That's really not true. Almost everyone was arguing that we should have an independent trade policy and have control over migration, which necessarily means something like the Brexit we ended up with. It the process hadn't been so contested, there could easily have been a consensus about it, and it could have gone much more smoothly with no talk of cliff edges and 'no deal' planning.
Nothing in the Leave campaign mentioned lunacies such as withdrawing from REACH, withdrawing from the CE marks scheme, doing nothing to ensure SPS compatibility, and so on. Quite the opposite, we were told that we'd remain part of a great free-trade area "from Iceland to the Russian border", that there'd be no barriers to trade, that "British businesses will trade freely with the EU".
You might of course be right that the pig Leave voters were sold was very much in a poke, and that they were never going to get anything like it. But that was the pig they thought they were buying.
Now for (some more) comic relief, courtesy of today's GOP > Grifters On Parade
NYT ($) - Trump Hotels Charged Secret Service Exorbitant Rates, House Inquiry Finds Records obtained by the House Oversight Committee show the former president’s properties charged more than $1.4 million to agents protecting him and his family.
WASHINGTON — The Trump Organization charged the Secret Service up to $1,185 per night for hotel rooms used by agents protecting former President Donald J. Trump and his family, according to documents released on Monday by the House Oversight Committee, forcing a federal agency to pay well above government rates.
The committee released Secret Service records showing more than $1.4 million in payments by the department to Trump properties since Mr. Trump took office in 2017. The committee said that the accounting was incomplete, however, because it did not include payments to Mr. Trump’s foreign properties — where agents accompanied his family repeatedly — and because the records stopped in September 2021.
The records the panel managed to obtain provided new details about an arrangement in which Mr. Trump and his family effectively turned the Secret Service into a captive customer of their business — by visiting their properties hundreds of times, and then charging the government rates far above its usual spending limits for their protectors to follow.
The records also make clear that Mr. Trump’s son Eric — who ran the family business while his father was in office — provided a misleading account of what his company was charging.
In 2019, Eric Trump said the Trump Organization charged the government only “like $50” for hotel rooms during presidential visits.
Instead, records obtained by the committee showed, the Trump International Hotel in Washington repeatedly charged the Secret Service rates more than $600 per night. In one case, the hotel charged the Secret Service $1,160 a night for a room used while protecting Eric Trump in 2017. That was more than four times higher than the government’s usual spending limit for Washington hotels — but Secret Service officials approved, the records show.
The same year, the records showed, Mr. Trump’s hotel in Washington charged the service $1,185 for a room used while guarding Donald Trump Jr.
“Per diem rates could not be obtained,” a Secret Service record said, referring to the government’s official maximum rate. By law, the department is allowed to exceed those maximum payments when its protective mission requires.
Previously, the highest rate that the Trump Organization was known to have charged the government for a hotel room was $650 per night, for rooms at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla. . . .
Likewise, I’m surprised that full on “rejoin” is ahead by some margin.
Hunt could indeed look for some kind of EFTA deal and I think the pushback might be less than people think, especially since migration numbers remain high.
I think quite a large proportion of the 52% wouldn't have pushed back at that back in 2016. There were never two implacable camps; there were people weighing up pros and cons. If you could have magically given Britain some sort of early noughties EU, you could have sold it to most on both sides.
It would be instructive, seriously, to look at PB in this period. How “radical” were people to begin with, and how long did radicalisation take?
Personally I was shocked that the government did not go for “Flexcit”, and strident and increasingly lunatic rhetoric from Brexiters simply alienated me, to the extent that I eventually left the country.
Not very radical in 2016. Increasingly so through the 2017-9 blocking parliament led by Bercow and - yes - Sir Keir, driven by the need to get through any form of Brexit in the face of democracy haters trying to overturn the referendum result.
If you were alienated by the rhetoric, blame the sore losers who couldn't bring themselves to work for a softer Brexit which drove it.
Why not blame the people who actually voted for it? It only happened because of them.
Well, for me, because my order of preference was soft Brexit, hard Brexit, Remain. I would have rather had a soft Brexit. But I think Hard Remain posed a bigger risk to Britain's future prosperity and quality of life than Hard Brexit. Continuity 2005 wasn't on offer.
There’s no such thing as “Hard Remain”, though, which makes your evaluation rather dubious.
Hard Remain is what Greece and Italy have, in which their own democracy has been replaced by rule from Brussels and growth has been abolished. The faith I have that we could have stayed at soft remain indedinitely without being ratcheted further and further in is nil.
Ok, but this is 90% woo. Which genuinely surprises me as I have you down as one the more level headed posters.
Italy’s issues are entirely self-inflicted and there can’t be many people who think the current Italian government has been imposed by Brussels.
Greece is a more complex case, I’ll grant, but even there at the end of the day, Greeks refused to give up Euro membership and thereby accepted the lumps associated with it.
British governance has of course looked much more unstable since *leaving* the EU, and the two things are not disconnected.
Well thank you for the indirect compliment. And I shall use the phrase 90% woo in future. But I think it's only about 20% woo, and that's because it's a hasty couple of parahraphs rather than a detailed essay - because of course there are arguments on the other side. But do you think Italy's growth would be so non-existent had they retained the lire? My view is that its polotical problems stem from its economic problems, which stem from the euro.
The track record of the EU and its members in further and further integration; in every question requiring the answer 'more Europe' suggests to me the only way of not ending up in a superstate was to leave. Remaining was like trying ro climb the down escalator: a lot of effort to stay in ine place.
You don't come back from a 36% national polling deficit in one parliament, probably not two, and quite possibly three.
That's the scale of this armageddon into which the Conservative Government now stares.
The Mail is not pulling punches. And I notice, er, they're not mentioning coalitions of chaos any more. They have clearly realised that Truss is crap and have turned on her.
Do I feel sorry for Truss? Yes and no. No because she was ludicrously ambitious and over-reached herself. But yes because were it not for that wicked buffoon Boris Johnson's behaviour she, and we, wouldn't be in this mess.
One consequence of the last few days is that a future Starmer government is going to come under huge pressure for a rejoin referendum. The Brexit / Singapore-on-Thames dream is now dead in the water.
Rejoin ref IndyRef2 PR
too many things too quickly.
If Labour has a majority it's hard to see how IndyRef2 comes into place and likewise rejoining has to be a longer term project.
