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Starmer is back as favourite for next PM – politicalbetting.com

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  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    Taz said:

    He turned up to Manchester Pride in an LGB Alliance cap and shirt. LGB Alliance are not anti trans, they are pro same sex.

    Indeed they are being targeted by pro trans fanatics attacking their charitable status through the courts for no better reason than to silence them.

    You want bigotry. Read this.

    Www.terfisaslur.com
    That site is horrendous.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,881
    Taz said:

    Yes, the world needs more arrogant white western nations dictating their will to remote communities. Worked so well so far.

    Perhaps engaging with them may be a better Approach than just telling them.
    It’s not ‘arrogance’. Ffs. It’s basic humanity. Also the Faroes are themselves a wealthy white western nation. Much wealthier than us, per capita

    Also, the world HAS politely asked them to stop doing this, for many years. They just ignore it. Because this senseless killing (which gets more horrific by the year) is an ‘ancient tradition’. Yes. The ‘ancient tradition’ of pursuing a thousand dolphins on jet skis then using power drills to lazily chop them to death

    Enough polite asking. Fuck their tourist industry. That would be a good place to start
  • CD13CD13 Posts: 6,375
    Mr Pete,

    We always coped with seasonal labour shortages in the summer with 'make do and mend.' Most of the gangs I worked with in the sixties (in Boston or Vilnius central as it later became) were composed of teenagers like me (in the evenings and school holidays), and women with children who could fit their hours around domestic duties.

    Very few men worked on the land as there were always jobs that paid better and were a lot easier in the town The automated tate harvesters hadn't arrived then. Often you sat in the van and didn't get paid when it rained. Fortunately, it's relatively dry on the fens.

    I now live in the NW and notice the difference.

    I'm not surprised the farmers took advantage of the new labour force in the 2000s. It was becoming harder to persuade the locals to do the jobs.

    Labour's view had then become that cheap labour was a good thing because it kept the food prices low. What a change from the Tolpuddle Martyrs. Did they die in vain? Forsaken for their new best mates - metropolitan luvvies.

    OK, I exaggerate a touch, but the four Yorkshiremen sketch was funny.



  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,267
    MrEd said:

    That site is horrendous.
    Shocking.

    Little short of a terrorist group. Anti-science and rationality - spouting delusion:

    "Acknowledging the existence of female biology is transphobic or cissexist"
  • gealbhangealbhan Posts: 2,362

    A large fire at a key electricity converter station in the U.K. has shut down a major cable that brings power from France, worsening Britain’s energy crunch. Gas and power prices jumped.

    The outage, which the U.K.’s grid manager said will last until at least Oct. 13, couldn’t come at a worse time with supplies already short and prices at record highs. Britain is a net importer of power, with France its biggest supplier via two cables that run across the English Channel.


    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-15/fire-hits-key-power-converter-station-linking-u-k-to-france

    Not much wind out there today.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    If Haiti doesn't exist, then there's a very big Haiti-sized hole in my atlas... ;)

    In all seriousness, has any country had such a bedevilled history as Haiti?
    DRC?

    A toss up between the French and the Belgians
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,881
    Farooq said:

    Or else what?
    Well, they have a lovely large tourist industry - relative to their size - which sells the Faroes as this amazing, unspoiled, Edenic destination. Shame if something ever happened to that industry, like a worldwide boycott ensuring its collapse
  • Hearing that Boris Johnson will reshuffle his top team after PMQs.

    A senior Tory MP tells me the rumoured moves are:

    - Gove to Foreign Office
    - Dowden to Education
    - Gavin Williamson to Northern Ireland
    - Nigel Adams (poss) to DCMS
    - Simon Hart out, Craig Williams in Wales


    https://twitter.com/REWearmouth/status/1438084381067956225?s=20
  • Leon said:

    It’s not ‘arrogance’. Ffs. It’s basic humanity. Also the Faroes are themselves a wealthy white western nation. Much wealthier than us, per capita

    Also, the world HAS politely asked them to stop doing this, for many years. They just ignore it. Because this senseless killing (which gets more horrific by the year) is an ‘ancient tradition’. Yes. The ‘ancient tradition’ of pursuing a thousand dolphins on jet skis then using power drills to lazily chop them to death

    Enough polite asking. Fuck their tourist industry. That would be a good place to start
    First time I've heard about this. Campaigning isn't what it used to be - from my childhood I can remember no end of Greenpeace adds about seal clubbing.
  • No confirmation on a reshuffle. But fair to say no work in SW1 is getting done until it is (or it’s ruled out). Meetings / events being cancelled, decision making grinding to a halt & lots of ministers focused on whether their career is about to go up, stay the same or end

    https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1438080134544777219?s=20

    "no work in SW1 is getting done"... No change there, then.
  • TazTaz Posts: 16,907
    Leon said:

    It’s not ‘arrogance’. Ffs. It’s basic humanity. Also the Faroes are themselves a wealthy white western nation. Much wealthier than us, per capita

    Also, the world HAS politely asked them to stop doing this, for many years. They just ignore it. Because this senseless killing (which gets more horrific by the year) is an ‘ancient tradition’. Yes. The ‘ancient tradition’ of pursuing a thousand dolphins on jet skis then using power drills to lazily chop them to death

    Enough polite asking. Fuck their tourist industry. That would be a good place to start
    You are extremely arrogant, and typical of the neocon mindset.

