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S Times: Raab told to return on the Friday – but got back early Monday – politicalbetting.com

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Comments

  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,088
    The Sun claiming quotes from three separate Tory ministers:

    One minister said: “It was nothing short of a dereliction of duty. Once you’re a member of the Cabinet you can’t guarantee a holiday every year. It’s a price you pay for having the job. “I’ve had at least three holidays disrupted – and for nothing anywhere near as serious as the situation in Afghanistan.”

    Another minister thought it outrageous that Mr Raab had been on holiday since August 6 but failed to return early as the crisis unfolded. “I can’t believe he was away for ten days," said the minister. How does he have the nerve to look people in the eye?”

    Another minister said: “It’s a disgrace. Dom should be resigning.”
  • isamisam Posts: 40,731
    ...
    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare

    :...

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    That's the point.

    We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.

    Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.

    Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
    You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
    Indeed so
  • QuincelQuincel Posts: 3,949
    IanB2 said:

    The Sun claiming quotes from three separate Tory ministers:

    One minister said: “It was nothing short of a dereliction of duty. Once you’re a member of the Cabinet you can’t guarantee a holiday every year. It’s a price you pay for having the job. “I’ve had at least three holidays disrupted – and for nothing anywhere near as serious as the situation in Afghanistan.”

    Another minister thought it outrageous that Mr Raab had been on holiday since August 6 but failed to return early as the crisis unfolded. “I can’t believe he was away for ten days," said the minister. How does he have the nerve to look people in the eye?”

    Another minister said: “It’s a disgrace. Dom should be resigning.”

    I must say, I think they are missing the point. Cabinet Ministers should be able to go on a couple of holidays each year: They perform better when they aren't burnt out just like everyone else. The issue, if there is one, is Raab failing to either cut this holiday short early enough or make it enough of a working holiday once this issue arose.

    But these quotes suggest that he just shouldn't have booked 10 days off in the first place.
  • Daveyboy1961Daveyboy1961 Posts: 3,336

    GIN1138 said:

    kle4 said:

    John Rentoul
    @JohnRentoul
    ·
    2h
    Dominic Raab is not going to be sacked (unless something else happens), partly because he serves a purpose

    Given that in any government there's always some minister on the verge of being sacked, Raab's purpose seems to be to permanently inhabit that role so no-one else temporarily has to.
    Ministerial purposes?

    Boris: There for the Red wallers (for now)
    Sunak: For non-Borisites to think 'well, Sunak might be ok, let's stick around for now'
    Patel: To invoke lust in the membership for her hardline stances
    Williamson: To make everyone else look good by comparison
    Gove: To make everyone more likable by comparison
    Raab: The blank canvas to fill space when needed
    Truss: To demonstrate at least one minister is doing something (even if you think it isn't much)
    Javid: To signal the end of the reign of Dom
    The rest: Who?
    Don't forget JRM ;)
    To make the rest of them appear to be in touch with ordinary people.
    Didn't the apartment stores in London pre-war employ a "sacrificial lamb" who would be summoned and sacked on the spot if an obnoxious customer complained too much?. The employee would then return upstairs to his normal clerical job. It seems that Johnson needs to employ someone for this strict purpose...

    Allegra?, Gavin?
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    When reporters asked what days the PM had been on holiday, the PM spox said on Monday:

    "He was working last week - he was due to take a break at the weekend but has been working"

    He was asked if the PM had gone on holiday on Saturday and returned on Sunday:

    "Yes"

    https://twitter.com/LouisDegenhardt/status/1429180717297192961

    @andrewsduncan1 @jessicaelgot @welshgirl900 @LubyLou64th @lewis_goodall I guess he might have gone and come back but I was told in advance it would be Thursday and on the Thursday that he had gone
    https://twitter.com/ShippersUnbound/status/1429178869895081984
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    DougSeal said:

    You have expressed explicitly your contempt for the current Government, one I share TBF, but your problem is you have no idea what you want to replace it.

    Jeremy Hunt

    Theresa May

    Tissue Price

    There is almost no combination of members on the Government benches who could be worse than the current cabinet.

    Sir Graham Brady could be the man of the hour...
  • Daveyboy1961Daveyboy1961 Posts: 3,336
    DougSeal said:

    I’m not saying this Raab chap is an

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    Anyway we have to deal with Now.

    Yes, and what can 'we' do while Fuckwit von Clownstick is the man in charge?

    What 'we' could practically do to improve our lot is get rid of the Clown collective.

    It's a tragedy that some of those who voted for them can't let go...
    You have expressed explicitly your contempt for the current Government, one I share TBF, but your problem is you have no idea what you want to replace it. Which is why your posts are so wearisome. How do ‘we’ remove the current Government? I would suggest that a suitable alternative beating it in an election might be a good way. So big up your suitable alternative.
    We aren't due an election in 2+ years so the opposition doesn't have to show their hand, but it doesn't stop the Conservatives themselves acting, if they have the nerve or honour.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739

    We aren't due an election in 2+ years so the opposition doesn't have to show their hand, but it doesn't stop the Conservatives themselves acting, if they have the nerve or honour.

    Exactly
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,165
    Scott_xP said:

    DougSeal said:

    You have expressed explicitly your contempt for the current Government, one I share TBF, but your problem is you have no idea what you want to replace it.

    Jeremy Hunt

    Theresa May

    Tissue Price

    There is almost no combination of members on the Government benches who could be worse than the current cabinet.

    Sir Graham Brady could be the man of the hour...
    There was a time when you utterly despised Theresa May.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    tlg86 said:

    There was a time when you utterly despised Theresa May.

    And yet she would be sooooo much better than BoZo.

    All things are relative...
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    Tony Blair on the lessons of Afghanistan for the West. https://twitter.com/patrickwintour/status/1429182440204120072/photo/1
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891
    edited August 2021
    DougSeal said:

    I’m not saying this Raab chap is an

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    Anyway we have to deal with Now.

    Yes, and what can 'we' do while Fuckwit von Clownstick is the man in charge?

    What 'we' could practically do to improve our lot is get rid of the Clown collective.

    It's a tragedy that some of those who voted for them can't let go...
    You have expressed explicitly your contempt for the current Government, one I share TBF, but your problem is you have no idea what you want to replace it. Which is why your posts are so wearisome. How do ‘we’ remove the current Government? I would suggest that a suitable alternative beating it in an election might be a good way. So big up your suitable alternative.
    Has anyone ever told you that you are probably the most pompous arse ever to have posted on PB? To describe someone's posts as 'wearisome' could be witty but not in your hands.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,745
    Quincel said:


    I must say, I think they are missing the point. Cabinet Ministers should be able to go on a couple of holidays each year: They perform better when they aren't burnt out just like everyone else. The issue, if there is one, is Raab failing to either cut this holiday short early enough or make it enough of a working holiday once this issue arose.

    But these quotes suggest that he just shouldn't have booked 10 days off in the first place.

    I remember back in 2010 the idea David Cameron might go on holiday and leave the Deputy Prime Minister in charge gave some of the PB Tories a fit of the vapours.
  • Scott_xP said:

    tlg86 said:

    There was a time when you utterly despised Theresa May.

    And yet she would be sooooo much better than BoZo.

    All things are relative...
    Which just goes to show that we should all be very careful what we wish for, because if we're very unlucky, we might get it.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    TELEGRAPH: Blair slams ⁦@POTUS⁩ ‘s ‘imbecilic’ retreat #TomorrowsPapersToday https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1429183260488253444/photo/1
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172
    Roger said:

    DougSeal said:

    I’m not saying this Raab chap is an

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    Anyway we have to deal with Now.

    Yes, and what can 'we' do while Fuckwit von Clownstick is the man in charge?

    What 'we' could practically do to improve our lot is get rid of the Clown collective.

    It's a tragedy that some of those who voted for them can't let go...
    You have expressed explicitly your contempt for the current Government, one I share TBF, but your problem is you have no idea what you want to replace it. Which is why your posts are so wearisome. How do ‘we’ remove the current Government? I would suggest that a suitable alternative beating it in an election might be a good way. So big up your suitable alternative.
    Has anyone ever told you that you are probably the most pompous arse ever to have posted on PB? To describe someone's posts as 'wearisome' could be witty but not in your hands.
    I find @DougSeal an interesting poster -- but whatever -- the point is he has only posted a couple of times on this thread.

    @Scott_xP had produced a stream of wailing posts that say the same thing again and again and again and again.

    Without wit, without insight, without intelligence.

    It is spam.

    Relentless, tedious, excessive, boring posting of the same thing again and again is spam.

    Wearisome is exactly the right word.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:
    WHO GIVES A FUCK

    Is this a kind of dissonance-avoiding technique?

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare:

    "Khalil Haqqani, who has a $5 million US bounty on him, put in charge of security in new Afghani government as Biden claims terror group “gone” from Afghanistan"

    https://twitter.com/AdamMilstein/status/1429095204880007172?s=20

    And yet *some* PB-ers focus on the phone calls between Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab.