The important change in the next election is to change our electoral system so that we aren't left with a 2 party system where 1 or other has the risk of being hijacked towards the extremes.
Rejoining won’t happen anytime soon and why would the EU have us given the trouble we have been.
A closer relationship is the best we can hope for.
The relationdhip we have now is fine tbh. There is a whole world to forge ties with, without all the EU bulllshit
Have you come from mars?
Norfolk surely?
Indeed. A fine poster from a fine city, full of Eastern promise
Really? I thought it was a rustic backwater surrounded by swamps? A sort of Florida but without either sunshine or alligators?
Rustic, yes. Dickeys work in the fields slowly ploddin past a fierce ole mawkin while the ole bor do round up some doddermen what been eating his crops, turnips and that. And blast if them kids int forever on about wantin a teetermatorter. Mardlin on here's all that keeps my head going on the huh. Anyhow keep you a troshin gal.
Google translate failed with this! Does anyone have an English translation available????
Remarkably big score for the Tories – a fifth of the country claim to still support them. I hadn't realised the circus population was that large.
The local by election results of the last 3 weeks should show you the Tory vote isnt going to just dissolve. I'd expect even right now they'd get over 25% in an actual GE. There is enough fear and hatred of Labour where the Tories are the only alternative to drive nose peg voting
Even if they don't eventually do so by the time a GE rolls around, the fact that 56% of voters say they would now vote Labour is a strong indication that the "fear and hatred" of Labour is no longer the factor you believe it its be.
I think this is absolutely right. I certainly would not vote for Labour. But I no longer fear a Labour government in the way I did for the last 2 decades.
Yes. While Starmer and Reeves are utterly vacuous and likely no better than the calibre of the present Tories, they don't scare the horses. Some of the others sitting nearby, however....
To be fair that is ever the way with parties. Did anyone voting for Cameron in 2015 expect to end up with Truss in 2022? I know there were 2 GEs in between but still, the collapse of the credibility of the Tory party has been astonishing.
What was Hague thinking in 1998? That is at the heart of this. The ultimate unforced error.
He was thinking "we have a declining membership - we need more involvement to boost it back up"
Well it didn't work
Conservative Party membership fell by more than half from 273,000 to 134,000 between 2002 and 2013, although the decline was temporarily reversed in the mid-2000s
Great chart. Whilst I do blame the politicians for their rubbish service it is important to remember voters share a collective blame too. We do not take enough interest, are not willing to invest time or really understand problems, and prefer the quick fix from shysters.
If just 5% of us joined a political party I think that may be enough to stop the likes of Corbyn and Truss in the future. Despite that I am not volunteering!
Great post. The tiny numbers of people who are members of parties compared to the actual population is a massive part of the problem.
One consequence of the last few days is that a future Starmer government is going to come under huge pressure for a rejoin referendum. The Brexit / Singapore-on-Thames dream is now dead in the water.
Rejoin ref IndyRef2 PR
too many things too quickly.
If Labour has a majority it's hard to see how IndyRef2 comes into place and likewise rejoining has to be a longer term project.
The important change in the next election is to change our electoral system so that we aren't left with a 2 party system where 1 or other has the risk of being hijacked towards the extremes.
Rejoining won’t happen anytime soon and why would the EU have us given the trouble we have been.
A closer relationship is the best we can hope for.
The relationdhip we have now is fine tbh. There is a whole world to forge ties with, without all the EU bulllshit
Have you come from mars?
No, i wafted in from paradise (bonus points for actress/model and product advertised)
Why limit ourselves to the EU when we can have the herbs and spices of four continents?
That's really not true. Almost everyone was arguing that we should have an independent trade policy and have control over migration, which necessarily means something like the Brexit we ended up with. It the process hadn't been so contested, there could easily have been a consensus about it, and it could have gone much more smoothly with no talk of cliff edges and 'no deal' planning.
Nothing in the Leave campaign mentioned lunacies such as withdrawing from REACH, withdrawing from the CE marks scheme, doing nothing to ensure SPS compatibility, and so on. Quite the opposite, we were told that we'd remain part of a great free-trade area "from Iceland to the Russian border", that there'd be no barriers to trade, that "British businesses will trade freely with the EU".
You might of course be right that the pig Leave voters were sold was very much in a poke, and that they were never going to get anything like it. But that was the pig they thought they were buying.
Trouble is that withdrawing from all that was the only way to get the promised full control.
People didn't vote for the consequences of that, but the consequences are Someone Else's Fault.
Much like the way the government could have borrowed tens of billions and blamed the markets for the consequences.
Behind a far better speaker in the house who might have been a better PM?
The windbag Mordaunt would be no better.
Oh no, time to go. The inarticulate north of the border gammon thicko, also known as the man that still loves the man that was described by his own QC as a bully and a sex pest has graced us with his vulgar and low IQ presence!
Likewise, I’m surprised that full on “rejoin” is ahead by some margin.
Hunt could indeed look for some kind of EFTA deal and I think the pushback might be less than people think, especially since migration numbers remain high.
I think quite a large proportion of the 52% wouldn't have pushed back at that back in 2016. There were never two implacable camps; there were people weighing up pros and cons. If you could have magically given Britain some sort of early noughties EU, you could have sold it to most on both sides.
It would be instructive, seriously, to look at PB in this period. How “radical” were people to begin with, and how long did radicalisation take?
Personally I was shocked that the government did not go for “Flexcit”, and strident and increasingly lunatic rhetoric from Brexiters simply alienated me, to the extent that I eventually left the country.
Not very radical in 2016. Increasingly so through the 2017-9 blocking parliament led by Bercow and - yes - Sir Keir, driven by the need to get through any form of Brexit in the face of democracy haters trying to overturn the referendum result.
If you were alienated by the rhetoric, blame the sore losers who couldn't bring themselves to work for a softer Brexit which drove it.
Why not blame the people who actually voted for it? It only happened because of them.
Well, for me, because my order of preference was soft Brexit, hard Brexit, Remain. I would have rather had a soft Brexit. But I think Hard Remain posed a bigger risk to Britain's future prosperity and quality of life than Hard Brexit. Continuity 2005 wasn't on offer.
There’s no such thing as “Hard Remain”, though, which makes your evaluation rather dubious.
Hard Remain is what Greece and Italy have, in which their own democracy has been replaced by rule from Brussels and growth has been abolished. The faith I have that we could have stayed at soft remain indedinitely without being ratcheted further and further in is nil.