    Your views are right and must be imposed by fair means or foul.

    Sod other cultures traditions if they offend white middle class arrogant western sensibilities.

    Engaging is the best way.
  • - Gove to Foreign Office

    If that's true then annexing the Faroes could be a goer.
  • OT

    I just clicked on the BBC2 politics show, and there's a man with corn in his top pocket!
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,814
    India (and perhaps elsewhere?) recognises dolphins as “non human persons”. I think it would be rad if in the 21st Century likeminded nations formed a mutual defence treaty with a “responsibility to protect” type clause on the environment.

    Get Dura out of retirement to strafe those jet skis. Blow deep sea dredgers out the water. Send in special forces to take out poachers. Etc…
  • Council tax going up, NI going up, income tax thresholds being frozen, jump in fuel prices, large jump in energy prices, all round price inflation, squeeze on public spending post-Covid... possibly an interest rate rise to dampen it down.

    Anyone who thinks another Conservative majority is a shoe-in for 2023/2024 isn't thinking properly.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,267
    See this:

    "lesbian women must consider trans women as potential sexual partners"

    https://terfisaslur.com/cotton-ceiling/
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 34,257
    MrEd said:

    That site is horrendous.
    Agreed; really, really nasty. The far right, and the infantile left have nothing on them. If ever there was a case for internet censorship ......
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,881
    Taz said:

    You are extremely arrogant, and typical of the neocon mindset.

    Your views are right and must be imposed by fair means or foul.

    Sod other cultures traditions if they offend white middle class arrogant western sensibilities.

    Engaging is the best way.
    Tell you what, ignore me. I don’t mind. But look at the photos I linked, and decide how you feel
  • eekeek Posts: 29,397

    Hearing that Boris Johnson will reshuffle his top team after PMQs.

    A senior Tory MP tells me the rumoured moves are:

    - Gove to Foreign Office
    - Dowden to Education
    - Gavin Williamson to Northern Ireland
    - Nigel Adams (poss) to DCMS
    - Simon Hart out, Craig Williams in Wales


    https://twitter.com/REWearmouth/status/1438084381067956225?s=20

    WTF have Northern Ireland done to deserve that.

    Also exactly what highly embarrassing items does Mr Williamson have on Boris that makes him unsackable.
  • gealbhangealbhan Posts: 2,362
    MrEd said:

    Labour down on that as well. They are just going nowhere
    Why should they go anywhere? They lost squillions of long serving votes to the Tories and are doing ZILCH, NIHIL, ABSOLUTELY NOWT to convince them to come back. If the government is rubbish (the last couple weeks they have been brilliant at protecting their 2019 voters) the worst that will happen is the voters Torys will keep again at the next election will merely go shy as don’t knows for mid term.

    The disastrous position Labour find themselves in they need to be very very active at showing a government in waiting.

    This is what the lost voters need to see for starters:

    1. The leadership needs to show it has killer instinct the public are looking for, Starmer needs to put some underperforming heads on spikes ASAP - starting with Angela Rayner, Ashworth, Griffith, Smith.

    2. Starmer needs to put poster boy of Remain and 2nd ref behind him, Starmer needs to communicate to the Lexits how he is going to build on the success of Brexit to level up their community and bring the good old days back. If he doesn’t do that he doesn’t get the vote back in the places he needs it.
  • CD13CD13 Posts: 6,375
    Mr Leon,

    I'd forgotten about the Faroes as a tourist destination. It's sounds interesting and out of the ordinary. Not one for our piscine friends though.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 34,257

    First time I've heard about this. Campaigning isn't what it used to be - from my childhood I can remember no end of Greenpeace adds about seal clubbing.
    To be fair, many Faroese were disgusted at what happened. Just maybe it'll be the last time.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,267

    Council tax going up, NI going up, income tax thresholds being frozen, jump in fuel prices, large jump in energy prices, all round price inflation, squeeze on public spending post-Covid... possibly an interest rate rise to dampen it down.

    Anyone who thinks another Conservative majority is a shoe-in for 2023/2024 isn't thinking properly.

    Not sure. Talked to a few strong Tories over the weekend, post the tax rise news. The responses can be summarised as: "The pandemic has cost a fortune - of course taxes were going to rise. What did people expect".
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,814
    https://www.reddit.com/r/UFObelievers/comments/pkiscz/nasas_bill_nelson_on_uaps/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

    This will get lost in the reshuffle but anyway. Nice little segment with Bill Nelson, Biden’s Nasa administrator, on UFOs. He is of course unusually qualified for the role for a politician, having flown on the Columbia shuttle.

