All part of Liz's expert courting of the tory party.
''I was loyal''
That girl knows how the blue grassroots feel, what they think and what they like in the political boudoir....
Pandering to rather than courting. She is a wrong un.
Like Boris Johnson, she would order a slaughter of the first born and put her grandmother up for auction on Ebay if she thought it might further her career. She is an anti-conviction politician. A wannabe pound-shop Thatcher without the talent.
You and HYUFD being so anti Truss helps reinforce for me the fact she's the best candidate.
If she can reverse the tax rises, grow the economy, shrink the deficit with falling tax rates, resolve the NI issues with her Protocol plan and help continue to lead the West in supporting Ukraine to defeat Russia, while working with our allies to constrain China ... If she can do all that she had a chance of overtaking Boris as the second best PM of my lifetime.
FFS why stop there. What's wrong with eradicate world poverty and abolish disease?
You're living in La-la-land pal.
The fear amongst left wingers here that we might get an actual Conservative Prime Minister who might succeed by cutting taxes is quite palpable.
It's hardly a left v right issue. And the fear is that she might succeed in bribing the electorate in the very short term while destroying the nation's credit, with predictably dire economic consequences to follow.
All part of Liz's expert courting of the tory party.
''I was loyal''
That girl knows how the blue grassroots feel, what they think and what they like in the political boudoir....
Pandering to rather than courting. She is a wrong un.
Like Boris Johnson, she would order a slaughter of the first born and put her grandmother up for auction on Ebay if she thought it might further her career. She is an anti-conviction politician. A wannabe pound-shop Thatcher without the talent.
You and HYUFD being so anti Truss helps reinforce for me the fact she's the best candidate.
If she can reverse the tax rises, grow the economy, shrink the deficit with falling tax rates, resolve the NI issues with her Protocol plan and help continue to lead the West in supporting Ukraine to defeat Russia, while working with our allies to constrain China ... If she can do all that she had a chance of overtaking Boris as the second best PM of my lifetime.
FFS why stop there. What's wrong with eradicate world poverty and abolish disease?
You're living in La-la-land pal.
The fear amongst left wingers here that we might get an actual Conservative Prime Minister who might succeed by cutting taxes is quite palpable.
Cutting taxes if you abandon fiscal discipline and borrow to fund it is hardly a challenge.
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationships, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
All part of Liz's expert courting of the tory party.
''I was loyal''
That girl knows how the blue grassroots feel, what they think and what they like in the political boudoir....
Pandering to rather than courting. She is a wrong un.
Like Boris Johnson, she would order a slaughter of the first born and put her grandmother up for auction on Ebay if she thought it might further her career. She is an anti-conviction politician. A wannabe pound-shop Thatcher without the talent.
You and HYUFD being so anti Truss helps reinforce for me the fact she's the best candidate.
If she can reverse the tax rises, grow the economy, shrink the deficit with falling tax rates, resolve the NI issues with her Protocol plan and help continue to lead the West in supporting Ukraine to defeat Russia, while working with our allies to constrain China ... If she can do all that she had a chance of overtaking Boris as the second best PM of my lifetime.
FFS why stop there. What's wrong with eradicate world poverty and abolish disease?
You're living in La-la-land pal.
The fear amongst left wingers here that we might get an actual Conservative Prime Minister who might succeed by cutting taxes is quite palpable.
It's hardly a left v right issue. And the fear is that she might succeed in bribing the electorate in the very short term while destroying the nation's credit, with predictably dire economic consequences to follow.
In her interview on @BBCr4today , Liz Truss made 3 economic propositions
1) Her tax cuts will decrease inflation
2) Tax cuts boost growth and prevent recession
3) Tax cuts increase government revenues
It would be great if these were true..
Nobody seems to have noticed that under Rishi Sunak's tax regime inflation has rocketed to 9.4%.
We've only been discussing rocketing inflation a couple of thousand times recently. I can see how you might have overlooked that.
Maybe but I don't think anyone has claimed that inflation is rocketing because Rishi jacked up taxes.
Inflation is rocketing everywhere, regardless of the tax regime, making Sunak's claim that he wants to control it by fiscal means at least questionable.
Vote for me, I was wrong on what you consider to be our defining political issue.
Well, it's brave. And it's actually probably the most helpful thing she could say, as trying to hedge won't help her.
But she does not want this to become a referendum on Euroscepticism.
Wait till she finds out she was a Minister and MP for 12 years of a government with the wrong economic policies.
Was she?
That. Is. A. Disgrace.
On the topic of her cheese speech - or the Jarlsberg Address as it should be called - I think too many people focus on the terrible delivery and too few on its terrible content. Truss's basic argument is that the UK exports - great! And the UK imports - a disgrace! Thus completely misunderstanding the whole concept of international trade.
"In December I'll be in Beijing, opening up new pork markets"
It's kind of in the so bad it's good category. This is the one slight risk for 'us' with Truss. She could develop a bit of 'quirky national treasure' appeal to the unwary.
Thing is, the pork markets thing was so long ago and she has changed her public speaking approach since then (probably as a result of the criticism she faced), stripping out all quirkiness and instead becoming even more monotone and dry.
So I don’t think you have anything to worry about on that front. She does still have an element of clumsiness (witness getting lost at her own launch event) but it doesn’t come off as particularly endearing.
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationship, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT WOMEN SPECIFICALLY. I AM TALKING ABOUT ALL GENDERS AND COMBINATIONS THEREOF.
I AM TALKING ABOUT THE VERY REAL PROBLEMS OF AFFAIRS AT WORK. THAT SOME AFFAIRS DON'T CAUSE PROBLEMS DOESN'T MEAN THAT MANY DON'T [EDIT] DISRUPT THINGS VERY BADLY.
Because making ourselves America's b*tch has always worked out so well for us.
Has Putinguy1983 hacked your account?
Pretty much, yes, absolutely it has, though as the article says Truss has been out in front of Biden and Blinken, and not just behind following them. Johnson was too.
I think our foreign and security policy should be guided by our own interests, not Neocon talking points. On Russia, which represents a security threat to us, we should absolutely be standing up to Putin alongside America and anyone else who is up for it. Read through my posts, I have never said anything different. But the China-US rivalry is different, as China isn't a threat to our security, and frankly a lot of the bluster on the US side is down to their own sense of supremacy being threatened. That is their problem, not ours.
China absolutely is a threat to our security, even more than Russia is.
As horrendous as Putin's invasion of Ukraine is, China invading Taiwan would be an order of magnitude worse. Ukraine is a substantial grain exporter and Russia a substantial energy exporter so this war has helped fuel a cost of living crisis with energy and food, but Taiwan is the leading global supplier of high end electronic chips that run the modern economy and China is the leading global exporter full stop.
A China/Taiwan war would be utterly catastrophic for the global economy and thus our own security in a way that would absolutely dwarf our current crisis. Joining with the USA, Japan, Australia and other allies in deterring that risk is great value for money and is another reason why Putin's invasion of Ukraine must be seen to fail, to deter China too.
The world today is all interconnected, you can't look at one alone and ignore the rest of the globe.
The deterrence value of whatever paltry forces we could project in the Taiwan Strait is not going to be the difference between China invading Taiwan or not. This is the kind of Neocon talking points that got hundreds of British servicemen and women killed in Iraq. If the world economy is that dependent on key components from a geopolitical flash point I would suggest investment in supply diversification may represent a safer and cheaper course of action.
To do my best Chandler Bing impression - Could you be any more wrong?
The deterrence value of UK forces operating alone would not be the difference, that is true.
But the UK isn't operating alone. The deterrence value of the UK and the USA, Australia, India, Japan, Poland and the rest of the civilised world standing together in unison is immense. This is one area whereby working together we are more than the sum of our parts.
You are as utterly naive and reprehensible as the so-called "realists" who wanted to sell out Ukraine at the start of the conflict as Putin's victory was "inevitable" so we may as well accept that reality.
You are being naïve if you think the US is simply defending the "free world" here rather than defending its own hegemonic position. Of course the US has every right to do this, and in many ways its hegemony is preferable to the alternatives, but I just don't think this is our conflict. Ukraine is our conflict, because it will determine the security of the whole of Europe and Russia is an expansionist power on our doorstep. Anyway, I look forward to you signing up so you can put your own life at risk in pursuit of America's foreign policy goals, rather than just other people's.
If it were only the US that were worried about the risk of China invading Taiwan you might have some credibility that it is just the US defending its own position. Its not though, its the entire civilised world who are uniting because they know the threat is very real.
Stop and look at what China has already been willing to do with the Tibetans, Hong Kong and the Uighur. That you can look at that and seriously say "China is not a threat" is baffling, you are an apologist for evil.
Apologist for evil, give me a break. You drink too much coffee. You can't divide the world up into white hats and black hats. China has done lots of bad stuff, as have other countries. I am not defending them, I find their system of government reprehensible. But they are not an aggressively expansionist power and never have been, unlike Russia or for that matter Britain. I don't think we need to get involved in some war on the other side of the world where the link to British interests is not absolutely clear. And to be honest I find it odd that people who claim to be British patriots are so ready to embrace the agenda of another foreign power on this issue.
Some parts of the world are shades of grey, but (and this must be my famous "reactionary" attitude according to @Nigel_Foremain ) I greatly dislike the antiquated term "black and white" since it implies black = bad and white = good.
The use of white/lightness for good and black/darkness for bad long predates the use of white and black to describe skin colour.
Language evolves though, we don't still speak ye olde English.
Continuing to use such language now is repugnant to me. 👎
Your attitude is not dissimilar to this:
I'm a tad confused, in your eyes am I supposed to be the house's resident or Thornberry?
I know which one I'd identify more with.
Thornberry.
Her attitude was "some people who fly the English flag and drive white vans are racist, therefore this is a house where racists live"
Your attitude seems to be "some people use white and black in some contexts to be racist, therefore all uses of white and black are racist"
Not remotely the same at all.
The English flag is still the English flag, continuing to use it represents nothing more or less than being English.
White and black is antiquated and no longer appropriate good and evil paradigms, even if it used to be in the past.
Using black as a derogatory term today is not like flying the English flag, its like flying the flag of the Confederacy.
What about chess? White always goes first, surely that's racist.
Since neither first nor second is objectively considered "better" or "good" or "bad" I would say no.
And, in a series of matches, research has shown that the person who plays white first carries an advantage into subsequent matches, with a 62 per cent winning advantage at the elite level. This is despite players playing an equal number of games as white and black.
The advantage enjoyed by white is amplified further in the world of computer chess. In 2020, AlphaZero, said to be the world’s most powerful chess engine, played against itself in 10,000 games, taking a minute per move. White won in 86 per cent of the decisive games, giving it about a 6:1 advantage, though these games constituted only two per cent of the total— 98 per cent were draws...
Trouble us thats tinkering to sort out the very highest levels. The masters database on Lichess covering titled pkayers games gives 33/43/24 white/draw/black so a moderate advantage but the all games database of iver 500 million games which includes all levels from novice to master is 49/4/46. The advantage increases the more 'computer accurate' you get. For 99% of players its minimal. They could look at increasing 'positive' results by changes like returning to stalemate being a win or the armageddon rules where black has less time but gets the win with a drawn game.
I'm a bit surprised at the 49/4/46 stat. But a couple of points:
-Without checking (do you have a link?) this looks like something that must include blitz/bullet games, do you have stats which only includes longer time limits? Bullet games will definitely even up the stats as inaccuracies by the players will quickly overwhelm the small advantage white has.
