Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro
It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind
The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc
The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)
I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing
The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime
Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime
The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial. Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism
Well Tallinn is pretty multi national and the turnover of people in the tech sector is pretty rapid. I think it is more a Scandi/Lutheran thing that honesty is just kind of expected. We has our summer last week, but bits of Estonia can be pretty idyllic and Tallinn of course is a blast.
But you can have a Lutheran or Calvinist or whatever culture, if you import enough people who aren’t of that culture and who don;’t necessarily respect that culture and will not assimilate to that culture, then your culture is a bit fucked
Cf Sweden and the rocketing problem of gang violence, rape etc
And, for balance, see many countries invaded - peacefully or otherwise - by white Europeans
Newly appointed minister repeats misogynistic slur against Rayner. The government really is just the dregs now isn't it. No class, no ideas, no ability.
Even if she believes it to be true, just no need to say it. What is gained?
We have certain proof of what a complete numpty she is.
A senior Whitehall official gets in touch about Morduant and the maternity bill. “She fought AGAINST the change to ‘women’. The way she’s trying to rewrite history to suit her is despicable. While she’s supposedly campaigning on character and values. can’t believe the hypocrisy”
Sunak - big sell. I simply don't think he has either the charisma or the vision. And I think, should he make it to the final two, he'd lose badly to most of the other candidates. Unless it was Hunt.
Morduant - small buy. I wouldn't wade in, but I think she's slightly underpriced for someone who polls well with the members, and who has had a pretty good initial run of endorsements.
Truss - small buy. As with Morduant, she feels underpriced. She's popular with the grass roots, and although an ex-Remainer, has embraced Brexit.
Patel - moderate buy. She's 100-1 for Chrissake. If she stands, she might well go far.
Badenoch. The Foinavon of this National field. and the one who if PM will leave the UK a different country, in good ways, just be being who she is. Worth a toe dip.
Contemplate those group photos of EU leaders at their gatherings, all standing there thinking "The UK is led by a black woman, and we thought they were insular little Englanders".
Agree re Sunak. No chance. Several candidates are unappointable because of their close associations. It's too late to pretend.
Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro
It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind
The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc
The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)
I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing
The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime
Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime
The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial. Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism
I can absolutely assure you that you would never leave your belongings unattended in a bar or cafe in Geneva - even though supremely Calvinistic.
You have to be careful with your belongings in your pockets there yet alone on the table.
All my female friends there would have to be very careful with their bags whilst out to ensure they were safely under the table even when we were sitting there.
It’s the only place I’ve ever been mugged (attempted as my friend and I delivered a beating to the two muggers) and I had a friend there who had been mugged five times in three years living there.
I would think that other larger cities in Switzerland are similar so it’s not the bucolic land of people respecting the law you might think.
Fair enough!
I have been to Switzerland a lot and always felt remarkably safe, but that's interesting to hear
I think it very much depends where in Switzerland, or even where in Geneva, you are. Rich places attract professional thieves, and there are certainly groups operating in places like Geneva. But the villages outside - I never once locked my house or car in 3 years.
I wouldn’t even do it in the villages outside Geneva. I lived in Cologny and Corsier Port - so nice communes outside the city for those who understandably don’t know the place - and there was a problem with people - especially coming over the uncontrolled borders to hit people who thought they could do exactly that and get away easily sadly.
You mean literally assault? As in "hit"?
Sorry no (I clearly need writing lessons from you) - I meant come into the communes and break in, burgle, houses and cars etc. then they could be back into France in about four minutes.
Merci. Is this why Switzerland wants to end Free Movement, in part?
I doubt that’s the reason as it’s quite handy living somewhere expensive where you can go across millions of tiny unmanned borders and shop in French supermarkets for next to nothing.
Do Tory leadership candidates understand when they’re proposing crazy things that any “mandate” given to them in a Tory leadership election does overrule a mandate given to the Tory Party in a General Election?
Truss has been progressively shortening all weekend, ever so slowly. She was at 5.8 about 30 minutes ago.
I find that interesting. There's no particular evidence in the public domain for this. So either someone knows something, and she's about to reveal 30 backers out of a hat and an eye-catching launch video, or this is pure anticipation built on sand.
The smart candidate will not be wasting time on slick public videos this week it’s all about signing up MPs and developing momentum for the ballot. Obviously we do not know if Truss is doing this, but it’s pretty clear she is not eating time on Sunday chat shows or glossy videos. That comes later.
There is only one Sunday chat sow before the final 2 are revealed on the 21st July
Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro
It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind
The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc
The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)
I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing
The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime
Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime
The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial. Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism
I can absolutely assure you that you would never leave your belongings unattended in a bar or cafe in Geneva - even though supremely Calvinistic.
You have to be careful with your belongings in your pockets there yet alone on the table.
All my female friends there would have to be very careful with their bags whilst out to ensure they were safely under the table even when we were sitting there.
It’s the only place I’ve ever been mugged (attempted as my friend and I delivered a beating to the two muggers) and I had a friend there who had been mugged five times in three years living there.
I would think that other larger cities in Switzerland are similar so it’s not the bucolic land of people respecting the law you might think.
Fair enough! I have been to Switzerland a lot and always
I felt remarkably safe, but that's interesting to hear
Geneva can be quite grim. Unfortunately from a very identifiable group who live there.
I will never forget the look of relief on a very beautiful blonde English friend when she saw me walking towards her as she was surrounded by a group of about twenty chaps who were just standing there in a circle round her terrifying her. To escort her away to safety was luck and she still says to this day she has no idea what she would have done to get out of the situation on her own.
Berne felt very safe but it’s all a bit toytown. Zürich always seemed like Geneva but not as bad in the centre.
Fuck knows why the Montenegrins want to join the EU
They are doing just fine, considering. They have such a beautiful sunny country with a tiny population they can make squillions as is. Meanwhile they seem as happy and content as anyone. if they join the EU they will have to open their precious borders to Free Movement and then they might easily import the problems of "inequality" that you describe in Geneva
Right now they have almost zero minor/violent crime - the crime that really frightens people
It's difficult to comprehend how idyllic it is until you come here
I have a Serbian friend who cannot comprehend the UK acceptance of casual crime. I always had Serbia down in my vaguely 'gangsta paradise' bit of my mental map of Europe, but he really did insist that outside of _massive_ corruption there was very little day-to-day man-in-the-street crime happening.
And it surprised me how pretty it was as a country too. Planning a trip next year.
I think this is starting to shape up very, very badly for the conservatives.
The members are going to get a choice of tweedle dum or tweedle dee from the left of the party. Sunak plus one.
However a Sunday Times poll today had Sunak, Mordaunt and Tugendhat polling equal best in the redwall seats of the Tory leadership contenders in terms of net approval.
Even though Starmer polls better than all the Tory contenders now in the redwall with Boris gone
Do you ever have a view independent from your choice of polls
Half the point of this site is polls
Surely that poll is essentially driven by recognition. Most voters can name very few politicos, much less what they stand for.
Nobody knows what Mordaunt and Tugendhat stand for. Not even the Spectator. They tried to find Mordaunt's policies in vain through the vacuous bullsh8t of her launch.
I made that point earlier today, HYUFD didn't accept it.
She laid out her ideas in her recent book. Not everything I would agree with, but a coherent philosophy.
Sorry not the point I was referring to. My mistake for not making clear. I was referring to polls being driven by recognition. Actually as I have said as a LD she is my biggest fear as Tory leader.
You are wrong on that.
If you were correct Sunak followed by Hunt and Truss would be doing best on the net approval rating polls as the most well known candidates. Not Mordaunt and Tugendhat.
Instead Hunt and Patel do worst on the net approval rating polls despite being amongst the best known candidates being a former Foreign Secretary and final round leadership contender and the current Home Secretary
"To some [tory members], a great man has been brought low by political pygmies – not to mention Remain fanatics, Emmanuel Macron, Bilderbergers, the bloke in the kimono with the baseball bat, globalists, Dominic Cummimgs, Davos-goers and hand-wringing Tory MPs. They will want revenge on the man most blamed in Johnson Central for bringing him down.
Jacob Rees-Mogg has already torn a strip off Sunak; Nadine Dorries is always up for a rumble in the jungle. I doubt whether anything either of these two get up to is ordered by the Prime Minister. But by the same token, I can’t see Johnson being backward, were Sunak to make the membership stage, about coming forward."
Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro
It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind
The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc
The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)
I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing
The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime
Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime
The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial. Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism
I can absolutely assure you that you would never leave your belongings unattended in a bar or cafe in Geneva - even though supremely Calvinistic.