    In short: yup UFO’s are real and tangible, rather than recording artefacts. We don’t know what they are, but I sure hope they’re not foreign adversaries given the technology they exhibit. We need to find out what they are and if friend or foe. Of course aliens are out there you dumbo. We have no plan on what do if Contact is initiated by them. Hopefully Spielberg got it right with ET who was “a friendly little fella”.

    He also helpfully signposts how Disclosure will likely unfold. First, an exoplanet with signs of organic processes. I guess that will come not long after the James Webb telescope is operational (launches in Oct). Then microbes or fossilised microbes on Mars or Venus. Couple of missions targeting that. Then maybe something on Breakthrough Listen. And finally they’ll say, “you know those things that we told you for several years were here but for weird reasons most of you didn’t want to listen? Well you’d better be listening by now because we know what they are”.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,852
    edited September 2021
    Rumour that Gavin Williamson will be moved to Northern Ireland...

    What could possibly go wrong?

    Edit: Sorry, late to the party as usual.
  • Hearing that Boris Johnson will reshuffle his top team after PMQs.

    A senior Tory MP tells me the rumoured moves are:

    - Gove to Foreign Office
    - Dowden to Education
    - Gavin Williamson to Northern Ireland
    - Nigel Adams (poss) to DCMS
    - Simon Hart out, Craig Williams in Wales


    https://twitter.com/REWearmouth/status/1438084381067956225?s=20

    So the worst cabinet minister in decades to a place where there is a real risk of terrorism re-emerging? Okay.......
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 34,257
    eek said:

    WTF have Northern Ireland done to deserve that.

    Also exactly what highly embarrassing items does Mr Williamson have on Boris that makes him unsackable.
    Seriously, that has the makings of the worst possible outcomes for N Ireland.
  • eek said:

    WTF have Northern Ireland done to deserve that.

    Also exactly what highly embarrassing items does Mr Williamson have on Boris that makes him unsackable.
    As an ex-Chief Whip, I'd say that he has a little list except we all know (don't we?) that it's probably blooming huge.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,881

    First time I've heard about this. Campaigning isn't what it used to be - from my childhood I can remember no end of Greenpeace adds about seal clubbing.
    It’s taking off on Twitter. To be fair this butchery only happened a couple of days ago. And the ‘hunt’ happens every year

    The reason this one sticks out is the overwhelming scale of the slaughter - because the Faroese are now so rich they can all afford jet-skis, and join in, and hunt down thousands. In a day. Apparently it makes them feel ‘manly’

    It is thought to be the biggest single slaughter of whales/dolphins in recorded history. And it happened this week.
  • Mr/Ms (I'm sorry, I'm terribly at remembering certain people) Moonshine, it's fascinating to consider whether aliens are likely to be friendly or aggressive.

    Also irrelevant, as they're likely to be orders of magnitude more powerful than we are.
  • TazTaz Posts: 16,907
    Stocky said:

    See this:

    "lesbian women must consider trans women as potential sexual partners"

    https://terfisaslur.com/cotton-ceiling/

    Lesbian dating agencies have plenty of ‘trans women’ on them. Which is fine if they want that but it is the guilt shaming and torrent of abuse they get for wishing to enjoy a single sex attraction and abuse as ‘vagina fetishists’

    Oddly gay men don’t seem to get the same level of abuse about dating trans men.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,267
    gealbhan said:

    Why should they go anywhere? They lost squillions of long serving votes to the Tories and are doing ZILCH, NIHIL, ABSOLUTELY NOWT to convince them to come back. If the government is rubbish (the last couple weeks they have been brilliant at protecting their 2019 voters) the worst that will happen is the voters Torys will keep again at the next election will merely go shy as don’t knows for mid term.

    The disastrous position Labour find themselves in they need to be very very active at showing a government in waiting.

    This is what the lost voters need to see for starters:

    1. The leadership needs to show it has killer instinct the public are looking for, Starmer needs to put some underperforming heads on spikes ASAP - starting with Angela Rayner, Ashworth, Griffith, Smith.

    2. Starmer needs to put poster boy of Remain and 2nd ref behind him, Starmer needs to communicate to the Lexits how he is going to build on the success of Brexit to level up their community and bring the good old days back. If he doesn’t do that he doesn’t get the vote back in the places he needs it.
    The long-serving voters lost to the Tories are going to be difficult to get back because they are ideologically conservative in many ways and always have been. The spell is broken.