-At higher levels, players are more likely to be playing players at a similar level - if you are playing someone much better or much worse than you, that will be more important than who has white.
-I'm not sure including novice games is really fair - again mistakes made would quickly be much more important than who went first.
You have to be able to play a little to make use of white's advantage, and you have to be playing against someone at not too dissimilar level for it to count for anything, and you have to have a time limit where inaccuracies, mistakes and blunders aren't usually going to be worth much more than going first.
So it depends how you look at it, but as someone who used to play chess quite seriously, I would say you definitely do not have to be anywhere near the "very highest levels" for white to have a clear advantage, especially at longer time limits.
Its all games, all time limits, link is lichess.com, sign up and its in the free 'analyse games' section. So yes it includes bullet etc which almist always end in a positive result. There is a database of classical time control for masters database giving about 35/37/27 white, draw, black. I play mid level tournament chess and yeah white is an advantage but you're giving that up on the first ? Or ?! Move, and its not till youre at a titled level that is really ironed out. Engines give white 0.3 of a pawn advantage at start. Not a winning edge but an edge. Black of course can choose which defence line to play against whites favoured opening and try and tilt them off prep which at anything below spooky genius level can work wonders
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationship, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT WOMEN SPECIFICALLY. I AM TALKING ABOUT ALL GENDERS AND COMBINATIONS THEREOF.
I AM TALKING ABOUT THE VERY REAL PROBLEMS OF AFFAIRS AT WORK. THAT SOME AFFAIRS DON'T CAUSE PROBLEMS DOESN'T MEAN THAT MANY DON'T.
So does that mean that unmarried people of both genders shouldn't be allowed out?
Only married men and women who are strictly monogamous in the work place. Anyone unmarried or willing to engage in affairs is a problem so they should be purged from society?
What consenting adults get up to in the bedroom is between them. If people hooking up at work or elsewhere causes "problems", then tough fucking shit, people are entitled to a private life.
The Truss discussion reminds me of the March 2022 Putin discussion. The good people were desperately seeking a reason to believe that he would die and that would end the invasion. Similarly, the good people know Sunak is a bit rubbish, a lucky billionaire who got into position by kowtowing to Dom and spending tens of billions from the magic money tree. So they are desperately seeking the saucy or edgy scandal to end Truss. Tiny bits of information are turned into threads that must be pulled, and get distorted out of proportion to the likely impact on the world.
Got a say I think Luz is smart to go after the economics even of the period she has been in government. People dont mind a u-turner if they agree with the u-turn, and it probably fits with what people think. It also means Sunak will be the 'everything's alright' candidate which even Tories probably dont think.
A lot of sense in this.
The theme for Sunak's campaign is clearly being set as "Liz is making promises that she can't possibly keep".
I happen to agree with that in the sense that it's probably true. However, if he loses, the obvious question will be, "So why, Rishi, didn't you?"
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationship, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT WOMEN SPECIFICALLY. I AM TALKING ABOUT ALL GENDERS AND COMBINATIONS THEREOF.
I AM TALKING ABOUT THE VERY REAL PROBLEMS OF AFFAIRS AT WORK. THAT SOME AFFAIRS DON'T CAUSE PROBLEMS DOESN'T MEAN THAT MANY DON'T.
So does that mean that unmarried people of both genders shouldn't be allowed out?
Only married men and women who are strictly monogamous in the work place. Anyone unmarried or willing to engage in affairs is a problem so they should be purged from society?
What consenting adults get up to in the bedroom is between them. If people hooking up at work or elsewhere causes "problems", then tough fucking shit, people are entitled to a private life.
I didn't mention marriage at all. Not at all. Or whether people were in a prior marriage or not. For instance, the problem with the revelation of an affair may be that A gave B a grant or a job before it was publicly known.
And people are not entitled to a private life when it gets in the way of the job.
Are you seriously arguing that corruption and sex harassment are the price worth paying for the purity of your libertarian peinciples?
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationships, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
What consenting adults get up to is between them. What we have seen too often in Westminster circles is that "consenting" gets lost.
The Truss discussion reminds me of the March 2022 Putin discussion. The good people were desperately seeking a reason to believe that he would die and that would end the invasion. Similarly, the good people know Sunak is a bit rubbish, a lucky billionaire who got into position by kowtowing to Dom and spending tens of billions from the magic money tree. So they are desperately seeking the saucy or edgy scandal to end Truss. Tiny bits of information are turned into threads that must be pulled, and get distorted out of proportion to the likely impact on the world.
That may well be the case. I've no idea what this Truss 'scandal' is supposed to be, but the argument opponents should be making is that (irrespective of whatever it might be) she is unfit for the post of PM.
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationships, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
What consenting adults get up to is between them. What we have seen too often in Westminster circles is that "consenting" gets lost.
BR is coming very close to arguing that powerful politicians have a droit de seigneur, certainly in practical terms.
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationship, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT WOMEN SPECIFICALLY. I AM TALKING ABOUT ALL GENDERS AND COMBINATIONS THEREOF.
I AM TALKING ABOUT THE VERY REAL PROBLEMS OF AFFAIRS AT WORK. THAT SOME AFFAIRS DON'T CAUSE PROBLEMS DOESN'T MEAN THAT MANY DON'T.
So does that mean that unmarried people of both genders shouldn't be allowed out?
Only married men and women who are strictly monogamous in the work place. Anyone unmarried or willing to engage in affairs is a problem so they should be purged from society?
What consenting adults get up to in the bedroom is between them. If people hooking up at work or elsewhere causes "problems", then tough fucking shit, people are entitled to a private life.
Actually - a lot of companies have rules that prevent affairs, precisely to avoid issues around power disparities.
No doubt you think it's a scandal university professors cannot regularly dip into their stash of grad students every year any more
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationship, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT WOMEN SPECIFICALLY. I AM TALKING ABOUT ALL GENDERS AND COMBINATIONS THEREOF.
I AM TALKING ABOUT THE VERY REAL PROBLEMS OF AFFAIRS AT WORK. THAT SOME AFFAIRS DON'T CAUSE PROBLEMS DOESN'T MEAN THAT MANY DON'T.
So does that mean that unmarried people of both genders shouldn't be allowed out?
Only married men and women who are strictly monogamous in the work place. Anyone unmarried or willing to engage in affairs is a problem so they should be purged from society?
What consenting adults get up to in the bedroom is between them. If people hooking up at work or elsewhere causes "problems", then tough fucking shit, people are entitled to a private life.
I didn't mention marriage at all. Not at all. Or whether people were in a prior marriage or not. For instance, the problem with the revelation of an affair may be that A gave B a grant or a job before it was publicly known.
And people are not entitled to a private life when it gets in the way of the job.
Are you seriously arguing that corruption and sex harassment are the price worth paying for the purity of your libertarian peinciples?
Every time you mention "affairs" you are mentioning marriage. If people are hooking up with people they are not married to then that "affair" can exist whether they're married to someone else or not.
Corruption is an issue, but that has absolutely bugger all to do with consensual sex. Monogamous married people can be corrupt.
Sexual harassment is an issue, but that has absolutely bugger all to do with consensual sex either.
If someone engages in corruption or harassment that should be dealt with on a case by case basis whether they are married, single, adulterers, monogamous, open, straight, bi, trans, gay, or anything else. Their sexuality isn't the issue, their corruption or harassment is.
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationships, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
What consenting adults get up to is between them. What we have seen too often in Westminster circles is that "consenting" gets lost.
Are you suggesting that Truss was the victim of a non-consensual relationship?
Or the perpetrator or one?
Or is that topic utterly irrelevant to Truss and what she may or may not have gotten up to in the bedroom?
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationship, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT WOMEN SPECIFICALLY. I AM TALKING ABOUT ALL GENDERS AND COMBINATIONS THEREOF.
I AM TALKING ABOUT THE VERY REAL PROBLEMS OF AFFAIRS AT WORK. THAT SOME AFFAIRS DON'T CAUSE PROBLEMS DOESN'T MEAN THAT MANY DON'T.
So does that mean that unmarried people of both genders shouldn't be allowed out?
Only married men and women who are strictly monogamous in the work place. Anyone unmarried or willing to engage in affairs is a problem so they should be purged from society?
What consenting adults get up to in the bedroom is between them. If people hooking up at work or elsewhere causes "problems", then tough fucking shit, people are entitled to a private life.
I didn't mention marriage at all. Not at all. Or whether people were in a prior marriage or not. For instance, the problem with the revelation of an affair may be that A gave B a grant or a job before it was publicly known.
And people are not entitled to a private life when it gets in the way of the job.
Are you seriously arguing that corruption and sex harassment are the price worth paying for the purity of your libertarian peinciples?
Every time you mention "affairs" you are mentioning marriage. If people are hooking up with people they are not married to then that "affair" can exist whether they're married to someone else or not.
Corruption is an issue, but that has absolutely bugger all to do with consensual sex. Monogamous married people can be corrupt.
Sexual harassment is an issue, but that has absolutely bugger all to do with consensual sex either.
If someone engages in corruption or harassment that should be dealt with on a case by case basis whether they are married, single, adulterers, monogamous, open, straight, bi, trans, gay, or anything else. Their sexuality isn't the issue, their corruption or harassment is.
A, I see part of where you are coming from - but 'affair' just does not have that restricted meaning. As indeed the common phrase 'an extramarital affair' shows. And my argument remains.
Tom McTague on Truss: “There is, I think, an idealism there, weirdly consistent through Lib Dem, Remain and current incarnations: Reaganite freedom. She applies this to China and Russia today. Does Rishi? Or is he an Osbornite technocrat?”
And that's the point. If you have dollars, you can kinda get away with Reaganomics. Because if all else fails, people want dollars. Sterling... not so much.
The Truss discussion reminds me of the March 2022 Putin discussion. The good people were desperately seeking a reason to believe that he would die and that would end the invasion. Similarly, the good people know Sunak is a bit rubbish, a lucky billionaire who got into position by kowtowing to Dom and spending tens of billions from the magic money tree. So they are desperately seeking the saucy or edgy scandal to end Truss. Tiny bits of information are turned into threads that must be pulled, and get distorted out of proportion to the likely impact on the world.
That may well be the case. I've no idea what this Truss 'scandal' is supposed to be, but the argument opponents should be making is that (irrespective of whatever it might be) she is unfit for the post of PM.
Unless I'm missing something the scandal seems to be that Truss has been involved in a lot of discussions with numerous people regarding Ugandan Affairs - to use an old Private Eye phrase.
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationship, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT WOMEN SPECIFICALLY. I AM TALKING ABOUT ALL GENDERS AND COMBINATIONS THEREOF.
I AM TALKING ABOUT THE VERY REAL PROBLEMS OF AFFAIRS AT WORK. THAT SOME AFFAIRS DON'T CAUSE PROBLEMS DOESN'T MEAN THAT MANY DON'T.
So does that mean that unmarried people of both genders shouldn't be allowed out?
Only married men and women who are strictly monogamous in the work place. Anyone unmarried or willing to engage in affairs is a problem so they should be purged from society?
What consenting adults get up to in the bedroom is between them. If people hooking up at work or elsewhere causes "problems", then tough fucking shit, people are entitled to a private life.
Actually - a lot of companies have rules that prevent affairs, precisely to avoid issues around power disparities.
No doubt you think it's a scandal university professors cannot regularly dip into their stash of grad students every year any more
You can’t “prevent” affairs. People will have sex if they want to.
You can mitigate the impact of it, i.e by ensuring the parties do not work together so as to avoid any power disparities etc.
