
So, Jon Rahm, I think this merits a bit more comment than it's had.
3 possibilities. 1. He didn't have Covid last time. False positive cost him the Memorial tournament which he had to pull out of, leading by 10 with 1 round to go. 2. He has caught Covid again just 6 weeks after recovering from it the 1st time. 3. He never did recover from it. False negative. Therefore won the US Open by 4 shots while having Covid.
Which are we going for?
Not sure but it shows just how OTT this can get. Now Joe Rahm will have been disappointed but not the end of the world to him to lose the Memorial like that -but for say a young athlete in Tokyo to do the same would be devastating for them . Again this over reliance on stats and rules when a bit of common sense and humanity might be better- cue the medals ceromonies at Tokyo where to insist on masks is soul destroying
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That ignores the fact that he's a massive Ayn Rand fan and he's quoting. I think he thought it would be a positive.
Is being an Ayn Rand fan a negative? I have an unopened copy of Atlas Shrugged about to be opened.
She is of interest, though like many "genius" authors, an editor cutting about 80% of the material would have been an advantage....
Well, we'll see. If you notice some additional irrationality about my posts in a few days time its either congratulations to my Vintners or the Ayn Rand meme.
(I just have a Penguin edition lined up. I wanted to buy the Folio Society edition, but it was just too expensive)
Folio was too expensive, so you decided to p-p-p-p-pick up a p-p-penguin?
You realise, given it's age, only 99% of PB readers will get that don't you!?
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That ignores the fact that he's a massive Ayn Rand fan and he's quoting. I think he thought it would be a positive.
Is being an Ayn Rand fan a negative? I have an unopened copy of Atlas Shrugged about to be opened.
With very few exceptions those who love that book are ultra libertarian fruitcakes.
Well my ranking of London places I have lived in are
Isle of Dogs Bow Edgware Road (Paddington area) Acton Muswell Hill Ealing Highgate
Basically in my twenties the scruffier the better I enjoyed it!
Interesting. Mine top to bottom are probably.
South Hampstead (Fleet Road) City - nr Finsbury Square Chiswick - Grove Park Chiswick nr High Road Clapham Walthamstow nr Black Horse Road
I'd rank mine as follows:
South Ken Hampstead Earls Court Barnes Bloomsbury Penge Ealing Wandsworth Common Greenwich Maida Vale Isle of Dogs Wembley
Wembley is bottom because I lived in a greenhouse there.
I've always had you down as a bit of a lemon
If only. A greenhouse without heating and in winter. Low point. But it's amazing what you can shrug off when you're young.
And I missed one. Battersea in a council high rise. That goes towards the bottom.
Such a vast and varied city, London is. So many people, so many stories.
I've not been so adventurous. A short list for me and Maida Vale (Little Venice bit) would be top. Interesting you have it so low.
Great hardship is far better than dismal trying. In my overseas travels I've always preferred the standpipe outside a shed arrangement to the crappy hotel.
Ah yes, Little Venice is a lovely little corner. But I lived on the nothing part of Warwick Avenue. Found it drab. A while ago now though.
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That ignores the fact that he's a massive Ayn Rand fan and he's quoting. I think he thought it would be a positive.
Is being an Ayn Rand fan a negative? I have an unopened copy of Atlas Shrugged about to be opened.
With very few exceptions those who love that book are ultra libertarian fruitcakes.
So if that's you, you are in for a treat.
Somewhat true.
Though I did giggle at the a recent piece published in the LA times - a politician was quoted as disliking Elon Musk's interest in tunnelling/transport on the grounds that he was disrupting projects and methods that had the approval of the Proper People. And worse yet, was doing so without asking permission - not so much building things without permission, but suggesting *ideas* without getting them approved by the proper people first.
It was quite startling to read an actual person channeling Ellsworth Toohey.....
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That's just a slight variation in wording for the same meaning. Being cowed is to cower!
Yes indeed. But that's the point. When people are looking to find an excuse to take offence at something that isn't really offensive, what the words mean is better than what they sound like. And the latter just sounds better. Somehow i feel that "cower" puts the focus on the individual cowering. People associate it (wrongly) with being cowardly. Not being "cowed" seems to put the focus on the virus that is no longer as scary as it was.
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That ignores the fact that he's a massive Ayn Rand fan and he's quoting. I think he thought it would be a positive.
Is being an Ayn Rand fan a negative? I have an unopened copy of Atlas Shrugged about to be opened.
Like most polemicists she isn't always right but absolutely there's nothing wrong with being a Rand fan.
I think she gets a bad rap from too many people precisely because they don't like what she has to say, rather than because of how she says it or how right she is to say it.
There are far worse authors taken more seriously by too many people.
If Britain is now Officially Shit at the Olympics again, then I am going to Officially Boycott it, and watch the Hundred instead
Take that, Olympics. First it was Covid-19, now someone in Camden, UK is refusing to watch you. Truly a cursed Games. HAHAHAHA
You should have watched the London bumper cars, I mean Formula E. Lots of action and controversy...
I’d like to think I was a pretty big motorsport fan, but FE is the most boring and contrived ‘Motor’ sport around.
Watching the Euro F3 and various GT races from Spa this weekend was much more exciting.
Except I can't get them on terrestrial TV.
I generally agree about FE: it's not the best. But it's three-quarters of an hour, so not too much time invested, and today's race was both interesting and fun.
Then again, I also find Formula W interesting ...
(But BTCC is the best of the bunch. Thanks to ITV for showing the entire day, including support races. Not that I get to watch them much nowadays...)
The Spa meeting was all on YouTube
FE just annoys me, they go to extraordinary lengths to hide the fact that they’re slower than F4 cars, while not letting the teams (most of whom are works manufacturer teams!) actually innovate outside very controlled ways. The whole thing is a sham.
W Series isn’t too bad as a concept, but after a year off half the field is looking very amateur this season - and they’ve screwed up the media rights by not including it with the other F1 support races. Sky will do 30 or 40 hours of live programming over the F1 weekend, and never mention it.
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That ignores the fact that he's a massive Ayn Rand fan and he's quoting. I think he thought it would be a positive.
Is being an Ayn Rand fan a negative? I have an unopened copy of Atlas Shrugged about to be opened.
With very few exceptions those who love that book are ultra libertarian fruitcakes.
So if that's you, you are in for a treat.
Somewhat true.
Though I did giggle at the a recent piece published in the LA times - a politician was quoted as disliking Elon Musk's interest in tunnelling/transport on the grounds that he was disrupting projects and methods that had the approval of the Proper People. And worse yet, was doing so without asking permission - not so much building things without permission, but suggesting *ideas* without getting them approved by the proper people first.
It was quite startling to read an actual person channeling Ellsworth Toohey.....
Which is why SpaceX are sending astronauts to the ISS, and the Senate Launch System has spent £100bn on a massive white elephant. But at least SLS spent the money on contractors in 48 States.
My personal view is that Starmer will do a lot better than people think, by virtue of the fact he isn't Jeremy Corbyn - and because he's quietly putting into place a lot of people and processes that will lead to good outcomes.
260 seats is the worst I think he will do, which if true probably isn't enough to be PM but will mean his successor will be able to form a government with a much smaller swing. I think if he's lucky and the Lib Dems have a good night, 270+ would probably be enough to form a government and push through PR (which is frankly what I want at this point).
I also believe his one unique selling point is his appeal to Lib Dem voters, which is something few Labour leaders have done recently. We've seen now on two occasions, tactical voting.
260 seats might be enough - assuming the SNP have circa 40 with the LDs on circa 15. Plaid plus Green plus SDLP /Alliance should be 6 or so in total. 322 non-Tory MPs - before even considering the DUP - could well be sufficient to block a minority Tory government.
How many are you expecting Plaid to get?
3 or 4.
Three is possible but it relies on the Labour and Lib Dem vote in Ceredigion coalescing around them in the new seat. Not by any means impossible, but nor is it highly probable. I do not see how they hold Carmarthenshire. They held by a very tight margin this time and their one incumbent has had all sorts of scandals around him.
I think two is a baseline - because I am confident they will hold their two in the North - but anything over that is a bonus.