You have to be careful with your belongings in your pockets there yet alone on the table.
All my female friends there would have to be very careful with their bags whilst out to ensure they were safely under the table even when we were sitting there.
It’s the only place I’ve ever been mugged (attempted as my friend and I delivered a beating to the two muggers) and I had a friend there who had been mugged five times in three years living there.
I would think that other larger cities in Switzerland are similar so it’s not the bucolic land of people respecting the law you might think.
Fair enough! I have been to Switzerland a lot and always
I felt remarkably safe, but that's interesting to hear
Geneva can be quite grim. Unfortunately from a very identifiable group who live there.
I will never forget the look of relief on a very beautiful blonde English friend when she saw me walking towards her as she was surrounded by a group of about twenty chaps who were just standing there in a circle round her terrifying her. To escort her away to safety was luck and she still says to this day she has no idea what she would have done to get out of the situation on her own.
Berne felt very safe but it’s all a bit toytown. Zürich always seemed like Geneva but not as bad in the centre.
Fuck knows why the Montenegrins want to join the EU
They are doing just fine, considering. They have such a beautiful sunny country with a tiny population they can make squillions as is. Meanwhile they seem as happy and content as anyone. if they join the EU they will have to open their precious borders to Free Movement and then they might easily import the problems of "inequality" that you describe in Geneva
Right now they have almost zero minor/violent crime - the crime that really frightens people
It's difficult to comprehend how idyllic it is until you come here
I have a Serbian friend who cannot comprehend the UK acceptance of casual crime. I always had Serbia down in my vaguely 'gangsta paradise' bit of my mental map of Europe, but he really did insist that outside of _massive_ corruption there was very little day-to-day man-in-the-street crime happening.
And it surprised me how pretty it was as a country too. Planning a trip next year.
Western Europeans have been re-educated to accept what is, frankly, unacceptable
That amounts to a 66% chance of appointing a banana, an extremist or tainted soiled goods with known associations with discredited persons. Some are all three.
Newly appointed minister repeats misogynistic slur against Rayner. The government really is just the dregs now isn't it. No class, no ideas, no ability.
So Nici not so nice. What a shock from a member of a Boris Johnson government.
Allegedly she's Under Sec. of State for Dept. of Levelling Up?
Sounds more like she's attached to the Dept for Fucking Up.
💥 NEW: Senior Tories want to rapidly thin out the field of leadership candidates
One senior MP close to 1922 committee it was “likely” candidates must secure the support of at least 10% of the parliamentary party to get on to the ballot paper - 36 MPs
💥 NEW: Senior Tories want to rapidly thin out the field of leadership candidates
One senior MP close to 1922 committee it was “likely” candidates must secure the support of at least 10% of the parliamentary party to get on to the ballot paper - 36 MPs
Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro
It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind
The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc
The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)
I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing
The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime
Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime
The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial. Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism
I can absolutely assure you that you would never leave your belongings unattended in a bar or cafe in Geneva - even though supremely Calvinistic.
You have to be careful with your belongings in your pockets there yet alone on the table.
All my female friends there would have to be very careful with their bags whilst out to ensure they were safely under the table even when we were sitting there.
It’s the only place I’ve ever been mugged (attempted as my friend and I delivered a beating to the two muggers) and I had a friend there who had been mugged five times in three years living there.
I would think that other larger cities in Switzerland are similar so it’s not the bucolic land of people respecting the law you might think.
Fair enough!
I have been to Switzerland a lot and always felt remarkably safe, but that's interesting to hear
There's a massive rural / urban split in most countries. If you are in a small village in Switzerland, then you could probably leave your possessions on a table in a restaraunt for hours without worry. But at a crowded bar in Geneva, not a chance.
It's exactly the same here: I'm 15 miles from Oxford in a (very) small rural town and would happily leave my phone/wallet on the table in the pub while I went to the toilet. When people lock their bikes up outside the pub they get laughed at.
Last time I locked my bike outside the pub in Oxford, I came out half an hour later to find someone wheeling it up the road, bolt-cutters in the other arm.
Over 40% of MPs have declared but what's notable is that everyone is very low.
It's unlikely anyone will be miles ahead like May in 2016 or Boris in 2019 so realistically you will need approx at least 100 votes to make the Final - so basically nobody has really got anywhere yet.
Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro
It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind
The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc
The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)
I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing
The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime
Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime
The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial. Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism
I can absolutely assure you that you would never leave your belongings unattended in a bar or cafe in Geneva - even though supremely Calvinistic.
You have to be careful with your belongings in your pockets there yet alone on the table.
All my female friends there would have to be very careful with their bags whilst out to ensure they were safely under the table even when we were sitting there.
It’s the only place I’ve ever been mugged (attempted as my friend and I delivered a beating to the two muggers) and I had a friend there who had been mugged five times in three years living there.
I would think that other larger cities in Switzerland are similar so it’s not the bucolic land of people respecting the law you might think.
Fair enough!
I have been to Switzerland a lot and always felt remarkably safe, but that's interesting to hear
There's a massive rural / urban split in most countries. If you are in a small village in Switzerland, then you could probably leave your possessions on a table in a restaraunt for hours without worry. But at a crowded bar in Geneva, not a chance.
It's exactly the same here: I'm 15 miles from Oxford in a (very) small rural town and would happily leave my phone/wallet on the table in the pub while I went to the toilet. When people lock their bikes up outside the pub they get laughed at.
Last time I locked my bike outside the pub in Oxford, I came out half an hour later to find someone wheeling it up the road, bolt-cutters in the other arm.
But you wouldn’t leave your phone on the table for FORTY MINUTES in a big busy pub, even in rural Oxon, would you?
@hyufd. My apologies. I asked you a question this morning and then I buggered off before your reply. I didn't mean to ignore you.
To reiterate I was commenting on the reports today of senior constitution experts and senior Conservatives who were very worried about Boris breaking the constitution apart. Gillian Shepherd relieved it survived. They were particularly concerned about him asking for a dissolution.
I asked you whether you were concerned about this. You replied that we don't have a written constitution. I don't think I can let you get away with that. Written or not we do have a constitution and of all the people who post here I expect you to be the greatest defender of such. You post frequently such.
So what do you think of these senior experts and Conservatives who were so worried about his behaviour. Surely they are your type of Conservative.
As I posted we have a constitution based on crown in Parliament. Technically Boris was only the Queen’s chief minister, he had no power in government without the Queen's consent and no power to call a general election if the Queen disagreed.
If he had asked for a general election it was still up to the Queen. Had she agreed that would have been within the constitution, had she disagreed and asked Parliament to confirm a snap general election that would also have been within the constitution
The huge tax pledges of Liz Truss, Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid are going to be expensive - with few explanations of how it’s going to be paid for. All part of their plans to win MPs.
They are going to trash each other to try and get the gig. Labour will just watch and laugh
First it was "Party before Country" as the Tories used Brexit to get the UKIP tanks off their lawn.
Now it is just naked, personal ambition which comes ahead of Party interests with the country in a poor 3rd place. They will promise anything to become PM, even if the result of their promises is massively increasing the national debt or just trashing their Party's chances in the next election.
I did reckon earlier this week that there was going to be an incoming hatchet job on Zahawi. Is the leak that HMRC are looking into him it or is their more?
I'd bet on more
I’m amazed that HMRC investigating the incumbent Chancellor hasn’t gained more traction in the media.
It appears he has denied the HMRC are investigating him
I think he said he didn’t know that they were investigating him… which is certainly possible
Newly appointed minister repeats misogynistic slur against Rayner. The government really is just the dregs now isn't it. No class, no ideas, no ability.
It's ghastly. All politics is relative. Without changing at all Rayner has gone, in my estimation, from another Prescott who calls Tories scum to a rather modest class act who graces Glyndebourne and (rightly) thinks Figaro is worth attention on class grounds (as well as being the most sublime music ever written).
Next: perhaps revisit whether actually 'scum' is a pretty modest epithet all things considered. Does anyone stop to think that treating a woman in public life in this way is repellent?
Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro
It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind
The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc
The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)
I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing
The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime
Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime
The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial. Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism
I can absolutely assure you that you would never leave your belongings unattended in a bar or cafe in Geneva - even though supremely Calvinistic.
You have to be careful with your belongings in your pockets there yet alone on the table.
All my female friends there would have to be very careful with their bags whilst out to ensure they were safely under the table even when we were sitting there.
It’s the only place I’ve ever been mugged (attempted as my friend and I delivered a beating to the two muggers) and I had a friend there who had been mugged five times in three years living there.
I would think that other larger cities in Switzerland are similar so it’s not the bucolic land of people respecting the law you might think.