I think however there is some conflation going on in this thread - there is nothing innately concerning with people who work together sleeping with each other so long as there are no elements of coercion involved and conflicts of interest cannot arise. Anything beyond that is obviously concerning and goes into the realms of harassment, undue influence, pressure and the like.
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationships, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
What consenting adults get up to is between them. What we have seen too often in Westminster circles is that "consenting" gets lost.
I agree. An MP having an affair with an MP is sad for the families involved, but isn't any of my business. These things do happen with colleagues working closely together, spending a lot of time with each other away from home etc.
But there is a lot of stuff with junior members of staff and "party workers". It came up with Pincher's alleged conduct, and Warburton. It also made a brief appearance as Johnson's house of cards collapsed the other week, in a very unpleasant recorded phone call from his time as Mayor. Overwhelmed by the bigger news story but still.
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationships, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
What consenting adults get up to is between them. What we have seen too often in Westminster circles is that "consenting" gets lost.
Are you suggesting that Truss was the victim of a non-consensual relationship?
Or the perpetrator or one?
Or is that topic utterly irrelevant to Truss and what she may or may not have gotten up to in the bedroom?
Loook back. The thread was widened to general principles in DJL's comment, and reconfirmed as such by my reply to him, which also stated it was not intended to be specific to Ms Truss.
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationship, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT WOMEN SPECIFICALLY. I AM TALKING ABOUT ALL GENDERS AND COMBINATIONS THEREOF.
I AM TALKING ABOUT THE VERY REAL PROBLEMS OF AFFAIRS AT WORK. THAT SOME AFFAIRS DON'T CAUSE PROBLEMS DOESN'T MEAN THAT MANY DON'T.
So does that mean that unmarried people of both genders shouldn't be allowed out?
Only married men and women who are strictly monogamous in the work place. Anyone unmarried or willing to engage in affairs is a problem so they should be purged from society?
What consenting adults get up to in the bedroom is between them. If people hooking up at work or elsewhere causes "problems", then tough fucking shit, people are entitled to a private life.
I didn't mention marriage at all. Not at all. Or whether people were in a prior marriage or not. For instance, the problem with the revelation of an affair may be that A gave B a grant or a job before it was publicly known.
And people are not entitled to a private life when it gets in the way of the job.
Are you seriously arguing that corruption and sex harassment are the price worth paying for the purity of your libertarian peinciples?
Every time you mention "affairs" you are mentioning marriage. If people are hooking up with people they are not married to then that "affair" can exist whether they're married to someone else or not.
Corruption is an issue, but that has absolutely bugger all to do with consensual sex. Monogamous married people can be corrupt.
Sexual harassment is an issue, but that has absolutely bugger all to do with consensual sex either.
If someone engages in corruption or harassment that should be dealt with on a case by case basis whether they are married, single, adulterers, monogamous, open, straight, bi, trans, gay, or anything else. Their sexuality isn't the issue, their corruption or harassment is.
A, I see part of where you are coming from - but 'affair' just does not have that restricted meaning. As indeed the common phrase 'an extramarital affair' shows.
Extramarital affair is again about the state of someone's marriage though. Not about work.
Two single, unmarried people at a work place can have an affair at work and that could potentially lead to 'corruption' or 'harassment'. Two married people at work can have an affair at work and it is not different - except to their spouses. The marital status of the people engaging in the affair doesn't change it.
So either say monogamous, married people only in the workplace - or keep work out of people's bedrooms. Prying into or engaging in puritanical, salacious tabloid gossip about what people may or may not have gotten upto is beyond pathetic.
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationships, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
What consenting adults get up to is between them. What we have seen too often in Westminster circles is that "consenting" gets lost.
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationships, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
What consenting adults get up to is between them. What we have seen too often in Westminster circles is that "consenting" gets lost.
Are you suggesting that Truss was the victim of a non-consensual relationship?
Or the perpetrator or one?
Or is that topic utterly irrelevant to Truss and what she may or may not have gotten up to in the bedroom?
Would it matter if PM Truss tried to get a job for her current squeeze (I have no idea if there is one), for which he's utterly unqualified?
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationship, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT WOMEN SPECIFICALLY. I AM TALKING ABOUT ALL GENDERS AND COMBINATIONS THEREOF.
I AM TALKING ABOUT THE VERY REAL PROBLEMS OF AFFAIRS AT WORK. THAT SOME AFFAIRS DON'T CAUSE PROBLEMS DOESN'T MEAN THAT MANY DON'T.
So does that mean that unmarried people of both genders shouldn't be allowed out?
Only married men and women who are strictly monogamous in the work place. Anyone unmarried or willing to engage in affairs is a problem so they should be purged from society?
What consenting adults get up to in the bedroom is between them. If people hooking up at work or elsewhere causes "problems", then tough fucking shit, people are entitled to a private life.
I didn't mention marriage at all. Not at all. Or whether people were in a prior marriage or not. For instance, the problem with the revelation of an affair may be that A gave B a grant or a job before it was publicly known.
And people are not entitled to a private life when it gets in the way of the job.
Are you seriously arguing that corruption and sex harassment are the price worth paying for the purity of your libertarian peinciples?
Every time you mention "affairs" you are mentioning marriage. If people are hooking up with people they are not married to then that "affair" can exist whether they're married to someone else or not.
Corruption is an issue, but that has absolutely bugger all to do with consensual sex. Monogamous married people can be corrupt.
Sexual harassment is an issue, but that has absolutely bugger all to do with consensual sex either.
If someone engages in corruption or harassment that should be dealt with on a case by case basis whether they are married, single, adulterers, monogamous, open, straight, bi, trans, gay, or anything else. Their sexuality isn't the issue, their corruption or harassment is.
A, I see part of where you are coming from - but 'affair' just does not have that restricted meaning. As indeed the common phrase 'an extramarital affair' shows. And my argument remains.
Google suggests "extramarital affair" is a tautology, which is certainly how I would understand it.
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationships, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
What consenting adults get up to is between them. What we have seen too often in Westminster circles is that "consenting" gets lost.
Are you suggesting that Truss was the victim of a non-consensual relationship?
Or the perpetrator or one?
Or is that topic utterly irrelevant to Truss and what she may or may not have gotten up to in the bedroom?
Would it matter if PM Truss tried to get a job for her current squeeze (I have no idea if there is one), for which he's utterly unqualified?
No more or less than if a married, monogamous PM Blair tried to get a job for a friend, a relative, or a friend of a friend for which they're utterly unqualified.
Nepotism is bad, regardless of what people do or don't do in the bedroom.
Vote for me, I was wrong on what you consider to be our defining political issue.
Well, it's brave. And it's actually probably the most helpful thing she could say, as trying to hedge won't help her.
But she does not want this to become a referendum on Euroscepticism.
Wait till she finds out she was a Minister and MP for 12 years of a government with the wrong economic policies.
Was she?
That. Is. A. Disgrace.
On the topic of her cheese speech - or the Jarlsberg Address as it should be called - I think too many people focus on the terrible delivery and too few on its terrible content. Truss's basic argument is that the UK exports - great! And the UK imports - a disgrace! Thus completely misunderstanding the whole concept of international trade.
"In December I'll be in Beijing, opening up new pork markets"
It's kind of in the so bad it's good category. This is the one slight risk for 'us' with Truss. She could develop a bit of 'quirky national treasure' appeal to the unwary.
Thing is, the pork markets thing was so long ago and she has changed her public speaking approach since then (probably as a result of the criticism she faced), stripping out all quirkiness and instead becoming even more monotone and dry.
So I don’t think you have anything to worry about on that front. She does still have an element of clumsiness (witness getting lost at her own launch event) but it doesn’t come off as particularly endearing.
You're probably right. Actually I don't mind her awkward comms style. The standard smoothspeak of politicians can hide a lack of substance - look at the dreadful Kwasi Kwarteng. What I don't like about Truss are her politics (at least judged on what I've heard so far). Jingoistic, incoherent and cakeist.
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationship, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT WOMEN SPECIFICALLY. I AM TALKING ABOUT ALL GENDERS AND COMBINATIONS THEREOF.
I AM TALKING ABOUT THE VERY REAL PROBLEMS OF AFFAIRS AT WORK. THAT SOME AFFAIRS DON'T CAUSE PROBLEMS DOESN'T MEAN THAT MANY DON'T.
So does that mean that unmarried people of both genders shouldn't be allowed out?
Only married men and women who are strictly monogamous in the work place. Anyone unmarried or willing to engage in affairs is a problem so they should be purged from society?
What consenting adults get up to in the bedroom is between them. If people hooking up at work or elsewhere causes "problems", then tough fucking shit, people are entitled to a private life.
I didn't mention marriage at all. Not at all. Or whether people were in a prior marriage or not. For instance, the problem with the revelation of an affair may be that A gave B a grant or a job before it was publicly known.
And people are not entitled to a private life when it gets in the way of the job.
Are you seriously arguing that corruption and sex harassment are the price worth paying for the purity of your libertarian peinciples?
Every time you mention "affairs" you are mentioning marriage. If people are hooking up with people they are not married to then that "affair" can exist whether they're married to someone else or not.
Corruption is an issue, but that has absolutely bugger all to do with consensual sex. Monogamous married people can be corrupt.
Sexual harassment is an issue, but that has absolutely bugger all to do with consensual sex either.
If someone engages in corruption or harassment that should be dealt with on a case by case basis whether they are married, single, adulterers, monogamous, open, straight, bi, trans, gay, or anything else. Their sexuality isn't the issue, their corruption or harassment is.
A, I see part of where you are coming from - but 'affair' just does not have that restricted meaning. As indeed the common phrase 'an extramarital affair' shows.
Extramarital affair is again about the state of someone's marriage though. Not about work.
Two single, unmarried people at a work place can have an affair at work and that could potentially lead to 'corruption' or 'harassment'. Two married people at work can have an affair at work and it has the same work. The marital status of the people engaging in the affair doesn't change it.
So either say monogamous, married people only in the workplace - or keep work out of people's bedrooms. Prying into or engaging in puritanical, salacious tabloid gossip about what people may or may not have gotten upto is beyond pathetic.
I was talking about all people, married, steady or otherwise.
You're the one trying to claim I am restricting the discussion to married people. You're the one who insists on 'affair' having a specific and restricted meaning to involving married people, not me. You are using it in the same sense as 'adulterous'. You're the one trying to restrict it to married people. Not me.
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationship, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT WOMEN SPECIFICALLY. I AM TALKING ABOUT ALL GENDERS AND COMBINATIONS THEREOF.
I AM TALKING ABOUT THE VERY REAL PROBLEMS OF AFFAIRS AT WORK. THAT SOME AFFAIRS DON'T CAUSE PROBLEMS DOESN'T MEAN THAT MANY DON'T.
So does that mean that unmarried people of both genders shouldn't be allowed out?
Only married men and women who are strictly monogamous in the work place. Anyone unmarried or willing to engage in affairs is a problem so they should be purged from society?
What consenting adults get up to in the bedroom is between them. If people hooking up at work or elsewhere causes "problems", then tough fucking shit, people are entitled to a private life.
I didn't mention marriage at all. Not at all. Or whether people were in a prior marriage or not. For instance, the problem with the revelation of an affair may be that A gave B a grant or a job before it was publicly known.
And people are not entitled to a private life when it gets in the way of the job.
Are you seriously arguing that corruption and sex harassment are the price worth paying for the purity of your libertarian peinciples?
Every time you mention "affairs" you are mentioning marriage. If people are hooking up with people they are not married to then that "affair" can exist whether they're married to someone else or not.