    Labour's hope is that he LDs can draw sufficient voters from the CP to deny the latter a majority.
  • UK natural gas wholesale prices are ***jumping ~20% today*** to fresh record high as trades brace for more UK gas-fired power station demand after the loss of a key electricity interconnector between UK and France

    https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1438066309485445128
  • TazTaz Posts: 16,907
    Farooq said:

    You seem to be saying that I shouldn't be allowed to go to the Faroes because you don't approve of something some people have been allowed to do. Hope I have misunderstood that.

    It’s exactly what he’s saying and why I call his approach arrogant.
  • gealbhangealbhan Posts: 2,362
    eek said:

    WTF have Northern Ireland done to deserve that.

    Also exactly what highly embarrassing items does Mr Williamson have on Boris that makes him unsackable.
    It’s worse than that. What damage could he do?
  • MattWMattW Posts: 25,707
    eek said:

    If you want an example of a completely unwinnable battle for a political party - Trans and anti-Trans activism is one such battle.
    Is this going to have an impact at Constituency level eg Canterbury /Rosie Duffield.

    Will the Tories be able to quietly benefit from that (by keeping quiet and saying positive), as they have generally with AS.
  • All those shit-eating resignation letters being composed right now.

    https://twitter.com/DAaronovitch/status/1438090172009271299?s=20
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,881
    Farooq said:

    You seem to be saying that I shouldn't be allowed to go to the Faroes because you don't approve of something some people have been allowed to do. Hope I have misunderstood that.
    As I said to Taz, please ignore me. But look at the photos I linked, and decide for yourself

    Personally, I’ve always wanted to visit the Faroes. They are meant to be amazing. But I won’t go now, not unless they stop this shit. Personal choice, is all
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,975
    edited September 2021
    MrEd said:

    Labour down on that as well. They are just going nowhere
    Starmer has no Tv persona. He is drab and boring. Labour need a celebrity leader like ????
  • TazTaz Posts: 16,907
    edited September 2021
    Leon said:

    Tell you what, ignore me. I don’t mind. But look at the photos I linked, and decide how you feel
    I don’t approve, I don’t agree, but I don’t care for your ranting, rabid, virtue signalling and demands they change something you don’t like. I’d rather engage with them.

    You are clearly confusing disagreeing with your approach with agreeing or supporting what they are doing.
  • eek said:

    WTF have Northern Ireland done to deserve that.

    Also exactly what highly embarrassing items does Mr Williamson have on Boris that makes him unsackable.
    Well, we can be pretty sure it is not any of:

    accepting money from Russian donors
    accepting money from unknown donors
    lying
    infidelity
    arranging for journalists to be beaten up

    as those are all in the public domain and have no impact.

    Basically Boris has a bumbling toff shield that makes him unembarrassable. Perhaps the dirt is on another senior Tory or the party itself.
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,975
    edited September 2021

    UK natural gas wholesale prices are ***jumping ~20% today*** to fresh record high as trades brace for more UK gas-fired power station demand after the loss of a key electricity interconnector between UK and France

    https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1438066309485445128

    Why have we lost the electricity interconnector?
  • UK natural gas wholesale prices are ***jumping ~20% today*** to fresh record high as trades brace for more UK gas-fired power station demand after the loss of a key electricity interconnector between UK and France

    https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1438066309485445128

    Why has that interconnector been lost?
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,098
    edited September 2021
    Hah! Following our recent short break in London Mrs P and I were both pinged yesterday (the 14th) for a covid contact on the 8th - six days earlier!

    Six days seems very slow - how is that going to help?

    We've no symptoms and we already took lateral flow test on Friday when we returned home but now both have to do a PCR test of course. Pretty sure we don't have covid though.
  • TazTaz Posts: 16,907
    Leon said:

    As I said to Taz, please ignore me. But look at the photos I linked, and decide for yourself

    Personally, I’ve always wanted to visit the Faroes. They are meant to be amazing. But I won’t go now, not unless they stop this shit. Personal choice, is all

    Mate, you post stuff you’ll get called out. Just saying ‘ignore me’ won’t wash.
  • Council tax going up, NI going up, income tax thresholds being frozen, jump in fuel prices, large jump in energy prices, all round price inflation, squeeze on public spending post-Covid... possibly an interest rate rise to dampen it down.

    Anyone who thinks another Conservative majority is a shoe-in for 2023/2024 isn't thinking properly.

    Why did Brown lose in 2010?

    It wasn't because of the Financial Crash. It was because the Tories successfully pinned the blame for the financial crash onto Labour. It was a political defeat.

    You paint a picture of rocky times ahead, but regardless of what I might think about Johnson's handling of the pandemic or Brexit, the Opposition would have to pin the blame on Johnson for him to suffer electorally. My sense is that people generally pin the blame on the virus, because the Opposition have failed to win the political argument.