Fair enough!
I have been to Switzerland a lot and always felt remarkably safe, but that's interesting to hear
There's a massive rural / urban split in most countries. If you are in a small village in Switzerland, then you could probably leave your possessions on a table in a restaraunt for hours without worry. But at a crowded bar in Geneva, not a chance.
It's exactly the same here: I'm 15 miles from Oxford in a (very) small rural town and would happily leave my phone/wallet on the table in the pub while I went to the toilet. When people lock their bikes up outside the pub they get laughed at.
Last time I locked my bike outside the pub in Oxford, I came out half an hour later to find someone wheeling it up the road, bolt-cutters in the other arm.
But you wouldn’t leave your phone on the table for FORTY MINUTES in a big busy pub, even in rural Oxon, would you?
That’s what marks out my experience
Interesting question! No, you're right - I wouldn't.
But I would be honestly surprised if someone nicked it. Most likely outcome is that someone would see it and hand it in at the bar.
I do now and then leave stuff at the pub after too much Old Rosie so this is a good thing.
Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro
It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind
The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc
The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)
I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing
The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime
Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime
The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial. Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism
I can absolutely assure you that you would never leave your belongings unattended in a bar or cafe in Geneva - even though supremely Calvinistic.
You have to be careful with your belongings in your pockets there yet alone on the table.
All my female friends there would have to be very careful with their bags whilst out to ensure they were safely under the table even when we were sitting there.
It’s the only place I’ve ever been mugged (attempted as my friend and I delivered a beating to the two muggers) and I had a friend there who had been mugged five times in three years living there.
I would think that other larger cities in Switzerland are similar so it’s not the bucolic land of people respecting the law you might think.
Fair enough!
I have been to Switzerland a lot and always felt remarkably safe, but that's interesting to hear
There's a massive rural / urban split in most countries. If you are in a small village in Switzerland, then you could probably leave your possessions on a table in a restaraunt for hours without worry. But at a crowded bar in Geneva, not a chance.
It's exactly the same here: I'm 15 miles from Oxford in a (very) small rural town and would happily leave my phone/wallet on the table in the pub while I went to the toilet. When people lock their bikes up outside the pub they get laughed at.
Last time I locked my bike outside the pub in Oxford, I came out half an hour later to find someone wheeling it up the road, bolt-cutters in the other arm.
But you wouldn’t leave your phone on the table for FORTY MINUTES in a big busy pub, even in rural Oxon, would you?
That’s what marks out my experience
Yes but... who really gives a shit about your experience?
Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro
It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind
The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc
The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)
I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing
The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime
Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime
The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial. Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism
I can absolutely assure you that you would never leave your belongings unattended in a bar or cafe in Geneva - even though supremely Calvinistic.
You have to be careful with your belongings in your pockets there yet alone on the table.
All my female friends there would have to be very careful with their bags whilst out to ensure they were safely under the table even when we were sitting there.
It’s the only place I’ve ever been mugged (attempted as my friend and I delivered a beating to the two muggers) and I had a friend there who had been mugged five times in three years living there.
I would think that other larger cities in Switzerland are similar so it’s not the bucolic land of people respecting the law you might think.
Fair enough!
I have been to Switzerland a lot and always felt remarkably safe, but that's interesting to hear
There's a massive rural / urban split in most countries. If you are in a small village in Switzerland, then you could probably leave your possessions on a table in a restaraunt for hours without worry. But at a crowded bar in Geneva, not a chance.
It's exactly the same here: I'm 15 miles from Oxford in a (very) small rural town and would happily leave my phone/wallet on the table in the pub while I went to the toilet. When people lock their bikes up outside the pub they get laughed at.
Last time I locked my bike outside the pub in Oxford, I came out half an hour later to find someone wheeling it up the road, bolt-cutters in the other arm.
But you wouldn’t leave your phone on the table for FORTY MINUTES in a big busy pub, even in rural Oxon, would you?
That’s what marks out my experience
I wouldn't leave my phone for 40 minutes, even if it was locked in a safe.
Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro
It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind
The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc
The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)
I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing
The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime
Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime
The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial. Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism
There are lots of places where you *can* leave your bag, and it is 99.9% likely to be safe.
But very few people are willing to do so..
You can be sitting at a bar at a hotel in Vegas, and you can leave your bag or smartphone while you go to the toilet, because nobody in their right minds would attempt to steal in a place where security is so ubiquitious.
In many rural places, you can leave a bag, because they are such small communities, that you literally know every single person that is likely to pass.
I've always found the Middle East - Dubai, Saudi, Iran and Israel - to be places where you can leave your possessions, and find they are fine.
But would you do it at a bar in New York or London or Sydney or even Tokyo? Nope.
This is the first time I've experienced this level of trust in a bustling resort in Europe, it is pretty rare
I wonder if the legacy of communism is at work? Capitalism (billionaire playgrounds apart) is weaker here. The profit motive not so apparent. eg Tipping (which we have discussed before). Tipping is almost non-existent in Montenegro. They don't work for tips, and they definitely don't expect them. I've tried to tip waiters with cards but they can't be arsed with the faff and they visibly sigh, so I've given up
They are some of the nicest people I've ever met. They have the ebullience of the Italians with the dark humour of the Russians with the amazing looks of all the eastern Slavs and the warm generosity of most people in small neglected countries. They enjoy life but they really want you to enjoy it too. Zero arrogance
They can seem blunt and rude but I've realised it's just their way of speaking, they are loud and direct, and if you show that you are feeling offended they become stricken with guilt
What did they say to make you look offended?
It’s hard to believe that someone came up to you and asked whether you were that twat off Politicalbetting…
The huge tax pledges of Liz Truss, Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid are going to be expensive - with few explanations of how it’s going to be paid for. All part of their plans to win MPs.
They are going to trash each other to try and get the gig. Labour will just watch and laugh
First it was "Party before Country" as the Tories used Brexit to get the UKIP tanks off their lawn.
Now it is just naked, personal ambition which comes ahead of Party interests with the country in a poor 3rd place. They will promise anything to become PM, even if the result of their promises is massively increasing the national debt or just trashing their Party's chances in the next election.
Do we know the latest tory membership figures? It seems to me that an ageing, Brexit-obsessed cohort whose prime political memory is of Thatcher's time of what maybe 150k people will decide the next PM?
💥 NEW: Senior Tories want to rapidly thin out the field of leadership candidates
One senior MP close to 1922 committee it was “likely” candidates must secure the support of at least 10% of the parliamentary party to get on to the ballot paper - 36 MPs
Over 40% of MPs have declared but what's notable is that everyone is very low.
It's unlikely anyone will be miles ahead like May in 2016 or Boris in 2019 so realistically you will need approx at least 100 votes to make the Final - so basically nobody has really got anywhere yet.
So it's going to boil down to transfers.
Excellent - it means they will really need to persuade their fellow MPs, there won't be much pressure to fall into line.
Newly appointed minister repeats misogynistic slur against Rayner. The government really is just the dregs now isn't it. No class, no ideas, no ability.
It's ghastly. All politics is relative. Without changing at all Rayner has gone, in my estimation, from another Prescott who calls Tories scum to a rather modest class act who graces Glyndebourne and (rightly) thinks Figaro is worth attention on class grounds (as well as being the most sublime music ever written).
Next: perhaps revisit whether actually 'scum' is a pretty modest epithet all things considered. Does anyone stop to think that treating a woman in public life in this way is repellent?
Politicians used to maintain at least the fiction of being polite to each other and that is why the "Tory scum" slur upset and annoyed so many. However the current Cabinet and senior Tories seem determined to make the slur true. From the old video of Rishi talking about the poor to this incident to the new Education Secretary (Minister??) giving people the finger...
💥 NEW: Senior Tories want to rapidly thin out the field of leadership candidates
One senior MP close to 1922 committee it was “likely” candidates must secure the support of at least 10% of the parliamentary party to get on to the ballot paper - 36 MPs
Apologies if I have missed this while being a long way up a misty moody Norwegian fjord but has the timetable been set yet?
It will be announced tomorrow. Sounds like it may be formal nominations in by Weds, get it down to the final 2 by the end of July, and a new leader in place for early September.
💥 NEW: Senior Tories want to rapidly thin out the field of leadership candidates
One senior MP close to 1922 committee it was “likely” candidates must secure the support of at least 10% of the parliamentary party to get on to the ballot paper - 36 MPs
The huge tax pledges of Liz Truss, Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid are going to be expensive - with few explanations of how it’s going to be paid for. All part of their plans to win MPs.
They are going to trash each other to try and get the gig. Labour will just watch and laugh
First it was "Party before Country" as the Tories used Brexit to get the UKIP tanks off their lawn.