Corruption is an issue, but that has absolutely bugger all to do with consensual sex. Monogamous married people can be corrupt.
Sexual harassment is an issue, but that has absolutely bugger all to do with consensual sex either.
If someone engages in corruption or harassment that should be dealt with on a case by case basis whether they are married, single, adulterers, monogamous, open, straight, bi, trans, gay, or anything else. Their sexuality isn't the issue, their corruption or harassment is.
A, I see part of where you are coming from - but 'affair' just does not have that restricted meaning. As indeed the common phrase 'an extramarital affair' shows. And my argument remains.
Google suggests "extramarital affair" is a tautology, which is certainly how I would understand it.
Ta muchly. I'd checked Chambers and Cambridge. No trace of that there. But if there is a real ambiguity that is good to know about - it does seem to be part, but only part, of the difference of opinion.
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationships, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
What consenting adults get up to is between them. What we have seen too often in Westminster circles is that "consenting" gets lost.
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationship, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT WOMEN SPECIFICALLY. I AM TALKING ABOUT ALL GENDERS AND COMBINATIONS THEREOF.
I AM TALKING ABOUT THE VERY REAL PROBLEMS OF AFFAIRS AT WORK. THAT SOME AFFAIRS DON'T CAUSE PROBLEMS DOESN'T MEAN THAT MANY DON'T.
So does that mean that unmarried people of both genders shouldn't be allowed out?
Only married men and women who are strictly monogamous in the work place. Anyone unmarried or willing to engage in affairs is a problem so they should be purged from society?
What consenting adults get up to in the bedroom is between them. If people hooking up at work or elsewhere causes "problems", then tough fucking shit, people are entitled to a private life.
I didn't mention marriage at all. Not at all. Or whether people were in a prior marriage or not. For instance, the problem with the revelation of an affair may be that A gave B a grant or a job before it was publicly known.
And people are not entitled to a private life when it gets in the way of the job.
Are you seriously arguing that corruption and sex harassment are the price worth paying for the purity of your libertarian peinciples?
Every time you mention "affairs" you are mentioning marriage. If people are hooking up with people they are not married to then that "affair" can exist whether they're married to someone else or not.
Corruption is an issue, but that has absolutely bugger all to do with consensual sex. Monogamous married people can be corrupt.
Sexual harassment is an issue, but that has absolutely bugger all to do with consensual sex either.
If someone engages in corruption or harassment that should be dealt with on a case by case basis whether they are married, single, adulterers, monogamous, open, straight, bi, trans, gay, or anything else. Their sexuality isn't the issue, their corruption or harassment is.
A, I see part of where you are coming from - but 'affair' just does not have that restricted meaning. As indeed the common phrase 'an extramarital affair' shows. And my argument remains.
Google suggests "extramarital affair" is a tautology, which is certainly how I would understand it.
Just checked Chambers and Cambridge. No trace of that.
If neither person is married aren't they just "going out with each other" or, if you want to indicate subterfuge, "sleeping with each other"?
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationships, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
What consenting adults get up to is between them. What we have seen too often in Westminster circles is that "consenting" gets lost.
Are you suggesting that Truss was the victim of a non-consensual relationship?
Or the perpetrator or one?
Or is that topic utterly irrelevant to Truss and what she may or may not have gotten up to in the bedroom?
Would it matter if PM Truss tried to get a job for her current squeeze (I have no idea if there is one), for which he's utterly unqualified?
No more or less than if a married, monogamous PM Blair tried to get a job for a friend, a relative, or a friend of a friend for which they're utterly unqualified.
Nepotism is bad, regardless of what people do or don't do in the bedroom.
I was just thinking of the criticism Boris got for trying to get Carrie a job when he was secretly getting jobs off her - he was definitely more harshly judged because of the apparent motivation.
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationship, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT WOMEN SPECIFICALLY. I AM TALKING ABOUT ALL GENDERS AND COMBINATIONS THEREOF.
I AM TALKING ABOUT THE VERY REAL PROBLEMS OF AFFAIRS AT WORK. THAT SOME AFFAIRS DON'T CAUSE PROBLEMS DOESN'T MEAN THAT MANY DON'T.
So does that mean that unmarried people of both genders shouldn't be allowed out?
Only married men and women who are strictly monogamous in the work place. Anyone unmarried or willing to engage in affairs is a problem so they should be purged from society?
What consenting adults get up to in the bedroom is between them. If people hooking up at work or elsewhere causes "problems", then tough fucking shit, people are entitled to a private life.
I didn't mention marriage at all. Not at all. Or whether people were in a prior marriage or not. For instance, the problem with the revelation of an affair may be that A gave B a grant or a job before it was publicly known.
And people are not entitled to a private life when it gets in the way of the job.
Are you seriously arguing that corruption and sex harassment are the price worth paying for the purity of your libertarian peinciples?
Every time you mention "affairs" you are mentioning marriage. If people are hooking up with people they are not married to then that "affair" can exist whether they're married to someone else or not.
Corruption is an issue, but that has absolutely bugger all to do with consensual sex. Monogamous married people can be corrupt.
Sexual harassment is an issue, but that has absolutely bugger all to do with consensual sex either.
If someone engages in corruption or harassment that should be dealt with on a case by case basis whether they are married, single, adulterers, monogamous, open, straight, bi, trans, gay, or anything else. Their sexuality isn't the issue, their corruption or harassment is.
A, I see part of where you are coming from - but 'affair' just does not have that restricted meaning. As indeed the common phrase 'an extramarital affair' shows.
Extramarital affair is again about the state of someone's marriage though. Not about work.
Two single, unmarried people at a work place can have an affair at work and that could potentially lead to 'corruption' or 'harassment'. Two married people at work can have an affair at work and it has the same work. The marital status of the people engaging in the affair doesn't change it.
So either say monogamous, married people only in the workplace - or keep work out of people's bedrooms. Prying into or engaging in puritanical, salacious tabloid gossip about what people may or may not have gotten upto is beyond pathetic.
I was talking about all people, married, steady or otherwise.
You're the one trying to claim I am restricting the discussion to married people. You're the one who insists on 'affair' having a specific and restricted meaning to involving married people, not me. You are using it in the same sense as 'adulterous'. You're the one trying to restrict it to married people. Not me.
Actually quite the opposite, I'm saying that if you are saying that married people being willing to have an affair is a problem or makes them unfit, then does that mean in your eyes that unmarried people who are willing to have a relationship even with someone else that is unmarried are equally objectionable?
You are using the same logic as those who say unmarried women must be locked away, because they could be a "distraction". Unless you're saying only married ones may be.
What people get up to is between them and their partners and only them, whether they're married or not.
Vote for me, I was wrong on what you consider to be our defining political issue.
Well, it's brave. And it's actually probably the most helpful thing she could say, as trying to hedge won't help her.
But she does not want this to become a referendum on Euroscepticism.
Wait till she finds out she was a Minister and MP for 12 years of a government with the wrong economic policies.
Was she?
That. Is. A. Disgrace.
On the topic of her cheese speech - or the Jarlsberg Address as it should be called - I think too many people focus on the terrible delivery and too few on its terrible content. Truss's basic argument is that the UK exports - great! And the UK imports - a disgrace! Thus completely misunderstanding the whole concept of international trade.
"In December I'll be in Beijing, opening up new pork markets"
It's kind of in the so bad it's good category. This is the one slight risk for 'us' with Truss. She could develop a bit of 'quirky national treasure' appeal to the unwary.
Thing is, the pork markets thing was so long ago and she has changed her public speaking approach since then (probably as a result of the criticism she faced), stripping out all quirkiness and instead becoming even more monotone and dry.
So I don’t think you have anything to worry about on that front. She does still have an element of clumsiness (witness getting lost at her own launch event) but it doesn’t come off as particularly endearing.
You're probably right. Actually I don't mind her awkward comms style. The standard smoothspeak of politicians can hide a lack of substance - look at the dreadful Kwasi Kwarteng. What I don't like about Truss are her politics (at least judged on what I've heard so far). Jingoistic, incoherent and cakeist.
Her politics are much like the person she wishes to succeed. Completely flexible, provided they might deliver on her ego-driven ambition. She is the antithesis of the person she most wants to be compared to. She is to Thatcher what Johnson was to Churchill.
Evened up a little bit, still greener on Sunak but I'm going to leave things there.
Regardless of how it goes, many thanks to Mr. Roberts for an excellent tip that opened up a large swathe of trading possibility.
Thanks.
I'm wondering whether I should balance my book either a bit, or entirely? I could lock in now a hefty four-figure sum either way, or should I let it ride? I'm not sure, what would people advise?
I'd stick in some resting orders to lay Rishi at 1.4/1.6/1.8 and wait for market to overreact to Truss doing something stupid, which she will. Then reassesses from there (if only e.g. 1.8s/1.6s traded).
Your only risk here is Rishi doing something awful first...
This is from perspective of someone who plays political markets all the time though, rather than making "one big bet". From the perspective of the latter I think being able to brag about a 250/1 winner for years makes holding it probably a better choice.
The Truss discussion reminds me of the March 2022 Putin discussion. The good people were desperately seeking a reason to believe that he would die and that would end the invasion. Similarly, the good people know Sunak is a bit rubbish, a lucky billionaire who got into position by kowtowing to Dom and spending tens of billions from the magic money tree. So they are desperately seeking the saucy or edgy scandal to end Truss. Tiny bits of information are turned into threads that must be pulled, and get distorted out of proportion to the likely impact on the world.
That may well be the case. I've no idea what this Truss 'scandal' is supposed to be, but the argument opponents should be making is that (irrespective of whatever it might be) she is unfit for the post of PM.
Unless I'm missing something the scandal seems to be that Truss has been involved in a lot of discussions with numerous people regarding Ugandan Affairs - to use an old Private Eye phrase.
I'm really not sure - @Cyclefree 's reference to the Cox report suggests otherwise, perhaps ?
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationship, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT WOMEN SPECIFICALLY. I AM TALKING ABOUT ALL GENDERS AND COMBINATIONS THEREOF.
I AM TALKING ABOUT THE VERY REAL PROBLEMS OF AFFAIRS AT WORK. THAT SOME AFFAIRS DON'T CAUSE PROBLEMS DOESN'T MEAN THAT MANY DON'T.
So does that mean that unmarried people of both genders shouldn't be allowed out?
Only married men and women who are strictly monogamous in the work place. Anyone unmarried or willing to engage in affairs is a problem so they should be purged from society?
What consenting adults get up to in the bedroom is between them. If people hooking up at work or elsewhere causes "problems", then tough fucking shit, people are entitled to a private life.
I didn't mention marriage at all. Not at all. Or whether people were in a prior marriage or not. For instance, the problem with the revelation of an affair may be that A gave B a grant or a job before it was publicly known.
And people are not entitled to a private life when it gets in the way of the job.
Are you seriously arguing that corruption and sex harassment are the price worth paying for the purity of your libertarian peinciples?
Every time you mention "affairs" you are mentioning marriage. If people are hooking up with people they are not married to then that "affair" can exist whether they're married to someone else or not.
Corruption is an issue, but that has absolutely bugger all to do with consensual sex. Monogamous married people can be corrupt.
Sexual harassment is an issue, but that has absolutely bugger all to do with consensual sex either.
If someone engages in corruption or harassment that should be dealt with on a case by case basis whether they are married, single, adulterers, monogamous, open, straight, bi, trans, gay, or anything else. Their sexuality isn't the issue, their corruption or harassment is.
