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Johnson’s making a big mistake on the Women’s soccer team – politicalbetting.com

I know that Johnson is on his way out but what better way to get some good publicity than inviting the victorious England Woman’s soccer team to a special reception at Number 10.
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Edit: And why on earth has Johnson made this decision - it seems like such an obvious own goal that I feel I must be missing something.
Yes, and more: as NYC sinks into crime, and is menaced by deeper political division, a lot of business in NYC will come here. Remote working suddenly benefits the UK
Really. Why would you work in NYC or LA or SF if you can work in London?
NYC is a truly great city and LA is jolly interesting and SF has a certain beauty, but they have grave downsides, and they are all trillions of miles from anywhere else
Fly two hours from NYC and you are in, er, Toronto
Compare that with London, when in 2 hours or less you can be in Paris, Venice, Berlin, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Rome, Florence, Edinburgh, Nice... and the Alps, the Balearics, Sicily, western Ireland, Burgundy, the Algarve, the Black Forest, the Dordogne, the Italian lakes, the Dolomites, Tyrol,...
There is no comparison. If your job is no longer quite so tied to the Silicon Valley office, you will move to London
HOWEVER La Truss has said she WILL do it, so there's that
Can anyone explain what the Tory grassroots love so much about Boris? Thatcher I could understand. But Johnson only seems to care about Johnson. He didn't even really believe in Brexit and has shown no concern with protecting its legacy, just the continuance of his own time in office. He has lied repeatedly, including in parliament and appears hopelessly disorganised and incapable of getting stuff done. He received credit for 'getting Brexit done' although the situation patently isn't settled. The covid vaccines was hailed as a triumph but I doubt the Tory grassroots approved of all the restrictions, tax and spending. As for Ukraine he continued longstanding UK policy and is that really why they love him?
Just a thought but I understand that the average member is a southern, higher income man. Are these yuppies? The sort who may be on to their third marriage, been taken to the cleaners a couple of times and see something of Boris in themselves, empathising with a kindred spirit locked out of his own home and alienated from the family he provided for? Maybe it's just a silly indulgence.
Happy to be proven wrong.
Two things:
1. He is a proven winner
2. He cheers them up and makes them laugh
That's it
They're really so stupid they have fallen hook, line and sinker for his act.
We really need to get the startups here, support them, and base them here so they'll never think of moving. I'll leave it to better brains to work out how we do that...
Incidentally, I know of one software guy (a Brit) who moved back after a couple of decades in the US, who has less of a commute travelling by train from south of Cambridge into London than he had by car in the US. It sounds as though he thinks their QoL is far better than it was.
(His wife is also a Brit. They met in the US.)
Johnson won't get this because he is on his way out and therefore realises that it is pointless as it won't do him any good at all. He couldn't care less about the "Lionesses"; he couldn't give a toss. His every action is designed to improve his own position and this will do nothing for that so he decided against.
Sadly for Rishi and Liz even if they promise riches later on neither will receive the boost of being the incumbent PM welcoming in the victorious national team so it doesn't matter what they promise.
I was doing some analysis on this for a client recently and it is fairly easy to raise your first round or two of funding in London, but you'd be crazy to stick around when you're looking for tens or hundreds of millions rather than a couple of million. America still wins hands down there.
1.12 Liz Truss 89%
9.2 Rishi Sunak 11%
Next Conservative leader
1.12 Liz Truss 89%
9.2 Rishi Sunak 11%
From team's point of view, why not wait for the new (if not much improved) PM? Even IF she's the Boris Continuity candidate, at least she's NOT Boris himself.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-holiday-downing-street-prime-minister-rishi-sunak-liz-truss-b1016304.html
No time for the Lionesses. Or Taiwan.
It's why he's always been Marmite. If you see the facade, he's quite an attractive National Leader. It's only when he betrays you personally that you realise that he's been playing you for a stooge all along, and that he's actually an utter sh1t. But everyone has to have that epithany for themselves, which is consistent with the absurd number of Conservative MPs and members who still hold out a candle for him.
As for the reception- it's bad politcs, sure, but Bozza isn't up for election, so who gives a stuff? The Lionesses aren't about to sleep with him, and the honour would be theirs not his... why would Johnson throw a party for them?