Now it is just naked, personal ambition which comes ahead of Party interests with the country in a poor 3rd place. They will promise anything to become PM, even if the result of their promises is massively increasing the national debt or just trashing their Party's chances in the next election.
Do we know the latest tory membership figures? It seems to me that an ageing, Brexit-obsessed cohort whose prime political memory is of Thatcher's time of what maybe 150k people will decide the next PM?
Yes, but there is a sort of gap in the reasoning. Let's say 150,000 people get to choose the next PM. If this is terrible the reason is nothing whatever to do with those people. They are the only people not responsible for the problem.
100% of the responsibility (which is not the same as blame) lies with the other 58,000,000 (or whatever number) who could be members but are not.
Does anyone else find it odd, that Tory leadership contest as commenced, without any actual rules yet being established to govern it?
The fix is already in? Or just in process of being put in?
I don't know why you'd assume a fix on the basis they've started their campaigning before knowing the timetable or entry criteria (it's not like other rules are going to be changed much).
They know it is happening, and they know they will need the support of fellow MPs to get on the ballot, they can start that process before knowing anything else.
Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro
It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind
The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc
The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)
I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing
The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime
Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime
The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial. Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism
Well Tallinn is pretty multi national and the turnover of people in the tech sector is pretty rapid. I think it is more a Scandi/Lutheran thing that honesty is just kind of expected. We has our summer last week, but bits of Estonia can be pretty idyllic and Tallinn of course is a blast.
But you can have a Lutheran or Calvinist or whatever culture, if you import enough people who aren’t of that culture and who don;’t necessarily respect that culture and will not assimilate to that culture, then your culture is a bit fucked
Cf Sweden and the rocketing problem of gang violence, rape etc
And, for balance, see many countries invaded - peacefully or otherwise - by white Europeans
On the other hand, if they *do* respect the home culture then the trust expands, rather than diminishes, and I think people here do indeed respect the Estonian way of doing things. Not least because it self evidently works.
That's why 97% of the advertising industry voted to Remain according to polls. . We were indisputably the second most successful advertising industry in the world and probably rated the most creative. British crews and production were in demand everywhere which had knock on effects all over the place.
The film business flourished as did British studios which meant model making special effects music studios construction etc. Germany always had the best equiptment but we had a hugely successful service industry
In 2016 we wantonly committed harakiri. I still find it unbelievable
Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”
Val McDermid, 1989 Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo Jenni Fagan, Hex Ali Smith, Companion piece Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen etc
Perhaps they're too busy running their countries?
Huh? What country is Keir Starmer running?!
So she's even less busy than somebody who has nothing to do?
Only people with “nothing to do” read books?
That would certainly explain the number of complete ignorants in public life.
Read my first ever P G Wodehouse earlier today. It was fairly entertaining, but more importantly I can now rest easy should I ever meet Hugh Laurie or Stephen Fry.
The huge tax pledges of Liz Truss, Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid are going to be expensive - with few explanations of how it’s going to be paid for. All part of their plans to win MPs.
They are going to trash each other to try and get the gig. Labour will just watch and laugh
First it was "Party before Country" as the Tories used Brexit to get the UKIP tanks off their lawn.
Now it is just naked, personal ambition which comes ahead of Party interests with the country in a poor 3rd place. They will promise anything to become PM, even if the result of their promises is massively increasing the national debt or just trashing their Party's chances in the next election.
Do we know the latest tory membership figures? It seems to me that an ageing, Brexit-obsessed cohort whose prime political memory is of Thatcher's time of what maybe 150k people will decide the next PM?
Yes, but there is a sort of gap in the reasoning. Let's say 150,000 people get to choose the next PM. If this is terrible the reason is nothing whatever to do with those people. They are the only people not responsible for the problem.
100% of the responsibility (which is not the same as blame) lies with the other 58,000,000 (or whatever number) who could be members but are not.
So it is partly my fault for not joining the Tory party? It is not free to join and I disagree profoundly with their aims and policies.
Am I also supposed to be a member of the LibDems and of Labour to make sure that I can shape their policies?
💥 NEW: Senior Tories want to rapidly thin out the field of leadership candidates
One senior MP close to 1922 committee it was “likely” candidates must secure the support of at least 10% of the parliamentary party to get on to the ballot paper - 36 MPs
Apologies if I have missed this while being a long way up a misty moody Norwegian fjord but has the timetable been set yet?
It will be announced tomorrow. Sounds like it may be formal nominations in by Weds, get it down to the final 2 by the end of July, and a new leader in place for early September.
Thanks but, Jeez, why so long?
By the end of August the leading candidates will be promising tax cuts equal to twice the GDP, all refugees to be packed off the the British Antarctic Territory before they leave France, and the Magna Carta to be repealed (rules created by nasty foreign barons from Normandy).
Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”
Val McDermid, 1989 Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo Jenni Fagan, Hex Ali Smith, Companion piece Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen etc
Perhaps they're too busy running their countries?
Huh? What country is Keir Starmer running?!
So she's even less busy than somebody who has nothing to do?
Only people with “nothing to do” read books?
That would certainly explain the number of complete ignorants in public life.
100% agree. Glad to see NS reads books. She is a tremendously good politician as well. Though from my point of view of course with the downside that she is in a party that shouldn't exist with policies that would put an EU land border up the road from me. Them's the breaks. Vive democracy.
Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”
Val McDermid, 1989 Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo Jenni Fagan, Hex Ali Smith, Companion piece Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen etc
Perhaps they're too busy running their countries?
Huh? What country is Keir Starmer running?!
So she's even less busy than somebody who has nothing to do?
Only people with “nothing to do” read books?
That would certainly explain the number of complete ignorants in public life.
Read my first ever P G Wodehouse earlier today. It was fairly entertaining, but more importantly I can now rest easy should I ever meet Hugh Laurie or Stephen Fry.
Fantastic!
Once you’ve got the Plum bug you have a very pleasant decade of fine comedic reading ahead of you.
The huge tax pledges of Liz Truss, Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid are going to be expensive - with few explanations of how it’s going to be paid for. All part of their plans to win MPs.
They are going to trash each other to try and get the gig. Labour will just watch and laugh
First it was "Party before Country" as the Tories used Brexit to get the UKIP tanks off their lawn.
Now it is just naked, personal ambition which comes ahead of Party interests with the country in a poor 3rd place. They will promise anything to become PM, even if the result of their promises is massively increasing the national debt or just trashing their Party's chances in the next election.
Do we know the latest tory membership figures? It seems to me that an ageing, Brexit-obsessed cohort whose prime political memory is of Thatcher's time of what maybe 150k people will decide the next PM?
Yes, but there is a sort of gap in the reasoning. Let's say 150,000 people get to choose the next PM. If this is terrible the reason is nothing whatever to do with those people. They are the only people not responsible for the problem.
100% of the responsibility (which is not the same as blame) lies with the other 58,000,000 (or whatever number) who could be members but are not.
So it is partly my fault for not joining the Tory party? It is not free to join and I disagree profoundly with their aims and policies.
Am I also supposed to be a member of the LibDems and of Labour to make sure that I can shape their policies?
The huge tax pledges of Liz Truss, Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid are going to be expensive - with few explanations of how it’s going to be paid for. All part of their plans to win MPs.
They are going to trash each other to try and get the gig. Labour will just watch and laugh
First it was "Party before Country" as the Tories used Brexit to get the UKIP tanks off their lawn.
Now it is just naked, personal ambition which comes ahead of Party interests with the country in a poor 3rd place. They will promise anything to become PM, even if the result of their promises is massively increasing the national debt or just trashing their Party's chances in the next election.
Do we know the latest tory membership figures? It seems to me that an ageing, Brexit-obsessed cohort whose prime political memory is of Thatcher's time of what maybe 150k people will decide the next PM?
How certain are PBers, esp. those who regard themselves as Conservatives ("true" or not) that powers-that-be responsible for maintaining membership lists, are on the up-and-up, on ethical OR competency basis?
Not (necessarily) accusing Tories or anything (or not). FYI (also BTW) a while back, yours truly got an email from my local party politburo with salutation "Dear Leslie" which is NOT my name. which BTW (also FYI) is reflected in the email they were using to contact "Leslie".
Honest error rate for any membership-based organization's membership list with significant number of members bound to be more than zero. With potential for fiddling by those who have very strong interest, are compulsive fiddlers, and all of the above, somewhat greater, depending upon opportunity AND scrutiny.
If the new PM were to offer Home Secretary to Kemi, should she take it?
May made it to PM from there, but it's generally known as a political graveyard. She would be harder to argue against, as an African schoolgirl, on the Rwanda policy. But it really could be a poisoned chalice for her.