Ok, but this is 90% woo. Which genuinely surprises me as I have you down as one the more level headed posters.
Italy’s issues are entirely self-inflicted and there can’t be many people who think the current Italian government has been imposed by Brussels.
Greece is a more complex case, I’ll grant, but even there at the end of the day, Greeks refused to give up Euro membership and thereby accepted the lumps associated with it.
British governance has of course looked much more unstable since *leaving* the EU, and the two things are not disconnected.
Well thank you for the indirect compliment. And I shall use the phrase 90% woo in future. But I think it's only about 20% woo, and that's because it's a hasty couple of parahraphs rather than a detailed essay - because of course there are arguments on the other side. But do you think Italy's growth would be so non-existent had they retained the lire? My view is that its polotical problems stem from its economic problems, which stem from the euro.
The track record of the EU and its members in further and further integration; in every question requiring the answer 'more Europe' suggests to me the only way of not ending up in a superstate was to leave. Remaining was like trying ro climb the down escalator: a lot of effort to stay in ine place.
I’m very anti the Euro (for the UK). It was never on the table, not after Brown nixed it (something he strangely gets little recognition for).
So why fear of the Euro is sufficient to justify Hard Brexit is senseless to me.
If you want to drop that and concentrate on the idea that the EU’s teleology is “more Europe”, that’s a much better argument, albeit one I would still disagree on.
One consequence of the last few days is that a future Starmer government is going to come under huge pressure for a rejoin referendum. The Brexit / Singapore-on-Thames dream is now dead in the water.
Rejoin ref IndyRef2 PR
too many things too quickly.
If Labour has a majority it's hard to see how IndyRef2 comes into place and likewise rejoining has to be a longer term project.
The important change in the next election is to change our electoral system so that we aren't left with a 2 party system where 1 or other has the risk of being hijacked towards the extremes.
Rejoining won’t happen anytime soon and why would the EU have us given the trouble we have been.
A closer relationship is the best we can hope for.
The relationdhip we have now is fine tbh. There is a whole world to forge ties with, without all the EU bulllshit
Have you come from mars?
Norfolk surely?
Indeed. A fine poster from a fine city, full of Eastern promise
Really? I thought it was a rustic backwater surrounded by swamps? A sort of Florida but without either sunshine or alligators?
Rustic, yes. Dickeys work in the fields slowly ploddin past a fierce ole mawkin while the ole bor do round up some doddermen what been eating his crops, turnips and that. And blast if them kids int forever on about wantin a teetermatorter. Mardlin on here's all that keeps my head going on the huh. Anyhow keep you a troshin gal.
Google translate failed with this! Does anyone have an English translation available????
Rustic, yes. Donkeys work in the fields, slowly passing a fierce scarecrow whilst the farmer deals with some snails that had been eating his crops, such as turnips. And goodness, his children keep asking for a see saw to play on. Anyway, chatting on here is sometimes all that stops me going potty. Cheerio and keep on keeping on my lady.
That's really not true. Almost everyone was arguing that we should have an independent trade policy and have control over migration, which necessarily means something like the Brexit we ended up with. It the process hadn't been so contested, there could easily have been a consensus about it, and it could have gone much more smoothly with no talk of cliff edges and 'no deal' planning.
Nothing in the Leave campaign mentioned lunacies such as withdrawing from REACH, withdrawing from the CE marks scheme, doing nothing to ensure SPS compatibility, and so on. Quite the opposite, we were told that we'd remain part of a great free-trade area "from Iceland to the Russian border", that there'd be no barriers to trade, that "British businesses will trade freely with the EU".
You might of course be right that the pig Leave voters were sold was very much in a poke, and that they were never going to get anything like it. But that was the pig they thought they were buying.
Parsed that wrong initially, and thought "the pig Leave voters" was spot on, but more my style than yours.
As a Conservative I am fed up. Boris’s positives were more than offset by his pathological need to please and not be found out. I was happy with going for growth, but ud should have been done by incentives for automation to increase productivity: the tax changes at top rate may have worked if the laffer curve was true. However now we will never know because Truss didn’t try to get anyone onside before leaping into the political unknown. She’s now like Wile Coyote with her legs running in empty air over the canyon.
One thing though - the members voted for her and if the MPs really thought she was that bad they should have given us Badenoch or Morduant as an option instead. They played games thinking we would go for Sunak. However we members don’t like disloyalty. So the MPs who are now going after Truss shouldn’t expect activist support, and definitely not if they get rid of her with a coronation
All internally focused and obsessed with intra-party dynamics, just like HY’s stream of posts.
If you Tories don’t realise that there’s a country out here full of people with homes, jobs, lives - and very real fears for our future - and stop obsessing over your incessant internal squabbling, then you really do deserve to be consigned to electoral oblivion.
One consequence of the last few days is that a future Starmer government is going to come under huge pressure for a rejoin referendum. The Brexit / Singapore-on-Thames dream is now dead in the water.
Rejoin ref IndyRef2 PR
too many things too quickly.
If Labour has a majority it's hard to see how IndyRef2 comes into place and likewise rejoining has to be a longer term project.
The important change in the next election is to change our electoral system so that we aren't left with a 2 party system where 1 or other has the risk of being hijacked towards the extremes.
Rejoining won’t happen anytime soon and why would the EU have us given the trouble we have been.
A closer relationship is the best we can hope for.
The relationdhip we have now is fine tbh. There is a whole world to forge ties with, without all the EU bulllshit
Have you come from mars?
No, i wafted in from paradise (bonus points for actress/model and product advertised)
Why limit ourselves to the EU when we can have the herbs and spices of four continents?
I can get that in Tesco...
Even after Brexit? That’s amazing, I thought Brexit was the end of the world.
Remarkably big score for the Tories – a fifth of the country claim to still support them. I hadn't realised the circus population was that large.
The local by election results of the last 3 weeks should show you the Tory vote isnt going to just dissolve. I'd expect even right now they'd get over 25% in an actual GE. There is enough fear and hatred of Labour where the Tories are the only alternative to drive nose peg voting
Even if they don't eventually do so by the time a GE rolls around, the fact that 56% of voters say they would now vote Labour is a strong indication that the "fear and hatred" of Labour is no longer the factor you believe it its be.
I think this is absolutely right. I certainly would not vote for Labour. But I no longer fear a Labour government in the way I did for the last 2 decades.