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    And I can't help noticing it is the pathetic Remoaners like Scott who bang on and on about this. Like it is some personal revenge that must be satisfied by swords, during the early trench warfare of World War 1. It is instructionally dumb

    FWIW if Leave had narrowly lost I have no doubt there would be passionate lifelong eurosceptics who would have then spent the next ten years targetting "Jolyon Maugham" even as the world collapsed. just because. Doesn't make it any less sad
    You are dead wrong about this, because the more of a fuck I give about Afghanistan, the more of a fuck I give about how little of a fuck the sleazy lazy self regarding fuckers who represent my country give about it .
    Then you are diverting necessary energy. I too am deeply exercised by Afghanistan and the disaster - moral, military, political, geopolitical, demographic, psycho-intellectual - it represents for the West. But rather down on my list is the way the UK poodled the USA into conflict and much much much further down the list are the holidaying habits of Raab and Boris

    I believe the original Afghan intervention was inevitable, after 9/11. Those who now deny this are ignoring the enormity of that crime. At the time I believed we should have gone in and once the job was done, we shoulda left. Taliban scattered, Al Qaeda routed. Bin Laden hunted for life. We should have then left with a warning to the next Kabul government: whatever you do, if you menace us, we bomb you into atoms

    That was a good call by me, but I certainly am not boasting. I made WAY too many truly terrible calls (inasmuch as my personal opinion matters, which is very little). I supported the 2nd Iraq war, for my shame. A catastrophe that almost matches what we have today

    Anyway we have to deal with Now. Trump's deal was terrible, Biden has contrived to make it 5 times worse, and then some. The entire idea of the West now totters. This is, for me, not the moment to focus on the phone calls of Dominic Raab from his massage table in Cyprus but I guess for others it diverts them from focusing on the grim reality of where we are: which is this. We are about to enter a world ruled by regimes which are REGRESSIVE. That is to say, they promise less for humanity and less potential for the human soul than went before. We are walking into Darker Ages

    We have spent 500 happy years believing we were all marching to progress. I wonder if Romans felt the same at various points?

    Now, we realise, NO. The Vandals gather
    In a way you are right. It would be ludicrous and irrelevant to see Afghanistan through the prism of how the PM and foreign secretary of, let's say, Latvia, responded to it. I just didn't think the Latvianisation of this country was what was in the prospectus. Bit of a zinger from May, really: where is Global Britain the noo?
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Opinium Scottish subsample very similar to the YouGov:

    SNP 52%
    SCon 27%
    SLab 17%
    SGP 2%
    SLD 2%
  • QuincelQuincel Posts: 3,949
    stodge said:

    Quincel said:


    I must say, I think they are missing the point. Cabinet Ministers should be able to go on a couple of holidays each year: They perform better when they aren't burnt out just like everyone else. The issue, if there is one, is Raab failing to either cut this holiday short early enough or make it enough of a working holiday once this issue arose.

    But these quotes suggest that he just shouldn't have booked 10 days off in the first place.

    I remember back in 2010 the idea David Cameron might go on holiday and leave the Deputy Prime Minister in charge gave some of the PB Tories a fit of the vapours.
    I remember someone many years ago joking that, given Blair went on holiday every summer for a decade and no crisis ever seemed to occur we should conclude that John Prescott was actually quietly a brilliant leader and we just never noticed.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,461
    Just catching up having been away. A couple of comments if I may:

    1. Lovely to see so many Tories campaigning so vigorously for significant rises in working people's wages to counter the alleged labour shortage. Something at last that the lefties on here can agree with the Tories about. Strange old world, isn't it?
    2. I'd have thought the more radical Tory solution would be to lock more people up. I read on here that prisoners are much sought after. If you imprison a lot more people, then release them early, wouldn't that be a more cost effective solution to labour shortages?
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,745
    Evening all :)

    POLL CROSSOVER - in Germany:

    INSA poll - changes on last poll.

    Union CDU/CSU: 22% (-3)
    Social Democrats: 22% (+2)
    Greens: 17% (-1)
    Free Democrats: 13% (+1)
    Alternative for Germany: 12% (+1)
    Left: 7%

    Could the SPD top the poll in a Bundestag election for the first time since 2002?
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    justin124 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    justin124 said:

    On a UNS basis the Tories would lose 46 seats to Labour , 4 to the LDs and probably a few to SNP.They would be at 310 - 312 seats.

    Is that before or after boundary changes?
    On the basis of existing boundaries. New boundaries have yet to be determined.
    New bou
    isam said:

    ...

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare

    :...

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    That's the point.

    We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.

    Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.

    Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
    You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
    Indeed so
    I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,461

    Roger said:

    DougSeal said:

    I’m not saying this Raab chap is an

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    Anyway we have to deal with Now.

    Yes, and what can 'we' do while Fuckwit von Clownstick is the man in charge?

    What 'we' could practically do to improve our lot is get rid of the Clown collective.

    It's a tragedy that some of those who voted for them can't let go...
    You have expressed explicitly your contempt for the current Government, one I share TBF, but your problem is you have no idea what you want to replace it. Which is why your posts are so wearisome. How do ‘we’ remove the current Government? I would suggest that a suitable alternative beating it in an election might be a good way. So big up your suitable alternative.
    Has anyone ever told you that you are probably the most pompous arse ever to have posted on PB? To describe someone's posts as 'wearisome' could be witty but not in your hands.
    I find @DougSeal an interesting poster -- but whatever -- the point is he has only posted a couple of times on this thread.

    @Scott_xP had produced a stream of wailing posts that say the same thing again and again and again and again.

    Without wit, without insight, without intelligence.

    It is spam.

    Relentless, tedious, excessive, boring posting of the same thing again and again is spam.

    Wearisome is exactly the right word.
    Scott is by no means the only poster on here who says the same things again and again and again. But the others seem to get away with it without much criticism. Wonder why?
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891
    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:
    WHO GIVES A FUCK

    Is this a kind of dissonance-avoiding technique?

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare:

    "Khalil Haqqani, who has a $5 million US bounty on him, put in charge of security in new Afghani government as Biden claims terror group “gone” from Afghanistan"

    https://twitter.com/AdamMilstein/status/1429095204880007172?s=20

    And yet *some* PB-ers focus on the phone calls between Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab.

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    And I can't help noticing it is the pathetic Remoaners like Scott who bang on and on about this. Like it is some personal revenge that must be satisfied by swords, during the early trench warfare of World War 1. It is instructionally dumb

    FWIW if Leave had narrowly lost I have no doubt there would be passionate lifelong eurosceptics who would have then spent the next ten years targetting "Jolyon Maugham" even as the world collapsed. just because. Doesn't make it any less sad
    You are dead wrong about this, because the more of a fuck I give about Afghanistan, the more of a fuck I give about how little of a fuck the sleazy lazy self regarding fuckers who represent my country give about it .
    Bravo. 'Sleazy lazy self regarding fuckers' is a welcome relief from the banality of 'Pathetic Remoaners who bang on about......sorry I drifted off...cliche after sad cliche. Try taking a leaf out of Scott P or Malcolm's playbook. How anyone old enough to be up at 10pm can use 'Sad Remoaners who bang on about ' should be embarrassed
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,631

    Just catching up having been away. A couple of comments if I may:

    1. Lovely to see so many Tories campaigning so vigorously for significant rises in working people's wages to counter the alleged labour shortage. Something at last that the lefties on here can agree with the Tories about. Strange old world, isn't it?
    2. I'd have thought the more radical Tory solution would be to lock more people up. I read on here that prisoners are much sought after. If you imprison a lot more people, then release them early, wouldn't that be a more cost effective solution to labour shortages?

    I don't see any tories apart from DavidL saying pay rises for minimum wage folk is a good thing. I am not a tory neither I believe is another richard
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408

    Roger said:

    DougSeal said:

    I’m not saying this Raab chap is an

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    Anyway we have to deal with Now.

    Yes, and what can 'we' do while Fuckwit von Clownstick is the man in charge?

    What 'we' could practically do to improve our lot is get rid of the Clown collective.

    It's a tragedy that some of those who voted for them can't let go...
    You have expressed explicitly your contempt for the current Government, one I share TBF, but your problem is you have no idea what you want to replace it. Which is why your posts are so wearisome. How do ‘we’ remove the current Government? I would suggest that a suitable alternative beating it in an election might be a good way. So big up your suitable alternative.
    Has anyone ever told you that you are probably the most pompous arse ever to have posted on PB? To describe someone's posts as 'wearisome' could be witty but not in your hands.
    I find @DougSeal an interesting poster -- but whatever -- the point is he has only posted a couple of times on this thread.

    @Scott_xP had produced a stream of wailing posts that say the same thing again and again and again and again.

    Without wit, without insight, without intelligence.

    It is spam.

    Relentless, tedious, excessive, boring posting of the same thing again and again is spam.

    Wearisome is exactly the right word.
    Scott is by no means the only poster on here who says the same things again and again and again. But the others seem to get away with it without much criticism. Wonder why?
    It's the tweets (and I can think of a reverse Scott who gets the same criticism).