How about a new candidate in Carmarthenshire? Not that I know anything about it.
But that’s the point. Assuming Jonathan Edwards is dropped, they would likely be facing an incumbent MP in Simon Hart with a new candidate (unless Hart went for Pembrokeshire, which is where he actually lives).
I think Carmarthenshire could be quite a tight three way marginal but the way the figures fall doesn’t look helpful for Plaid. Their best chance of winning the seat would probably be for Adam Price to make a Westminster comeback, but that would cause issues of its own.
I cannot see Simon Hart contesting Carmarthenshire East somehow - it is culturally far too Welsh for him. He surely is well placed to be selected for the new Pembroke seat - which leaves Stephen Crabb with a problem.Labour came surprisingly close in the May Assembly elections - at a time when the Tories had a big national poll lead - in both Pembrokeshire seats, so I think there is every chance of a close result in the new seat.
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That ignores the fact that he's a massive Ayn Rand fan and he's quoting. I think he thought it would be a positive.
Is being an Ayn Rand fan a negative? I have an unopened copy of Atlas Shrugged about to be opened.
Like most polemicists she isn't always right but absolutely there's nothing wrong with being a Rand fan.
I think she gets a bad rap from too many people precisely because they don't like what she has to say, rather than because of how she says it or how right she is to say it.
There are far worse authors taken more seriously by too many people.
I generally agree about FE: it's not the best. But it's three-quarters of an hour, so not too much time invested, and today's race was both interesting and fun.
Then again, I also find Formula W interesting ...
(But BTCC is the best of the bunch. Thanks to ITV for showing the entire day, including support races. Not that I get to watch them much nowadays...)
The Spa meeting was all on YouTube
(Snip)
Ah, I didn't know that, thanks. Are all of them on YT?
My personal view is that Starmer will do a lot better than people think, by virtue of the fact he isn't Jeremy Corbyn - and because he's quietly putting into place a lot of people and processes that will lead to good outcomes.
260 seats is the worst I think he will do, which if true probably isn't enough to be PM but will mean his successor will be able to form a government with a much smaller swing. I think if he's lucky and the Lib Dems have a good night, 270+ would probably be enough to form a government and push through PR (which is frankly what I want at this point).
I also believe his one unique selling point is his appeal to Lib Dem voters, which is something few Labour leaders have done recently. We've seen now on two occasions, tactical voting.
260 seats might be enough - assuming the SNP have circa 40 with the LDs on circa 15. Plaid plus Green plus SDLP /Alliance should be 6 or so in total. 322 non-Tory MPs - before even considering the DUP - could well be sufficient to block a minority Tory government.
How many are you expecting Plaid to get?
3 or 4.
Three is possible but it relies on the Labour and Lib Dem vote in Ceredigion coalescing around them in the new seat. Not by any means impossible, but nor is it highly probable. I do not see how they hold Carmarthenshire. They held by a very tight margin this time and their one incumbent has had all sorts of scandals around him.
I think two is a baseline - because I am confident they will hold their two in the North - but anything over that is a bonus.
How about a new candidate in Carmarthenshire? Not that I know anything about it.
But that’s the point. Assuming Jonathan Edwards is dropped, they would likely be facing an incumbent MP in Simon Hart with a new candidate (unless Hart went for Pembrokeshire, which is where he actually lives).
I think Carmarthenshire could be quite a tight three way marginal but the way the figures fall doesn’t look helpful for Plaid. Their best chance of winning the seat would probably be for Adam Price to make a Westminster comeback, but that would cause issues of its own.
I cannot see Simon Hart contesting Carmarthenshire East somehow - it is culturally far too Welsh for him. He surely is well placed to be selected for the new Pembroke seat - which leaves Stephen Crabb with a problem.Labour came surprisingly close in the May Assembly elections - at a time when the Tories had a big national poll lead - in both Pembrokeshire seats, so I think there is every chance of a close result in the new seat.
The Assembly elections were interesting, because the Brexit party vote swung back to Labour, in most cases, rather than the Tories. It was a key part in their getting 30 seats. If that happens again in 2023, it is likely the Tories will lose seats in the north east.
But with Plaid falling back further, they are not going to find it easy to hang on to Carmarthenshire, whoever the candidate is.
Personally, I would have thought Hart will have his pick of Carmarthenshire and Pembroke especially if he is still in the Cabinet. But if Crabbe wants to stay in the Commons, he may prefer Carmarthenshire precisely to dig the Tories out of that hole.
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That ignores the fact that he's a massive Ayn Rand fan and he's quoting. I think he thought it would be a positive.
Is being an Ayn Rand fan a negative? I have an unopened copy of Atlas Shrugged about to be opened.
With very few exceptions those who love that book are ultra libertarian fruitcakes.
So if that's you, you are in for a treat.
Somewhat true.
Though I did giggle at the a recent piece published in the LA times - a politician was quoted as disliking Elon Musk's interest in tunnelling/transport on the grounds that he was disrupting projects and methods that had the approval of the Proper People. And worse yet, was doing so without asking permission - not so much building things without permission, but suggesting *ideas* without getting them approved by the proper people first.
It was quite startling to read an actual person channeling Ellsworth Toohey.....
Which is why SpaceX are sending astronauts to the ISS, and the Senate Launch System has spent £100bn on a massive white elephant.
Yes, one thing Ayn Rand got right was the problem of Government/Private Sector nexi of power attempting to create defecto protected monopolies.
Another good one was Senator Diane Feinstein publicly complaining about the Commercial space station resupply program.
Which worked, but for her was problematic.
Because her staff wasn't getting anything like the amount of paperwork to read that they were used to....
What she was actually complaining about was that the COTS suppliers were given complete control over their supply chains. So that the politicians couldn't demand that company A (a campaign contributor) got a piece of the pie... So instead of getting thousands of pages detailing the vast pyramid of suppliers and their contracts......
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That ignores the fact that he's a massive Ayn Rand fan and he's quoting. I think he thought it would be a positive.
Is being an Ayn Rand fan a negative? I have an unopened copy of Atlas Shrugged about to be opened.
With very few exceptions those who love that book are ultra libertarian fruitcakes.
So if that's you, you are in for a treat.
Somewhat true.
Though I did giggle at the a recent piece published in the LA times - a politician was quoted as disliking Elon Musk's interest in tunnelling/transport on the grounds that he was disrupting projects and methods that had the approval of the Proper People. And worse yet, was doing so without asking permission - not so much building things without permission, but suggesting *ideas* without getting them approved by the proper people first.
It was quite startling to read an actual person channeling Ellsworth Toohey.....
That's a crummy reason.
But personally, I think Hyperloop is an unworkable idea as a mass transport system, and that the Boring Company will find it nowhere near as easy to produce savings in tunnelling as they claim. I don't know enough about Neuralink to say one or the other.
I agree with TSE. We nearly always give our leaders one shot (at least) - I can't think of an exception since the 1930s.
But also agree that tying up money for an odds-on bet for years isn't sensible. This is where a betting exchange works so much better.
Yes, I think he gets a go, but he does need to up his game with some media training. He need a punchier style, for news soundbites and social media.
Johnson is vulnerable, and it will be a precipitous fall when it comes. Keir needs to put the boot in when he is down.
Absolutely right. Media training-it really works look at Rashford before and after-and a good writer. He needs a lighter touch and some funny lines.
He's obviously got the analytical skill already from being one of the finest lawyers of his generation and the intelligence. No media expert can help him with those. Witness IDS.
I'm pretty confident that when he gets his feet under the table he's going to be formidable. Johnson by contrast could easily fall apart. His whole act is built of the flimsiest of foundations-listen to Cummings- and I really can't see it holding
Well my ranking of London places I have lived in are
Isle of Dogs Bow Edgware Road (Paddington area) Acton Muswell Hill Ealing Highgate
Basically in my twenties the scruffier the better I enjoyed it!
Interesting. Mine top to bottom are probably.
South Hampstead (Fleet Road) City - nr Finsbury Square Chiswick - Grove Park Chiswick nr High Road Clapham Walthamstow nr Black Horse Road
I'd rank mine as follows:
South Ken Hampstead Earls Court Barnes Bloomsbury Penge Ealing Wandsworth Common Greenwich Maida Vale Isle of Dogs Wembley
Wembley is bottom because I lived in a greenhouse there.