Yes. While Starmer and Reeves are utterly vacuous and likely no better than the calibre of the present Tories, they don't scare the horses. Some of the others sitting nearby, however....
To be fair that is ever the way with parties. Did anyone voting for Cameron in 2015 expect to end up with Truss in 2022? I know there were 2 GEs in between but still, the collapse of the credibility of the Tory party has been astonishing.
What was Hague thinking in 1998? That is at the heart of this. The ultimate unforced error.
He was thinking "we have a declining membership - we need more involvement to boost it back up"
Well it didn't work
Conservative Party membership fell by more than half from 273,000 to 134,000 between 2002 and 2013, although the decline was temporarily reversed in the mid-2000s
Great chart. Whilst I do blame the politicians for their rubbish service it is important to remember voters share a collective blame too. We do not take enough interest, are not willing to invest time or really understand problems, and prefer the quick fix from shysters.
If just 5% of us joined a political party I think that may be enough to stop the likes of Corbyn and Truss in the future. Despite that I am not volunteering!
Great post. The tiny numbers of people who are members of parties compared to the actual population is a massive part of the problem.
And the tiny members of people who are members of parties exacerbate the problem, which however goes away if you accept that if MPs alone elect leaders, the members right of candidate selection still gives them an indirect influence, and that is quite enough for £25.
Sturgeon admits to a hard border if Scotland independent. Shame this has been overshadowed by other events.
Of course, if the UK is back in the Single Market by the time we have Scottish independence, it won't be much of a border.
I would have thought it would be a worse border, as Scotland would be *leaving* the single market, Europe will insist on strict checks and England won't be able to stop them.
Although given Westminster's extraordinary incompetence whether they'll ever set up border checks is another question.
Likewise, I’m surprised that full on “rejoin” is ahead by some margin.
Hunt could indeed look for some kind of EFTA deal and I think the pushback might be less than people think, especially since migration numbers remain high.
I think quite a large proportion of the 52% wouldn't have pushed back at that back in 2016. There were never two implacable camps; there were people weighing up pros and cons. If you could have magically given Britain some sort of early noughties EU, you could have sold it to most on both sides.
It would be instructive, seriously, to look at PB in this period. How “radical” were people to begin with, and how long did radicalisation take?
Personally I was shocked that the government did not go for “Flexcit”, and strident and increasingly lunatic rhetoric from Brexiters simply alienated me, to the extent that I eventually left the country.
Not very radical in 2016. Increasingly so through the 2017-9 blocking parliament led by Bercow and - yes - Sir Keir, driven by the need to get through any form of Brexit in the face of democracy haters trying to overturn the referendum result.
If you were alienated by the rhetoric, blame the sore losers who couldn't bring themselves to work for a softer Brexit which drove it.
Why not blame the people who actually voted for it? It only happened because of them.
Well, for me, because my order of preference was soft Brexit, hard Brexit, Remain. I would have rather had a soft Brexit. But I think Hard Remain posed a bigger risk to Britain's future prosperity and quality of life than Hard Brexit. Continuity 2005 wasn't on offer.
There’s no such thing as “Hard Remain”, though, which makes your evaluation rather dubious.
Hard Remain is what Greece and Italy have, in which their own democracy has been replaced by rule from Brussels and growth has been abolished. The faith I have that we could have stayed at soft remain indedinitely without being ratcheted further and further in is nil.
Ok, but this is 90% woo. Which genuinely surprises me as I have you down as one the more level headed posters.
Italy’s issues are entirely self-inflicted and there can’t be many people who think the current Italian government has been imposed by Brussels.
Greece is a more complex case, I’ll grant, but even there at the end of the day, Greeks refused to give up Euro membership and thereby accepted the lumps associated with it.
British governance has of course looked much more unstable since *leaving* the EU, and the two things are not disconnected.
Well thank you for the indirect compliment. And I shall use the phrase 90% woo in future. But I think it's only about 20% woo, and that's because it's a hasty couple of parahraphs rather than a detailed essay - because of course there are arguments on the other side. But do you think Italy's growth would be so non-existent had they retained the lire? My view is that its polotical problems stem from its economic problems, which stem from the euro.
The track record of the EU and its members in further and further integration; in every question requiring the answer 'more Europe' suggests to me the only way of not ending up in a superstate was to leave. Remaining was like trying ro climb the down escalator: a lot of effort to stay in ine place.
I’m very anti the Euro (for the UK). It was never on the table, not after Brown nixed it (something he strangely gets little recognition for).
So why fear of the Euro is sufficient to justify Hard Brexit is senseless to me.
If you want to drop that and concentrate on the idea that the EU’s teleology is “more Europe”, that’s a much better argument, albeit one I would still disagree on.
But even on those premises, a crunch was clearly coming at some point because by rejecting the Euro, which was teleologically the single currency of the whole union, we created an unresolved institutional problem for the EU. The Eurozone and future members could either integrate further without us, or we could try to block further integration which would increase the dysfunction of the union.
One consequence of the last few days is that a future Starmer government is going to come under huge pressure for a rejoin referendum. The Brexit / Singapore-on-Thames dream is now dead in the water.
Rejoin ref IndyRef2 PR
too many things too quickly.
If Labour has a majority it's hard to see how IndyRef2 comes into place and likewise rejoining has to be a longer term project.
The important change in the next election is to change our electoral system so that we aren't left with a 2 party system where 1 or other has the risk of being hijacked towards the extremes.
Rejoining won’t happen anytime soon and why would the EU have us given the trouble we have been.
A closer relationship is the best we can hope for.
The relationdhip we have now is fine tbh. There is a whole world to forge ties with, without all the EU bulllshit
Have you come from mars?
No, i wafted in from paradise (bonus points for actress/model and product advertised)
Why limit ourselves to the EU when we can have the herbs and spices of four continents?
I can get that in Tesco...
Even after Brexit? That’s amazing, I thought Brexit was the end of the world.
TBH, there are gaps on the spice shelves. Quite a lot of them. I had trouble getting a few like ginger, paprika and even mixed herbs. No tomato puree either...
One consequence of the last few days is that a future Starmer government is going to come under huge pressure for a rejoin referendum. The Brexit / Singapore-on-Thames dream is now dead in the water.
Rejoin ref IndyRef2 PR
too many things too quickly.
If Labour has a majority it's hard to see how IndyRef2 comes into place and likewise rejoining has to be a longer term project.