    In difficult times who will voters trust? Will they trust the politician who delivered Brexit and vaccines, as promised, to steer them through this latest crisis? Or will they trust a politician so scared of divisions within his own party that he won't tell the voters what he stands for?
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,267
    Leon said:

    As I said to Taz, please ignore me. But look at the photos I linked, and decide for yourself

    Personally, I’ve always wanted to visit the Faroes. They are meant to be amazing. But I won’t go now, not unless they stop this shit. Personal choice, is all
    Other countries do it as well, of course. Inc Japan.

    See below for gut-wrenching mass slaughter of the magnificent and beautiful tuna:

    https://theconversation.com/tuna-or-not-tuna-the-real-cost-of-taking-a-fish-out-of-water-2825

  • Why have we lost the electricity interconnector?
    There has been a fire at our IFA interconnector site in #Sellindge and emergency services are in attendance. The site has been evacuated and the safety of our staff, emergency teams and local residents is our highest priority. We will provide a further update in due course.

    https://twitter.com/nationalgriduk/status/1438049403495923714
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,267

    Hah! Following our recent short break in London Mrs P and I were both pinged yesterday (the 14th) for a covid contact on the 8th - six days earlier!

    Six days seems very slow - how is that going to help?

    We've no symptoms and we already took lateral flow test on Friday when we returned home but now both have to do a PCR test of course. Pretty sure we don't have covid though.

    You still have the App!
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,881
    Taz said:

    I don’t approve, I don’t agree, but I don’t care for your ranting, rabid, virtue signalling and demands they change something you don’t like. I’d rather engage with them.

    You are clearly confusing disagreeing with your approach with agreeing or supporting what they are doing.
    The images make me sick, and angry. I confess this is true. I’m not ‘virtue signaling’ tho. My ‘rabid’ ranting is sincere. As I said, just ignore me

    One of the Faroese guys laughing as he ineptly chops a dolphin to death is wearing a Che tee shirt. The depths of irony

  • gealbhangealbhan Posts: 2,362
    edited September 2021
    Stocky said:

    Not sure. Talked to a few strong Tories over the weekend, post the tax rise news. The responses can be summarised as: "The pandemic has cost a fortune - of course taxes were going to rise. What did people expect".
    “ Anyone who thinks another Conservative majority is a shoe-in for 2023/2024 isn't thinking properly. “

    For all those not thinking properly people, who think all an opposition has to do to gain government is Pfaff around with balloons and wait for a recession to come along, 1992 says hello.

    UPDATE light bulb moment, send Starmer and Rayner into their potting sheds instead of campaigning, so they cannot cost Labour votes. NOTE this actually happened
  • I am dreadful at predicting these things but my one observation is that several of the predicted reshuffle casualties are also people who are extremely loyal, have acted as useful lightning rods for scandals and could be dangerous on the backbench. Not immaterial.

    https://twitter.com/jessicaelgot/status/1438092418310623238?s=20
  • Taz said:

    I’ve noticed on LinkedIn people putting pronouns on their profiles. Someone at work even has theirs in their sig.
    This is becoming increasingly common week by week.

    It puts pressure on those who don't to do the same less they attract the finger of suspicion as "transphobic".
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,098
    Stocky said:

    You still have the App!
    We do. Country bumpkins, eh? Still, somebody else must've had switched on it in Soho too!
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 44,606
    edited September 2021
    CD13 said:

    Mr Leon,

    I'd forgotten about the Faroes as a tourist destination. It's sounds interesting and out of the ordinary. Not one for our piscine friends though.

    Cetacean, to be PB-pedantic.

    Reminds me of eating dinner in a Chinese restaurant in Montrose years ago with the TV on and the pilot whale hunt du jour being shown in lavish detail and great length.

    Edit: I see the tuna have come into the discussion. Not Faroese fish, though.
  • eek said:

    WTF have Northern Ireland done to deserve that.

    Also exactly what highly embarrassing items does Mr Williamson have on Boris that makes him unsackable.
    I doubt you will find out but it is a good question
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 11,313

    So the worst cabinet minister in decades to a place where there is a real risk of terrorism re-emerging? Okay.......
    I'm sceptical of all these reshuffle rumours. And Gove to FO seems unlikely if he doesn't like flying.

    (Of course sooner or later one of these rumours will prove true)
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,018

    The ever reliable...(sic):

    Cabinet is on reshuffle red alert, partly because the official drivers have been told to ready to ferry ministers at short notice. “I am hearing it could come later today and tomorrow” said one senior member of the government.

    https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1438035709160476683?s=20

    He should have done it sooner, since it's been in the offing for ages - now it'll be portrayed as partly in a 'panic' because god forbid the government should fall behind at some point.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,881
    Stocky said:

    Other countries do it as well, of course. Inc Japan.