(And if your answer is "because it's the right thing to do", why should he start worrying about that now?)
Simple as.
It's not as if Mr Johnson and the Conservative Party have a good record when it comes to England football teams, either.
Both are English-speaking world cities with glorious culture, London has more history, New York City has that skyline
The proximity of the rest of Europe might be the clincher for me, if I was a highly paid tech exec. And where do you want your kids to grow up? Safely?
But of course I am biased
I think we will see more American execs choosing London on a quasi-WFH basis. It will be a complex and remarkable irony if post-Brexit London ascends to world capital status (again?)..... because it is in Europe
The same is true of Boris. Some say Boris is like Trump; in reality, he is more like Corbyn than either would like to admit.
It's a pity the LDs have embraced wokehood so heavily. They should have retained more cynicism.
So much for that rumored big red conservative wave.
So much also for the conspiracy theorists, the election deniers (most of them, anyway), and the MAGA right-wingers.
All of these things were not faring well, at all, in Tuesday’s vote count in the Washington primary. Overall, voters in this state seemed to be repudiating the conventional wisdom that this would be the first good year for Republicans around here since 2014. . . .
But Tuesday’s early primary results showed no signs of any sort of tidal change in our local, blue-heavy politics.
If anything, voters were signaling they just want a break from all the insanity.
Voters appeared in no mood to experiment with the fringes of either party. MAGA candidates were struggling on the right, while Democratic Socialists were not making any dent at all on the left.
Both of former President Donald Trump’s favored candidates in the state were trailing, for example, and may not make it out of the top-two primary. Former GOP governor candidate Loren Culp, in Central Washington, was running third in the 4th Congressional District, as was Fox News regular and newcomer Joe Kent, in southwest Washington’s 3rd District. . . .
Losing were a host of election conspiracy theorists. . . .
For all the talk that incumbent congressional Democrats such as Rep. Kim Schrier, D-Issaquah, and U.S. Sen. Patty Murray might be in trouble, both were easily outpacing their rivals. Schrier in particular is doing better than she did in her last primary, in 2020. This doesn’t mean she’s a lock in November. But it does mean no red wave came crashing down on her. . . .
There’s a rule of thumb among election analysts that if you add up the vote shares for the parties in each of our open primary contests, it’s a decent guide for which side will win that race in November. It’s not perfect, but as a general guide, it captures the overall mood.
Using this technique on the preliminary results from Tuesday shows that despite high inflation, concerns about crime and President Joe Biden’s low approval ratings, Democrats are doing about as well as usual, particularly in the hard-fought suburbs.
Example: Republicans spent heavily targeting a series of state legislative districts in the King and Snohomish County suburbs, where the GOP had been wiped out in the Trump years. Yet Democrats were running well ahead on Tuesday in all of them. . . .
Biden, like Trump before him, was supposed to be a drag on his own party. It’s not normal that a party runs this far ahead of its own president’s poor approval ratings.
If in this environment Republicans can’t get a red wave, a swell or even a ripple, it’s tough to see how they’ll ever fight their way back in this state.
Finding a date will be next to impossible.
Leon has one too - that of verbose, hard right, cliche mongers who endlessly parrot the received views and obsessions of speccyland rather than thinking for themselves.
Other than that, I'm a fan.
London.
The opportunity is there.
Has been for a while and indeed for a brief moment London was essentially “the” global capital.
Ironically, Ken Livingstone seemed to get this. Sadiq Khan doesn’t have a “Danny”.
There are things London needs to work on to support this; someone upthread mentioned Shannon style facilities at Heathrow. Housing is a big one (it is much more affordable within a generous commuting distance in the US)
and dare I say it, various forms of access to the Continent would also be on the list.
source: https://www.summitpost.org/u-s-state-highpoints/171191
London cannot compete.
That's it. Thread over.
Now, what about restaurants in Kyghtrplgsdristan.
Some free gift every time you book on your card in August I am going to put on about 2 stone's
How long do these things normally take to organise? If its a month, there'd be a new PM by this time next month. And Parliament is shut down for their annual holiday in the mean time anyway.