@hyufd. My apologies. I asked you a question this morning and then I buggered off before your reply. I didn't mean to ignore you.
To reiterate I was commenting on the reports today of senior constitution experts and senior Conservatives who were very worried about Boris breaking the constitution apart. Gillian Shepherd relieved it survived. They were particularly concerned about him asking for a dissolution.
I asked you whether you were concerned about this. You replied that we don't have a written constitution. I don't think I can let you get away with that. Written or not we do have a constitution and of all the people who post here I expect you to be the greatest defender of such. You post frequently such.
So what do you think of these senior experts and Conservatives who were so worried about his behaviour. Surely they are your type of Conservative.
As I posted we have a constitution based on crown in Parliament. Technically Boris was only the Queen’s chief minister, he had no power in government without the Queen's consent and no power to call a general election if the Queen disagreed.
If he had asked for a general election it was still up to the Queen. Had she agreed that would have been within the constitution, had she disagreed and asked Parliament to confirm a snap general election that would also have been within the constitution
OK but there is still my initial question which seems even more pertinent now: Why were constitutional experts and senior Tories so worried then that Boris has been destroying the constitution? Lord Peter Hennessy and Baroness Gillian Shephard are both highly respected and are both conservative with a big and little 'c' and they both disagree with you.
Also and related surely the Queen should never be put into such a position. She does not do politics. As soon as she does you are on the slippery slope to republicanism surely which is not what you want.
The huge tax pledges of Liz Truss, Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid are going to be expensive - with few explanations of how it’s going to be paid for. All part of their plans to win MPs.
They are going to trash each other to try and get the gig. Labour will just watch and laugh
First it was "Party before Country" as the Tories used Brexit to get the UKIP tanks off their lawn.
Now it is just naked, personal ambition which comes ahead of Party interests with the country in a poor 3rd place. They will promise anything to become PM, even if the result of their promises is massively increasing the national debt or just trashing their Party's chances in the next election.
Do we know the latest tory membership figures? It seems to me that an ageing, Brexit-obsessed cohort whose prime political memory is of Thatcher's time of what maybe 150k people will decide the next PM?
Yes, but there is a sort of gap in the reasoning. Let's say 150,000 people get to choose the next PM. If this is terrible the reason is nothing whatever to do with those people. They are the only people not responsible for the problem.
100% of the responsibility (which is not the same as blame) lies with the other 58,000,000 (or whatever number) who could be members but are not.
So it is partly my fault for not joining the Tory party? It is not free to join and I disagree profoundly with their aims and policies.
Am I also supposed to be a member of the LibDems and of Labour to make sure that I can shape their policies?
When am I allowed to stop joining parties?
Read it more carefully. I am not making a moral point, and said so clearly.
Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro
It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind
The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc
The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)
I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing
The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime
Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime
The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial. Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism
I can absolutely assure you that you would never leave your belongings unattended in a bar or cafe in Geneva - even though supremely Calvinistic.
You have to be careful with your belongings in your pockets there yet alone on the table.
All my female friends there would have to be very careful with their bags whilst out to ensure they were safely under the table even when we were sitting there.
It’s the only place I’ve ever been mugged (attempted as my friend and I delivered a beating to the two muggers) and I had a friend there who had been mugged five times in three years living there.
I would think that other larger cities in Switzerland are similar so it’s not the bucolic land of people respecting the law you might think.
Fair enough!
I have been to Switzerland a lot and always felt remarkably safe, but that's interesting to hear
There's a massive rural / urban split in most countries. If you are in a small village in Switzerland, then you could probably leave your possessions on a table in a restaraunt for hours without worry. But at a crowded bar in Geneva, not a chance.
It's exactly the same here: I'm 15 miles from Oxford in a (very) small rural town and would happily leave my phone/wallet on the table in the pub while I went to the toilet. When people lock their bikes up outside the pub they get laughed at.
Last time I locked my bike outside the pub in Oxford, I came out half an hour later to find someone wheeling it up the road, bolt-cutters in the other arm.
But you wouldn’t leave your phone on the table for FORTY MINUTES in a big busy pub, even in rural Oxon, would you?
That’s what marks out my experience
Having spent last night in Banbury, I would avoid busy pubs there period. The one I was staying in, with rooms, was hosting a private party for some middle aged people celebrating a wedding anniversary; the Birdie Song and Agadoo pumped out at maximum volume from the marquee behind the hotel was enough to send me out into the town in search of a quiet drink; Banbury, contrary to first impressions, on a Saturday night is host to large groups of younger people staggering about drunk and urinating in the street, with pubs that open to 2 am and lots of them pumping out party music. Who knew?
I feel sorry for any foreign tourists who imagine they might be wandering the streets of a historic English town, taking in the atmosphere and stopping by a quiet bar or restaurant, as I was in similar sized places in Italy last month.
Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”
Val McDermid, 1989 Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo Jenni Fagan, Hex Ali Smith, Companion piece Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen etc
Perhaps they're too busy running their countries?
Huh? What country is Keir Starmer running?!
So she's even less busy than somebody who has nothing to do?
Only people with “nothing to do” read books?
That would certainly explain the number of complete ignorants in public life.
100% agree. Glad to see NS reads books. She is a tremendously good politician as well. Though from my point of view of course with the downside that she is in a party that shouldn't exist with policies that would put an EU land border up the road from me. Them's the breaks. Vive democracy.
I agree that the party shouldn’t need to exist. And I’d like to see England, Ireland, Man, Scotland and Wales all in the EU.
The huge tax pledges of Liz Truss, Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid are going to be expensive - with few explanations of how it’s going to be paid for. All part of their plans to win MPs.
They are going to trash each other to try and get the gig. Labour will just watch and laugh
First it was "Party before Country" as the Tories used Brexit to get the UKIP tanks off their lawn.
Now it is just naked, personal ambition which comes ahead of Party interests with the country in a poor 3rd place. They will promise anything to become PM, even if the result of their promises is massively increasing the national debt or just trashing their Party's chances in the next election.
Do we know the latest tory membership figures? It seems to me that an ageing, Brexit-obsessed cohort whose prime political memory is of Thatcher's time of what maybe 150k people will decide the next PM?
Yes, but there is a sort of gap in the reasoning. Let's say 150,000 people get to choose the next PM. If this is terrible the reason is nothing whatever to do with those people. They are the only people not responsible for the problem.
100% of the responsibility (which is not the same as blame) lies with the other 58,000,000 (or whatever number) who could be members but are not.
So it is partly my fault for not joining the Tory party? It is not free to join and I disagree profoundly with their aims and policies.
Am I also supposed to be a member of the LibDems and of Labour to make sure that I can shape their policies?
When am I allowed to stop joining parties?
Read it more carefully. I am not making a moral point, and said so clearly.
But you do seem to be saying that everyone in the country should join every party so that policy and leaders is controlled better.
I thought that was rationale behind General Elections rather than Party membership
💥 NEW: Senior Tories want to rapidly thin out the field of leadership candidates
One senior MP close to 1922 committee it was “likely” candidates must secure the support of at least 10% of the parliamentary party to get on to the ballot paper - 36 MPs
Apologies if I have missed this while being a long way up a misty moody Norwegian fjord but has the timetable been set yet?
It will be announced tomorrow. Sounds like it may be formal nominations in by Weds, get it down to the final 2 by the end of July, and a new leader in place for early September.
Thanks but, Jeez, why so long?
By the end of August the leading candidates will be promising tax cuts equal to twice the GDP, all refugees to be packed off the the British Antarctic Territory before they leave France, and the Magna Carta to be repealed (rules created by nasty foreign barons from Normandy).
It will take probably a couple of weeks to print and dispatch all the postal ballots to the the membership (they seem to be able to arrange it faster than me though), and they want to give them a reasonable amount of time to hear from the candidates, but I'd agree with you.
Even taking it slow, I'd say
11 July - rules announced 13 July - closing date of nominations 18 July - First ballot 20 July - second ballot 22 July - third and subsequent ballots as needed - final two announced 1 August - postal ballots out 19 August - closing date 22 August - new leader announced, takes over
Gives them a couple of weeks to prepare ahead of the first PMQs
Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”
Val McDermid, 1989 Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo Jenni Fagan, Hex Ali Smith, Companion piece Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen etc
Perhaps they're too busy running their countries?
Huh? What country is Keir Starmer running?!
So she's even less busy than somebody who has nothing to do?
Only people with “nothing to do” read books?
That would certainly explain the number of complete ignorants in public life.
Read my first ever P G Wodehouse earlier today. It was fairly entertaining, but more importantly I can now rest easy should I ever meet Hugh Laurie or Stephen Fry.