The important change in the next election is to change our electoral system so that we aren't left with a 2 party system where 1 or other has the risk of being hijacked towards the extremes.
Rejoining won’t happen anytime soon and why would the EU have us given the trouble we have been.
A closer relationship is the best we can hope for.
The relationdhip we have now is fine tbh. There is a whole world to forge ties with, without all the EU bulllshit
Have you come from mars?
No, i wafted in from paradise (bonus points for actress/model and product advertised)
Why limit ourselves to the EU when we can have the herbs and spices of four continents?
I can get that in Tesco...
Even after Brexit? That’s amazing, I thought Brexit was the end of the world.
TBH, there are gaps on the spice shelves. Quite a lot of them. I had trouble getting a few like ginger, paprika and even mixed herbs. No tomato puree either...
French mustard is a pain to get.
Can get Dijon, English and German, but not French. Or at least, not easily.
You don't come back from a 36% national polling deficit in one parliament, probably not two, and quite possibly three.
That's the scale of this armageddon into which the Conservative Government now stares.
The Mail is not pulling punches. And I notice, er, they're not mentioning coalitions of chaos any more. They have clearly realised that Truss is crap and have turned on her.
Do I feel sorry for Truss? Yes and no. No because she was ludicrously ambitious and over-reached herself. But yes because were it not for that wicked buffoon Boris Johnson's behaviour she, and we, wouldn't be in this mess.
She chose to become leader.
She was over-ambitious and over-reached herself but whilst a lot of the flak has to rightly land on her, the Tory Party (and a commentariat that went along with them) enabled her.
She just wasn't very good but was lauded as a serious politician with clever ideas.
I called it the "Emperor's New Clothes" effect on here because I think it was easy to overlook Truss' obvious flaws and assume that because people rated her, she was going to be better than your head might suggest. I honestly did start to wonder during the leadership contest if she could surprise us - and I will hold my hands up and admit that.
For anyone who still clings to some arcane belief that the tories will come back from this, remember that even when they got absolutely trounced in 1997 the economy was in great shape.
This time they have managed to add mountains of sleaze to economic incompetence, a tanking economy on top of a critical cost of living crisis. And we've lived through 3 of the shittiest years since WWII.
The electorate are going to wipe them out. And they f-ing deserve it.
Likewise, I’m surprised that full on “rejoin” is ahead by some margin.
Hunt could indeed look for some kind of EFTA deal and I think the pushback might be less than people think, especially since migration numbers remain high.
I think quite a large proportion of the 52% wouldn't have pushed back at that back in 2016. There were never two implacable camps; there were people weighing up pros and cons. If you could have magically given Britain some sort of early noughties EU, you could have sold it to most on both sides.
It would be instructive, seriously, to look at PB in this period. How “radical” were people to begin with, and how long did radicalisation take?
Personally I was shocked that the government did not go for “Flexcit”, and strident and increasingly lunatic rhetoric from Brexiters simply alienated me, to the extent that I eventually left the country.
Not very radical in 2016. Increasingly so through the 2017-9 blocking parliament led by Bercow and - yes - Sir Keir, driven by the need to get through any form of Brexit in the face of democracy haters trying to overturn the referendum result.
If you were alienated by the rhetoric, blame the sore losers who couldn't bring themselves to work for a softer Brexit which drove it.
Why not blame the people who actually voted for it? It only happened because of them.
Well, for me, because my order of preference was soft Brexit, hard Brexit, Remain. I would have rather had a soft Brexit. But I think Hard Remain posed a bigger risk to Britain's future prosperity and quality of life than Hard Brexit. Continuity 2005 wasn't on offer.
There’s no such thing as “Hard Remain”, though, which makes your evaluation rather dubious.
Hard Remain is what Greece and Italy have, in which their own democracy has been replaced by rule from Brussels and growth has been abolished. The faith I have that we could have stayed at soft remain indedinitely without being ratcheted further and further in is nil.
Ok, but this is 90% woo. Which genuinely surprises me as I have you down as one the more level headed posters.
Italy’s issues are entirely self-inflicted and there can’t be many people who think the current Italian government has been imposed by Brussels.
Greece is a more complex case, I’ll grant, but even there at the end of the day, Greeks refused to give up Euro membership and thereby accepted the lumps associated with it.
British governance has of course looked much more unstable since *leaving* the EU, and the two things are not disconnected.
Well thank you for the indirect compliment. And I shall use the phrase 90% woo in future. But I think it's only about 20% woo, and that's because it's a hasty couple of parahraphs rather than a detailed essay - because of course there are arguments on the other side. But do you think Italy's growth would be so non-existent had they retained the lire? My view is that its polotical problems stem from its economic problems, which stem from the euro.
The track record of the EU and its members in further and further integration; in every question requiring the answer 'more Europe' suggests to me the only way of not ending up in a superstate was to leave. Remaining was like trying ro climb the down escalator: a lot of effort to stay in ine place.
I’m very anti the Euro (for the UK). It was never on the table, not after Brown nixed it (something he strangely gets little recognition for).
So why fear of the Euro is sufficient to justify Hard Brexit is senseless to me.
If you want to drop that and concentrate on the idea that the EU’s teleology is “more Europe”, that’s a much better argument, albeit one I would still disagree on.
It's no secret that the EU is rather irritated that other currencies aside from the euro exist in its bloc. Granted they have had only limited success in eradicating them. But the EU's express purpose is ever closer union. Even if they can't in practice achieve this it is only through thr consrant battles of its more recalcitrant members. I was an enthusiastic and idealistic European once. And later a "not perfect but lets stay and fix it" type. But the longer the project went on the less it appeared Europe wanted to be fixed. Anyway, I'm getting off topic, whuch is anotger feature of discussions about the EU. This argument has been rumbling since the start of pb and I don't imagine will ever stop; the best we can hope for is that it rumbles on politely. I am off to cook tea now so feel free to have the last word!
One consequence of the last few days is that a future Starmer government is going to come under huge pressure for a rejoin referendum. The Brexit / Singapore-on-Thames dream is now dead in the water.
EEA, maybe, undoing Cameron/May's error.
But rejoin the EU, with the euro and Schengen as part of the package? Even if you could persuade the other 27 countries to offer it...
No reason to think we wouldn't be able to get opt-outs for the euro and Schengen, or at least have a way of indefinitely delaying them as Sweden has gone. The rebate has gone for sure though.