I always wondered whether you were a plant. 🤔
For me:
Wimbledon Hill Tooting Broadway.
Not a hard one to do. My room in Tooting was in a shared house that froze in wintertime, and the pipes froze for weeks at a time. One of my housemates was on the game, though I was rather too niaive to spot it at the time. I just thought she got a lot of late night visitors.
Yes you become more savvy with age on spotting that. I have a failsafe method these days. If a woman throws me a warm and welcoming smile that's it. I know and I make it clear that I know. Only fair.
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That ignores the fact that he's a massive Ayn Rand fan and he's quoting. I think he thought it would be a positive.
Is being an Ayn Rand fan a negative? I have an unopened copy of Atlas Shrugged about to be opened.
With very few exceptions those who love that book are ultra libertarian fruitcakes.
So if that's you, you are in for a treat.
Somewhat true.
Though I did giggle at the a recent piece published in the LA times - a politician was quoted as disliking Elon Musk's interest in tunnelling/transport on the grounds that he was disrupting projects and methods that had the approval of the Proper People. And worse yet, was doing so without asking permission - not so much building things without permission, but suggesting *ideas* without getting them approved by the proper people first.
It was quite startling to read an actual person channeling Ellsworth Toohey.....
That's a crummy reason.
But personally, I think Hyperloop is an unworkable idea as a mass transport system, and that the Boring Company will find it nowhere near as easy to produce savings in tunnelling as they claim. I don't know enough about Neuralink to say one or the other.
It may not work but its one of those things that is worth trying.
One thing Musk doesn't have is a fear of failure, he's quite happy to send a rocket up to be destroyed to see how it fails because he learns from it.
Same with the Boring Company. If it doesn't work as a technological innovation then so be it, but its worth trying. If it does, it has the potential to not quite be as interesting as SpaceX but as disruptive to that industry.
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That ignores the fact that he's a massive Ayn Rand fan and he's quoting. I think he thought it would be a positive.
Is being an Ayn Rand fan a negative? I have an unopened copy of Atlas Shrugged about to be opened.
With very few exceptions those who love that book are ultra libertarian fruitcakes.
So if that's you, you are in for a treat.
Somewhat true.
Though I did giggle at the a recent piece published in the LA times - a politician was quoted as disliking Elon Musk's interest in tunnelling/transport on the grounds that he was disrupting projects and methods that had the approval of the Proper People. And worse yet, was doing so without asking permission - not so much building things without permission, but suggesting *ideas* without getting them approved by the proper people first.
It was quite startling to read an actual person channeling Ellsworth Toohey.....
That's a crummy reason.
But personally, I think Hyperloop is an unworkable idea as a mass transport system, and that the Boring Company will find it nowhere near as easy to produce savings in tunnelling as they claim. I don't know enough about Neuralink to say one or the other.
Yes, indeed. But let ideas stand and fail on their own implementation - the Boring Company is building tunnels that people want and seem happy to pay for at the prices paid....
My personal view is that Starmer will do a lot better than people think, by virtue of the fact he isn't Jeremy Corbyn - and because he's quietly putting into place a lot of people and processes that will lead to good outcomes.
260 seats is the worst I think he will do, which if true probably isn't enough to be PM but will mean his successor will be able to form a government with a much smaller swing. I think if he's lucky and the Lib Dems have a good night, 270+ would probably be enough to form a government and push through PR (which is frankly what I want at this point).
I also believe his one unique selling point is his appeal to Lib Dem voters, which is something few Labour leaders have done recently. We've seen now on two occasions, tactical voting.
260 seats might be enough - assuming the SNP have circa 40 with the LDs on circa 15. Plaid plus Green plus SDLP /Alliance should be 6 or so in total. 322 non-Tory MPs - before even considering the DUP - could well be sufficient to block a minority Tory government.
How many are you expecting Plaid to get?
3 or 4.
Three is possible but it relies on the Labour and Lib Dem vote in Ceredigion coalescing around them in the new seat. Not by any means impossible, but nor is it highly probable. I do not see how they hold Carmarthenshire. They held by a very tight margin this time and their one incumbent has had all sorts of scandals around him.
I think two is a baseline - because I am confident they will hold their two in the North - but anything over that is a bonus.
How about a new candidate in Carmarthenshire? Not that I know anything about it.
But that’s the point. Assuming Jonathan Edwards is dropped, they would likely be facing an incumbent MP in Simon Hart with a new candidate (unless Hart went for Pembrokeshire, which is where he actually lives).
I think Carmarthenshire could be quite a tight three way marginal but the way the figures fall doesn’t look helpful for Plaid. Their best chance of winning the seat would probably be for Adam Price to make a Westminster comeback, but that would cause issues of its own.
I cannot see Simon Hart contesting Carmarthenshire East somehow - it is culturally far too Welsh for him. He surely is well placed to be selected for the new Pembroke seat - which leaves Stephen Crabb with a problem.Labour came surprisingly close in the May Assembly elections - at a time when the Tories had a big national poll lead - in both Pembrokeshire seats, so I think there is every chance of a close result in the new seat.
The Assembly elections were interesting, because the Brexit party vote swung back to Labour, in most cases, rather than the Tories. It was a key part in their getting 30 seats. If that happens again in 2023, it is likely the Tories will lose seats in the north east.
But with Plaid falling back further, they are not going to find it easy to hang on to Carmarthenshire, whoever the candidate is.
Personally, I would have thought Hart will have his pick of Carmarthenshire and Pembroke especially if he is still in the Cabinet. But if Crabbe wants to stay in the Commons, he may prefer Carmarthenshire precisely to dig the Tories out of that hole.
The Tories polled very strongly in Carmarthenshire East in 2019 and reached a level well out of line with their normal vote share there. It may have been an aberration - given that they fell back to third place at the May Assembly election. Back in the days of Gwynfor Evans the Tories tended to lose their deposit in the old Carmarthen seat - though the deposit threshold was then 12.5% rather than today's 5%.
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That's just a slight variation in wording for the same meaning. Being cowed is to cower!
Yes indeed. But that's the point. When people are looking to find an excuse to take offence at something that isn't really offensive, what the words mean is better than what they sound like. And the latter just sounds better.
The problem here is the offence takers. They've turned it into an art form. Better to just tell them to shut it.
Leaving aside this incident, since he's already apologised, it does seem notable that someone taking offence seems to be all takes a lot of the time, not whether the offence taken in reasonable.
I generally agree about FE: it's not the best. But it's three-quarters of an hour, so not too much time invested, and today's race was both interesting and fun.
Then again, I also find Formula W interesting ...
(But BTCC is the best of the bunch. Thanks to ITV for showing the entire day, including support races. Not that I get to watch them much nowadays...)
The Spa meeting was all on YouTube
(Snip)
Ah, I didn't know that, thanks. Are all of them on YT?
Depends on the series, there were quite a few at this meeting as it’s a really expensive track to hire.
I agree with TSE. We nearly always give our leaders one shot (at least) - I can't think of an exception since the 1930s.
But also agree that tying up money for an odds-on bet for years isn't sensible. This is where a betting exchange works so much better.
Yes, I think he gets a go, but he does need to up his game with some media training. He need a punchier style, for news soundbites and social media.
Johnson is vulnerable, and it will be a precipitous fall when it comes. Keir needs to put the boot in when he is down.
Absolutely right. Media training-it really works look at Rashford before and after-and a good writer. He needs a lighter touch and some funny lines.
He's obviously got the analytical skill already from being one of the finest lawyers of his generation and the intelligence. No media expert can help him with those. Witness IDS.
I'm pretty confident that when he gets his feet under the table he's going to be formidable. Johnson by contrast could easily fall apart. His whole act is built of the flimsiest of foundations-listen to Cummings- and I really can't see it holding
I rather like your use of 'formidable' to describe Starmer. I think you're right. He may not be exciting, charismatic or a laugh a minute. But he's highly intelligent and is usually unflappable and wise. Formidable it is. And I think Johnson knows he's got a formidable opponent.