I'd expect the new PM to be the one to get the privilege to host the Lionesses, I don't see why Boris should get that privilege when he's gone by the time that everything reopens after Parliament's holiday.
He's quite capable of thinking for himself and frequently does.
Like throwing petrol on a fire...
The London/NYC split works brilliantly for financial services, it being replicated for tech would be no surprise.
The last piece of the puzzle is higher risk funds in London willing to invest hundreds of millions for series D onwards.
Clearly Boris is several leagues below Churchill but nonetheless the ability to boost the troops is REALLY important. Blair had it as well (in a different way). You listened to him and you smiled (even I smiled, sometimes), he cheered you up
Contrast with Brown
The sad reality is that the Conservative Party membership is now full of swivel-eyed fruitcakes and low achievers. They are extremely gullible, so it is one thing, and one thing only:
They are collectively thick as planks.
https://twitter.com/_restaurant_bot
So, classic music tracks whose titles begin with 'x' or 'z' ?
(When I read Frank Rich in the New York Times years ago, I began to suspect he was deliberately mixing metaphors to protect himself against substantive criticism. Westneat ahs never been that bad.)
Ziggy Stardust, David Bowie
Finance/sales stuff might stay in NYC but a lot of intellectual/HQ heft will move to London
Add in the boost from Hong Kong and - perhaps unexpectedly - London could really thrive in the next decade
I wonder if this is what I sensed in King's X yesterday. Essentially they are - wittingly or not - creating a Silicon Valley in an amazing new London neighborhood, but with added universities and science institutes and art galleries and biochemistry labs and the British Library and the rest, and all of it 300m from St Pancras and the eurostar, and half an hour from Heathrow via the Liz Line, with Shoreditch and the Silicon roundabout just down the road
It is completely unique. London - esp King's X - has the chance to be THE tech hub for the world, or at least the western world
If I was the head of Instagram, I'd move from California to King's Cross (never thought I'd write that). Just to see
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-62406098
Doe this make sense to anyone?
Incidentally, there's only one 'Q': Queen of the New Year, by Deacon Blue.
'Writing in Variety, Adam B Vary and Brent Lang noted that the decision to cancel Batgirl entirely would allow the studio to “take a tax write-down”, citing sources who said it was “seen internally as the most financially sound way to recoup the costs (at least, on an accountant’s ledger)”.'
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/aug/03/irredeemable-batgirl-movie-unexpectedly-cancelled-despite-being-in-final-stages
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/aug/03/3d-mermaids-cobragator-and-louis-ck-the-never-released-films-batgirl-will-join-in-hollywoods-vault-of-shame
Fat Larry's Band Zoom
If those two aren't on there, pack up
...The unusual move follows a change in leadership after Warner Bros merged with Discovery in May 2021, with David Zaslav its new CEO....
According to refugees from SF in the IT line I have met in London, one bonus of moving to London is less insane property prices.
Yes, I typed that right…
That is, if you are in IT on 6 figures, London is cheaper than SF - at least in terms of commutable stuff.
I was talking to one guy, He’s looking at Hemel Hempstead and a house for 800k…..
Quicksilver - Thomas Leeb
Quiet Joys of Brotherhood - Fairport Convention (Take 1)
Xpectations - Unloved (not a great song, but it is an X)
Zombie - the Cranberries (you must have that? Great song)
Zadok the Priest - Handel
Zooma Zooma - Louis Prima
Zero and Blind Terry by Bruce Springsteen.
Zip a Dee Doo dah.
That is bad.
WB really have screwed up the DC universe so badly.
Put Kevin Feige in charge.
(Biologists have a phrase for that kind of behavior: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_guarding_in_humans )
Sorry, Sunil...
Genius acoustic "percussive" guitar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh0bTtzRVIM
Is Lizzy going to be lucky?
Manchin eviscerates Fox interviewer using Democratic talking points (video at the link).
https://twitter.com/justinbaragona/status/1554498712700944384
Joe Manchin: "Who is paying any taxes that doesn’t have a corporation that has revenue of over a billion dollars a year? Not one person."
Fox News' Harris Faulkner: Americans making below $400,000, their taxes will go up.
Manchin: "That's a lie. A pure outright lie."
The PSB version is far better, if only for the faux-drum intro for the first minute.