So your argument would be that rather than joining EFTA/EEA and having the single market benefits without any of the political rubbish, we should pay a huge wad of additional money to rejoin the political stuff as well? And with the threat of having to join the Euro and Schengen at some point down the line.
Good luck with that.
EFTA/EEA is an easy sell - it is, after all, pretty much what was voted for in 1975 and what well over 90% of people were happy with right up until Maastricht changed everything.
And, of course, who's to say the Rejoin campaign would be any more competent than the Remain campaign was?
There's a lot of misunderstanding about the EFTA/EEA option. In practice, the EU wouldn't let us be a member of the EEA because they regard the institutional structure as too lax. It was originally intended to be a temporary stopgap after Norway narrowly voted against joining the EU. The way some people act as though we could make a unilateral decision and join the EEA overnight is detached from reality.
It's also not really like what we voted for in 1975 because that gave us full participation in the institutions on an equal footing, not being a satellite state.
Fantasies of running back to the EU are just that: there is no prospect at all of the UK either seeking to re-join, nor the EU entertaining any prospect of accepting us, until a large majority of the British electorate is seen to be solidly behind the idea. At the moment we're hopelessly split, and shifting the dial - if it is to happen at all - will be a generational project.
One consequence of the last few days is that a future Starmer government is going to come under huge pressure for a rejoin referendum. The Brexit / Singapore-on-Thames dream is now dead in the water.
Rejoin ref IndyRef2 PR
too many things too quickly.
If Labour has a majority it's hard to see how IndyRef2 comes into place and likewise rejoining has to be a longer term project.
The important change in the next election is to change our electoral system so that we aren't left with a 2 party system where 1 or other has the risk of being hijacked towards the extremes.
Rejoining won’t happen anytime soon and why would the EU have us given the trouble we have been.
A closer relationship is the best we can hope for.
The relationdhip we have now is fine tbh. There is a whole world to forge ties with, without all the EU bulllshit
Have you come from mars?
No, i wafted in from paradise (bonus points for actress/model and product advertised)
Why limit ourselves to the EU when we can have the herbs and spices of four continents?
I can get that in Tesco...
Even after Brexit? That’s amazing, I thought Brexit was the end of the world.
TBH, there are gaps on the spice shelves. Quite a lot of them. I had trouble getting a few like ginger, paprika and even mixed herbs. No tomato puree either...
Tbf there are gaps on shelves everywhere in tbe world. Check out the number of container ships sitting idle outside Shanghai and other big commercial ports. Shortages will be commonplace next year. At some point we will stop gawking at our own clusterfuck and realise the multifuck happening.
Likewise, I’m surprised that full on “rejoin” is ahead by some margin.
Hunt could indeed look for some kind of EFTA deal and I think the pushback might be less than people think, especially since migration numbers remain high.
I think quite a large proportion of the 52% wouldn't have pushed back at that back in 2016. There were never two implacable camps; there were people weighing up pros and cons. If you could have magically given Britain some sort of early noughties EU, you could have sold it to most on both sides.
It would be instructive, seriously, to look at PB in this period. How “radical” were people to begin with, and how long did radicalisation take?
Personally I was shocked that the government did not go for “Flexcit”, and strident and increasingly lunatic rhetoric from Brexiters simply alienated me, to the extent that I eventually left the country.
Not very radical in 2016. Increasingly so through the 2017-9 blocking parliament led by Bercow and - yes - Sir Keir, driven by the need to get through any form of Brexit in the face of democracy haters trying to overturn the referendum result.
If you were alienated by the rhetoric, blame the sore losers who couldn't bring themselves to work for a softer Brexit which drove it.
Why not blame the people who actually voted for it? It only happened because of them.
Well, for me, because my order of preference was soft Brexit, hard Brexit, Remain. I would have rather had a soft Brexit. But I think Hard Remain posed a bigger risk to Britain's future prosperity and quality of life than Hard Brexit. Continuity 2005 wasn't on offer.
There’s no such thing as “Hard Remain”, though, which makes your evaluation rather dubious.
Hard Remain is what Greece and Italy have, in which their own democracy has been replaced by rule from Brussels and growth has been abolished. The faith I have that we could have stayed at soft remain indedinitely without being ratcheted further and further in is nil.
Ok, but this is 90% woo. Which genuinely surprises me as I have you down as one the more level headed posters.
Italy’s issues are entirely self-inflicted and there can’t be many people who think the current Italian government has been imposed by Brussels.
Greece is a more complex case, I’ll grant, but even there at the end of the day, Greeks refused to give up Euro membership and thereby accepted the lumps associated with it.
British governance has of course looked much more unstable since *leaving* the EU, and the two things are not disconnected.
Well thank you for the indirect compliment. And I shall use the phrase 90% woo in future. But I think it's only about 20% woo, and that's because it's a hasty couple of parahraphs rather than a detailed essay - because of course there are arguments on the other side. But do you think Italy's growth would be so non-existent had they retained the lire? My view is that its polotical problems stem from its economic problems, which stem from the euro.
The track record of the EU and its members in further and further integration; in every question requiring the answer 'more Europe' suggests to me the only way of not ending up in a superstate was to leave. Remaining was like trying ro climb the down escalator: a lot of effort to stay in ine place.
With respect - Italy and Greece's problems can be blamed on their politicians.
Berlusconi had a ten year golden period to use the savings from the reduction in Italian debt servicing costs after joining the euro to restructure Italy's economy.
We all know that Bunga Bunga was higher on his list of priorities.
The fact you think competitive devaluation of the lira to protect Italy's manufacturing sector is a viable strategy now is... Interesting.
Portugal shows that reform is possible for smaller countries inside the euro. Greece's political class has failed the test dismally.
One consequence of the last few days is that a future Starmer government is going to come under huge pressure for a rejoin referendum. The Brexit / Singapore-on-Thames dream is now dead in the water.
Rejoin ref IndyRef2 PR
too many things too quickly.
If Labour has a majority it's hard to see how IndyRef2 comes into place and likewise rejoining has to be a longer term project.
The important change in the next election is to change our electoral system so that we aren't left with a 2 party system where 1 or other has the risk of being hijacked towards the extremes.
Rejoining won’t happen anytime soon and why would the EU have us given the trouble we have been.
A closer relationship is the best we can hope for.
The relationdhip we have now is fine tbh. There is a whole world to forge ties with, without all the EU bulllshit
Have you come from mars?