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That ignores the fact that he's a massive Ayn Rand fan and he's quoting. I think he thought it would be a positive.
Is being an Ayn Rand fan a negative? I have an unopened copy of Atlas Shrugged about to be opened.
She is of interest, though like many "genius" authors, an editor cutting about 80% of the material would have been an advantage....
Well, we'll see. If you notice some additional irrationality about my posts in a few days time its either congratulations to my Vintners or the Ayn Rand meme.
(I just have a Penguin edition lined up. I wanted to buy the Folio Society edition, but it was just too expensive)
Folio was too expensive, so you decided to p-p-p-p-pick up a p-p-penguin?
You realise, given it's age, only 99% of PB readers will get that don't you!?
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That ignores the fact that he's a massive Ayn Rand fan and he's quoting. I think he thought it would be a positive.
Is being an Ayn Rand fan a negative? I have an unopened copy of Atlas Shrugged about to be opened.
With very few exceptions those who love that book are ultra libertarian fruitcakes.
So if that's you, you are in for a treat.
Somewhat true.
Though I did giggle at the a recent piece published in the LA times - a politician was quoted as disliking Elon Musk's interest in tunnelling/transport on the grounds that he was disrupting projects and methods that had the approval of the Proper People. And worse yet, was doing so without asking permission - not so much building things without permission, but suggesting *ideas* without getting them approved by the proper people first.
It was quite startling to read an actual person channeling Ellsworth Toohey.....
That's a crummy reason.
But personally, I think Hyperloop is an unworkable idea as a mass transport system, and that the Boring Company will find it nowhere near as easy to produce savings in tunnelling as they claim. I don't know enough about Neuralink to say one or the other.
Yes, indeed. But let ideas stand and fail on their own implementation - the Boring Company is building tunnels that people want and seem happy to pay for at the prices paid....
Has The Boring Company actually got that many paid for projects?
Unless I've missed something most of it still seems to be quite pie in the sky, but with real potential, rather than actually happening.
Though I do love that such a Snooker Loopy company is led by Steve Davis.
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That ignores the fact that he's a massive Ayn Rand fan and he's quoting. I think he thought it would be a positive.
Is being an Ayn Rand fan a negative? I have an unopened copy of Atlas Shrugged about to be opened.
With very few exceptions those who love that book are ultra libertarian fruitcakes.
So if that's you, you are in for a treat.
When socialism raises millions from poverty then you get to complain (sure you will diagree but cite an example) in the mean while the right wing has sucessfully lifted 100 millions out of poverty. And no not a rand fan but you purely dont like it because she is a right winger rather than the fact that actually she just wasnt a good writer
Well my ranking of London places I have lived in are
Isle of Dogs Bow Edgware Road (Paddington area) Acton Muswell Hill Ealing Highgate
Basically in my twenties the scruffier the better I enjoyed it!
Interesting. Mine top to bottom are probably.
South Hampstead (Fleet Road) City - nr Finsbury Square Chiswick - Grove Park Chiswick nr High Road Clapham Walthamstow nr Black Horse Road
I'd rank mine as follows:
South Ken Hampstead Earls Court Barnes Bloomsbury Penge Ealing Wandsworth Common Greenwich Maida Vale Isle of Dogs Wembley
Wembley is bottom because I lived in a greenhouse there.
Telegraph Hill Oval Brockley Whitechapel Dalston.
Had some great parties in the flats in Dalston and Whitechapel, mind.
Hope you noticed I have some Sarf on my very chequered London CV. Including the great Penge.
My London time was, chronologically,
1. Primrose Hill, then 2. London Fields, then 3. Hackney Downs, then 4. ???
I couldn't risk 4., as given the trend it would have been somewhere awful like Dagenham. So I moved out.
Straight in with Primrose Hill. That is a flashy debut.
A flat rented cheaply from a well-known pornographer who used to import illegal porn material in trucks from the continent, masquerading as Danish bacon. He got caught, so the tenancy came to an end.
My personal view is that Starmer will do a lot better than people think, by virtue of the fact he isn't Jeremy Corbyn - and because he's quietly putting into place a lot of people and processes that will lead to good outcomes.
260 seats is the worst I think he will do, which if true probably isn't enough to be PM but will mean his successor will be able to form a government with a much smaller swing. I think if he's lucky and the Lib Dems have a good night, 270+ would probably be enough to form a government and push through PR (which is frankly what I want at this point).
I also believe his one unique selling point is his appeal to Lib Dem voters, which is something few Labour leaders have done recently. We've seen now on two occasions, tactical voting.
260 seats might be enough - assuming the SNP have circa 40 with the LDs on circa 15. Plaid plus Green plus SDLP /Alliance should be 6 or so in total. 322 non-Tory MPs - before even considering the DUP - could well be sufficient to block a minority Tory government.
How many are you expecting Plaid to get?
3 or 4.
Three is possible but it relies on the Labour and Lib Dem vote in Ceredigion coalescing around them in the new seat. Not by any means impossible, but nor is it highly probable. I do not see how they hold Carmarthenshire. They held by a very tight margin this time and their one incumbent has had all sorts of scandals around him.
I think two is a baseline - because I am confident they will hold their two in the North - but anything over that is a bonus.
How about a new candidate in Carmarthenshire? Not that I know anything about it.
But that’s the point. Assuming Jonathan Edwards is dropped, they would likely be facing an incumbent MP in Simon Hart with a new candidate (unless Hart went for Pembrokeshire, which is where he actually lives).
I think Carmarthenshire could be quite a tight three way marginal but the way the figures fall doesn’t look helpful for Plaid. Their best chance of winning the seat would probably be for Adam Price to make a Westminster comeback, but that would cause issues of its own.
I cannot see Simon Hart contesting Carmarthenshire East somehow - it is culturally far too Welsh for him. He surely is well placed to be selected for the new Pembroke seat - which leaves Stephen Crabb with a problem.Labour came surprisingly close in the May Assembly elections - at a time when the Tories had a big national poll lead - in both Pembrokeshire seats, so I think there is every chance of a close result in the new seat.
The Assembly elections were interesting, because the Brexit party vote swung back to Labour, in most cases, rather than the Tories. It was a key part in their getting 30 seats. If that happens again in 2023, it is likely the Tories will lose seats in the north east.
But with Plaid falling back further, they are not going to find it easy to hang on to Carmarthenshire, whoever the candidate is.
Personally, I would have thought Hart will have his pick of Carmarthenshire and Pembroke especially if he is still in the Cabinet. But if Crabbe wants to stay in the Commons, he may prefer Carmarthenshire precisely to dig the Tories out of that hole.
The Tories polled very strongly in Carmarthenshire East in 2019 and reached a level well out of line with their normal vote share there. It may have been an aberration - given that they fell back to third place at the May Assembly election. Back in the days of Gwynfor Evans the Tories tended to lose their deposit in the old Carmarthen seat - though the deposit threshold was then 12.5% rather than today's 5%.
Or it may have been a personal vote for Simon Hart, improbable though that may seem to the rest of us.
Before you wonder why anyone would vote for him rather than his party label, I should tell you Gavin Williamson is a much loved constituency MP and that a large part of his majority is a genuine personal vote.
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That ignores the fact that he's a massive Ayn Rand fan and he's quoting. I think he thought it would be a positive.
Is being an Ayn Rand fan a negative? I have an unopened copy of Atlas Shrugged about to be opened.
With very few exceptions those who love that book are ultra libertarian fruitcakes.
So if that's you, you are in for a treat.
Somewhat true.
Though I did giggle at the a recent piece published in the LA times - a politician was quoted as disliking Elon Musk's interest in tunnelling/transport on the grounds that he was disrupting projects and methods that had the approval of the Proper People. And worse yet, was doing so without asking permission - not so much building things without permission, but suggesting *ideas* without getting them approved by the proper people first.
It was quite startling to read an actual person channeling Ellsworth Toohey.....
That's a crummy reason.
But personally, I think Hyperloop is an unworkable idea as a mass transport system, and that the Boring Company will find it nowhere near as easy to produce savings in tunnelling as they claim. I don't know enough about Neuralink to say one or the other.