    See below for gut-wrenching mass slaughter of the magnificent and beautiful tuna:

    https://theconversation.com/tuna-or-not-tuna-the-real-cost-of-taking-a-fish-out-of-water-2825

    I only ever eat sustainable fish, if at all possible (sometimes abroad it’s not possible to know)

    The industrialized fishing of tuna is grisly, but at least the tuna are eaten. And the noble tuna is not a highly intelligent mammal like the dolphin

    The pointless slaughter of 1400 dolphins for no other reason than sadistic pleasure is in a different and darker moral place
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 44,606
    Omnium said:

    I'm sceptical of all these reshuffle rumours. And Gove to FO seems unlikely if he doesn't like flying.

    (Of course sooner or later one of these rumours will prove true)
    Unless someone really, really doesn't like Mr Gove.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,098

    This is becoming increasingly common week by week.

    It puts pressure on those who don't to do the same less they attract the finger of suspicion as "transphobic".
    Just come off of LinkedIn?

    I was on it for about 10 years - I never saw a single benefit. Cancelled my logon when they gave all the passwords away.
  • Why did Brown lose in 2010?

    It wasn't because of the Financial Crash. It was because the Tories successfully pinned the blame for the financial crash onto Labour. It was a political defeat.

    You paint a picture of rocky times ahead, but regardless of what I might think about Johnson's handling of the pandemic or Brexit, the Opposition would have to pin the blame on Johnson for him to suffer electorally. My sense is that people generally pin the blame on the virus, because the Opposition have failed to win the political argument.

    In difficult times who will voters trust? Will they trust the politician who delivered Brexit and vaccines, as promised, to steer them through this latest crisis? Or will they trust a politician so scared of divisions within his own party that he won't tell the voters what he stands for?
    Well, people certainly don't trust Boris but they do at least half-like him or are entertained by him. I think his government is shambolic and incompetent, myself, with a few bright spots of talent. It would be hugely improved by a new Conservative leader, which is why I support one.

    Labour has a very similar problem. Starmer is a dud and what's keeping Boris in office at present.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,267
    gealbhan said:

    “ Anyone who thinks another Conservative majority is a shoe-in for 2023/2024 isn't thinking properly. “

    For all those not thinking properly people, who think all an opposition has to do to gain government is Pfaff around with balloons and wait for a recession to come along, 1992 says hello.

    UPDATE light bulb moment, send Starmer and Rayner into their potting sheds instead of campaigning, so they cannot cost Labour votes. NOTE this actually happened
    Your last point is their best tactic. As Starmer well knows. That's why he's doing it.
  • Mr/Ms (I'm sorry, I'm terribly at remembering certain people) Moonshine, it's fascinating to consider whether aliens are likely to be friendly or aggressive.

    Also irrelevant, as they're likely to be orders of magnitude more powerful than we are.

    They could also be orders of magnitude smaller than us.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 14,153
    Leon said:

    The images make me sick, and angry. I confess this is true. I’m not ‘virtue signaling’ tho. My ‘rabid’ ranting is sincere. As I said, just ignore me

    One of the Faroese guys laughing as he ineptly chops a dolphin to death is wearing a Che tee shirt. The depths of irony

    if you're not vegan you've got just as much blood on your hands.
  • Mr. Royale, sounds a bit like Twitter.

    This is more cultish nonsense, pretending physical biology doesn't exist or matter even though it's literally a matter of fact.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,018
    Taz said:

    Lesbian dating agencies have plenty of ‘trans women’ on them. Which is fine if they want that but it is the guilt shaming and torrent of abuse they get for wishing to enjoy a single sex attraction and abuse as ‘vagina fetishists’

    Oddly gay men don’t seem to get the same level of abuse about dating trans men.
    'Vagina fetishists'? Perhaps that'll be coopted as the term for 'traditional' lesbians. Either way its a bloody bizarre term of abuse.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 56,021

    Yes - Labour were scrambling around to find an attack line on him. Everything seemed to kind of slide off.

    I remember when they tried https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_the_Chameleon - Cameron killed it by commenting that his children rather liked it.

    The effective combination he had was 1) actually changing the Conservative party 2) setting out a plan of what he wanted to do 3) being entirely comfortable with being David Cameron.
    See also Tony Blair, and - dare I say it - Boris Johnson.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,814

    Mr/Ms (I'm sorry, I'm terribly at remembering certain people) Moonshine, it's fascinating to consider whether aliens are likely to be friendly or aggressive.

    Also irrelevant, as they're likely to be orders of magnitude more powerful than we are.

    Not sure I’ve ever said! Mr.

    Yes indeed. They might be friendly to us so long as we stay where we are. We are generally pretty agnostic to crocodiles when they stay in the Congo river. If they figured out how to build a helicopter and started wandering about the Birmingham Bull Ring they’d get dispatched pretty sharpish.

    Pretty clear to me now that Senator Nelson’s “tangible UFOs” have been around for a very long time indeed and we are still here. So that’s something in the “friendly little fella” column. Assuming that they are being actively controlled and are not a self powered and self piloted relic technology of a long extinct civilisation, terrestrial or otherwise.
  • Just come off of LinkedIn?