    But that's fine, each to their own.
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172

    Roger said:

    DougSeal said:

    I’m not saying this Raab chap is an

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    Anyway we have to deal with Now.

    Yes, and what can 'we' do while Fuckwit von Clownstick is the man in charge?

    What 'we' could practically do to improve our lot is get rid of the Clown collective.

    It's a tragedy that some of those who voted for them can't let go...
    You have expressed explicitly your contempt for the current Government, one I share TBF, but your problem is you have no idea what you want to replace it. Which is why your posts are so wearisome. How do ‘we’ remove the current Government? I would suggest that a suitable alternative beating it in an election might be a good way. So big up your suitable alternative.
    Has anyone ever told you that you are probably the most pompous arse ever to have posted on PB? To describe someone's posts as 'wearisome' could be witty but not in your hands.
    I find @DougSeal an interesting poster -- but whatever -- the point is he has only posted a couple of times on this thread.

    @Scott_xP had produced a stream of wailing posts that say the same thing again and again and again and again.

    Without wit, without insight, without intelligence.

    It is spam.

    Relentless, tedious, excessive, boring posting of the same thing again and again is spam.

    Wearisome is exactly the right word.
    Scott is by no means the only poster on here who says the same things again and again and again. But the others seem to get away with it without much criticism. Wonder why?
    People can post whatever they want as often as they want as far I am concerned.

    But, it is wearisome. And @DougSeal was right to call it thus.

    How about @Scott_xP provides us with an imaginative counter factual.

    Suppose Raab had made the phone call. How would events have unfolded?
  • DougSeal said:

    I’m not saying this Raab chap is an

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    Anyway we have to deal with Now.

    Yes, and what can 'we' do while Fuckwit von Clownstick is the man in charge?

    What 'we' could practically do to improve our lot is get rid of the Clown collective.

    It's a tragedy that some of those who voted for them can't let go...
    You have expressed explicitly your contempt for the current Government, one I share TBF, but your problem is you have no idea what you want to replace it. Which is why your posts are so wearisome. How do ‘we’ remove the current Government? I would suggest that a suitable alternative beating it in an election might be a good way. So big up your suitable alternative.
    Some of us remember when Scott was waving the pompoms for Cameron's attempt to invade Syria, on the side of ISIS, because it was SamCam's 'issue of the month'.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    stodge said:

    Evening all :)

    POLL CROSSOVER - in Germany:

    INSA poll - changes on last poll.

    Union CDU/CSU: 22% (-3)
    Social Democrats: 22% (+2)
    Greens: 17% (-1)
    Free Democrats: 13% (+1)
    Alternative for Germany: 12% (+1)
    Left: 7%

    Could the SPD top the poll in a Bundestag election for the first time since 2002?

    Funnily enough, their sister party in Sweden is plumbing the depths. They had sunk to 24% yesterday, a historically low figure for the party that dominated the country’s 20th century. The Left Party are even saying they could overtake the Social Democrats. At 11% that is a big ask. But you gotta admire their chutzpah.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Scott_xP said:

    Food manufacturers and restaurants are scrambling to recruit prisoners to help ease the “desperate” shortage of workers caused by Covid-19 and Brexit.

    A lack of HGV drivers, fruit pickers and factory workers has left some supermarkets struggling to keep shelves filled, with everything from fruit and vegetables to bottled water, wine and baked goods severely depleted in parts of the country.

    The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

    Do you have a problem with former prisoners finding legal employment?
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,026
    @Leon is right.

    There's absolutely nothing that is guaranteed about the future - nothing - and nowhere is it written that our values of individual liberty, freedom, the rule of law and democracy will ultimately win out and stay 'won out'. Nor that society will continue to advance, and the quality of life always improve.

    It's quite hard work just keeping the level we have, whilst it's easy - painfully easy - to regress and go backwards, and to do so very fast.

    It's up to us, and to each new generation that succeeds us, to make sure it doesn't.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,043
    Blimey kids, it's a bit tetchy on here tonight.

  • DavidL said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:
    WHO GIVES A FUCK

    Is this a kind of dissonance-avoiding technique?

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare:

    "Khalil Haqqani, who has a $5 million US bounty on him, put in charge of security in new Afghani government as Biden claims terror group “gone” from Afghanistan"

    https://twitter.com/AdamMilstein/status/1429095204880007172?s=20

    And yet *some* PB-ers focus on the phone calls between Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab.

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    And I can't help noticing it is the pathetic Remoaners like Scott who bang on and on about this. Like it is some personal revenge that must be satisfied by swords, during the early trench warfare of World War 1. It is instructionally dumb

    FWIW if Leave had narrowly lost I have no doubt there would be passionate lifelong eurosceptics who would have then spent the next ten years targetting "Jolyon Maugham" even as the world collapsed. just because. Doesn't make it any less sad
    You are dead wrong about this, because the more of a fuck I give about Afghanistan, the more of a fuck I give about how little of a fuck the sleazy lazy self regarding fuckers who represent my country give about it .
    Then look at the substance, not the trivia. You won't be short of material and it just might have made a difference.
    The substance is so inconvenient ** that there's only trivia left.

    ** The USA wanted out, the Afghans wouldn't fight and the country was full of westerners who wouldn't leave when told to.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,461

    Blimey kids, it's a bit tetchy on here tonight.

    Post-pub banter between consenting adults, that's all.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,631

    @Leon is right.

    There's absolutely nothing that is guaranteed about the future - nothing - and nowhere is it written that our values of individual liberty, freedom, the rule of law and democracy will ultimately win out and stay 'won out'. Nor that society will continue to advance, and the quality of life always improve.

    It's quite hard work just keeping the level we have, whilst it's easy - painfully easy - to regress and go backwards, and to do so very fast.

    It's up to us, and to each new generation that succeeds us, to make sure it doesn't.

    You are making the assumption that most people value those things, recent polls on covid measures seems to indicate at least for the uk people enjoy authoritarianism not liberty and freedom. I believe in both however I would say I have lost faith in representative democracy and would not lift a finger to save it.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408
    Pagan2 said:

    @Leon is right.

    There's absolutely nothing that is guaranteed about the future - nothing - and nowhere is it written that our values of individual liberty, freedom, the rule of law and democracy will ultimately win out and stay 'won out'. Nor that society will continue to advance, and the quality of life always improve.

    It's quite hard work just keeping the level we have, whilst it's easy - painfully easy - to regress and go backwards, and to do so very fast.

    It's up to us, and to each new generation that succeeds us, to make sure it doesn't.

    You are making the assumption that most people value those things, recent polls on covid measures seems to indicate at least for the uk people enjoy authoritarianism not liberty and freedom.
    I thought he was making the opposite point you state, which is why it is easy to regress and has to be fought hard.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,631
    kle4 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    @Leon is right.

    There's absolutely nothing that is guaranteed about the future - nothing - and nowhere is it written that our values of individual liberty, freedom, the rule of law and democracy will ultimately win out and stay 'won out'. Nor that society will continue to advance, and the quality of life always improve.

    It's quite hard work just keeping the level we have, whilst it's easy - painfully easy - to regress and go backwards, and to do so very fast.

    It's up to us, and to each new generation that succeeds us, to make sure it doesn't.

    You are making the assumption that most people value those things, recent polls on covid measures seems to indicate at least for the uk people enjoy authoritarianism not liberty and freedom.
    I thought he was making the opposite point you state, which is why it is easy to regress and has to be fought hard.
    Yes he was I was not disagreeing, I was merely pointing out that at least for the uk we can see that the general populace doesn't share those values. My point was that they were not going to fight for them.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,731
    edited August 2021
    Scott_xP said:

    tlg86 said:

    There was a time when you utterly despised Theresa May.

    And yet she would be sooooo much better than BoZo.

    All things are relative...
    Were you calling for her deal to be voted through the house at the time? If not, you’re to blame
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    DavidL said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:
    WHO GIVES A FUCK

    Is this a kind of dissonance-avoiding technique?

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare:

    "Khalil Haqqani, who has a $5 million US bounty on him, put in charge of security in new Afghani government as Biden claims terror group “gone” from Afghanistan"

    https://twitter.com/AdamMilstein/status/1429095204880007172?s=20

    And yet *some* PB-ers focus on the phone calls between Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab.

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    And I can't help noticing it is the pathetic Remoaners like Scott who bang on and on about this. Like it is some personal revenge that must be satisfied by swords, during the early trench warfare of World War 1. It is instructionally dumb

    FWIW if Leave had narrowly lost I have no doubt there would be passionate lifelong eurosceptics who would have then spent the next ten years targetting "Jolyon Maugham" even as the world collapsed. just because. Doesn't make it any less sad
    You are dead wrong about this, because the more of a fuck I give about Afghanistan, the more of a fuck I give about how little of a fuck the sleazy lazy self regarding fuckers who represent my country give about it .
    Then look at the substance, not the trivia. You won't be short of material and it just might have made a difference.
    The substance is so inconvenient ** that there's only trivia left.