A, I see part of where you are coming from - but 'affair' just does not have that restricted meaning. As indeed the common phrase 'an extramarital affair' shows.
Extramarital affair is again about the state of someone's marriage though. Not about work.
Two single, unmarried people at a work place can have an affair at work and that could potentially lead to 'corruption' or 'harassment'. Two married people at work can have an affair at work and it has the same work. The marital status of the people engaging in the affair doesn't change it.
So either say monogamous, married people only in the workplace - or keep work out of people's bedrooms. Prying into or engaging in puritanical, salacious tabloid gossip about what people may or may not have gotten upto is beyond pathetic.
I was talking about all people, married, steady or otherwise.
You're the one trying to claim I am restricting the discussion to married people. You're the one who insists on 'affair' having a specific and restricted meaning to involving married people, not me. You are using it in the same sense as 'adulterous'. You're the one trying to restrict it to married people. Not me.
Actually quite the opposite, I'm saying that if you are saying that married people being willing to have an affair is a problem or makes them unfit, then does that mean in your eyes that unmarried people who are willing to have a relationship even with someone else that is unmarried are equally objectionable?
You are using the same logic as those who say unmarried women must be locked away, because they could be a "distraction". Unless you're saying only married ones may be.
What people get up to is between them and their partners and only them, whether they're married or not.
Can you not get it into your head that it doesn't matter whether the people are married or steady or not, except insofar as this relationship might add to the problem?
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationships, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
What consenting adults get up to is between them. What we have seen too often in Westminster circles is that "consenting" gets lost.
Are you suggesting that Truss was the victim of a non-consensual relationship?
Or the perpetrator or one?
Or is that topic utterly irrelevant to Truss and what she may or may not have gotten up to in the bedroom?
Would it matter if PM Truss tried to get a job for her current squeeze (I have no idea if there is one), for which he's utterly unqualified?
No more or less than if a married, monogamous PM Blair tried to get a job for a friend, a relative, or a friend of a friend for which they're utterly unqualified.
Nepotism is bad, regardless of what people do or don't do in the bedroom.
I was just thinking of the criticism Boris got for trying to get Carrie a job when he was secretly getting jobs off her - he was definitely more harshly judged because of the apparent motivation.
Indeed, we had a similar discussion regarding Musk the other day too.
What people do in the bedroom is up to them. Nepotism is unacceptable regardless of motivation. I dislike companies that try to regulate what consensual adults get up to.
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationships, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
What consenting adults get up to is between them. What we have seen too often in Westminster circles is that "consenting" gets lost.
Are you suggesting that Truss was the victim of a non-consensual relationship?
Or the perpetrator or one?
Or is that topic utterly irrelevant to Truss and what she may or may not have gotten up to in the bedroom?
Would it matter if PM Truss tried to get a job for her current squeeze (I have no idea if there is one), for which he's utterly unqualified?
No more or less than if a married, monogamous PM Blair tried to get a job for a friend, a relative, or a friend of a friend for which they're utterly unqualified.
Nepotism is bad, regardless of what people do or don't do in the bedroom.
I was just thinking of the criticism Boris got for trying to get Carrie a job when he was secretly getting jobs off her - he was definitely more harshly judged because of the apparent motivation.
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationship, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT WOMEN SPECIFICALLY. I AM TALKING ABOUT ALL GENDERS AND COMBINATIONS THEREOF.
I AM TALKING ABOUT THE VERY REAL PROBLEMS OF AFFAIRS AT WORK. THAT SOME AFFAIRS DON'T CAUSE PROBLEMS DOESN'T MEAN THAT MANY DON'T.
So does that mean that unmarried people of both genders shouldn't be allowed out?
Only married men and women who are strictly monogamous in the work place. Anyone unmarried or willing to engage in affairs is a problem so they should be purged from society?
What consenting adults get up to in the bedroom is between them. If people hooking up at work or elsewhere causes "problems", then tough fucking shit, people are entitled to a private life.
I didn't mention marriage at all. Not at all. Or whether people were in a prior marriage or not. For instance, the problem with the revelation of an affair may be that A gave B a grant or a job before it was publicly known.
And people are not entitled to a private life when it gets in the way of the job.
Are you seriously arguing that corruption and sex harassment are the price worth paying for the purity of your libertarian peinciples?
Every time you mention "affairs" you are mentioning marriage. If people are hooking up with people they are not married to then that "affair" can exist whether they're married to someone else or not.
Corruption is an issue, but that has absolutely bugger all to do with consensual sex. Monogamous married people can be corrupt.
Sexual harassment is an issue, but that has absolutely bugger all to do with consensual sex either.
If someone engages in corruption or harassment that should be dealt with on a case by case basis whether they are married, single, adulterers, monogamous, open, straight, bi, trans, gay, or anything else. Their sexuality isn't the issue, their corruption or harassment is.
A, I see part of where you are coming from - but 'affair' just does not have that restricted meaning. As indeed the common phrase 'an extramarital affair' shows.
Extramarital affair is again about the state of someone's marriage though. Not about work.
Two single, unmarried people at a work place can have an affair at work and that could potentially lead to 'corruption' or 'harassment'. Two married people at work can have an affair at work and it has the same work. The marital status of the people engaging in the affair doesn't change it.
So either say monogamous, married people only in the workplace - or keep work out of people's bedrooms. Prying into or engaging in puritanical, salacious tabloid gossip about what people may or may not have gotten upto is beyond pathetic.
I was talking about all people, married, steady or otherwise.
You're the one trying to claim I am restricting the discussion to married people. You're the one who insists on 'affair' having a specific and restricted meaning to involving married people, not me. You are using it in the same sense as 'adulterous'. You're the one trying to restrict it to married people. Not me.
Actually quite the opposite, I'm saying that if you are saying that married people being willing to have an affair is a problem or makes them unfit, then does that mean in your eyes that unmarried people who are willing to have a relationship even with someone else that is unmarried are equally objectionable?
You are using the same logic as those who say unmarried women must be locked away, because they could be a "distraction". Unless you're saying only married ones may be.
What people get up to is between them and their partners and only them, whether they're married or not.
Can you not get it into your head that it doesn't matter whether the people are married or steady or not, except insofar as this relationship might add to the problem?
QTWAIN.
So you want to object to any unmarried people who start a consensual relationship, that is unacceptable in your eyes?
Either people hooking up is acceptable, or its not. If its not, then do you apply the same rule to two single adults starting a consensual relationship?
I like the fact that Truss is now saying the last 20 years have been an economic failure.
I wouldn’t quite go that far, but I like the fact she’s willing to consider a radical reassessment of policy.
But Im terrified of the fact she is a full-blown acolyte of Patrick Minford and her polices are a recipe for galloping inflation and a full-on war against the Bank of England.
Sunak is cringeingly smarmy and disingenuous, but at least he won’t actively crash the economy.
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationship, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT WOMEN SPECIFICALLY. I AM TALKING ABOUT ALL GENDERS AND COMBINATIONS THEREOF.
I AM TALKING ABOUT THE VERY REAL PROBLEMS OF AFFAIRS AT WORK. THAT SOME AFFAIRS DON'T CAUSE PROBLEMS DOESN'T MEAN THAT MANY DON'T.
So does that mean that unmarried people of both genders shouldn't be allowed out?
Only married men and women who are strictly monogamous in the work place. Anyone unmarried or willing to engage in affairs is a problem so they should be purged from society?
What consenting adults get up to in the bedroom is between them. If people hooking up at work or elsewhere causes "problems", then tough fucking shit, people are entitled to a private life.
I didn't mention marriage at all. Not at all. Or whether people were in a prior marriage or not. For instance, the problem with the revelation of an affair may be that A gave B a grant or a job before it was publicly known.
And people are not entitled to a private life when it gets in the way of the job.
Are you seriously arguing that corruption and sex harassment are the price worth paying for the purity of your libertarian peinciples?
Every time you mention "affairs" you are mentioning marriage. If people are hooking up with people they are not married to then that "affair" can exist whether they're married to someone else or not.
Corruption is an issue, but that has absolutely bugger all to do with consensual sex. Monogamous married people can be corrupt.
Sexual harassment is an issue, but that has absolutely bugger all to do with consensual sex either.
If someone engages in corruption or harassment that should be dealt with on a case by case basis whether they are married, single, adulterers, monogamous, open, straight, bi, trans, gay, or anything else. Their sexuality isn't the issue, their corruption or harassment is.
A, I see part of where you are coming from - but 'affair' just does not have that restricted meaning. As indeed the common phrase 'an extramarital affair' shows. And my argument remains.
Google suggests "extramarital affair" is a tautology, which is certainly how I would understand it.
I'd suggest that's a dodgy definition in the sense that if you told me that X and Y had a "love affair", I'd infer that they weren't married to each other but not necessarily that either was married to someone else.
In common usage, I think "affair" in the context of a relationship possibly implies an element of secrecy but not necessarily because one or both parties are married. So "extramarital affair" doesn't seem to me to be a tautology.
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationships, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
What consenting adults get up to is between them. What we have seen too often in Westminster circles is that "consenting" gets lost.
Are you suggesting that Truss was the victim of a non-consensual relationship?
Or the perpetrator or one?
Or is that topic utterly irrelevant to Truss and what she may or may not have gotten up to in the bedroom?
Would it matter if PM Truss tried to get a job for her current squeeze (I have no idea if there is one), for which he's utterly unqualified?
No more or less than if a married, monogamous PM Blair tried to get a job for a friend, a relative, or a friend of a friend for which they're utterly unqualified.
Nepotism is bad, regardless of what people do or don't do in the bedroom.
It's for each individual to decide whether a politician being sexually incontinent is relevant to their assessment of that politician. For me, it is. They go down in my estimation. I find it a character flaw.
I like the fact that Truss is now saying the last 20 years have been an economic failure.
I wouldn’t quite go that far, but I like the fact she’s willing to consider a radical reassessment of policy.
But Im terrified of the fact she is a full-blown acolyte of Patrick Minford and her polices are a recipe for galloping inflation and a full-on war against the Bank of England.
Sunak is cringeingly smarmy and disingenuous, but at least he won’t actively crash the economy.
I don't know why politicians don't look at a period when the economy was doing well, such as the 1960s or mid/late 1990s, and try to work out why it was a success so they can attempt to replicate it. Maybe that's a naive way of looking at things.
Everyone loves tax cuts . So no surprise there. But it seems the membership would have preferred the pathological liar to have stayed as PM which says a lot for them !
Sir Norfolk, some people take Google or Word far too seriously when it comes to 'correct' definitions and grammar.
These are just answers determined by individuals, not a machine god, but I imagine we'll see language somewhat reduced in variation as regional terms and the like get shunned by word processor and online spelling and grammar checkers.
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationship, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT WOMEN SPECIFICALLY. I AM TALKING ABOUT ALL GENDERS AND COMBINATIONS THEREOF.
I AM TALKING ABOUT THE VERY REAL PROBLEMS OF AFFAIRS AT WORK. THAT SOME AFFAIRS DON'T CAUSE PROBLEMS DOESN'T MEAN THAT MANY DON'T.
So does that mean that unmarried people of both genders shouldn't be allowed out?
Only married men and women who are strictly monogamous in the work place. Anyone unmarried or willing to engage in affairs is a problem so they should be purged from society?
What consenting adults get up to in the bedroom is between them. If people hooking up at work or elsewhere causes "problems", then tough fucking shit, people are entitled to a private life.