Yes, indeed. But let ideas stand and fail on their own implementation - the Boring Company is building tunnels that people want and seem happy to pay for at the prices paid....
Has The Boring Company actually got that many paid for projects?
Unless I've missed something most of it still seems to be quite pie in the sky, but with real potential, rather than actually happening.
Though I do love that such a Snooker Loopy company is led by Steve Davis.
Various companies have done... not a lot with Hyper Loop.
The actual Boring Company, has built tunnels in Las Vegas (and is building more) and is bidding on various city infrastructure projects in the US and elsewhere.
I agree with TSE. We nearly always give our leaders one shot (at least) - I can't think of an exception since the 1930s.
But also agree that tying up money for an odds-on bet for years isn't sensible. This is where a betting exchange works so much better.
Yes, I think he gets a go, but he does need to up his game with some media training. He need a punchier style, for news soundbites and social media.
Johnson is vulnerable, and it will be a precipitous fall when it comes. Keir needs to put the boot in when he is down.
Absolutely right. Media training-it really works look at Rashford before and after-and a good writer. He needs a lighter touch and some funny lines.
He's obviously got the analytical skill already from being one of the finest lawyers of his generation and the intelligence. No media expert can help him with those. Witness IDS.
I'm pretty confident that when he gets his feet under the table he's going to be formidable. Johnson by contrast could easily fall apart. His whole act is built of the flimsiest of foundations-listen to Cummings- and I really can't see it holding
I rather like your use of 'formidable' to describe Starmer. I think you're right. He may not be exciting, charismatic or a laugh a minute. But he's highly intelligent and is usually unflappable and wise. Formidable it is. And I think Johnson knows he's got a formidable opponent.
And the key thing... he seems willing and capable of learning. Unlike Corbyn (too arrogant, frankly not bright enough) or Johnson (too lazy), Starmer seems to take on board what doesn't work and get better. It's a pleasant change. Example: After a long run of not getting anywhere at PMQs, he's had some decent lines in the last couple of weeks, and Johnson really doesn't enjoy being laughed at.
I agree with TSE. We nearly always give our leaders one shot (at least) - I can't think of an exception since the 1930s.
But also agree that tying up money for an odds-on bet for years isn't sensible. This is where a betting exchange works so much better.
Yes, I think he gets a go, but he does need to up his game with some media training. He need a punchier style, for news soundbites and social media.
Johnson is vulnerable, and it will be a precipitous fall when it comes. Keir needs to put the boot in when he is down.
Absolutely right. Media training-it really works look at Rashford before and after-and a good writer. He needs a lighter touch and some funny lines.
He's obviously got the analytical skill already from being one of the finest lawyers of his generation and the intelligence. No media expert can help him with those. Witness IDS.
I'm pretty confident that when he gets his feet under the table he's going to be formidable. Johnson by contrast could easily fall apart. His whole act is built of the flimsiest of foundations-listen to Cummings- and I really can't see it holding
I rather like your use of 'formidable' to describe Starmer. I think you're right. He may not be exciting, charismatic or a laugh a minute. But he's highly intelligent and is usually unflappable and wise. Formidable it is. And I think Johnson knows he's got a formidable opponent.
And the key thing... he seems willing and capable of learning. Unlike Corbyn (too arrogant, frankly not bright enough) or Johnson (too lazy), Starmer seems to take on board what doesn't work and get better. It's a pleasant change. Example: After a long run of not getting anywhere at PMQs, he's had some decent lines in the last couple of weeks, and Johnson really doesn't enjoy being laughed at.
My personal view is that Starmer will do a lot better than people think, by virtue of the fact he isn't Jeremy Corbyn - and because he's quietly putting into place a lot of people and processes that will lead to good outcomes.
260 seats is the worst I think he will do, which if true probably isn't enough to be PM but will mean his successor will be able to form a government with a much smaller swing. I think if he's lucky and the Lib Dems have a good night, 270+ would probably be enough to form a government and push through PR (which is frankly what I want at this point).
I also believe his one unique selling point is his appeal to Lib Dem voters, which is something few Labour leaders have done recently. We've seen now on two occasions, tactical voting.
260 seats might be enough - assuming the SNP have circa 40 with the LDs on circa 15. Plaid plus Green plus SDLP /Alliance should be 6 or so in total. 322 non-Tory MPs - before even considering the DUP - could well be sufficient to block a minority Tory government.
How many are you expecting Plaid to get?
3 or 4.
Three is possible but it relies on the Labour and Lib Dem vote in Ceredigion coalescing around them in the new seat. Not by any means impossible, but nor is it highly probable. I do not see how they hold Carmarthenshire. They held by a very tight margin this time and their one incumbent has had all sorts of scandals around him.
I think two is a baseline - because I am confident they will hold their two in the North - but anything over that is a bonus.
How about a new candidate in Carmarthenshire? Not that I know anything about it.
But that’s the point. Assuming Jonathan Edwards is dropped, they would likely be facing an incumbent MP in Simon Hart with a new candidate (unless Hart went for Pembrokeshire, which is where he actually lives).
I think Carmarthenshire could be quite a tight three way marginal but the way the figures fall doesn’t look helpful for Plaid. Their best chance of winning the seat would probably be for Adam Price to make a Westminster comeback, but that would cause issues of its own.
I cannot see Simon Hart contesting Carmarthenshire East somehow - it is culturally far too Welsh for him. He surely is well placed to be selected for the new Pembroke seat - which leaves Stephen Crabb with a problem.Labour came surprisingly close in the May Assembly elections - at a time when the Tories had a big national poll lead - in both Pembrokeshire seats, so I think there is every chance of a close result in the new seat.
I agree that for Hart its Pembrokeshire or nothing, which will put him into conflict with Crabb. I suspect one will retire. Neither are particularly liked, certainly Crabb has a fair amount of baggage. When Pembrokeshire was last a constituency in 1992, Nick Ainger pinched it off Nick Bennett. Since then both Pembs seats have moved in the Tories favour. Provided there isn't a new Tory candidate, I expect a Tory win, but it may be quite tight.
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That ignores the fact that he's a massive Ayn Rand fan and he's quoting. I think he thought it would be a positive.
Is being an Ayn Rand fan a negative? I have an unopened copy of Atlas Shrugged about to be opened.
With very few exceptions those who love that book are ultra libertarian fruitcakes.
So if that's you, you are in for a treat.
Somewhat true.
Though I did giggle at the a recent piece published in the LA times - a politician was quoted as disliking Elon Musk's interest in tunnelling/transport on the grounds that he was disrupting projects and methods that had the approval of the Proper People. And worse yet, was doing so without asking permission - not so much building things without permission, but suggesting *ideas* without getting them approved by the proper people first.
It was quite startling to read an actual person channeling Ellsworth Toohey.....
That's a crummy reason.
But personally, I think Hyperloop is an unworkable idea as a mass transport system, and that the Boring Company will find it nowhere near as easy to produce savings in tunnelling as they claim. I don't know enough about Neuralink to say one or the other.
Yes, indeed. But let ideas stand and fail on their own implementation - the Boring Company is building tunnels that people want and seem happy to pay for at the prices paid....
Has The Boring Company actually got that many paid for projects?
Unless I've missed something most of it still seems to be quite pie in the sky, but with real potential, rather than actually happening.
Though I do love that such a Snooker Loopy company is led by Steve Davis.
The potential is for more in the city, the difficulty is in working out the mode of transport - they hoped to have self driving cars by now, so at the moment it’s a glorified taxi service out of the convention center area.
No dissent from me. Only ill health is likely to stop him, John Smith style. He looks pretty healthy to me, certainly a lot healthier than Smith did.
Its team Starmer that is the problem in terms of succession. There is no standout candidate AFAIC that would be better the current incumbent.
Certainly not in Parliament. You have to be careful as you get older that your memories do not get tinged with nostalgia but I cannot recall a time when so few politicians of any party had any credibility or standing with the public as they do right now and Labour seem particularly badly affected although the Tories are far from immune. Starmer is as good as it gets in Labour.
Now, you've drawn me into a Starmer is crap post.