No, i wafted in from paradise (bonus points for actress/model and product advertised)
Why limit ourselves to the EU when we can have the herbs and spices of four continents?
I can get that in Tesco...
Even after Brexit? That’s amazing, I thought Brexit was the end of the world.
TBH, there are gaps on the spice shelves. Quite a lot of them. I had trouble getting a few like ginger, paprika and even mixed herbs. No tomato puree either...
French mustard is a pain to get.
Can get Dijon, English and German, but not French. Or at least, not easily.
Cornflour is oddly hard to find as well.
Ground rice too (very fond of it for a milk pudding with home made jam or stewed fruit such as blackcurrants).
One consequence of the last few days is that a future Starmer government is going to come under huge pressure for a rejoin referendum. The Brexit / Singapore-on-Thames dream is now dead in the water.
Rejoin ref IndyRef2 PR
too many things too quickly.
If Labour has a majority it's hard to see how IndyRef2 comes into place and likewise rejoining has to be a longer term project.
The important change in the next election is to change our electoral system so that we aren't left with a 2 party system where 1 or other has the risk of being hijacked towards the extremes.
Rejoining won’t happen anytime soon and why would the EU have us given the trouble we have been.
A closer relationship is the best we can hope for.
The relationdhip we have now is fine tbh. There is a whole world to forge ties with, without all the EU bulllshit
Have you come from mars?
Norfolk surely?
Indeed. A fine poster from a fine city, full of Eastern promise
Really? I thought it was a rustic backwater surrounded by swamps? A sort of Florida but without either sunshine or alligators?
Norwich is a glorious place to life. The wife would go back like a shot. Great shopping, decent nightlife. Big enough and remote enough that most U.K. tours touch down there. Occasional premiership football. Decent coast twenty miles away. The Norfolk broads. Glorious.
"The Norfolk broads."
MODS!! Must we tolerate this kind of misogynist outburst here on PB???
These women deserve respect!! Even if they do come from Norfolk!!!
James Forsyth has suggested this is the biggest UK policy mistake since Suez. Honestly why do Conservatives keep going on about Suez? Do they believe the Empire would still be with us today were it not for Eisenhauer pulling the plug on us? The second Iraq war seems like a far worse mistake. And what of the enormous financial and property bubble pre-2008?
Neither am I convinced that this is such a national disaster. Embarrassing yes. Hunt has basically taken us back to where we were pre-statement. A ludicrous unforced error, yes but terrible mistakes are not ones that are easily reversed like this one. We do actually have an opportunity now under a new government to restore some credibility. With the liar Johnson gone from No 10 I expect a deal is possible with the EU over Northern Ireland. Don't forget much of the loss in market confidence has been due to the threat of trade war with our major trading partner. Gas prices are falling. There will be a painful rise in interest rates but the economy will re-balance and after 15 years of depression economics we might get back to normality.
Is the grass greener on the other side? Perhaps. But the US has big political problems. The Eurozone has major economic issues. All is not lost - yet.
That 56% Labour share is the highest in any national poll since 24th March 1997
Their 36% lead is the highest since the 8th January 1996
The next General Election will be a shellacking for the tories
You mean PM Huntdaunt won't get a 20 point bounce?!
I think PM Mordaunt and Chancellor Hunt would probably get the Cons back to 30% or so by the end of the year. Possibly further recovery after another year or so.
One consequence of the last few days is that a future Starmer government is going to come under huge pressure for a rejoin referendum. The Brexit / Singapore-on-Thames dream is now dead in the water.
Rejoin ref IndyRef2 PR
too many things too quickly.
If Labour has a majority it's hard to see how IndyRef2 comes into place and likewise rejoining has to be a longer term project.
The important change in the next election is to change our electoral system so that we aren't left with a 2 party system where 1 or other has the risk of being hijacked towards the extremes.
Rejoining won’t happen anytime soon and why would the EU have us given the trouble we have been.
A closer relationship is the best we can hope for.
The relationdhip we have now is fine tbh. There is a whole world to forge ties with, without all the EU bulllshit
Have you come from mars?
No, i wafted in from paradise (bonus points for actress/model and product advertised)
Why limit ourselves to the EU when we can have the herbs and spices of four continents?
I can get that in Tesco...
Even after Brexit? That’s amazing, I thought Brexit was the end of the world.
TBH, there are gaps on the spice shelves. Quite a lot of them. I had trouble getting a few like ginger, paprika and even mixed herbs. No tomato puree either...
Tbf there are gaps on shelves everywhere in tbe world. Check out the number of container ships sitting idle outside Shanghai and other big commercial ports. Shortages will be commonplace next year. At some point we will stop gawking at our own clusterfuck and realise the multifuck happening.
Yes, but tomato puree and mixed herbs don't come from China on container ships. They tend to come from what used to be called the Continent.
Told ya. Surely it was "go before you're pushed, PM"?
Except Sir Graham Brady was inside the HoC the entire time according to the TV cameras - sat next to Gove I believe.
So No 10 cannot even lie in a quasi-competent fashion? That's REALLY a crisis!
Also, people shared tweets on here when she left Downing Street, and that was probably about halfway into Penny's turn in the HoC, IIRC.
I'm pretty sure that the Brady excuse (even if he wasn't in the HoC) wasn't it because Penny said something like "I did ask if I was able to say the reasons and was told I couldn't" or words to that effect. When she was talking about Truss she did have a slightly concerned look on her face. From that, therefore, I have surmised either:
1. It was something to do with national security. But COBRA wasn't meeting and I assume that they would have shared that with Starmer on Privy Council terms, so as to avoid a situation where parliament was squabbling but a big national/international incident was underway.
2. She had some kind of mental break this morning/afternoon and pretty much fessed up that she wasn't going to be able to handle the UQ. Hence Penny might have wondered if she was able to say something such as "personal reasons" but was told not to mention it.
3. Penny was told to bullsh*t and ride it out.
I suspect it might be a mix of 2 and 3 - Truss might not have had a full mental break but might have said with everything going on she wasn't going to be up to it and to please make an excuse.
In the 1992 Parliament Labour did enjoy Gallup poll leads in excess of 40% in 1994 & 1995. It won the 1997 GE by 13%.
And your point?
My point is that in a GE likely to be two years away Labour's lead could still fall back to less than 10%.