“Mr. Wodehouse's idyllic world can never stale. He will continue to release future generations from captivity that may be more irksome than our own."
Evelyn Waugh 1961. Exactly right. The question that hasn't been seriously addressed (lit crit being snobbish about very popular stuff) is whether in fact the Wodehouse oeuvre has a deeper message or sub-text. It's too good to be without meaning.
Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro
It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind
The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc
The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)
I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing
The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime
Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime
The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial. Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism
I can absolutely assure you that you would never leave your belongings unattended in a bar or cafe in Geneva - even though supremely Calvinistic.
You have to be careful with your belongings in your pockets there yet alone on the table.
All my female friends there would have to be very careful with their bags whilst out to ensure they were safely under the table even when we were sitting there.
It’s the only place I’ve ever been mugged (attempted as my friend and I delivered a beating to the two muggers) and I had a friend there who had been mugged five times in three years living there.
I would think that other larger cities in Switzerland are similar so it’s not the bucolic land of people respecting the law you might think.
Fair enough!
I have been to Switzerland a lot and always felt remarkably safe, but that's interesting to hear
There's a massive rural / urban split in most countries. If you are in a small village in Switzerland, then you could probably leave your possessions on a table in a restaraunt for hours without worry. But at a crowded bar in Geneva, not a chance.
It's exactly the same here: I'm 15 miles from Oxford in a (very) small rural town and would happily leave my phone/wallet on the table in the pub while I went to the toilet. When people lock their bikes up outside the pub they get laughed at.
Last time I locked my bike outside the pub in Oxford, I came out half an hour later to find someone wheeling it up the road, bolt-cutters in the other arm.
But you wouldn’t leave your phone on the table for FORTY MINUTES in a big busy pub, even in rural Oxon, would you?
That’s what marks out my experience
Having spent last night in Banbury, I would avoid busy pubs there period. The one I was staying in, with rooms, was hosting a private party for some middle aged people celebrating a wedding anniversary; the Birdie Song and Agadoo pumped out at maximum volume from the marquee behind the hotel was enough to send me out into the town in search of a quiet drink; Banbury, contrary to first impressions, on a Saturday night is host to large groups of younger people staggering about drunk and urinating in the street, with pubs that open to 2 am and lots of them pumping out party music. Who knew?
I feel sorry for any foreign tourists who imagine they might be wandering the streets of a historic English town, taking in the atmosphere and stopping by a quiet bar or restaurant, as I was in similar sized places in Italy last month.
I'd certainly feel sorry for any foreign tourists who end up in Banbury. They should sue the holiday company.
Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro
It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind
The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc
The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)
I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing
The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime
Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime
The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial. Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism
I can absolutely assure you that you would never leave your belongings unattended in a bar or cafe in Geneva - even though supremely Calvinistic.
You have to be careful with your belongings in your pockets there yet alone on the table.
All my female friends there would have to be very careful with their bags whilst out to ensure they were safely under the table even when we were sitting there.
It’s the only place I’ve ever been mugged (attempted as my friend and I delivered a beating to the two muggers) and I had a friend there who had been mugged five times in three years living there.
I would think that other larger cities in Switzerland are similar so it’s not the bucolic land of people respecting the law you might think.
Fair enough!
I have been to Switzerland a lot and always felt remarkably safe, but that's interesting to hear
There's a massive rural / urban split in most countries. If you are in a small village in Switzerland, then you could probably leave your possessions on a table in a restaraunt for hours without worry. But at a crowded bar in Geneva, not a chance.
It's exactly the same here: I'm 15 miles from Oxford in a (very) small rural town and would happily leave my phone/wallet on the table in the pub while I went to the toilet. When people lock their bikes up outside the pub they get laughed at.
Last time I locked my bike outside the pub in Oxford, I came out half an hour later to find someone wheeling it up the road, bolt-cutters in the other arm.
But you wouldn’t leave your phone on the table for FORTY MINUTES in a big busy pub, even in rural Oxon, would you?
That’s what marks out my experience
Having spent last night in Banbury, I would avoid busy pubs there period. The one I was staying in, with rooms, was hosting a private party for some middle aged people celebrating a wedding anniversary; the Birdie Song and Agadoo pumped out at maximum volume from the marquee behind the hotel was enough to send me out into the town in search of a quiet drink; Banbury, contrary to first impressions, on a Saturday night is host to large groups of younger people staggering about drunk and urinating in the street, with pubs that open to 2 am and lots of them pumping out party music. Who knew?
I feel sorry for any foreign tourists who imagine they might be wandering the streets of a historic English town, taking in the atmosphere and stopping by a quiet bar or restaurant, as I was in similar sized places in Italy last month.
I'd certainly feel sorry for any foreign tourists who end up in Banbury. They should sue the holiday company.
The huge tax pledges of Liz Truss, Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid are going to be expensive - with few explanations of how it’s going to be paid for. All part of their plans to win MPs.
They are going to trash each other to try and get the gig. Labour will just watch and laugh
First it was "Party before Country" as the Tories used Brexit to get the UKIP tanks off their lawn.
Now it is just naked, personal ambition which comes ahead of Party interests with the country in a poor 3rd place. They will promise anything to become PM, even if the result of their promises is massively increasing the national debt or just trashing their Party's chances in the next election.
Do we know the latest tory membership figures? It seems to me that an ageing, Brexit-obsessed cohort whose prime political memory is of Thatcher's time of what maybe 150k people will decide the next PM?
Yes, but there is a sort of gap in the reasoning. Let's say 150,000 people get to choose the next PM. If this is terrible the reason is nothing whatever to do with those people. They are the only people not responsible for the problem.
100% of the responsibility (which is not the same as blame) lies with the other 58,000,000 (or whatever number) who could be members but are not.
So it is partly my fault for not joining the Tory party? It is not free to join and I disagree profoundly with their aims and policies.
Am I also supposed to be a member of the LibDems and of Labour to make sure that I can shape their policies?
When am I allowed to stop joining parties?
Read it more carefully. I am not making a moral point, and said so clearly.
But you do seem to be saying that everyone in the country should join every party so that policy and leaders is controlled better.
I thought that was rationale behind General Elections rather than Party membership
That's why 97% of the advertising industry voted to Remain according to polls. . We were indisputably the second most successful advertising industry in the world and probably rated the most creative. British crews and production were in demand everywhere which had knock on effects all over the place.
The film business flourished as did British studios which meant model making special effects music studios construction etc. Germany always had the best equiptment but we had a hugely successful service industry
In 2016 we wantonly committed harakiri. I still find it unbelievable
Really?
According to the film and TV industry itself the UK now has the fastest growing film and TV sector in the world with a massive growth in inward investment. It was worth $7.6 billion in 2021 and is predicted to be worth $9.4 billion in 2025.
The idea that post Brexit we are losing market share or that the film and TV industry is failing is utter garbage.
That's why 97% of the advertising industry voted to Remain according to polls. . We were indisputably the second most successful advertising industry in the world and probably rated the most creative. British crews and production were in demand everywhere which had knock on effects all over the place.
The film business flourished as did British studios which meant model making special effects music studios construction etc. Germany always had the best equiptment but we had a hugely successful service industry
In 2016 we wantonly committed harakiri. I still find it unbelievable
Really?
According to the film and TV industry itself the UK now has the fastest growing film and TV sector in the world with a massive growth in inward investment. It was worth $7.6 billion in 2021 and is predicted to be worth $9.4 billion in 2025.
The idea that post Brexit we are losing market share or that the film and TV industry is failing is utter garbage.
9.4 billion in 2025 being the price of a Mars bar.
The huge tax pledges of Liz Truss, Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid are going to be expensive - with few explanations of how it’s going to be paid for. All part of their plans to win MPs.
They are going to trash each other to try and get the gig. Labour will just watch and laugh
First it was "Party before Country" as the Tories used Brexit to get the UKIP tanks off their lawn.
Now it is just naked, personal ambition which comes ahead of Party interests with the country in a poor 3rd place. They will promise anything to become PM, even if the result of their promises is massively increasing the national debt or just trashing their Party's chances in the next election.
Do we know the latest tory membership figures? It seems to me that an ageing, Brexit-obsessed cohort whose prime political memory is of Thatcher's time of what maybe 150k people will decide the next PM?
Yes, but there is a sort of gap in the reasoning. Let's say 150,000 people get to choose the next PM. If this is terrible the reason is nothing whatever to do with those people. They are the only people not responsible for the problem.
100% of the responsibility (which is not the same as blame) lies with the other 58,000,000 (or whatever number) who could be members but are not.