    ** The USA wanted out, the Afghans wouldn't fight and the country was full of westerners who wouldn't leave when told to.
    Fuck me, was the first _richard as boring and stupid as you are? Thank you for that dim, reductive and wholly inaccurate precis, but why do you despise your own country so much that you regard its handling of the situation as trivial?
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Blimey kids, it's a bit tetchy on here tonight.

    It’s Sean’s fault. He was picking on wee Scotty.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,731

    justin124 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    justin124 said:

    On a UNS basis the Tories would lose 46 seats to Labour , 4 to the LDs and probably a few to SNP.They would be at 310 - 312 seats.

    Is that before or after boundary changes?
    On the basis of existing boundaries. New boundaries have yet to be determined.
    New bou
    isam said:

    ...

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare

    :...

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    That's the point.

    We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.

    Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.

    Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
    You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
    Indeed so
    I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
    Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891
    Pagan2 said:

    Just catching up having been away. A couple of comments if I may:

    1. Lovely to see so many Tories campaigning so vigorously for significant rises in working people's wages to counter the alleged labour shortage. Something at last that the lefties on here can agree with the Tories about. Strange old world, isn't it?
    2. I'd have thought the more radical Tory solution would be to lock more people up. I read on here that prisoners are much sought after. If you imprison a lot more people, then release them early, wouldn't that be a more cost effective solution to labour shortages?

    I don't see any tories apart from DavidL saying pay rises for minimum wage folk is a good thing. I am not a tory neither I believe is another richard
    If not a Tory what would you describe yourself and 'another richard' as being?
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,461
    kle4 said:

    Roger said:

    DougSeal said:

    I’m not saying this Raab chap is an

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    Anyway we have to deal with Now.

    Yes, and what can 'we' do while Fuckwit von Clownstick is the man in charge?

    What 'we' could practically do to improve our lot is get rid of the Clown collective.

    It's a tragedy that some of those who voted for them can't let go...
    You have expressed explicitly your contempt for the current Government, one I share TBF, but your problem is you have no idea what you want to replace it. Which is why your posts are so wearisome. How do ‘we’ remove the current Government? I would suggest that a suitable alternative beating it in an election might be a good way. So big up your suitable alternative.
    Has anyone ever told you that you are probably the most pompous arse ever to have posted on PB? To describe someone's posts as 'wearisome' could be witty but not in your hands.
    I find @DougSeal an interesting poster -- but whatever -- the point is he has only posted a couple of times on this thread.

    @Scott_xP had produced a stream of wailing posts that say the same thing again and again and again and again.

    Without wit, without insight, without intelligence.

    It is spam.

    Relentless, tedious, excessive, boring posting of the same thing again and again is spam.

    Wearisome is exactly the right word.
    Scott is by no means the only poster on here who says the same things again and again and again. But the others seem to get away with it without much criticism. Wonder why?
    It's the tweets (and I can think of a reverse Scott who gets the same criticism).

    But that's fine, each to their own.
    I agree that the tweets are excessive.

    But I find this site a really useful one-stop shop for all the political (and some other) news going on, and many of the tweets (by Scott and by many others) contribute to this rich source of information. It's a tricky balance, but I'm not sure we should be picking on one particular contributor for 'over-tweeting'.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,631
    Roger said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Just catching up having been away. A couple of comments if I may:

    1. Lovely to see so many Tories campaigning so vigorously for significant rises in working people's wages to counter the alleged labour shortage. Something at last that the lefties on here can agree with the Tories about. Strange old world, isn't it?
    2. I'd have thought the more radical Tory solution would be to lock more people up. I read on here that prisoners are much sought after. If you imprison a lot more people, then release them early, wouldn't that be a more cost effective solution to labour shortages?

    I don't see any tories apart from DavidL saying pay rises for minimum wage folk is a good thing. I am not a tory neither I believe is another richard
    If not a Tory what would you describe yourself and 'another richard' as being?
    Well considering I haven't voted tory in any election since 2010 I would not be a tory, in fact I don't currently vote for anyone as they are all equally crap. Politically I am extreme liberal in the original sense of the word small state, less government intervention socially, not the guardian sense of the word
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,461
    isam said:

    justin124 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    justin124 said:

    On a UNS basis the Tories would lose 46 seats to Labour , 4 to the LDs and probably a few to SNP.They would be at 310 - 312 seats.

    Is that before or after boundary changes?
    On the basis of existing boundaries. New boundaries have yet to be determined.
    New bou
    isam said:

    ...

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare

    :...

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    That's the point.

    We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.

    Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.

    Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
    You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
    Indeed so
    I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
    Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
    I agree, but is it that much different from you telling us in post after post after post how useless Starmer is? Mind you, you seem to have stopped doing that now. But there was a time.......
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    edited August 2021
    isam said:

    justin124 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    justin124 said:

    On a UNS basis the Tories would lose 46 seats to Labour , 4 to the LDs and probably a few to SNP.They would be at 310 - 312 seats.

    Is that before or after boundary changes?
    On the basis of existing boundaries. New boundaries have yet to be determined.
    New bou
    isam said:

    ...

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare

    :...

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    That's the point.

    We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.

    Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.

    Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
    You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
    Indeed so
    I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
    Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
    I am blissfully spared Twitteritis. I can only use PB in the Vanilla website, and whenever anyone posts a Tweet, I just see a meaningless url. I very rarely click on them, and am nearly always disappointed if I do.

    I like Scott’s posts as he actually tells you what’s in the link so I don’t have to waste time clicking it, and he is unusually good at finding great Tweets. And of course he can’t stand the buffoons in the cabinet.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    isam said:

    justin124 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    justin124 said:

    On a UNS basis the Tories would lose 46 seats to Labour , 4 to the LDs and probably a few to SNP.They would be at 310 - 312 seats.

    Is that before or after boundary changes?
    On the basis of existing boundaries. New boundaries have yet to be determined.
    New bou
    isam said:

    ...

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare

    :...

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    That's the point.

    We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.

    Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.

    Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
    You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
    Indeed so
    I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
    Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
    I am blissfully spared Twitteritis. I can only use PB in the Vanilla website, and whenever anyone posts a Tweet, I just see a meaningless url. I very rarely click on them, and am nearly always disappointed if I do.

    I like Scott’s posts as he actually tells you what tin the link so I don’t have to waste time clicking it, and he is unusually good at finding great Tweets. And of course he can’t stand the buffoons in the cabinet.
    I think most people now post the tweet URL with a copy of the text. Those that don't should be encouraged to.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    isam said:

    justin124 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    justin124 said:

    On a UNS basis the Tories would lose 46 seats to Labour , 4 to the LDs and probably a few to SNP.They would be at 310 - 312 seats.

    Is that before or after boundary changes?
    On the basis of existing boundaries. New boundaries have yet to be determined.
    New bou
    isam said:

    ...

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare

    :...

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    That's the point.

    We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.

    Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.

    Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
    You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
    Indeed so
    I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
    Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
    I agree, but is it that much different from you telling us in post after post after post how useless Starmer is? Mind you, you seem to have stopped doing that now. But there was a time.......
    That's funny, in @isam's last 50 posts Starmer isn't mentioned once.
  • TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,387
    stodge said:

    Evening all :)

    POLL CROSSOVER - in Germany:

    INSA poll - changes on last poll.

    Union CDU/CSU: 22% (-3)
    Social Democrats: 22% (+2)
    Greens: 17% (-1)
    Free Democrats: 13% (+1)
    Alternative for Germany: 12% (+1)
    Left: 7%

    Could the SPD top the poll in a Bundestag election for the first time since 2002?

    For purely financial reasons, I hope so.
  • Daveyboy1961Daveyboy1961 Posts: 3,336
    stodge said:

    Evening all :)

    POLL CROSSOVER - in Germany:

    INSA poll - changes on last poll.

    Union CDU/CSU: 22% (-3)
    Social Democrats: 22% (+2)
    Greens: 17% (-1)
    Free Democrats: 13% (+1)
    Alternative for Germany: 12% (+1)
    Left: 7%

    Could the SPD top the poll in a Bundestag election for the first time since 2002?

    It is going to be a very interesting election night. I wonder if the FPTP seats are going to be spread around more than usual. Maybe even for FDP as well?
  • TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,387
    I'm not sure "Germany declares 4th pandemic wave as infections surge" is what I would want as a headline, 5 weeks before an election.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    isam said:

    justin124 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    justin124 said:

    On a UNS basis the Tories would lose 46 seats to Labour , 4 to the LDs and probably a few to SNP.They would be at 310 - 312 seats.

    Is that before or after boundary changes?
    On the basis of existing boundaries. New boundaries have yet to be determined.
    New bou
    isam said:

    ...

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare

    :...

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    That's the point.

    We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.

    Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.

    Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
    You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
    Indeed so
    I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
    Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
    The relevant fact this evening is that the Times, as per the header, has highlighted and criticised the conduct of the current government, with what looks like a great deal of justification. You can't just sit there playing the "You would say that, you're a remainer" blocking shot over and over and over and over again. Either we have a Foreign Secretary who responds promptly to crises in foreign affairs, or we concede that we are utterly impotent and irrelevant and don't bother with a Foreign Secretary at all, surely? What is this twat being paid for?
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,026
    Pagan2 said:

    @Leon is right.

    There's absolutely nothing that is guaranteed about the future - nothing - and nowhere is it written that our values of individual liberty, freedom, the rule of law and democracy will ultimately win out and stay 'won out'. Nor that society will continue to advance, and the quality of life always improve.

    It's quite hard work just keeping the level we have, whilst it's easy - painfully easy - to regress and go backwards, and to do so very fast.

    It's up to us, and to each new generation that succeeds us, to make sure it doesn't.

    You are making the assumption that most people value those things, recent polls on covid measures seems to indicate at least for the uk people enjoy authoritarianism not liberty and freedom. I believe in both however I would say I have lost faith in representative democracy and would not lift a finger to save it.
    That's very sad to hear; I do hope you come to revise your view.

    One of my biggest fears is that people are starting to move away from democracy to authoritarianism, either because they prioritise new dogmas above it - and view democracy as an obstacle - or they don't believe it delivers the goods and think a strong leader will.

    But, let me ask you this: given that not everyone agrees with each other (but also assume their favoured policies will win out) and there can only be one authoritarian leader at a time, what happens to the rest who oppose them? And, even for those who originally supported them, but subsequently change their minds, how do you think transitions of power would work in an authoritarian system?
  • isamisam Posts: 40,731

    isam said:

    justin124 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    justin124 said:

    On a UNS basis the Tories would lose 46 seats to Labour , 4 to the LDs and probably a few to SNP.They would be at 310 - 312 seats.

    Is that before or after boundary changes?
    On the basis of existing boundaries. New boundaries have yet to be determined.
    New bou
    isam said:

    ...

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare

    :...

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    That's the point.

    We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.

    Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.

    Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
    You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
    Indeed so
    I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
    Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
    I agree, but is it that much different from you telling us in post after post after post how useless Starmer is? Mind you, you seem to have stopped doing that now. But there was a time.......
    Yes, it is completely different

    I am analysing the ratings, and finding, or at least trying, to find historical trends that predict the outcomes of future elections.

    Scott just copies and pastes quotes from critics of the government

    He calls Boris, Bozo. I never personally insult Sir Keir.

    I am a pro gambler, Scott doesn’t know what 4/9 means
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,043
    edited August 2021
    Tetchy tonight as well on epidemiology twitter...


    Prof Francois Balloux
    @BallouxFrancois
    Hoping to move on ...
    - my comment was primarily aimed at you
    - You're academically unqualified to comment on covid
    - By identifying as a 'zerocovider' at this stage of the pandemic you are an 'extremist'
    - You and Indie-Sage did not productively contribute to the debate
  • 3 point gap, polling parity soon!
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,461
    RobD said:

    isam said:

    justin124 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    justin124 said:

    On a UNS basis the Tories would lose 46 seats to Labour , 4 to the LDs and probably a few to SNP.They would be at 310 - 312 seats.

    Is that before or after boundary changes?
    On the basis of existing boundaries. New boundaries have yet to be determined.
    New bou
    isam said:

    ...

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare

    :...

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    That's the point.

    We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.

    Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.

    Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
    You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
    Indeed so
    I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
    Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
    I agree, but is it that much different from you telling us in post after post after post how useless Starmer is? Mind you, you seem to have stopped doing that now. But there was a time.......
    That's funny, in @isam's last 50 posts Starmer isn't mentioned once.
    The clue's in "you seem to have stopped doing that now". There was a time, earlier in the year, when the delightful Isam posted about Starmer's uselessness and poll ratings relentlessly and repetitively.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Ex MP moves on from sex worker scandal after 'accepting sexuality and marrying lover'
    - 15 years after being outed by a newspaper for a liaison with a male sex worker, Mark [Oaten, former Liberal Democrat MP], 57, says he is living his 'second life' – after marrying the man he met six years ago

    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ex-mp-mark-oaten-moves-24809097
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    RobD said:

    isam said:

    justin124 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    justin124 said:

    On a UNS basis the Tories would lose 46 seats to Labour , 4 to the LDs and probably a few to SNP.They would be at 310 - 312 seats.

    Is that before or after boundary changes?
    On the basis of existing boundaries. New boundaries have yet to be determined.
    New bou
    isam said:

    ...

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare

    :...

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    That's the point.

    We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.

    Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.

    Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
    You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
    Indeed so
    I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
    Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
    I agree, but is it that much different from you telling us in post after post after post how useless Starmer is? Mind you, you seem to have stopped doing that now. But there was a time.......
    That's funny, in @isam's last 50 posts Starmer isn't mentioned once.
    The clue's in "you seem to have stopped doing that now". There was a time, earlier in the year, when the delightful Isam posted about Starmer's uselessness and poll ratings relentlessly and repetitively.
    So quite a bit different then? I don't recall similar intermissions of tweets.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,731
    edited August 2021

    RobD said:

    isam said:

    justin124 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    justin124 said:

    On a UNS basis the Tories would lose 46 seats to Labour , 4 to the LDs and probably a few to SNP.They would be at 310 - 312 seats.

    Is that before or after boundary changes?
    On the basis of existing boundaries. New boundaries have yet to be determined.
    New bou
    isam said:

    ...

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare

    :...

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    That's the point.

    We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.

    Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.

    Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
    You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
    Indeed so
    I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
    Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
    I agree, but is it that much different from you telling us in post after post after post how useless Starmer is? Mind you, you seem to have stopped doing that now. But there was a time.......
    That's funny, in @isam's last 50 posts Starmer isn't mentioned once.
    The clue's in "you seem to have stopped doing that now". There was a time, earlier in the year, when the delightful Isam posted about Starmer's uselessness and poll ratings relentlessly and repetitively.
    There was a time when his poll ratings were incredibly good. I wrote an article saying I thought he was too dull to do well, & he was too short at 2/1 to be next PM. Since that time his poll ratings have fallen off a cliff and he went out to 8/1. So I have a vested interest in the matter, having made an early call that people on here wouldn’t accept (charisma playing a big part in leaders success).

    https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2020/06/06/the-case-for-making-personality-ratings-a-good-electoral-indicator/

    So what?

    I’m not just copying quotes from Nigel Farage, The Telegraph and Priti Patel saying they disagree with their opponents politics am I?!
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    Roger said:

    DougSeal said:

    I’m not saying this Raab chap is an

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    Anyway we have to deal with Now.

    Yes, and what can 'we' do while Fuckwit von Clownstick is the man in charge?

    What 'we' could practically do to improve our lot is get rid of the Clown collective.

    It's a tragedy that some of those who voted for them can't let go...
    You have expressed explicitly your contempt for the current Government, one I share TBF, but your problem is you have no idea what you want to replace it. Which is why your posts are so wearisome. How do ‘we’ remove the current Government? I would suggest that a suitable alternative beating it in an election might be a good way. So big up your suitable alternative.
    Has anyone ever told you that you are probably the most pompous arse ever to have posted on PB? To describe someone's posts as 'wearisome' could be witty but not in your hands.
    I love you too.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    im·be·cile (ĭm′bə-sĭl, -səl)
    n.
    1. A person who is considered foolish or stupid.
    2. A person with moderate to severe intellectual disability having a mental age of from three to seven years and generally being capable of some degree of communication and performance of simple tasks under supervision. The term belongs to a classification system no longer in use and is now considered offensive.

    I wonder which of these descriptions Blair is ascribing to the sitting Democrat president of the White House?

  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172
    IshmaelZ said:

    isam said:

    justin124 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    justin124 said:

    On a UNS basis the Tories would lose 46 seats to Labour , 4 to the LDs and probably a few to SNP.They would be at 310 - 312 seats.

    Is that before or after boundary changes?
    On the basis of existing boundaries. New boundaries have yet to be determined.
    New bou
    isam said:

    ...

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare

    :...

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    That's the point.

    We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.

    Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.

    Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
    You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
    Indeed so
    I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
    Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
    The relevant fact this evening is that the Times, as per the header, has highlighted and criticised the conduct of the current government, with what looks like a great deal of justification. You can't just sit there playing the "You would say that, you're a remainer" blocking shot over and over and over and over again. Either we have a Foreign Secretary who responds promptly to crises in foreign affairs, or we concede that we are utterly impotent and irrelevant and don't bother with a Foreign Secretary at all, surely? What is this twat being paid for?
    We are utterly impotent & irrelevant, at least as regards Afghanistan.

    That is the truth.

    And I am certainly against the children of the poor being sent to Afghanistan to fight for a poor salary and for reasons which they do not understand ... to salve the stinking conscience of the pampered rich.

    We should not be in Afghanistan. Nor should the Americans.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    Tetchy tonight as well on epidemiology twitter...