I didn't mention marriage at all. Not at all. Or whether people were in a prior marriage or not. For instance, the problem with the revelation of an affair may be that A gave B a grant or a job before it was publicly known.
And people are not entitled to a private life when it gets in the way of the job.
Are you seriously arguing that corruption and sex harassment are the price worth paying for the purity of your libertarian peinciples?
Every time you mention "affairs" you are mentioning marriage. If people are hooking up with people they are not married to then that "affair" can exist whether they're married to someone else or not.
Corruption is an issue, but that has absolutely bugger all to do with consensual sex. Monogamous married people can be corrupt.
Sexual harassment is an issue, but that has absolutely bugger all to do with consensual sex either.
If someone engages in corruption or harassment that should be dealt with on a case by case basis whether they are married, single, adulterers, monogamous, open, straight, bi, trans, gay, or anything else. Their sexuality isn't the issue, their corruption or harassment is.
A, I see part of where you are coming from - but 'affair' just does not have that restricted meaning. As indeed the common phrase 'an extramarital affair' shows.
Extramarital affair is again about the state of someone's marriage though. Not about work.
Two single, unmarried people at a work place can have an affair at work and that could potentially lead to 'corruption' or 'harassment'. Two married people at work can have an affair at work and it has the same work. The marital status of the people engaging in the affair doesn't change it.
So either say monogamous, married people only in the workplace - or keep work out of people's bedrooms. Prying into or engaging in puritanical, salacious tabloid gossip about what people may or may not have gotten upto is beyond pathetic.
I was talking about all people, married, steady or otherwise.
You're the one trying to claim I am restricting the discussion to married people. You're the one who insists on 'affair' having a specific and restricted meaning to involving married people, not me. You are using it in the same sense as 'adulterous'. You're the one trying to restrict it to married people. Not me.
Actually quite the opposite, I'm saying that if you are saying that married people being willing to have an affair is a problem or makes them unfit, then does that mean in your eyes that unmarried people who are willing to have a relationship even with someone else that is unmarried are equally objectionable?
You are using the same logic as those who say unmarried women must be locked away, because they could be a "distraction". Unless you're saying only married ones may be.
What people get up to is between them and their partners and only them, whether they're married or not.
Can you not get it into your head that it doesn't matter whether the people are married or steady or not, except insofar as this relationship might add to the problem?
QTWAIN.
So you want to object to any unmarried people who start a consensual relationship, that is unacceptable in your eyes?
Either people hooking up is acceptable, or its not. If its not, then do you apply the same rule to two single adults starting a consensual relationship?
Having a relationship is fine if iyt doesn't cause problems.
Of course, the same rule applies whetehr married or not, as I have no idea what sort of marriage a given married couple might have. But I do make the common-sense observation that many spouses are liable to take grave exception, so that adulterous relationships are more likely to be concealed and more lilely to cause problems when discovered, both by nature and by the added fact of concealment.
I appreciate you adore Ms Truss, but I'm not actually thinking about her or her history - I know too little, for one thing. I'm thinkiong of other examples in recent decades.
Sir Norfolk, some people take Google or Word far too seriously when it comes to 'correct' definitions and grammar.
These are just answers determined by individuals, not a machine god, but I imagine we'll see language somewhat reduced in variation as regional terms and the like get shunned by word processor and online spelling and grammar checkers.
TBF I only cited Google/Oxford Languages because it agreed with what I previously thought
Mr. Cooke, not a fan of 'denier' in a non-Holocaust context. It's a cheap way to try and shut down debate (as it was when Osborne used to call Labour deficit deniers). If an argument is wrong then point out how, just calling someone a 'denier' is dismissing their disagreement without any counter-argument.
I like the fact that Truss is now saying the last 20 years have been an economic failure.
I wouldn’t quite go that far, but I like the fact she’s willing to consider a radical reassessment of policy.
But Im terrified of the fact she is a full-blown acolyte of Patrick Minford and her polices are a recipe for galloping inflation and a full-on war against the Bank of England.
Sunak is cringeingly smarmy and disingenuous, but at least he won’t actively crash the economy.
I don't know why politicians don't look at a period when the economy was doing well, such as the 1960s or mid/late 1990s, and try to work out why it was a success so they can attempt to replicate it. Maybe that's a naive way of looking at things.
The context is different, we are experiencing stagflation (albeit with low unemployment).
I like the fact that Truss is now saying the last 20 years have been an economic failure.
I wouldn’t quite go that far, but I like the fact she’s willing to consider a radical reassessment of policy.
But Im terrified of the fact she is a full-blown acolyte of Patrick Minford and her polices are a recipe for galloping inflation and a full-on war against the Bank of England.
Sunak is cringeingly smarmy and disingenuous, but at least he won’t actively crash the economy.
What's wrong with being an acolyte of Patrick Minford?
I suppose you are a believer in "364 economists can't be wrong" groupthink? 🤔
Mr. Cooke, not a fan of 'denier' in a non-Holocaust context. It's a cheap way to try and shut down debate (as it was when Osborne used to call Labour deficit deniers). If an argument is wrong then point out how, just calling someone a 'denier' is dismissing their disagreement without any counter-argument.
It’s better though than flat-earthers.
We are beyond the point where man-made climate change is subject to reasonable debate.
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationships, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
What consenting adults get up to is between them. What we have seen too often in Westminster circles is that "consenting" gets lost.
Are you suggesting that Truss was the victim of a non-consensual relationship?
Or the perpetrator or one?
Or is that topic utterly irrelevant to Truss and what she may or may not have gotten up to in the bedroom?
Would it matter if PM Truss tried to get a job for her current squeeze (I have no idea if there is one), for which he's utterly unqualified?
No more or less than if a married, monogamous PM Blair tried to get a job for a friend, a relative, or a friend of a friend for which they're utterly unqualified.
Nepotism is bad, regardless of what people do or don't do in the bedroom.
I was just thinking of the criticism Boris got for trying to get Carrie a job when he was secretly getting jobs off her - he was definitely more harshly judged because of the apparent motivation.
Indeed, we had a similar discussion regarding Musk the other day too.
What people do in the bedroom is up to them. Nepotism is unacceptable regardless of motivation. I dislike companies that try to regulate what consensual adults get up to.
It really isn't when it's bosses having relationships with juniors. It can become an absolute nightmare for the company, and is so open to abuse of power. The following story shows just one example of why:
SpaceX allegedly paid a stewardess on Musk's plane $250,000 after she claimed that Musk had propositioned her for sex during a massage on a flight to London.
" She accused Musk of exposing his erect penis to her, rubbing her leg without consent and offered to buy her a horse if she performed an erotic massage, according to interviews and documents obtained by Business Insider."
*This* highlights the problem all too well. He was one of the world's richest men, and she just an employee.
Mr. Cooke, not a fan of 'denier' in a non-Holocaust context. It's a cheap way to try and shut down debate (as it was when Osborne used to call Labour deficit deniers). If an argument is wrong then point out how, just calling someone a 'denier' is dismissing their disagreement without any counter-argument.
It’s better though than flat-earthers.
We are beyond the point where man-made climate change is subject to reasonable debate.
The fact of it, yes. What best to do about it, no.
The problem is, if you challenge the eco-orthodoxy on the latter you get lumped in with the few who are silly enough to question the former.
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
The attacks on Mourdaunt were unfair and brutal, I am not surprised you are bruised. It was not acceptable. My only hope is the next time this stuff is dished out at a Labour leader you don’t buy into it.
A candidate for PM who cannot explain or defend what they said on the record in the Commons or in speeches is not fit for the job. To the extent that people questioned her on what she said there was nothing unfair or brutal about it. She was preparing her campaign for leader for a while. She ought to have had better answers than she did and not told untruths. We have had far too little scrutiny of people seeking power as it is.
Without details, it is hard to say but a lot of the rumours about affairs on this thread and twitter amount to pearl clutching at the thought women might enjoy and initiate sex. If affairs are off limits, explain Boris.
It's not the affairs (apart from the reflection on pesrsonal honesty) that are the problems for a politician, but the concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues.
(This is a generic comment, not intended to reflect on Ms Truss.)
Oh give over, this is the same sort of condescending nonsense that implies that unmarried women aren't fit to be out and about or in the workplace.
Who's condescending? That comment of mine was completely gender and sex neutral, in my intent and wording.
If you are in such denial, then you are the one who is a flaming menace to your employer and your shareholders, colleagues and suborsdinates.
You are.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationships, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
What consenting adults get up to is between them. What we have seen too often in Westminster circles is that "consenting" gets lost.
Are you suggesting that Truss was the victim of a non-consensual relationship?
Or the perpetrator or one?
Or is that topic utterly irrelevant to Truss and what she may or may not have gotten up to in the bedroom?
Would it matter if PM Truss tried to get a job for her current squeeze (I have no idea if there is one), for which he's utterly unqualified?
No more or less than if a married, monogamous PM Blair tried to get a job for a friend, a relative, or a friend of a friend for which they're utterly unqualified.
Nepotism is bad, regardless of what people do or don't do in the bedroom.
I was just thinking of the criticism Boris got for trying to get Carrie a job when he was secretly getting jobs off her - he was definitely more harshly judged because of the apparent motivation.
Indeed, we had a similar discussion regarding Musk the other day too.
What people do in the bedroom is up to them. Nepotism is unacceptable regardless of motivation. I dislike companies that try to regulate what consensual adults get up to.
It really isn't when it's bosses having relationships with juniors. It can become an absolute nightmare for the company, and is so open to abuse of power. The following story shows just one example of why:
SpaceX allegedly paid a stewardess on Musk's plane $250,000 after she claimed that Musk had propositioned her for sex during a massage on a flight to London.
" She accused Musk of exposing his erect penis to her, rubbing her leg without consent and offered to buy her a horse if she performed an erotic massage, according to interviews and documents obtained by Business Insider."
*This* highlights the problem all too well. He was one of the world's richest men, and she just an employee.
I like the fact that Truss is now saying the last 20 years have been an economic failure.
I wouldn’t quite go that far, but I like the fact she’s willing to consider a radical reassessment of policy.
But Im terrified of the fact she is a full-blown acolyte of Patrick Minford and her polices are a recipe for galloping inflation and a full-on war against the Bank of England.
Sunak is cringeingly smarmy and disingenuous, but at least he won’t actively crash the economy.
What's wrong with being an acolyte of Patrick Minford?
I suppose you are a believer in "364 economists can't be wrong" groupthink? 🤔
The problem with being an acolyte of Patrick Minford (who is rarely seen in public without the epithet “discredited”) is that it rots your brain.
One sign is the frequent and uncalled for use of emojis.
Another is the consistent posing of absurd non-sequitur questions to your rhetorical opponents as if that amounts to an argument.
Climate has always change and will always change. If someone looks at weather that's hotter than usual, colder than usual, the same as usual, and concludes this proves their view then they have a religious belief, not a scientific theory. If any and every conceivable piece of information confirms a belief, that's not a sceptical, scientific mindset, it's a zealous one.
Many of the strategies for dealing with 'man-made' global warming are a good idea in and of themselves (security of energy supply, more efficient devices). But when experts predict snow will become a thing of the past in the UK and less than a decade later we have two of the coldest winters in a century their prophetic powers are not necessarily shown to be of the Delphic variety.
Assuming we must be the cause of the climate's changing is the same human-centric arrogance that led some to conclude Earth must be the centre of the universe.
Bury North is not a Red Wall seat, it's a bellwether.
Indeed. It's been won by the largest Party at every election except 2017. But I've given up arguing the toss about Red Wall. It is also reasonably well-to-do.