So it is partly my fault for not joining the Tory party? It is not free to join and I disagree profoundly with their aims and policies.
Am I also supposed to be a member of the LibDems and of Labour to make sure that I can shape their policies?
When am I allowed to stop joining parties?
Read it more carefully. I am not making a moral point, and said so clearly.
But you do seem to be saying that everyone in the country should join every party so that policy and leaders is controlled better.
I thought that was rationale behind General Elections rather than Party membership
No seeming, no shoulds. Read what I said.
You said: "100% of the responsibility (which is not the same as blame) lies with the other 58,000,000 (or whatever number) who could be members but are not."
So according to you, we all have a responsibility to be Tory members. That is exactly what that says. What other interpretation is there?
💥 NEW: Senior Tories want to rapidly thin out the field of leadership candidates
One senior MP close to 1922 committee it was “likely” candidates must secure the support of at least 10% of the parliamentary party to get on to the ballot paper - 36 MPs
Apologies if I have missed this while being a long way up a misty moody Norwegian fjord but has the timetable been set yet?
It will be announced tomorrow. Sounds like it may be formal nominations in by Weds, get it down to the final 2 by the end of July, and a new leader in place for early September.
Thanks but, Jeez, why so long?
By the end of August the leading candidates will be promising tax cuts equal to twice the GDP, all refugees to be packed off the the British Antarctic Territory before they leave France, and the Magna Carta to be repealed (rules created by nasty foreign barons from Normandy).
It will take probably a couple of weeks to print and dispatch all the postal ballots to the the membership (they seem to be able to arrange it faster than me though), and they want to give them a reasonable amount of time to hear from the candidates, but I'd agree with you.
Even taking it slow, I'd say
11 July - rules announced 13 July - closing date of nominations 18 July - First ballot 20 July - second ballot 22 July - third and subsequent ballots as needed - final two announced 1 August - postal ballots out 19 August - closing date 22 August - new leader announced, takes over
Gives them a couple of weeks to prepare ahead of the first PMQs
Mrs Stodge in far from a happy mood after the fortnightly shop at our local Sainsbury's, Not the prices so much - an occasional seethe but as I pay for the scoff, that's my problem.
What irritated her was the 25 minutes it took from joining one of the checkout queues to actually paying.
Just three tills open on a busy Sunday - it seems as with so many other places there is a desperate shortage of staff and those left cannot cope with the customer demand.
It did occur to me one way to alleviate the problem was to suspend the Sunday Trading Laws for 6 months to allow businesses to adapt, adjust and recruit.
It also occurred to me we could all cope with having a quieter day to each week - perhaps a winning message for a social conservative (or perhaps not).
That's why 97% of the advertising industry voted to Remain according to polls. . We were indisputably the second most successful advertising industry in the world and probably rated the most creative. British crews and production were in demand everywhere which had knock on effects all over the place.
The film business flourished as did British studios which meant model making special effects music studios construction etc. Germany always had the best equiptment but we had a hugely successful service industry
In 2016 we wantonly committed harakiri. I still find it unbelievable
Really?
According to the film and TV industry itself the UK now has the fastest growing film and TV sector in the world with a massive growth in inward investment. It was worth $7.6 billion in 2021 and is predicted to be worth $9.4 billion in 2025.
The idea that post Brexit we are losing market share or that the film and TV industry is failing is utter garbage.
9.4 billion in 2025 being the price of a Mars bar.
You think the value of the dollar is going to collapse? Brave suggestion.
When I took a "grand tour" all over Britain in 1962 on my Norton ES2 500 cc motorbike, I would often visit churches, large and small. During the day they were invariably open, but during week days the lesser ones usually deserted. I never confuse Gypsys with Travelers.
Mrs Stodge in far from a happy mood after the fortnightly shop at our local Sainsbury's, Not the prices so much - an occasional seethe but as I pay for the scoff, that's my problem.
What irritated her was the 25 minutes it took from joining one of the checkout queues to actually paying.
Just three tills open on a busy Sunday - it seems as with so many other places there is a desperate shortage of staff and those left cannot cope with the customer demand.
It did occur to me one way to alleviate the problem was to suspend the Sunday Trading Laws for 6 months to allow businesses to adapt, adjust and recruit.
It also occurred to me we could all cope with having a quieter day to each week - perhaps a winning message for a social conservative (or perhaps not).
Where have all the workers gone?
Back home to the EU?
Seriously though, don't Sainsbury's do self-check as you shop, like Waitrose?
Edit: is this the same Sainsbury's who have rejected a proposal to pay all staff at least the Living Wage?
I think this is starting to shape up very, very badly for the conservatives.
The members are going to get a choice of tweedle dum or tweedle dee from the left of the party. Sunak plus one.
However a Sunday Times poll today had Sunak, Mordaunt and Tugendhat polling equal best in the redwall seats of the Tory leadership contenders in terms of net approval.
Even though Starmer polls better than all the Tory contenders now in the redwall with Boris gone
Do you ever have a view independent from your choice of polls
Half the point of this site is polls
Surely that poll is essentially driven by recognition. Most voters can name very few politicos, much less what they stand for.
Nobody knows what Mordaunt and Tugendhat stand for. Not even the Spectator. They tried to find Mordaunt's policies in vain through the vacuous bullsh8t of her launch.
I made that point earlier today, HYUFD didn't accept it.
She laid out her ideas in her recent book. Not everything I would agree with, but a coherent philosophy.
Sorry not the point I was referring to. My mistake for not making clear. I was referring to polls being driven by recognition. Actually as I have said as a LD she is my biggest fear as Tory leader.
You are wrong on that.
If you were correct Sunak followed by Hunt and Truss would be doing best on the net approval rating polls as the most well known candidates. Not Mordaunt and Tugendhat.
Instead Hunt and Patel do worst on the net approval rating polls despite being amongst the best known candidates being a former Foreign Secretary and final round leadership contender and the current Home Secretary
No I am not. You can't deduce that at all. You are making assumptions, which you shouldn't do. As I posted earlier today recognition can work both ways. So for example Boris compared to A N Other may get a good score because he is recognised or a bad score because people don't like him, whereas they don't know the other person. Or it can be a mix of both. The numbers can be anything so you can deduce nothing.
When carrying out a statistical test for say light bulb longevity you only have the MOE and the probability that it will be within the MOE to worry about. So typically 95% sure it will be within 5% of the result.
However as soon as you poll people you have other variables with regard to the sample you select and the question you ask. Both can completely bugger up a result. Hence polling companies do so much work on this, and still get it wrong.
A question on popularity when some are significantly more well known than others is intrinsically flawed and you don't know in which direction the flaws are going to apply, so your assumption about the results above is worthless.
It is fun, hence they are done, and maybe you can make a gut deduction from it, from what you perceive as commonsense. as you have done, but you must be aware it is mathematically useless.
Mrs Stodge in far from a happy mood after the fortnightly shop at our local Sainsbury's, Not the prices so much - an occasional seethe but as I pay for the scoff, that's my problem.
What irritated her was the 25 minutes it took from joining one of the checkout queues to actually paying.
Just three tills open on a busy Sunday - it seems as with so many other places there is a desperate shortage of staff and those left cannot cope with the customer demand.
It did occur to me one way to alleviate the problem was to suspend the Sunday Trading Laws for 6 months to allow businesses to adapt, adjust and recruit.
It also occurred to me we could all cope with having a quieter day to each week - perhaps a winning message for a social conservative (or perhaps not).
Comments
Cf Sweden and the rocketing problem of gang violence, rape etc
And, for balance, see many countries invaded - peacefully or otherwise - by white Europeans
Scarcely likely to be prompted solely by righteous wrath, methinks.
Contemplate those group photos of EU leaders at their gatherings, all standing there thinking "The UK is led by a black woman, and we thought they were insular little Englanders".
Agree re Sunak. No chance. Several candidates are unappointable because of their close associations. It's too late to pretend.
And it surprised me how pretty it was as a country too. Planning a trip next year.
If you were correct Sunak followed by Hunt and Truss would be doing best on the net approval rating polls as the most well known candidates. Not Mordaunt and Tugendhat.
Instead Hunt and Patel do worst on the net approval rating polls despite being amongst the best known candidates being a former Foreign Secretary and final round leadership contender and the current Home Secretary
"To some [tory members], a great man has been brought low by political pygmies – not to mention Remain fanatics, Emmanuel Macron, Bilderbergers, the bloke in the kimono with the baseball bat, globalists, Dominic Cummimgs, Davos-goers and hand-wringing Tory MPs. They will want revenge on the man most blamed in Johnson Central for bringing him down.