    I was on it for about 10 years - I never saw a single benefit. Cancelled my logon when they gave all the passwords away.
    In some industries LinkedIn is important for finding work. If you're not on there you may as well not exist.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,881
    Dura_Ace said:

    if you're not vegan you've got just as much blood on your hands.
    As I get older my meat eating troubles me more - the more I learn. I might one day end up vegan.

    Hey, I’m on a journey and at least I’ve started
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,018
    eek said:

    WTF have Northern Ireland done to deserve that.
    They know what they've done.

    More seriously, Williamson would surely quit rather than take that, it's so clearly a major demotion.
  • maaarshmaaarsh Posts: 3,592
    https://twitter.com/john_actuary/status/1438067407290048514

    So not only are SAGE cooking up utterly laughable scenarios to scare people with again, they're also publishing false data to suggest vaccines lose effectiveness over time.
  • Excellent first question from Starmer.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,018
    Stocky said:

    Shocking.

    Little short of a terrorist group. Anti-science and rationality - spouting delusion:

    "Acknowledging the existence of female biology is transphobic or cissexist"
    Reality is full of ideological let downs unfortunately.
  • Why have we lost the electricity interconnector?
    Fire at UK substation - out until mid-October at least

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-15/fire-hits-key-power-converter-station-linking-u-k-to-france
  • Woke up today, slept terribly. Feeling awful.

    Managed to work up the effort to get a workout in and feeling so much better.

    Hope you’re all keeping well.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,267
    Leon said:

    I only ever eat sustainable fish, if at all possible (sometimes abroad it’s not possible to know)

    The industrialized fishing of tuna is grisly, but at least the tuna are eaten. And the noble tuna is not a highly intelligent mammal like the dolphin

    The pointless slaughter of 1400 dolphins for no other reason than sadistic pleasure is in a different and darker moral place
    Tuna, as a species, is far more threatened than dolphins are. But I agree that slaughtering a wild mammal seems even more grisly to us than slaughtering a fish.

    Loss of biodiversity is the most worrying environmental threat for me, it makes one wonder how much degradation it will take before our species stops. A rhetorical question because it never will.
  • eek said:

    WTF have Northern Ireland done to deserve that.

    Also exactly what highly embarrassing items does Mr Williamson have on Boris that makes him unsackable.
    Over the years I'm afraid they have done rather a lot to deserve that.
  • Excellent first question from Starmer.

    Completely unanswered by Johnson.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 60,282
    maaarsh said:

    https://twitter.com/john_actuary/status/1438067407290048514

    So not only are SAGE cooking up utterly laughable scenarios to scare people with again, they're also publishing false data to suggest vaccines lose effectiveness over time.

    It's not false data, just an older version of the plot.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,852
    edited September 2021

    Why have we lost the electricity interconnector?
    Fire.

    Whilst transformer fires aren't uncommon, if you wanted to cause economic chaos, damaging the interconnectors would be a good way to go about it.

    Lets hope they get it fixed quickly (or the wind picks up).
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,018

    If Haiti doesn't exist, then there's a very big Haiti-sized hole in my atlas... ;)

    In all seriousness, has any country had such a bedevilled history as Haiti?
    I read about it recently in contrast with its neighbour on Hispaniola, the Dominican Republic, which has had its fair share of major troubles, political and otherwise, yet despite it starting out with Haiti seeming the stronger, development in the last 50 years has seen it be in a much stronger position (albeit not strong in global terms).
  • kle4 said:

    He should have done it sooner, since it's been in the offing for ages - now it'll be portrayed as partly in a 'panic' because god forbid the government should fall behind at some point.
    Are there any examples of government reshuffles improving things?
    OK, you have to do them from time to time (let the cream rise, ditch the dregs), but from memory they normally create more problems than they solve. You create some unhappy bunnies and new ministers take time to get up to speed.

    Unless anyone knows any different.
  • maaarshmaaarsh Posts: 3,592
    RobD said:

    It's not false data, just an older version of the plot.
    It was out of date at the time of publishing. To say it didn't used to be false is little comfort.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 79,003
    kle4 said:

    'Vagina fetishists'? Perhaps that'll be coopted as the term for 'traditional' lesbians. Either way its a bloody bizarre term of abuse.
    Abuse because of ones' sexual preference was wrong in the past, and it's wrong now.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,018

    Completely unanswered by Johnson.
    That's expected with good questions. The key is whether he looked particularly silly or under pressure in not answering it.
  • One issue that this whole UniCredit/extra hours controversy puts front and centre is that many on Uni Credit *do* work.

    https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1438096922980519936?s=20
  • RobDRobD Posts: 60,282
    maaarsh said:

    It was out of date at the time of publishing. To say it didn't used to be false is little comfort.
    Was it? The pre-print came out yesterday. I'm sorry, but it's not false, and the two datasets are even consistent with one another.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 13,658
    Stocky said:

    Not sure. Talked to a few strong Tories over the weekend, post the tax rise news. The responses can be summarised as: "The pandemic has cost a fortune - of course taxes were going to rise. What did people expect".
    But it's neither strong Tories not strong Labourites who win and lose elections; its the floaters and stay at homers. There is no shoe-in ATM for 2023/4. Both Tories getting 326+, and no-one doing so are pretty equally balanced. All other results are out of sight.