There are plenty of able Labour MPs , who are available, Benn, Kinnock, Cooper, Jarvis and plenty of others, plus people outside Parliament. Sadly after Corbyn there are also a raft of former quality Labour Politicians who are also outside the Party. And no I am not referring directly to Corbyn.
The key problem of why, for good or bad, we are lumbered with Starmer is the vague, but worrying prospect that he could be replaced by a moron like Burgon or RLB.
I think that there are few bright young things on the Labour benches is a feature of the massive defeat under Corbyn. It means that there are fewer new faces, and only those in the safest seats remain, therefore old timers or people like the useless Webbe in Leicester West, parachuted in under Corbyn following the purges.
I think the next Leader will be Nandy or Rayner, or someone else elected after 2010.
Leicester East, and Webbe replaced Keith Vaz who was not victim of a Corbynite purge, even if Webbe was parachuted in. Leicester West is Liz Kendall, who is just about hanging on.
Yes, of course. The infighting in Leicester East Labour Party is such that in the event of a by election they may well lose a lot more of the majority. For all his faults Vaz was good at cultivating his constituency vote.
Liz Kendall should be alright in LWest, as she held on in 2019, though the new boundaries are probably not going to help her.
Webbe is the next one (or next one but one) up before the beak. May be available soon,
.A 12 month sentence is required for a sacking I think. I don't think that severe an offense, and she is sitting as an independent at present. I don't think she would just resign out of shame, as she seems to have quite a brass neck.
I think that it’s twelve months to be disbarred from the House, a conviction with a lesser sentence triggers a recall petition (see Brecon and Radnor).
And I think she would be recalled. It’s clear she’s very unpopular in her seat.
Hopefully she doesn't avoid a recall by a technicality, like that creepy ex-Tory in Wales.
The technicality AIR (please correct me if I’m wrong) was that he was disciplined not prosecuted and convicted.
Although I agree that recall should be an option for disciplinary offences.
I didn't think it was that - suspension from the House is not prosecution or conviction, but he was suspended for long enough to be a recall criteria...but the decision to recommend suspension came from a body other than the Committee on Standards, which was not mentioned in the Recall Act (because the body in question did not exist at the time).
Right, I see what Philip means. Yes, that is a very silly technicality and tells me the legislation is badly worded.
I think the Welsh Tory was because it was a subcommittee vs committee thing, or perhaps because the supervisory MP's committee made the decision rather than the investigating committee they had referred it to. That or similar.
Fiona Onasanya was three months in the clink, so a recall petition which was successful.
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That ignores the fact that he's a massive Ayn Rand fan and he's quoting. I think he thought it would be a positive.
Is being an Ayn Rand fan a negative? I have an unopened copy of Atlas Shrugged about to be opened.
With very few exceptions those who love that book are ultra libertarian fruitcakes.
So if that's you, you are in for a treat.
When socialism raises millions from poverty then you get to complain (sure you will diagree but cite an example) in the mean while the right wing has sucessfully lifted 100 millions out of poverty. And no not a rand fan but you purely dont like it because she is a right winger rather than the fact that actually she just wasnt a good writer
Where has the right wing lifted 100s of millions out of poverty?
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That ignores the fact that he's a massive Ayn Rand fan and he's quoting. I think he thought it would be a positive.
Is being an Ayn Rand fan a negative? I have an unopened copy of Atlas Shrugged about to be opened.
With very few exceptions those who love that book are ultra libertarian fruitcakes.
So if that's you, you are in for a treat.
When socialism raises millions from poverty then you get to complain (sure you will diagree but cite an example) in the mean while the right wing has sucessfully lifted 100 millions out of poverty. And no not a rand fan but you purely dont like it because she is a right winger rather than the fact that actually she just wasnt a good writer
Where has the right wing lifted 100s of millions out of poverty?
Pretty much everywhere! Poverty has never been lower, worldwide.
Well my ranking of London places I have lived in are
Isle of Dogs Bow Edgware Road (Paddington area) Acton Muswell Hill Ealing Highgate
Basically in my twenties the scruffier the better I enjoyed it!
Interesting. Mine top to bottom are probably.
South Hampstead (Fleet Road) City - nr Finsbury Square Chiswick - Grove Park Chiswick nr High Road Clapham Walthamstow nr Black Horse Road
I'd rank mine as follows:
South Ken Hampstead Earls Court Barnes Bloomsbury Penge Ealing Wandsworth Common Greenwich Maida Vale Isle of Dogs Wembley
Wembley is bottom because I lived in a greenhouse there.
Telegraph Hill Oval Brockley Whitechapel Dalston.
Had some great parties in the flats in Dalston and Whitechapel, mind.
Hope you noticed I have some Sarf on my very chequered London CV. Including the great Penge.
My London time was, chronologically,
1. Primrose Hill, then 2. London Fields, then 3. Hackney Downs, then 4. ???
I couldn't risk 4., as given the trend it would have been somewhere awful like Dagenham. So I moved out.
Straight in with Primrose Hill. That is a flashy debut.
A flat rented cheaply from a well-known pornographer who used to import illegal porn material in trucks from the continent, masquerading as Danish bacon. He got caught, so the tenancy came to an end.
Golly. That's colourful. That could have sent you down the wrong path, Al. He could have sucked you in. Close shave.
Just read what Javid said. I am not a fan of the government, but for goodness sake, this looks like people trying to take offence!
It definitely was and the truth of what he said hasn't changed. People just don't want to hear it.
Agree, but as i said last night i think if he had said "we shouldn't be cowed by it" as opposed to "people shouldn't cower from it", i doubt it would have been an issue.
Maybe.
I think that's probably what was meant (someone will probably argue that it means the same thing!)
That ignores the fact that he's a massive Ayn Rand fan and he's quoting. I think he thought it would be a positive.
Is being an Ayn Rand fan a negative? I have an unopened copy of Atlas Shrugged about to be opened.
With very few exceptions those who love that book are ultra libertarian fruitcakes.
So if that's you, you are in for a treat.
When socialism raises millions from poverty then you get to complain (sure you will diagree but cite an example) in the mean while the right wing has sucessfully lifted 100 millions out of poverty. And no not a rand fan but you purely dont like it because she is a right winger rather than the fact that actually she just wasnt a good writer
Where has the right wing lifted 100s of millions out of poverty?
Pretty much everywhere! Poverty has never been lower, worldwide.
Are we calling China right wing libertarian then? Or even right wing anything?
A reminder that long lists of complicated rules (which, presumably, also change at unpredictable and often frequent intervals) are not an affliction solely of the UK.
Every country has its own set of rules and regulations.
I don't quite know the point @Felix is trying to make - well, I do, it's the usual cheap anti-EU jibe.
Actually you really don't know. I voted remain but respect a democratic vote. My point was really simple - maybe why it confused you - the UK is not unique in having complicated rules. It's the same pretty much everywhere.
My personal view is that Starmer will do a lot better than people think, by virtue of the fact he isn't Jeremy Corbyn - and because he's quietly putting into place a lot of people and processes that will lead to good outcomes.
260 seats is the worst I think he will do, which if true probably isn't enough to be PM but will mean his successor will be able to form a government with a much smaller swing. I think if he's lucky and the Lib Dems have a good night, 270+ would probably be enough to form a government and push through PR (which is frankly what I want at this point).
I also believe his one unique selling point is his appeal to Lib Dem voters, which is something few Labour leaders have done recently. We've seen now on two occasions, tactical voting.
260 seats might be enough - assuming the SNP have circa 40 with the LDs on circa 15. Plaid plus Green plus SDLP /Alliance should be 6 or so in total. 322 non-Tory MPs - before even considering the DUP - could well be sufficient to block a minority Tory government.
How many are you expecting Plaid to get?
3 or 4.
Three is possible but it relies on the Labour and Lib Dem vote in Ceredigion coalescing around them in the new seat. Not by any means impossible, but nor is it highly probable. I do not see how they hold Carmarthenshire. They held by a very tight margin this time and their one incumbent has had all sorts of scandals around him.
I think two is a baseline - because I am confident they will hold their two in the North - but anything over that is a bonus.