I like the fact that Truss is now saying the last 20 years have been an economic failure.
I wouldn’t quite go that far, but I like the fact she’s willing to consider a radical reassessment of policy.
But Im terrified of the fact she is a full-blown acolyte of Patrick Minford and her polices are a recipe for galloping inflation and a full-on war against the Bank of England.
Sunak is cringeingly smarmy and disingenuous, but at least he won’t actively crash the economy.
I don't know why politicians don't look at a period when the economy was doing well, such as the 1960s or mid/late 1990s, and try to work out why it was a success so they can attempt to replicate it. Maybe that's a naive way of looking at things.
The context is different, we are experiencing stagflation (albeit with low unemployment).
Isn't low unemployment a requirement for stagflation. Monetarists would argue that Inflation will only really disappear once unemployment reaches a level that pay increases aren't required and the cycle is broken....
* its 30 years since my economics degree and today is focussed on holiday pay and zero hour contracts following a Supreme Court judgment yesterday that has everyone panicking...
Sir Norfolk, some people take Google or Word far too seriously when it comes to 'correct' definitions and grammar.
These are just answers determined by individuals, not a machine god, but I imagine we'll see language somewhat reduced in variation as regional terms and the like get shunned by word processor and online spelling and grammar checkers.
TBF I only cited Google/Oxford Languages because it agreed with what I previously thought
To test this, suppose you read this in an obituary:
"As Chief Executive of GlobalCo, Sally Jones always remained unmarried, and insisted she was too committed to the job to consider settling down. But that does not mean she had no love life, and indeed she was rumoured to have had a string of affairs with handsome young men who had worked for the company over the years."
Would you infer that Sally was targeting married men? I'd certainly not. There's an element of subterfuge implied, particularly given she is CEO and they were staff members. But they might or might not have been married.
Toby Young has penned an article claiming that the record temperatures this week were due to being measured at airports. That to "climate Thermageddonites got their U.K. heat record of 40°C" thanks to measuring devices placed next to hot jet engines and tarmac.
He curiously omitted the measurements over 40 degrees in green places miles from any jet engine.
He's been desperately penning articles on denying all and sundry, from the existence of covid waves, through the efficacy of vaccines (much of his output over the past year has been to platform antivaxxers and conceal the conflicts of interest of having a major antivaxxer group's press releases published as if they're objective news articles), and to outright deny anything about climate change.
Denialism and its links to conspiracy theories are a major issue, especially with pseudoskepticism
Sir Norfolk, some people take Google or Word far too seriously when it comes to 'correct' definitions and grammar.
These are just answers determined by individuals, not a machine god, but I imagine we'll see language somewhat reduced in variation as regional terms and the like get shunned by word processor and online spelling and grammar checkers.
TBF I only cited Google/Oxford Languages because it agreed with what I previously thought
To test this, suppose you read this in an obituary:
"As Chief Executive of GlobalCo, Sally Jones always remained unmarried, and insisted she was too committed to the job to consider settling down. But that does not mean she had no love life, and indeed she was rumoured to have had a string of affairs with handsome young men who had worked for the company over the years."
Would you infer that Sally was targeting married men? I'd certainly not. There's an element of subterfuge implied, particularly given she is CEO and they were staff members. But they might or might not have been married.
The star crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet had a tragic love affair, neither of them were married.
Minford is the “economist” who suggested Brexit would decimate agriculture and industry, but says this is a good thing. Indeed he predicted that a hard Brexit would boost the economy by 6.8%
He is on record as suggesting that the North of England be wound down, so that resources can move the the productive South East. Previously, he suggested a minimum wage would lead to millions of unemployed.
It's telling those that thing Truss is wonderful seem to think McDonnell is nuts, despite having essentially the same policies.
Today, in very special Blossom we discover that "essentially the same" means entirely different.
McDonnell wasn't planning to increase taxes he was going to increase spending.
Truss isn't cutting spending but seriously cutting (the wrong) taxes.
Both plans result in borrowing being used to pay for day to day Government spending.
She's planning on cutting the right taxes, or moreover reverse the very flawed tax rises that are throttling the economy but haven't closed the deficit and reverse tax rates back to what they were.
That's completely different to increasing spending.
Cutting tax rates from a record high and leaving them still very high, if it grows the pie, can actually cut the deficit.
Sir Norfolk, some people take Google or Word far too seriously when it comes to 'correct' definitions and grammar.
These are just answers determined by individuals, not a machine god, but I imagine we'll see language somewhat reduced in variation as regional terms and the like get shunned by word processor and online spelling and grammar checkers.
TBF I only cited Google/Oxford Languages because it agreed with what I previously thought
To test this, suppose you read this in an obituary:
"As Chief Executive of GlobalCo, Sally Jones always remained unmarried, and insisted she was too committed to the job to consider settling down. But that does not mean she had no love life, and indeed she was rumoured to have had a string of affairs with handsome young men who had worked for the company over the years."
Would you infer that Sally was targeting married men? I'd certainly not. There's an element of subterfuge implied, particularly given she is CEO and they were staff members. But they might or might not have been married.
That's a fair point - however if it had said "an affair with X" I would have assumed X was married. So "a string of affairs" is not necessarily the plural of "an affair".
Bury North is not a Red Wall seat, it's a bellwether.
Indeed. It's been won by the largest Party at every election except 2017. But I've given up arguing the toss about Red Wall. It is also reasonably well-to-do.
It's got Ramsbottom in it - which granted doesn't attract Premiership Footballers but does seem to attract local TV presenters and other media types.
Climate has always change and will always change. If someone looks at weather that's hotter than usual, colder than usual, the same as usual, and concludes this proves their view then they have a religious belief, not a scientific theory. If any and every conceivable piece of information confirms a belief, that's not a sceptical, scientific mindset, it's a zealous one.
Many of the strategies for dealing with 'man-made' global warming are a good idea in and of themselves (security of energy supply, more efficient devices). But when experts predict snow will become a thing of the past in the UK and less than a decade later we have two of the coldest winters in a century their prophetic powers are not necessarily shown to be of the Delphic variety.
Assuming we must be the cause of the climate's changing is the same human-centric arrogance that led some to conclude Earth must be the centre of the universe.
Don't be bloody stupid, nobody is *assuming* that GW is caused by humanity's activities. You may disagree with the conclusion (fuck knows on what grounds) but you can't present it as an assumption. Here is the basic science stated in 1912
"The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries."
Why are two cold winters evidence, and a dozen all time record hot summers not? Have you not noticed that the hot summers are hotter than the cold winters are cold? Your position was just about tenable 25 years ago. I assume you live in a city and rarely venture outside?
Mr. Cooke, not a fan of 'denier' in a non-Holocaust context. It's a cheap way to try and shut down debate (as it was when Osborne used to call Labour deficit deniers). If an argument is wrong then point out how, just calling someone a 'denier' is dismissing their disagreement without any counter-argument.
It’s better though than flat-earthers.
We are beyond the point where man-made climate change is subject to reasonable debate.
The fact of it, yes. What best to do about it, no.
The problem is, if you challenge the eco-orthodoxy on the latter you get lumped in with the few who are silly enough to question the former.
That’s because many of the flat earthers, having successively given up arguing that a) there is no climate change, and b) that there is climate change but it’s not man-made, have now seamlessly moved on to arguing we should do nothing about it.
@Morris_Dancer is still prancing around (a) or (b) mind you.
Evened up a little bit, still greener on Sunak but I'm going to leave things there.
Regardless of how it goes, many thanks to Mr. Roberts for an excellent tip that opened up a large swathe of trading possibility.
Thanks.
I'm wondering whether I should balance my book either a bit, or entirely? I could lock in now a hefty four-figure sum either way, or should I let it ride? I'm not sure, what would people advise?
I'd stick in some resting orders to lay Rishi at 1.4/1.6/1.8 and wait for market to overreact to Truss doing something stupid, which she will. Then reassesses from there (if only e.g. 1.8s/1.6s traded).
Your only risk here is Rishi doing something awful first...
This is from perspective of someone who plays political markets all the time though, rather than making "one big bet". From the perspective of the latter I think being able to brag about a 250/1 winner for years makes holding it probably a better choice.
Do you have a massive red field in your PM book but a huge green one in Con next leader too ?
It's telling those that thing Truss is wonderful seem to think McDonnell is nuts, despite having essentially the same policies.
Today, in very special Blossom we discover that "essentially the same" means entirely different.
McDonnell wasn't planning to increase taxes he was going to increase spending.
Truss isn't cutting spending but seriously cutting (the wrong) taxes.
Both plans result in borrowing being used to pay for day to day Government spending.
She's planning on cutting the right taxes, or moreover reverse the very flawed tax rises that are throttling the economy but haven't closed the deficit and reverse tax rates back to what they were.
That's completely different to increasing spending.
Cutting tax rates from a record high and leaving them still very high, if it grows the pie, can actually cut the deficit.
Cutting Corporation tax when all HMRC's recent research shows that low Corporation tax is discouraging Investment is the right policy?
If you say so but the evidence shows something very very different and I don't think anyone I would trust on economics round here ( @Gardenwalker , @MaxPB to name 2) would agree with you that cutting Corporation Tax makes sense relative to higher Corporation Tax and full allowances for investment...
Mr. Cooke, oh, I'm quite happy to agree that Young is daft as a brush. I remember one QT (a long time ago as I don't watch it now) when he claimed that there was no reason why matters of spying should be kept under the hat (I forget the details it was a decade or more ago). It was spectacularly dim.
I'm not arguing it hasn't been very hot.
If people don't want vaccines that's up to them, but the conspiracy theories around MMR especially are not scientifically supported but have sadly gained much support (as the cost of lives).
I maintain my dislike of the 'denier' tag for anything beyond Holocaust Denial.
If an argument is flawed then point out the holes. A dismissive response like that is akin to playing the race card to avoid having to actually consider what the other side is saying.
Sir Norfolk, some people take Google or Word far too seriously when it comes to 'correct' definitions and grammar.
These are just answers determined by individuals, not a machine god, but I imagine we'll see language somewhat reduced in variation as regional terms and the like get shunned by word processor and online spelling and grammar checkers.
TBF I only cited Google/Oxford Languages because it agreed with what I previously thought
To test this, suppose you read this in an obituary:
"As Chief Executive of GlobalCo, Sally Jones always remained unmarried, and insisted she was too committed to the job to consider settling down. But that does not mean she had no love life, and indeed she was rumoured to have had a string of affairs with handsome young men who had worked for the company over the years."
Would you infer that Sally was targeting married men? I'd certainly not. There's an element of subterfuge implied, particularly given she is CEO and they were staff members. But they might or might not have been married.
That's a fair point - however if it had said "an affair with X" I would have assumed X was married. So "a string of affairs" is not necessarily the plural of "an affair".
But if I'd said "she was rumoured to have had a longstanding affair with the company's Finance Director, Derek Ramsbottom, who died of heart failure last year whilst on holiday with Miss Jones in Corfu" would you then have inferred Mr Ramsbottom was a married man? Again, I think you'd be wrong to.
Context can mean its implied, but only really if you've got prior knowledge of one of the parties. You don't need to say "John Major and Edwina Currie had an *extramarital* affair" simply because it's common knowledge that at least one of them was married at the time. But with Derek Ramsbottom, it presumably isn't common knowledge.
Comments
I can see how you might have overlooked that.
If you replaced a woman allegedly having an affair with a 'flirty' unmarried woman then you can have exactly the same "concealed favouritism, blackmail potential and distraction from the day job that affairs relationships, and sorting out the consequences when they are discovered, that are the issues".