Jacob Rees-Mogg has already torn a strip off Sunak; Nadine Dorries is always up for a rumble in the jungle. I doubt whether anything either of these two get up to is ordered by the Prime Minister. But by the same token, I can’t see Johnson being backward, were Sunak to make the membership stage, about coming forward."
https://conservativehome.com/2022/07/10/dossiers-briefings-and-smears-if-the-winner-briefs-against-his-opponents-and-derides-johnsons-government-he-ll-inherit-not-office-but-a-wasteland/
Allegedly she's Under Sec. of State for Dept. of Levelling Up?
Sounds more like she's attached to the Dept for Fucking Up.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62057321 Transfer friendly from Tugenhat, Shapps, and Hunt? Suggests a “woke off between her and Rishi to get transfers from the others.
One senior MP close to 1922 committee it was “likely” candidates must secure the support of at least 10% of the parliamentary party to get on to the ballot paper - 36 MPs
https://www.ft.com/content/51138078-4da2-4af7-95a8-f181cce49548
One senior MP close to 1922 committee it was “likely” candidates must secure the support of at least 10% of the parliamentary party to get on to the ballot paper - 36 MPs
https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1546214174883303427
Last time I locked my bike outside the pub in Oxford, I came out half an hour later to find someone wheeling it up the road, bolt-cutters in the other arm.
Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”
Val McDermid, 1989
Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo
Jenni Fagan, Hex
Ali Smith, Companion piece
Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen
etc
Sunak 34
Mordaunt 21
Tugendhat 14
Truss 13
Hunt 13
Zahawi 13
Badenoch 12
Patel 12
Braverman 10
Javid 10
Shapps 8
Over 40% of MPs have declared but what's notable is that everyone is very low.
It's unlikely anyone will be miles ahead like May in 2016 or Boris in 2019 so realistically you will need approx at least 100 votes to make the Final - so basically nobody has really got anywhere yet.
So it's going to boil down to transfers.
That’s what marks out my experience
If he had asked for a general election it was still up to the Queen. Had she agreed that would have been within the constitution, had she disagreed and asked Parliament to confirm a snap general election that would also have been within the constitution
Now it is just naked, personal ambition which comes ahead of Party interests with the country in a poor 3rd place. They will promise anything to become PM, even if the result of their promises is massively increasing the national debt or just trashing their Party's chances in the next election.
Edit: Just realised 1989 is the follow-up, although in my defence, McDermid's website doesn't mention it.
https://www.valmcdermid.com/all-books/
Next: perhaps revisit whether actually 'scum' is a pretty modest epithet all things considered. Does anyone stop to think that treating a woman in public life in this way is repellent?
But I would be honestly surprised if someone nicked it. Most likely outcome is that someone would see it and hand it in at the bar.
I do now and then leave stuff at the pub after too much Old Rosie so this is a good thing.
What country is Keir Starmer running?!
It’s hard to believe that someone came up to you and asked whether you were that twat off Politicalbetting…
Oldevatnet, Norway:
That would certainly explain the number of complete ignorants in public life.
They are fast turning into a bunch of slobs.
The fix is already in? Or just in process of being put in?
The whitepaper for example...
100% of the responsibility (which is not the same as blame) lies with the other 58,000,000 (or whatever number) who could be members but are not.
They know it is happening, and they know they will need the support of fellow MPs to get on the ballot, they can start that process before knowing anything else.
👿👿👿
The kidz are on TikTok. It is their main source of… news(!!)… believe it or not.
The film business flourished as did British studios which meant model making special effects music studios construction etc. Germany always had the best equiptment but we had a hugely successful service industry
In 2016 we wantonly committed harakiri. I still find it unbelievable
Am I also supposed to be a member of the LibDems and of Labour to make sure that I can shape their policies?
When am I allowed to stop joining parties?
Tory big beast (and king maker?) @michaelgove BACKS @KemiBadenoch to be the next Tory leader and PM.
Writing for @TheSun he says Kemi has the "right stuff" to lead the UK
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/19155009/gove-backs-badenoch-tory-leadership/
By the end of August the leading candidates will be promising tax cuts equal to twice the GDP, all refugees to be packed off the the British Antarctic Territory before they leave France, and the Magna Carta to be repealed (rules created by nasty foreign barons from Normandy).
Once you’ve got the Plum bug you have a very pleasant decade of fine comedic reading ahead of you.
Not (necessarily) accusing Tories or anything (or not). FYI (also BTW) a while back, yours truly got an email from my local party politburo with salutation "Dear Leslie" which is NOT my name. which BTW (also FYI) is reflected in the email they were using to contact "Leslie".
Honest error rate for any membership-based organization's membership list with significant number of members bound to be more than zero. With potential for fiddling by those who have very strong interest, are compulsive fiddlers, and all of the above, somewhat greater, depending upon opportunity AND scrutiny.
May made it to PM from there, but it's generally known as a political graveyard. She would be harder to argue against, as an African schoolgirl, on the Rwanda policy. But it really could be a poisoned chalice for her.
OK but there is still my initial question which seems even more pertinent now: Why were constitutional experts and senior Tories so worried then that Boris has been destroying the constitution? Lord Peter Hennessy and Baroness Gillian Shephard are both highly respected and are both conservative with a big and little 'c' and they both disagree with you.
Also and related surely the Queen should never be put into such a position. She does not do politics. As soon as she does you are on the slippery slope to republicanism surely which is not what you want.
I feel sorry for any foreign tourists who imagine they might be wandering the streets of a historic English town, taking in the atmosphere and stopping by a quiet bar or restaurant, as I was in similar sized places in Italy last month.
And I’d like to see England, Ireland, Man, Scotland and Wales all in the EU.
I thought that was rationale behind General Elections rather than Party membership
Even taking it slow, I'd say
11 July - rules announced
13 July - closing date of nominations
18 July - First ballot
20 July - second ballot
22 July - third and subsequent ballots as needed - final two announced
1 August - postal ballots out
19 August - closing date
22 August - new leader announced, takes over
Gives them a couple of weeks to prepare ahead of the first PMQs
“Mr. Wodehouse's idyllic world can never stale. He will continue to release future generations from captivity that may be more irksome than our own."
Evelyn Waugh 1961. Exactly right.
The question that hasn't been seriously addressed (lit crit being snobbish about very popular stuff) is whether in fact the Wodehouse oeuvre has a deeper message or sub-text. It's too good to be without meaning.
According to the film and TV industry itself the UK now has the fastest growing film and TV sector in the world with a massive growth in inward investment. It was worth $7.6 billion in 2021 and is predicted to be worth $9.4 billion in 2025.
The idea that post Brexit we are losing market share or that the film and TV industry is failing is utter garbage.
So according to you, we all have a responsibility to be Tory members. That is exactly what that says. What other interpretation is there?
Edit - damn it, you beat me to the pun with that edit. You had to bargee in there.
Mrs Stodge in far from a happy mood after the fortnightly shop at our local Sainsbury's, Not the prices so much - an occasional seethe but as I pay for the scoff, that's my problem.
What irritated her was the 25 minutes it took from joining one of the checkout queues to actually paying.
Just three tills open on a busy Sunday - it seems as with so many other places there is a desperate shortage of staff and those left cannot cope with the customer demand.
It did occur to me one way to alleviate the problem was to suspend the Sunday Trading Laws for 6 months to allow businesses to adapt, adjust and recruit.
It also occurred to me we could all cope with having a quieter day to each week - perhaps a winning message for a social conservative (or perhaps not).
Where have all the workers gone?
I never confuse Gypsys with Travelers.
For instance:
"The Boyhood of W. R. Grace"
"Baden-Powell on Football"
"Queer Adventure on an Italian Lake"
"Old English Sports and Pastimes"
"Scouting for Girls" by His Majesty Edward VII
Seriously though, don't Sainsbury's do self-check as you shop, like Waitrose?
Edit: is this the same Sainsbury's who have rejected a proposal to pay all staff at least the Living Wage?
https://news.sky.com/story/sainsburys-can-breathe-sigh-of-relief-as-real-living-wage-motion-is-rejected-12647626
When carrying out a statistical test for say light bulb longevity you only have the MOE and the probability that it will be within the MOE to worry about. So typically 95% sure it will be within 5% of the result.
However as soon as you poll people you have other variables with regard to the sample you select and the question you ask. Both can completely bugger up a result. Hence polling companies do so much work on this, and still get it wrong.
A question on popularity when some are significantly more well known than others is intrinsically flawed and you don't know in which direction the flaws are going to apply, so your assumption about the results above is worthless.
It is fun, hence they are done, and maybe you can make a gut deduction from it, from what you perceive as commonsense. as you have done, but you must be aware it is mathematically useless.
Why does everyone miss out the obvious solution?