How about a new candidate in Carmarthenshire? Not that I know anything about it.
But that’s the point. Assuming Jonathan Edwards is dropped, they would likely be facing an incumbent MP in Simon Hart with a new candidate (unless Hart went for Pembrokeshire, which is where he actually lives).
I think Carmarthenshire could be quite a tight three way marginal but the way the figures fall doesn’t look helpful for Plaid. Their best chance of winning the seat would probably be for Adam Price to make a Westminster comeback, but that would cause issues of its own.
I cannot see Simon Hart contesting Carmarthenshire East somehow - it is culturally far too Welsh for him. He surely is well placed to be selected for the new Pembroke seat - which leaves Stephen Crabb with a problem.Labour came surprisingly close in the May Assembly elections - at a time when the Tories had a big national poll lead - in both Pembrokeshire seats, so I think there is every chance of a close result in the new seat.
The Assembly elections were interesting, because the Brexit party vote swung back to Labour, in most cases, rather than the Tories. It was a key part in their getting 30 seats. If that happens again in 2023, it is likely the Tories will lose seats in the north east.
But with Plaid falling back further, they are not going to find it easy to hang on to Carmarthenshire, whoever the candidate is.
Personally, I would have thought Hart will have his pick of Carmarthenshire and Pembroke especially if he is still in the Cabinet. But if Crabbe wants to stay in the Commons, he may prefer Carmarthenshire precisely to dig the Tories out of that hole.
The Tories polled very strongly in Carmarthenshire East in 2019 and reached a level well out of line with their normal vote share there. It may have been an aberration - given that they fell back to third place at the May Assembly election. Back in the days of Gwynfor Evans the Tories tended to lose their deposit in the old Carmarthen seat - though the deposit threshold was then 12.5% rather than today's 5%.
Or it may have been a personal vote for Simon Hart, improbable though that may seem to the rest of us.
Before you wonder why anyone would vote for him rather than his party label, I should tell you Gavin Williamson is a much loved constituency MP and that a large part of his majority is a genuine personal vote.
If he can do it...
? But Simon Hart was not the candidate in Carmarthenshire East - he represents South Pembrokeshire & Carmarthen West!
My personal view is that Starmer will do a lot better than people think, by virtue of the fact he isn't Jeremy Corbyn - and because he's quietly putting into place a lot of people and processes that will lead to good outcomes.
260 seats is the worst I think he will do, which if true probably isn't enough to be PM but will mean his successor will be able to form a government with a much smaller swing. I think if he's lucky and the Lib Dems have a good night, 270+ would probably be enough to form a government and push through PR (which is frankly what I want at this point).
I also believe his one unique selling point is his appeal to Lib Dem voters, which is something few Labour leaders have done recently. We've seen now on two occasions, tactical voting.
260 seats might be enough - assuming the SNP have circa 40 with the LDs on circa 15. Plaid plus Green plus SDLP /Alliance should be 6 or so in total. 322 non-Tory MPs - before even considering the DUP - could well be sufficient to block a minority Tory government.
How many are you expecting Plaid to get?
3 or 4.
Three is possible but it relies on the Labour and Lib Dem vote in Ceredigion coalescing around them in the new seat. Not by any means impossible, but nor is it highly probable. I do not see how they hold Carmarthenshire. They held by a very tight margin this time and their one incumbent has had all sorts of scandals around him.
I think two is a baseline - because I am confident they will hold their two in the North - but anything over that is a bonus.
How about a new candidate in Carmarthenshire? Not that I know anything about it.
But that’s the point. Assuming Jonathan Edwards is dropped, they would likely be facing an incumbent MP in Simon Hart with a new candidate (unless Hart went for Pembrokeshire, which is where he actually lives).
I think Carmarthenshire could be quite a tight three way marginal but the way the figures fall doesn’t look helpful for Plaid. Their best chance of winning the seat would probably be for Adam Price to make a Westminster comeback, but that would cause issues of its own.
I cannot see Simon Hart contesting Carmarthenshire East somehow - it is culturally far too Welsh for him. He surely is well placed to be selected for the new Pembroke seat - which leaves Stephen Crabb with a problem.Labour came surprisingly close in the May Assembly elections - at a time when the Tories had a big national poll lead - in both Pembrokeshire seats, so I think there is every chance of a close result in the new seat.
The Assembly elections were interesting, because the Brexit party vote swung back to Labour, in most cases, rather than the Tories. It was a key part in their getting 30 seats. If that happens again in 2023, it is likely the Tories will lose seats in the north east.
But with Plaid falling back further, they are not going to find it easy to hang on to Carmarthenshire, whoever the candidate is.
Personally, I would have thought Hart will have his pick of Carmarthenshire and Pembroke especially if he is still in the Cabinet. But if Crabbe wants to stay in the Commons, he may prefer Carmarthenshire precisely to dig the Tories out of that hole.
The Tories polled very strongly in Carmarthenshire East in 2019 and reached a level well out of line with their normal vote share there. It may have been an aberration - given that they fell back to third place at the May Assembly election. Back in the days of Gwynfor Evans the Tories tended to lose their deposit in the old Carmarthen seat - though the deposit threshold was then 12.5% rather than today's 5%.
Or it may have been a personal vote for Simon Hart, improbable though that may seem to the rest of us.
Before you wonder why anyone would vote for him rather than his party label, I should tell you Gavin Williamson is a much loved constituency MP and that a large part of his majority is a genuine personal vote.
If he can do it...
? But Simon Hart was not the candidate in Carmarthenshire East - he represents South Pembrokeshire & Carmarthen West!
Sorry, I misread your post - I thought it said Carmarthen West. Tiredness, I think.
In Carmathen East, which is an area I know slightly, but not well, my distinct impression is it is less Welsh than it was. It would possibly have gone blue but for the Brexit Party, although we have to be careful about such statements.
The question really is, if Hart stands, will that higher name recognition against presumably a new candidate keep the seat safe? The Tories would start as notional incumbents.
But of course, there is much water to flow before that event anyway.
No dissent from me. Only ill health is likely to stop him, John Smith style. He looks pretty healthy to me, certainly a lot healthier than Smith did.
Its team Starmer that is the problem in terms of succession. There is no standout candidate AFAIC that would be better the current incumbent.
Certainly not in Parliament. You have to be careful as you get older that your memories do not get tinged with nostalgia but I cannot recall a time when so few politicians of any party had any credibility or standing with the public as they do right now and Labour seem particularly badly affected although the Tories are far from immune. Starmer is as good as it gets in Labour.
Now, you've drawn me into a Starmer is crap post.
There are plenty of able Labour MPs , who are available, Benn, Kinnock, Cooper, Jarvis and plenty of others, plus people outside Parliament. Sadly after Corbyn there are also a raft of former quality Labour Politicians who are also outside the Party. And no I am not referring directly to Corbyn.
The key problem of why, for good or bad, we are lumbered with Starmer is the vague, but worrying prospect that he could be replaced by a moron like Burgon or RLB.
I think that there are few bright young things on the Labour benches is a feature of the massive defeat under Corbyn. It means that there are fewer new faces, and only those in the safest seats remain, therefore old timers or people like the useless Webbe in Leicester West, parachuted in under Corbyn following the purges.
I think the next Leader will be Nandy or Rayner, or someone else elected after 2010.
Leicester East, and Webbe replaced Keith Vaz who was not victim of a Corbynite purge, even if Webbe was parachuted in. Leicester West is Liz Kendall, who is just about hanging on.
Yes, of course. The infighting in Leicester East Labour Party is such that in the event of a by election they may well lose a lot more of the majority. For all his faults Vaz was good at cultivating his constituency vote.
Liz Kendall should be alright in LWest, as she held on in 2019, though the new boundaries are probably not going to help her.
Webbe is the next one (or next one but one) up before the beak. May be available soon,
.A 12 month sentence is required for a sacking I think. I don't think that severe an offense, and she is sitting as an independent at present. I don't think she would just resign out of shame, as she seems to have quite a brass neck.
I think that it’s twelve months to be disbarred from the House, a conviction with a lesser sentence triggers a recall petition (see Brecon and Radnor).