Your logic is exactly the same as people who want unmarried women locked away at home until they're married and fit to be let out lest they be a "distraction".
What consenting adults get up to is between them and nobody else.
The Fed will go up another 75bps, and everyone else will be even further behind the curve.
Great for me, I get paid in US$ and my mortgage (for now) is in GP£.
Inflation is rocketing everywhere, regardless of the tax regime, making Sunak's claim that he wants to control it by fiscal means at least questionable.
So I don’t think you have anything to worry about on that front. She does still have an element of clumsiness (witness getting lost at her own launch event) but it doesn’t come off as particularly endearing.
I AM TALKING ABOUT THE VERY REAL PROBLEMS OF AFFAIRS AT WORK. THAT SOME AFFAIRS DON'T CAUSE PROBLEMS DOESN'T MEAN THAT MANY DON'T [EDIT] DISRUPT THINGS VERY BADLY.
There is a database of classical time control for masters database giving about 35/37/27 white, draw, black.
I play mid level tournament chess and yeah white is an advantage but you're giving that up on the first ? Or ?! Move, and its not till youre at a titled level that is really ironed out.
Engines give white 0.3 of a pawn advantage at start. Not a winning edge but an edge. Black of course can choose which defence line to play against whites favoured opening and try and tilt them off prep which at anything below spooky genius level can work wonders
Only married men and women who are strictly monogamous in the work place. Anyone unmarried or willing to engage in affairs is a problem so they should be purged from society?
What consenting adults get up to in the bedroom is between them. If people hooking up at work or elsewhere causes "problems", then tough fucking shit, people are entitled to a private life.
The theme for Sunak's campaign is clearly being set as "Liz is making promises that she can't possibly keep".
I happen to agree with that in the sense that it's probably true. However, if he loses, the obvious question will be, "So why, Rishi, didn't you?"
And people are not entitled to a private life when it gets in the way of the job.
Are you seriously arguing that corruption and sex harassment are the price worth paying for the purity of your libertarian peinciples?
I've no idea what this Truss 'scandal' is supposed to be, but the argument opponents should be making is that (irrespective of whatever it might be) she is unfit for the post of PM.
No doubt you think it's a scandal university professors cannot regularly dip into their stash of grad students every year any more
Corruption is an issue, but that has absolutely bugger all to do with consensual sex. Monogamous married people can be corrupt.
Sexual harassment is an issue, but that has absolutely bugger all to do with consensual sex either.
If someone engages in corruption or harassment that should be dealt with on a case by case basis whether they are married, single, adulterers, monogamous, open, straight, bi, trans, gay, or anything else. Their sexuality isn't the issue, their corruption or harassment is.
https://mobile.twitter.com/J_Bloodworth/status/1549999163760336897
Or the perpetrator or one?
Or is that topic utterly irrelevant to Truss and what she may or may not have gotten up to in the bedroom?
You can mitigate the impact of it, i.e by ensuring the parties do not work together so as to avoid any power disparities etc.
I think however there is some conflation going on in this thread - there is nothing innately concerning with people who work together sleeping with each other so long as there are no elements of coercion involved and conflicts of interest cannot arise. Anything beyond that is obviously concerning and goes into the realms of harassment, undue influence, pressure and the like.
Spent too long in America by the look of it.
But there is a lot of stuff with junior members of staff and "party workers". It came up with Pincher's alleged conduct, and Warburton. It also made a brief appearance as Johnson's house of cards collapsed the other week, in a very unpleasant recorded phone call from his time as Mayor. Overwhelmed by the bigger news story but still.
Two single, unmarried people at a work place can have an affair at work and that could potentially lead to 'corruption' or 'harassment'. Two married people at work can have an affair at work and it is not different - except to their spouses. The marital status of the people engaging in the affair doesn't change it.
So either say monogamous, married people only in the workplace - or keep work out of people's bedrooms. Prying into or engaging in puritanical, salacious tabloid gossip about what people may or may not have gotten upto is beyond pathetic.
More innocent PB-ers can revert to Google
Nepotism is bad, regardless of what people do or don't do in the bedroom.
I was talking about all people, married, steady or otherwise.
You're the one trying to claim I am restricting the discussion to married people. You're the one who insists on 'affair' having a specific and restricted meaning to involving married people, not me. You are using it in the same sense as 'adulterous'. You're the one trying to restrict it to married people. Not me.
Ta muchly. I'd checked Chambers and Cambridge. No trace of that there. But if there is a real ambiguity that is good to know about - it does seem to be part, but only part, of the difference of opinion.
https://twitter.com/paulbranditv/status/1550027959716782080
You are using the same logic as those who say unmarried women must be locked away, because they could be a "distraction". Unless you're saying only married ones may be.
What people get up to is between them and their partners and only them, whether they're married or not.
Your only risk here is Rishi doing something awful first...
This is from perspective of someone who plays political markets all the time though, rather than making "one big bet". From the perspective of the latter I think being able to brag about a 250/1 winner for years makes holding it probably a better choice.
What people do in the bedroom is up to them. Nepotism is unacceptable regardless of motivation. I dislike companies that try to regulate what consensual adults get up to.
So you want to object to any unmarried people who start a consensual relationship, that is unacceptable in your eyes?
Either people hooking up is acceptable, or its not. If its not, then do you apply the same rule to two single adults starting a consensual relationship?
I wouldn’t quite go that far, but I like the fact she’s willing to consider a radical reassessment of policy.
But Im terrified of the fact she is a full-blown acolyte of Patrick Minford and her polices are a recipe for galloping inflation and a full-on war against the Bank of England.
Sunak is cringeingly smarmy and disingenuous, but at least he won’t actively crash the economy.
In common usage, I think "affair" in the context of a relationship possibly implies an element of secrecy but not necessarily because one or both parties are married. So "extramarital affair" doesn't seem to me to be a tautology.
I am not aware of anything that suggests an active problem of ethics, honesty or probity.
As is St James' Park.
And the village of Gringley on the Hill.
The lengths some people go to to support denialism.
These are just answers determined by individuals, not a machine god, but I imagine we'll see language somewhat reduced in variation as regional terms and the like get shunned by word processor and online spelling and grammar checkers.
Of course, the same rule applies whetehr married or not, as I have no idea what sort of marriage a given married couple might have. But I do make the common-sense observation that many spouses are liable to take grave exception, so that adulterous relationships are more likely to be concealed and more lilely to cause problems when discovered, both by nature and by the added fact of concealment.
I appreciate you adore Ms Truss, but I'm not actually thinking about her or her history - I know too little, for one thing. I'm thinkiong of other examples in recent decades.
I suppose you are a believer in "364 economists can't be wrong" groupthink? 🤔
We are beyond the point where man-made climate change is subject to reasonable debate.
SpaceX allegedly paid a stewardess on Musk's plane $250,000 after she claimed that Musk had propositioned her for sex during a massage on a flight to London.
" She accused Musk of exposing his erect penis to her, rubbing her leg without consent and offered to buy her a horse if she performed an erotic massage, according to interviews and documents obtained by Business Insider."
*This* highlights the problem all too well. He was one of the world's richest men, and she just an employee.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/may/20/elon-musk-denies-he-sexually-harassed-attendant-on-private-jet-in-2016
It's telling those that thing Truss is wonderful seem to think McDonnell is nuts, despite having essentially the same policies.
The problem is, if you challenge the eco-orthodoxy on the latter you get lumped in with the few who are silly enough to question the former.
And fucking the payroll would be a no no, in the counterfactual case of allegations of that doing the rounds.
"He's wrong because..." is a much more persuasive argument than "he's a fruit loop". Do you have a "because"?
One sign is the frequent and uncalled for use of emojis.
Another is the consistent posing of absurd non-sequitur questions to your rhetorical opponents as if that amounts to an argument.
Climate has always change and will always change. If someone looks at weather that's hotter than usual, colder than usual, the same as usual, and concludes this proves their view then they have a religious belief, not a scientific theory. If any and every conceivable piece of information confirms a belief, that's not a sceptical, scientific mindset, it's a zealous one.
Many of the strategies for dealing with 'man-made' global warming are a good idea in and of themselves (security of energy supply, more efficient devices). But when experts predict snow will become a thing of the past in the UK and less than a decade later we have two of the coldest winters in a century their prophetic powers are not necessarily shown to be of the Delphic variety.
Assuming we must be the cause of the climate's changing is the same human-centric arrogance that led some to conclude Earth must be the centre of the universe.
The issue is she will be a puppet for the ERG and continue the divisive politics of Johnson .
But I've given up arguing the toss about Red Wall.
It is also reasonably well-to-do.
* its 30 years since my economics degree and today is focussed on holiday pay and zero hour contracts following a Supreme Court judgment yesterday that has everyone panicking...
"As Chief Executive of GlobalCo, Sally Jones always remained unmarried, and insisted she was too committed to the job to consider settling down. But that does not mean she had no love life, and indeed she was rumoured to have had a string of affairs with handsome young men who had worked for the company over the years."
Would you infer that Sally was targeting married men? I'd certainly not. There's an element of subterfuge implied, particularly given she is CEO and they were staff members. But they might or might not have been married.
Toby Young has penned an article claiming that the record temperatures this week were due to being measured at airports. That to "climate Thermageddonites got their U.K. heat record of 40°C" thanks to measuring devices placed next to hot jet engines and tarmac.
He curiously omitted the measurements over 40 degrees in green places miles from any jet engine.
He's been desperately penning articles on denying all and sundry, from the existence of covid waves, through the efficacy of vaccines (much of his output over the past year has been to platform antivaxxers and conceal the conflicts of interest of having a major antivaxxer group's press releases published as if they're objective news articles), and to outright deny anything about climate change.
Denialism and its links to conspiracy theories are a major issue, especially with pseudoskepticism
https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/19/1/2/463780
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-019-0746-8
Truss isn't cutting spending but seriously cutting (the wrong) taxes.
Both plans result in borrowing being used to pay for day to day Government spending.
He is on record as suggesting that the North of England be wound down, so that resources can move the the productive South East.
Previously, he suggested a minimum wage would lead to millions of unemployed.
He’s not good at predictions, either.
That's completely different to increasing spending.
Cutting tax rates from a record high and leaving them still very high, if it grows the pie, can actually cut the deficit.
"The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries."
Why are two cold winters evidence, and a dozen all time record hot summers not? Have you not noticed that the hot summers are hotter than the cold winters are cold? Your position was just about tenable 25 years ago. I assume you live in a city and rarely venture outside?
@Morris_Dancer is still prancing around (a) or (b) mind you.
https://twitter.com/Madz_Grant/status/1550050377625632768
If you say so but the evidence shows something very very different and I don't think anyone I would trust on economics round here ( @Gardenwalker , @MaxPB to name 2) would agree with you that cutting Corporation Tax makes sense relative to higher Corporation Tax and full allowances for investment...
I'm not arguing it hasn't been very hot.
If people don't want vaccines that's up to them, but the conspiracy theories around MMR especially are not scientifically supported but have sadly gained much support (as the cost of lives).
I maintain my dislike of the 'denier' tag for anything beyond Holocaust Denial.
If an argument is flawed then point out the holes. A dismissive response like that is akin to playing the race card to avoid having to actually consider what the other side is saying.
Context can mean its implied, but only really if you've got prior knowledge of one of the parties. You don't need to say "John Major and Edwina Currie had an *extramarital* affair" simply because it's common knowledge that at least one of them was married at the time. But with Derek Ramsbottom, it presumably isn't common knowledge.