    That might make the Tories just about the favourite to form the next government, and easily for most seats, but they have no friends to form a government with as things stand if they drop below c326.

  • Excellent first question from Starmer.

    For which Johnson should have been prepared....
  • It will be interesting up in the Red Wall come in 2023.

    Will the real pocket book economics of things like the UC cut be weighed as more important than a load bluster and hot air about cultural issues, now that Brexit is done.
  • Excellent point by Starmer pointing out that the real tax rate on the low paid is over 75%

    Boris just waffling unable to answer, because there is no answer.

    It is incredulous that any civilised country could tax the poorest over 75%. Absolutely nobody, let alone the poorest, should face a tax rate over 50%.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,018

    This is becoming increasingly common week by week.

    It puts pressure on those who don't to do the same less they attract the finger of suspicion as "transphobic".
    I don't think anyone will really mind until it becomes policy that you must do it at somewhere high profile of significant (though perhaps I am wrong and it already is with some). I've definitely seen an increase of it in the last year, but it isn't a requirement yet.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,881
    Stocky said:

    Tuna, as a species, is far more threatened than dolphins are. But I agree that slaughtering a wild mammal seems even more grisly to us than slaughtering a fish.

    Loss of biodiversity is the most worrying environmental threat for me, it makes one wonder how much degradation it will take before our species stops. A rhetorical question because it never will.
    Yes. Loss of biodiversity is a bleak and depressing thing. I’m a big fan of rewilding

    Incidentally, last week in Lucerne I saw a sign saying ‘look out for beavers!’ - in the middle of the city

    My guide explained they were reintroduced years back, and ‘now we have so many they are a problem’. But that’s a better problem than having no beavers at all
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172
    Stocky said:

    The long-serving voters lost to the Tories are going to be difficult to get back because they are ideologically conservative in many ways and always have been. The spell is broken.

    Labour's hope is that he LDs can draw sufficient voters from the CP to deny the latter a majority.
    SKS as PM is often interpreted as a done deal, if the Tories have been denied a bare majority.

    What parties always say before the GE is always we won't be doing any deals.

    What parties say after the election is determined by the arithmetic

    The electorate have spoken and they don't want another election immediately. And the parties now have to sort it out.

    If SKS has done well enough so that Lab + LibDems + Green can form a coalition, he will be fine. But, I don't seen any other combination being very viable.

    If the Tories have lost their majority but remain the largest party, then they will be fine if they can buy another party off. And there will be parties willing to trade, no matter what they say now. Especially, as they can probably claim Boris' head.

    But, I largely agree with @gealbhan 's analysis.

    Historically, Labour never get rid of failing leaders in time. And history repeats itself.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 9,137
    Cookie said:

    Oh I do (implicitly concede) that Nick.
    It would be very useful to have had a viable alternative back in the days when we needed it only for 'I may be referring to either a man or a woman'.
    Though in all honesty - I am a middle aged suburban northerner after all - I can't help feeling that anyone who rejects the use of both 'he' and 'she' is being a tad self-indulgent. But that is a separate point. The point is that 'they' already means something else and when you use it to mean a single person you are using it wrongly. (And if you use it to refer to a single person, you should be saying 'They is', not 'They are'.)

    But anyway, we SHOULD rail against the lazy or inaccurate use of language. I will happily join you in your crusade against 'bored of'. Similarly, I always flinch slightly at 'try and' rather than 'try to'. And I will silently seethe at the use of 'disinterested' to mean 'indifferent'. (I cannot enjoy the Elbow album 'The Seldom Seen Kid' until after the first two minutes, which I spend cringing with anticipation of the lyric 'a weary and disinterested sigh'.)
    I don't mind ADDING to language. But losing perfectly serviceable words because someone has decided those words now mean something else upsets me.
    You need to get over yourself, it's a great album! :wink: Just act 'disinterested' :tongue:

    I had a teacher in primary school who would correct me if I wrote or said "try to", telling me it should be "try and". Took me a few years to unlearn doing it wrong.

    I would like a full set of gender neutral pronouns, as I also dislike the singular 'they'.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,267
    kle4 said:

    That's expected with good questions. The key is whether he looked particularly silly or under pressure in not answering it.
    Well it's not a UC cut is it, as well as Starmer knows. It was a temporary measure.
  • John Rentoul
    @JohnRentoul
    ·
    20m
    From today, the starting pay rate for new Amazon workers in the US will be $18 an hour
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