And I think she would be recalled. It’s clear she’s very unpopular in her seat.
Hopefully she doesn't avoid a recall by a technicality, like that creepy ex-Tory in Wales.
The technicality AIR (please correct me if I’m wrong) was that he was disciplined not prosecuted and convicted.
Although I agree that recall should be an option for disciplinary offences.
I didn't think it was that - suspension from the House is not prosecution or conviction, but he was suspended for long enough to be a recall criteria...but the decision to recommend suspension came from a body other than the Committee on Standards, which was not mentioned in the Recall Act (because the body in question did not exist at the time).
Right, I see what Philip means. Yes, that is a very silly technicality and tells me the legislation is badly worded.
I think it was even worse.
The committee on standards criticised him and imposed a penalty. He appealed to the whole House (which is reasonable enough) which upheld the decision of the committee on standards.
But because the punishment was then deemed to come from the whole house *not* the committee on standards…
Comments
I generally agree about FE: it's not the best. But it's three-quarters of an hour, so not too much time invested, and today's race was both interesting and fun.
Then again, I also find Formula W interesting ...
(But BTCC is the best of the bunch. Thanks to ITV for showing the entire day, including support races. Not that I get to watch them much nowadays...)
But what's the deal that makes Brexit permanent? Canada/Japan/Australia don't do it, and a deal with the USA ain't gonna happen.
(I just have a Penguin edition lined up. I wanted to buy the Folio Society edition, but it was just too expensive)
(Not a serious suggestion, in case anyone was in no doubt.)
He has a touching anecdote. He'd resigned from Attlee's government over arms spending in 1950. Churchill sent him a message at midnight saying that of course he would be exploiting it politically, but he wanted to send sympathies to Mary (Wilson's wife) as he knew how unpleasant it was to have people making mischief about their spouses. Mary burst into tears and asked Harold to thank Churchill for his thoughtfulness. He did so next day, and Churchill then burst into tears (as he often did in private life) and thanked him, reminiscing about other cases where spouses had suffered. Harold says wryly that he felt strange acting as go-between for them both.
3 possibilities. 1. He didn't have Covid last time. False positive cost him the Memorial tournament which he had to pull out of, leading by 10 with 1 round to go. 2. He has caught Covid again just 6 weeks after recovering from it the 1st time. 3. He never did recover from it. False negative. Therefore won the US Open by 4 shots while having Covid.
Which are we going for?
5. He never had it.
6. (subset of 4) He doesn't like Japan and/or doesn't really want to compete in the Olympics.
I wonder if there's a fourth option: shortly before the second test, he coughed up a little phlegm that contained lots of dead virus that had been in his lungs. Would that give a positive result?
https://youtu.be/AmVHwKWVhws
So if that's you, you are in for a treat.
Though I did giggle at the a recent piece published in the LA times - a politician was quoted as disliking Elon Musk's interest in tunnelling/transport on the grounds that he was disrupting projects and methods that had the approval of the Proper People. And worse yet, was doing so without asking permission - not so much building things without permission, but suggesting *ideas* without getting them approved by the proper people first.
It was quite startling to read an actual person channeling Ellsworth Toohey.....
I think she gets a bad rap from too many people precisely because they don't like what she has to say, rather than because of how she says it or how right she is to say it.
There are far worse authors taken more seriously by too many people.
FE just annoys me, they go to extraordinary lengths to hide the fact that they’re slower than F4 cars, while not letting the teams (most of whom are works manufacturer teams!) actually innovate outside very controlled ways. The whole thing is a sham.
W Series isn’t too bad as a concept, but after a year off half the field is looking very amateur this season - and they’ve screwed up the media rights by not including it with the other F1 support races. Sky will do 30 or 40 hours of live programming over the F1 weekend, and never mention it.
UK to scrap post-Brexit import certificates for wine via @FT
https://twitter.com/dgbailey/status/1419350693933092865?s=20
Simplifies R.O.W imports (removes an EU requirement) and avoids banjaxing EU imports (would have imposed requirement on them).
But with Plaid falling back further, they are not going to find it easy to hang on to Carmarthenshire, whoever the candidate is.
Personally, I would have thought Hart will have his pick of Carmarthenshire and Pembroke especially if he is still in the Cabinet. But if Crabbe wants to stay in the Commons, he may prefer Carmarthenshire precisely to dig the Tories out of that hole.
Another good one was Senator Diane Feinstein publicly complaining about the Commercial space station resupply program.
Which worked, but for her was problematic.
Because her staff wasn't getting anything like the amount of paperwork to read that they were used to....
What she was actually complaining about was that the COTS suppliers were given complete control over their supply chains. So that the politicians couldn't demand that company A (a campaign contributor) got a piece of the pie... So instead of getting thousands of pages detailing the vast pyramid of suppliers and their contracts......
But personally, I think Hyperloop is an unworkable idea as a mass transport system, and that the Boring Company will find it nowhere near as easy to produce savings in tunnelling as they claim. I don't know enough about Neuralink to say one or the other.
1. Primrose Hill, then
2. London Fields, then
3. Hackney Downs, then
4. ???
I couldn't risk 4., as given the trend it would have been somewhere awful like Dagenham. So I moved out.
He's obviously got the analytical skill already from being one of the finest lawyers of his generation and the intelligence. No media expert can help him with those. Witness IDS.
I'm pretty confident that when he gets his feet under the table he's going to be formidable. Johnson by contrast could easily fall apart. His whole act is built of the flimsiest of foundations-listen to Cummings- and I really can't see it holding
One thing Musk doesn't have is a fear of failure, he's quite happy to send a rocket up to be destroyed to see how it fails because he learns from it.
Same with the Boring Company. If it doesn't work as a technological innovation then so be it, but its worth trying. If it does, it has the potential to not quite be as interesting as SpaceX but as disruptive to that industry.
https://www.britishgt.com/images/results/66/Spa Speedweek Draft v7 06_07_21.pdf
British F3: https://youtube.com/watch?v=JadNDZAV5Y8
Euro F3: https://youtube.com/watch?v=8SEHAHWFHGA
British GT: https://youtube.com/watch?v=25QweNfAkWA - French GT, and Euro GT2 on the same channel
It's P-p-p-pickup a penguin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI0Fa66h6Qo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLRrTB-TJ1c
Unless I've missed something most of it still seems to be quite pie in the sky, but with real potential, rather than actually happening.
Though I do love that such a Snooker Loopy company is led by Steve Davis.
Before you wonder why anyone would vote for him rather than his party label, I should tell you Gavin Williamson is a much loved constituency MP and that a large part of his majority is a genuine personal vote.
If he can do it...
The actual Boring Company, has built tunnels in Las Vegas (and is building more) and is bidding on various city infrastructure projects in the US and elsewhere.
NEW THREAD
Example: After a long run of not getting anywhere at PMQs, he's had some decent lines in the last couple of weeks, and Johnson really doesn't enjoy being laughed at.
When Pembrokeshire was last a constituency in 1992, Nick Ainger pinched it off Nick Bennett. Since then both Pembs seats have moved in the Tories favour. Provided there isn't a new Tory candidate, I expect a Tory win, but it may be quite tight.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Mgig9oGECNc
The potential is for more in the city, the difficulty is in working out the mode of transport - they hoped to have self driving cars by now, so at the moment it’s a glorified taxi service out of the convention center area.
1. Richmond
2. Somewhere else in Richmond
3. Another place in Richmond
I think I’m institutionalised
And then join us on the New Thread.
Fiona Onasanya was three months in the clink, so a recall petition which was successful.
FO is still protesting her innocence.
In Carmathen East, which is an area I know slightly, but not well, my distinct impression is it is less Welsh than it was. It would possibly have gone blue but for the Brexit Party, although we have to be careful about such statements.
The question really is, if Hart stands, will that higher name recognition against presumably a new candidate keep the seat safe? The Tories would start as notional incumbents.
But of course, there is much water to flow before that event anyway.
Good night.
The committee on standards criticised him and imposed a penalty. He appealed to the whole House (which is reasonable enough) which upheld the decision of the committee on standards.
But because the punishment was then deemed to come from the whole house *not* the committee on standards…