    Prof Francois Balloux
    @BallouxFrancois
    Hoping to move on ...
    - my comment was primarily aimed at you
    - You're academically unqualified to comment on covid
    - By identifying as a 'zerocovider' at this stage of the pandemic you are an 'extremist'
    - You and Indie-Sage did not productively contribute to the debate

    TBF neither are epidemiologists but I’m firmly on Team Balloux in this spat.
  • londonpubmanlondonpubman Posts: 3,153

    3 point gap, polling parity soon!

    Don't stop believin'

    See you on here on GE night. Until the exit poll 😊
  • IshmaelZ said:

    DavidL said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:
    WHO GIVES A FUCK

    Is this a kind of dissonance-avoiding technique?

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare:

    "Khalil Haqqani, who has a $5 million US bounty on him, put in charge of security in new Afghani government as Biden claims terror group “gone” from Afghanistan"

    https://twitter.com/AdamMilstein/status/1429095204880007172?s=20

    And yet *some* PB-ers focus on the phone calls between Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab.

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    And I can't help noticing it is the pathetic Remoaners like Scott who bang on and on about this. Like it is some personal revenge that must be satisfied by swords, during the early trench warfare of World War 1. It is instructionally dumb

    FWIW if Leave had narrowly lost I have no doubt there would be passionate lifelong eurosceptics who would have then spent the next ten years targetting "Jolyon Maugham" even as the world collapsed. just because. Doesn't make it any less sad
    You are dead wrong about this, because the more of a fuck I give about Afghanistan, the more of a fuck I give about how little of a fuck the sleazy lazy self regarding fuckers who represent my country give about it .
    Then look at the substance, not the trivia. You won't be short of material and it just might have made a difference.
    The substance is so inconvenient ** that there's only trivia left.

    ** The USA wanted out, the Afghans wouldn't fight and the country was full of westerners who wouldn't leave when told to.
    Fuck me, was the first _richard as boring and stupid as you are? Thank you for that dim, reductive and wholly inaccurate precis, but why do you despise your own country so much that you regard its handling of the situation as trivial?
    You do seem to prefer abusing other PBers than offer constructive suggestions though I'm quite honoured to be treated in the same manner as cyclefree.

    Now perhaps you could explain what you found 'wholly inaccurate' in my comment ? That the USA wanted out ? That the Afghans wouldn't fight ? That the country was full of westerners who wouldn't leave when told to ?

    As to how this country has handled the situation maybe you can tell us what the UK should be doing ?
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    “Well it’s none of our concern what goes on beyond our borders. Keep your nose out of trouble and no trouble'll come to you!”

    Clever man was Tolkien, tapping into the more deluded sentiments of some of the British.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    moonshine said:

    “Well it’s none of our concern what goes on beyond our borders. Keep your nose out of trouble and no trouble'll come to you!”

    Clever man was Tolkien, tapping into the more deluded sentiments of some of the British.

    Hm, I think that's a rather simplistic viewpoint. One country might not want to meddle in the affairs of another, but there is no guarantee that is reciprocated.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:
    WHO GIVES A FUCK

    Is this a kind of dissonance-avoiding technique?

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare:

    "Khalil Haqqani, who has a $5 million US bounty on him, put in charge of security in new Afghani government as Biden claims terror group “gone” from Afghanistan"

    https://twitter.com/AdamMilstein/status/1429095204880007172?s=20

    And yet *some* PB-ers focus on the phone calls between Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab.

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    And I can't help noticing it is the pathetic Remoaners like Scott who bang on and on about this. Like it is some personal revenge that must be satisfied by swords, during the early trench warfare of World War 1. It is instructionally dumb

    FWIW if Leave had narrowly lost I have no doubt there would be passionate lifelong eurosceptics who would have then spent the next ten years targetting "Jolyon Maugham" even as the world collapsed. just because. Doesn't make it any less sad
    You are dead wrong about this, because the more of a fuck I give about Afghanistan, the more of a fuck I give about how little of a fuck the sleazy lazy self regarding fuckers who represent my country give about it .
    That's an exocet, Ishmael. Hall of famer. Buys you freedom of the parish for 24 hours.
  • Blimey kids, it's a bit tetchy on here tonight.

    I retired last night just before the moderator issued a warning

    I hope it is not necessary two nights in a row
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,043
    DougSeal said:

    Tetchy tonight as well on epidemiology twitter...


    Prof Francois Balloux
    @BallouxFrancois
    Hoping to move on ...
    - my comment was primarily aimed at you
    - You're academically unqualified to comment on covid
    - By identifying as a 'zerocovider' at this stage of the pandemic you are an 'extremist'
    - You and Indie-Sage did not productively contribute to the debate

    TBF neither are epidemiologists but I’m firmly on Team Balloux in this spat.
    Still clinging to zero covid seems odd imho.
  • Roger said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Just catching up having been away. A couple of comments if I may:

    1. Lovely to see so many Tories campaigning so vigorously for significant rises in working people's wages to counter the alleged labour shortage. Something at last that the lefties on here can agree with the Tories about. Strange old world, isn't it?
    2. I'd have thought the more radical Tory solution would be to lock more people up. I read on here that prisoners are much sought after. If you imprison a lot more people, then release them early, wouldn't that be a more cost effective solution to labour shortages?

    I don't see any tories apart from DavidL saying pay rises for minimum wage folk is a good thing. I am not a tory neither I believe is another richard
    If not a Tory what would you describe yourself and 'another richard' as being?
    Wouldn't a Tory be a member or otherwise strong supporter of the Conservative party ?

    Something which Hyufd and a few other PBers - Casino, Mortimer, MM, Max - might be classed as.

    But which neither I nor to my knowledge Pagan2 are.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    RobD said:

    moonshine said:

    “Well it’s none of our concern what goes on beyond our borders. Keep your nose out of trouble and no trouble'll come to you!”

    Clever man was Tolkien, tapping into the more deluded sentiments of some of the British.

    Hm, I think that's a rather simplistic viewpoint. One country might not want to meddle in the affairs of another, but there is no guarantee that is reciprocated.
    Yes, that was rather the whole point of his work.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    moonshine said:

    RobD said:

    moonshine said:

    “Well it’s none of our concern what goes on beyond our borders. Keep your nose out of trouble and no trouble'll come to you!”

    Clever man was Tolkien, tapping into the more deluded sentiments of some of the British.

    Hm, I think that's a rather simplistic viewpoint. One country might not want to meddle in the affairs of another, but there is no guarantee that is reciprocated.
    Yes, that was rather the whole point of his work.
    Ah, that was a whoosh for me then. Sorry!
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    isam said:

    justin124 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    justin124 said:

    On a UNS basis the Tories would lose 46 seats to Labour , 4 to the LDs and probably a few to SNP.They would be at 310 - 312 seats.

    Is that before or after boundary changes?
    On the basis of existing boundaries. New boundaries have yet to be determined.
    New bou
    isam said:

    ...

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare

    :...

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    That's the point.

    We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.

    Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.

    Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
    You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
    Indeed so
    I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
    Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
    The relevant fact this evening is that the Times, as per the header, has highlighted and criticised the conduct of the current government, with what looks like a great deal of justification. You can't just sit there playing the "You would say that, you're a remainer" blocking shot over and over and over and over again. Either we have a Foreign Secretary who responds promptly to crises in foreign affairs, or we concede that we are utterly impotent and irrelevant and don't bother with a Foreign Secretary at all, surely? What is this twat being paid for?
    We are utterly impotent & irrelevant, at least as regards Afghanistan.

    That is the truth.

    And I am certainly against the children of the poor being sent to Afghanistan to fight for a poor salary and for reasons which they do not understand ... to salve the stinking conscience of the pampered rich.

    We should not be in Afghanistan. Nor should the Americans.
    Read an interview this morning with an Afghan man who a month ago was a university student with a boyfriend. Now in fear of summary execution. I think it was worth investing time and money in trying to arrange for him to be in the former situation rather than the latter. Is that a pampered rich sort of thing to think? Do you think our soldiers incapable of forming a view on that point? Do you realise that nobody is currently conscripted into the army?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    Anyway we have to deal with Now.

    Yes, and what can 'we' do while Fuckwit von Clownstick is the man in charge?

    What 'we' could practically do to improve our lot is get rid of the Clown collective.

    It's a tragedy that some of those who voted for them can't let go...
    Yep. That's the real "Boris Derangement Syndrome".

    The sufferers are Leavers so grateful to him for delivering their Brexit that they've suspended all critical faculties where he is concerned.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    https://twitter.com/respectisvital/status/1429193908941099008

    NOW - Situation at Kabul Airport is getting out of control.

    Civilians can be seen climbing the perimeter wall to escape the crush.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,043

    James Melville 🌸
    @JamesMelville
    ·
    3h
    San Francisco has become the first major US city to require vaccine passports for people to dine in restaurants, drink in bars, attend concerts or visit gyms.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    DougSeal said:

    Tetchy tonight as well on epidemiology twitter...


    Prof Francois Balloux
    @BallouxFrancois
    Hoping to move on ...
    - my comment was primarily aimed at you
    - You're academically unqualified to comment on covid
    - By identifying as a 'zerocovider' at this stage of the pandemic you are an 'extremist'
    - You and Indie-Sage did not productively contribute to the debate

    TBF neither are epidemiologists but I’m firmly on Team Balloux in this spat.
    Still clinging to zero covid seems odd imho.
    Yeah. They’ve lost Australia and that’s got to hurt.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263

    Roger said:

    DougSeal said:

    I’m not saying this Raab chap is an

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    Anyway we have to deal with Now.

    Yes, and what can 'we' do while Fuckwit von Clownstick is the man in charge?

    What 'we' could practically do to improve our lot is get rid of the Clown collective.

    It's a tragedy that some of those who voted for them can't let go...
    You have expressed explicitly your contempt for the current Government, one I share TBF, but your problem is you have no idea what you want to replace it. Which is why your posts are so wearisome. How do ‘we’ remove the current Government? I would suggest that a suitable alternative beating it in an election might be a good way. So big up your suitable alternative.
    Has anyone ever told you that you are probably the most pompous arse ever to have posted on PB? To describe someone's posts as 'wearisome' could be witty but not in your hands.
    I find @DougSeal an interesting poster -- but whatever -- the point is he has only posted a couple of times on this thread.

    @Scott_xP had produced a stream of wailing posts that say the same thing again and again and again and again.

    Without wit, without insight, without intelligence.

    It is spam.

    Relentless, tedious, excessive, boring posting of the same thing again and again is spam.

    Wearisome is exactly the right word.
    I don't agree. I find both Scott and HYUFD useful, precisely because they pick up interesting stuff off Twitter, saving me the trouble. We're old enough to make up our own minds what we think of it (or to skip if we've seen enough).
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,461
    edited August 2021
    isam said:

    RobD said:

    isam said:

    justin124 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    justin124 said:

    On a UNS basis the Tories would lose 46 seats to Labour , 4 to the LDs and probably a few to SNP.They would be at 310 - 312 seats.

    Is that before or after boundary changes?
    On the basis of existing boundaries. New boundaries have yet to be determined.
    New bou
    isam said:

    ...

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare

    :...

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    That's the point.

    We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.

    Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.

    Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
    You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
    Indeed so
    I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
    Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
    I agree, but is it that much different from you telling us in post after post after post how useless Starmer is? Mind you, you seem to have stopped doing that now. But there was a time.......
    That's funny, in @isam's last 50 posts Starmer isn't mentioned once.
    The clue's in "you seem to have stopped doing that now". There was a time, earlier in the year, when the delightful Isam posted about Starmer's uselessness and poll ratings relentlessly and repetitively.
    There was a time when his poll ratings were incredibly good. I wrote an article saying I thought he was too dull to do well, & he was too short at 2/1 to be next PM. Since that time his poll ratings have fallen off a cliff and he went out to 8/1. So I have a vested interest in the matter, having made an early call that people on here wouldn’t accept (charisma playing a big part in leaders success).

    https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2020/06/06/the-case-for-making-personality-ratings-a-good-electoral-indicator/

    So what?

    I’m not just copying quotes from Nigel Farage, The Telegraph and Priti Patel saying they disagree with their opponents politics am I?!
    I wish I hadn't said anything. It was the repetitiveness of your Starmer posts, saying the same thing, not the content, that I was pointing to. I find your views/analysis interesting. I was really just trying to point out that Scott isn't the only one who keeps repeating stuff, far from it - there are several, maybe including me. Night.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    DavidL said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:
    WHO GIVES A FUCK

    Is this a kind of dissonance-avoiding technique?

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare:

    "Khalil Haqqani, who has a $5 million US bounty on him, put in charge of security in new Afghani government as Biden claims terror group “gone” from Afghanistan"

    https://twitter.com/AdamMilstein/status/1429095204880007172?s=20

    And yet *some* PB-ers focus on the phone calls between Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab.

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    And I can't help noticing it is the pathetic Remoaners like Scott who bang on and on about this. Like it is some personal revenge that must be satisfied by swords, during the early trench warfare of World War 1. It is instructionally dumb

    FWIW if Leave had narrowly lost I have no doubt there would be passionate lifelong eurosceptics who would have then spent the next ten years targetting "Jolyon Maugham" even as the world collapsed. just because. Doesn't make it any less sad
    You are dead wrong about this, because the more of a fuck I give about Afghanistan, the more of a fuck I give about how little of a fuck the sleazy lazy self regarding fuckers who represent my country give about it .
    Then look at the substance, not the trivia. You won't be short of material and it just might have made a difference.
    The substance is so inconvenient ** that there's only trivia left.

    ** The USA wanted out, the Afghans wouldn't fight and the country was full of westerners who wouldn't leave when told to.
    Fuck me, was the first _richard as boring and stupid as you are? Thank you for that dim, reductive and wholly inaccurate precis, but why do you despise your own country so much that you regard its handling of the situation as trivial?
    You do seem to prefer abusing other PBers than offer constructive suggestions though I'm quite honoured to be treated in the same manner as cyclefree.

    Now perhaps you could explain what you found 'wholly inaccurate' in my comment ? That the USA wanted out ? That the Afghans wouldn't fight ? That the country was full of westerners who wouldn't leave when told to ?

    As to how this country has handled the situation maybe you can tell us what the UK should be doing ?
    You were told by cyclefree that as a male PBer your attitude to women in trouble was "fuck 'em." Either that is true of you, or it is not but you are so extraordinarily dickless that you don't feel able to contradict her. Because she is obviously a clever lady who writes lovely long headers. Lovely long, long, long, long headers. Doesn't really seem worth the effort of debating with you, either way. But are you incapable of understanding that the Americans were at fault for not appreciating that the Afghans wouldn't fight, or that wanting something is different from having a moral justification for doing it? Does it not matter to you that women are raped and gays are murdered?
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    IshmaelZ said:

    isam said:

    justin124 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    justin124 said:

    On a UNS basis the Tories would lose 46 seats to Labour , 4 to the LDs and probably a few to SNP.They would be at 310 - 312 seats.

    Is that before or after boundary changes?
    On the basis of existing boundaries. New boundaries have yet to be determined.
    New bou
    isam said:

    ...

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare

    :...

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    That's the point.

    We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.

    Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.

    Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
    You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
    Indeed so
    I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
    Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
    The relevant fact this evening is that the Times, as per the header, has highlighted and criticised the conduct of the current government, with what looks like a great deal of justification. You can't just sit there playing the "You would say that, you're a remainer" blocking shot over and over and over and over again. Either we have a Foreign Secretary who responds promptly to crises in foreign affairs, or we concede that we are utterly impotent and irrelevant and don't bother with a Foreign Secretary at all, surely? What is this twat being paid for?
    We are utterly impotent & irrelevant, at least as regards Afghanistan.

    That is the truth.

    And I am certainly against the children of the poor being sent to Afghanistan to fight for a poor salary and for reasons which they do not understand ... to salve the stinking conscience of the pampered rich.

    We should not be in Afghanistan. Nor should the Americans.
    I have sympathy with that view but also have a strong sense of “you broke it, you fix it” about our intervention there.
  • I see Tony Blair has captured all the front pages with his full on attack on Biden

    While imbecile is not the language I would want to use, in every other respect he is right

    Time for Boris to co-opt him as Foreign Secretary
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    Ex MP moves on from sex worker scandal after 'accepting sexuality and marrying lover'
    - 15 years after being outed by a newspaper for a liaison with a male sex worker, Mark [Oaten, former Liberal Democrat MP], 57, says he is living his 'second life' – after marrying the man he met six years ago

    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ex-mp-mark-oaten-moves-24809097

    Good for him. It must be something of a relief to be able to be true to himself at last.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,731
    edited August 2021

    isam said:

    RobD said:

    isam said:

    justin124 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    justin124 said:

    On a UNS basis the Tories would lose 46 seats to Labour , 4 to the LDs and probably a few to SNP.They would be at 310 - 312 seats.

    Is that before or after boundary changes?
    On the basis of existing boundaries. New boundaries have yet to be determined.
    New bou
    isam said:

    ...

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare

    :...

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    That's the point.

    We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.

    Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.

    Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
    You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
    Indeed so
    I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
    Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
    I agree, but is it that much different from you telling us in post after post after post how useless Starmer is? Mind you, you seem to have stopped doing that now. But there was a time.......
    That's funny, in @isam's last 50 posts Starmer isn't mentioned once.
    The clue's in "you seem to have stopped doing that now". There was a time, earlier in the year, when the delightful Isam posted about Starmer's uselessness and poll ratings relentlessly and repetitively.
    There was a time when his poll ratings were incredibly good. I wrote an article saying I thought he was too dull to do well, & he was too short at 2/1 to be next PM. Since that time his poll ratings have fallen off a cliff and he went out to 8/1. So I have a vested interest in the matter, having made an early call that people on here wouldn’t accept (charisma playing a big part in leaders success).

    https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2020/06/06/the-case-for-making-personality-ratings-a-good-electoral-indicator/

    So what?

    I’m not just copying quotes from Nigel Farage, The Telegraph and Priti Patel saying they disagree with their opponents politics am I?!
    I wish I hadn't said anything. It was the repetitiveness of your Starmer posts, saying the same thing, not the content, that I was pointing to. I find your views/analysis interesting. I was really just trying to point out that Scott isn't the only one who keeps repeating stuff, far from it - there are several, maybe including me. Night.
    A lot of the thread headers at the time were saying things were going well for Sir Keir, and I was looking at numbers that said the opposite. So of course I was going to mention it, that’s what this site is for.
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136

    I see Tony Blair has captured all the front pages with his full on attack on Biden

    While imbecile is not the language I would want to use, in every other respect he is right

    Time for Boris to co-opt him as Foreign Secretary

    I would also like to hear what Bush and Cheney suggest.
  • kinabalu said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    Anyway we have to deal with Now.

    Yes, and what can 'we' do while Fuckwit von Clownstick is the man in charge?

    What 'we' could practically do to improve our lot is get rid of the Clown collective.

    It's a tragedy that some of those who voted for them can't let go...
    Yep. That's the real "Boris Derangement Syndrome".

    The sufferers are Leavers so grateful to him for delivering their Brexit that they've suspended all critical faculties where he is concerned.
    There's always been a 'my man good, your man bad' aspect to politics.

    As to Boris here's a blend of emotions I feel regarding him:

    1) Amusement as to how deranged he makes his enemies
    2) Envy of his luck
    3) Exasperation as to his mistakes
    4) Aggravation that he doesn't learn from previous mistakes
    5) Resignation about the possible alternatives

    And there's doubtless others as well.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    DougSeal said:

    Ex MP moves on from sex worker scandal after 'accepting sexuality and marrying lover'
    - 15 years after being outed by a newspaper for a liaison with a male sex worker, Mark [Oaten, former Liberal Democrat MP], 57, says he is living his 'second life' – after marrying the man he met six years ago

    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ex-mp-mark-oaten-moves-24809097

    Good for him. It must be something of a relief to be able to be true to himself at last.
    Stretching it to describe that glass table thing as a "liaison," I'd have thought.
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172
    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    isam said:

    justin124 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    justin124 said:

    On a UNS basis the Tories would lose 46 seats to Labour , 4 to the LDs and probably a few to SNP.They would be at 310 - 312 seats.

    Is that before or after boundary changes?
    On the basis of existing boundaries. New boundaries have yet to be determined.
    New bou
    isam said:

    ...

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare

    :...

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    That's the point.

    We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.

    Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.

    Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
    You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
    Indeed so
    I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
    Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
    The relevant fact this evening is that the Times, as per the header, has highlighted and criticised the conduct of the current government, with what looks like a great deal of justification. You can't just sit there playing the "You would say that, you're a remainer" blocking shot over and over and over and over again. Either we have a Foreign Secretary who responds promptly to crises in foreign affairs, or we concede that we are utterly impotent and irrelevant and don't bother with a Foreign Secretary at all, surely? What is this twat being paid for?
    We are utterly impotent & irrelevant, at least as regards Afghanistan.

    That is the truth.

    And I am certainly against the children of the poor being sent to Afghanistan to fight for a poor salary and for reasons which they do not understand ... to salve the stinking conscience of the pampered rich.

    We should not be in Afghanistan. Nor should the Americans.
    Read an interview this morning with an Afghan man who a month ago was a university student with a boyfriend. Now in fear of summary execution. I think it was worth investing time and money in trying to arrange for him to be in the former situation rather than the latter. Is that a pampered rich sort of thing to think? Do you think our soldiers incapable of forming a view on that point? Do you realise that nobody is currently conscripted into the army?
    Conscription would be far better in my view.

    A conscripted army would contain the sons and daughters of the middle classes. They would never, never be sent to die in the sand.

    If Blair's sons had been in the army, then we would have been spared the warmonger's disastrous interventions in the Middle East.

    The problem with your simple diagnosis is that it is not just "time and money" that is involved to rescue the Afghan student.

    If "time and money" were enough -- fine, spend the time and the money.

    But, don't send others to die while you holiday on St Kilda and read an upsetting article.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,004
    edited August 2021

    Roger said:

    DougSeal said:

    I’m not saying this Raab chap is an

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    Anyway we have to deal with Now.

    Yes, and what can 'we' do while Fuckwit von Clownstick is the man in charge?

    What 'we' could practically do to improve our lot is get rid of the Clown collective.

    It's a tragedy that some of those who voted for them can't let go...
    You have expressed explicitly your contempt for the current Government, one I share TBF, but your problem is you have no idea what you want to replace it. Which is why your posts are so wearisome. How do ‘we’ remove the current Government? I would suggest that a suitable alternative beating it in an election might be a good way. So big up your suitable alternative.
    Has anyone ever told you that you are probably the most pompous arse ever to have posted on PB? To describe someone's posts as 'wearisome' could be witty but not in your hands.
    I find @DougSeal an interesting poster -- but whatever -- the point is he has only posted a couple of times on this thread.

    @Scott_xP had produced a stream of wailing posts that say the same thing again and again and again and again.

    Without wit, without insight, without intelligence.

    It is spam.

    Relentless, tedious, excessive, boring posting of the same thing again and again is spam.

    Wearisome is exactly the right word.
    I don't agree. I find both Scott and HYUFD useful, precisely because they pick up interesting stuff off Twitter, saving me the trouble. We're old enough to make up our own minds what we think of it (or to skip if we've seen enough).
    There is a difference in the use of language and to be fair, and I do not often agree with @HYUFD, but he does not use bad language to make his points
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    isam said:

    justin124 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    justin124 said:

    On a UNS basis the Tories would lose 46 seats to Labour , 4 to the LDs and probably a few to SNP.They would be at 310 - 312 seats.

    Is that before or after boundary changes?
    On the basis of existing boundaries. New boundaries have yet to be determined.
    New bou
    isam said:

    ...

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare

    :...

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    That's the point.

    We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.

    Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.

    Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
    You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
    Indeed so
    I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
    Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
    I agree, but is it that much different from you telling us in post after post after post how useless Starmer is? Mind you, you seem to have stopped doing that now. But there was a time.......
    Keir is growing on isam. That's my sense of it.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,461

    I see Tony Blair has captured all the front pages with his full on attack on Biden

    While imbecile is not the language I would want to use, in every other respect he is right

    Time for Boris to co-opt him as Foreign Secretary

    Who, Biden???
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    I see Tony Blair has captured all the front pages with his full on attack on Biden

    While imbecile is not the language I would want to use, in every other respect he is right

    Time for Boris to co-opt him as Foreign Secretary

    Good for Blair. Easily the closest I have come to admiring him.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    IshmaelZ said:

    DougSeal said:

    Ex MP moves on from sex worker scandal after 'accepting sexuality and marrying lover'
    - 15 years after being outed by a newspaper for a liaison with a male sex worker, Mark [Oaten, former Liberal Democrat MP], 57, says he is living his 'second life' – after marrying the man he met six years ago

    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ex-mp-mark-oaten-moves-24809097

    Good for him. It must be something of a relief to be able to be true to himself at last.
    Stretching it to describe that glass table thing as a "liaison," I'd have thought.
    I can think of worse terms. Legally anyway.
  • londonpubmanlondonpubman Posts: 3,153

    Blimey kids, it's a bit tetchy on here tonight.

    I retired last night just before the moderator issued a warning

    I hope it is not necessary two nights in a row
    I thought you retired a few years ago? 😊
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226

    I see Tony Blair has captured all the front pages with his full on attack on Biden

    While imbecile is not the language I would want to use, in every other respect he is right

    Time for Boris to co-opt him as Foreign Secretary

    And Health Sec. And Education. Home too probably. Hmmm…
  • isamisam Posts: 40,731
    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    justin124 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    justin124 said:

    On a UNS basis the Tories would lose 46 seats to Labour , 4 to the LDs and probably a few to SNP.They would be at 310 - 312 seats.

    Is that before or after boundary changes?
    On the basis of existing boundaries. New boundaries have yet to be determined.
    New bou
    isam said:

    ...

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare

    :...

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    That's the point.

    We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.

    Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.

    Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
    You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
    Indeed so
    I disagree. Scott used to be just another annoying Tory twat. Now he’s a bloody giant of the PB microstate. Brexit maketh the man.
    Almost all he ever tells us, via his tweets, is that the Guardian, arch Remainers, and Centrist Labour don’t like the current govt, but presents it as some kind of surprising take.
    I agree, but is it that much different from you telling us in post after post after post how useless Starmer is? Mind you, you seem to have stopped doing that now. But there was a time.......
    Keir is growing on isam. That's my sense of it.
    Even if I thought he was fandabidozee, I’d still be guided by the fact that leaders of the opposition who are considered far less charismatic than their rival, the PM, don’t get the gig. Especially not when they start off with an 80 seat deficit
This discussion has been closed.