You are utterly deluded. See my post below about just how much worse the economic situation is than during 1992-7.
Total delusion. It's a sea change.
I am beginning to see the possibility of a sea unchange. Mord n Hunty's village non-idiot act was so fucking refreshing after the post-Cameron years, they looked at least evenly matched with SKS and RR.
Tory Mps words have become utterly meaningless. The country isn’t listening any more.
They’ve been exposed as the amateur spinners that they always were. That they fooled enough of the people, enough of the time is one of the mysteries of our politics.
If they aren’t already, even the Mail and the Express will be taking the piss.
Wouldn’t surprise me if the true tory papers switch to bigging up the Lib Dems, soon, to try to limit the Labour landslide and split the vote in a few of the remaining marginals to allow the Tories to slip through the middle and hang on to a rebuildable rump.
You don't come back from a 36% national polling deficit in one parliament, probably not two, and quite possibly three.
That's the scale of this armageddon into which the Conservative Government now stares.
The Mail is not pulling punches. And I notice, er, they're not mentioning coalitions of chaos any more. They have clearly realised that Truss is crap and have turned on her.
Do I feel sorry for Truss? Yes and no. No because she was ludicrously ambitious and over-reached herself. But yes because were it not for that wicked buffoon Boris Johnson's behaviour she, and we, wouldn't be in this mess.
If rumours are correct, Boris put up Dacre for a peerage. Did LizT block him?
Do you actually need more evidence? If so what? Would they have to dance naked round the Commons chamber singing Deutschland Uber Alles before you were convinced?
In the 1992 Parliament Labour did enjoy Gallup poll leads in excess of 40% in 1994 & 1995. It won the 1997 GE by 13%.
And your point?
My point is that in a GE likely to be two years away Labour's lead could still fall back to less than 10%.
You are utterly deluded. See my post below about just how much worse the economic situation is than during 1992-7.
Total delusion. It's a sea change.
The Labour lead would quickly be halved in the event of a new PM taking over. There is a lot of froth in the current polls - indeed even were Truss to remain PM and call an immediate GE for late November the Tories would be unlikely to lose by 20%.
One consequence of the last few days is that a future Starmer government is going to come under huge pressure for a rejoin referendum. The Brexit / Singapore-on-Thames dream is now dead in the water.
Rejoin ref IndyRef2 PR
too many things too quickly.
If Labour has a majority it's hard to see how IndyRef2 comes into place and likewise rejoining has to be a longer term project.
The important change in the next election is to change our electoral system so that we aren't left with a 2 party system where 1 or other has the risk of being hijacked towards the extremes.
Rejoining won’t happen anytime soon and why would the EU have us given the trouble we have been.
A closer relationship is the best we can hope for.
The relationdhip we have now is fine tbh. There is a whole world to forge ties with, without all the EU bulllshit
Have you come from mars?
Norfolk surely?
Indeed. A fine poster from a fine city, full of Eastern promise
Really? I thought it was a rustic backwater surrounded by swamps? A sort of Florida but without either sunshine or alligators?
Norwich is a glorious place to life. The wife would go back like a shot. Great shopping, decent nightlife. Big enough and remote enough that most U.K. tours touch down there. Occasional premiership football. Decent coast twenty miles away. The Norfolk broads. Glorious.
"The Norfolk broads."
MODS!! Must we tolerate this kind of misogynist outburst here on PB???
These women deserve respect!! Even if they do come from Norfolk!!!
That 56% Labour share is the highest in any national poll since 24th March 1997
Their 36% lead is the highest since the 8th January 1996
The next General Election will be a shellacking for the tories
You mean PM Huntdaunt won't get a 20 point bounce?!
I think PM Mordaunt and Chancellor Hunt would probably get the Cons back to 30% or so by the end of the year. Possibly further recovery after another year or so.
The Tories need to quickly replace Truss and be boring but competent. They should then be able to get to 30%. They lose but is recoverable when Labour tears itself apart trying to implement spending cuts.
One consequence of the last few days is that a future Starmer government is going to come under huge pressure for a rejoin referendum. The Brexit / Singapore-on-Thames dream is now dead in the water.
Rejoin ref IndyRef2 PR
too many things too quickly.
If Labour has a majority it's hard to see how IndyRef2 comes into place and likewise rejoining has to be a longer term project.
The important change in the next election is to change our electoral system so that we aren't left with a 2 party system where 1 or other has the risk of being hijacked towards the extremes.
Rejoining won’t happen anytime soon and why would the EU have us given the trouble we have been.
A closer relationship is the best we can hope for.
The relationdhip we have now is fine tbh. There is a whole world to forge ties with, without all the EU bulllshit
Have you come from mars?
No, i wafted in from paradise (bonus points for actress/model and product advertised)
Why limit ourselves to the EU when we can have the herbs and spices of four continents?
I can get that in Tesco...
Even after Brexit? That’s amazing, I thought Brexit was the end of the world.
TBH, there are gaps on the spice shelves. Quite a lot of them. I had trouble getting a few like ginger, paprika and even mixed herbs. No tomato puree either...
Tbf there are gaps on shelves everywhere in tbe world. Check out the number of container ships sitting idle outside Shanghai and other big commercial ports. Shortages will be commonplace next year. At some point we will stop gawking at our own clusterfuck and realise the multifuck happening.
Yes, but tomato puree and mixed herbs don't come from China on container ships. They tend to come from what used to be called the Continent.
Tomato products are on a general shortage due to production costs soaring. I expect spices are in the same boat. I would be extremely surprised if it were a brexit issue. Or a UK specific issue
That 56% Labour share is the highest in any national poll since 24th March 1997
Their 36% lead is the highest since the 8th January 1996
The next General Election will be a shellacking for the tories
You mean PM Huntdaunt won't get a 20 point bounce?!
I think PM Mordaunt and Chancellor Hunt would probably get the Cons back to 30% or so by the end of the year. Possibly further recovery after another year or so.
Yeah, i think a 1997 to 2001 type result is possible with the LDs lower
The entire Conservative Party is circling the plughole, regardless of whether they were invested in Truss's project or not. Their political position is already ruinous and we've not yet had the spending cuts, falling house prices, negative equity and a titanic energy price hike for most households and businesses next Spring.
But I suppose that relative, for example, to all those who were incinerated in the pyroclastic flow generated by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD79, it's been a good day for some Tories.
It is interesting to note something has happened quite unexpectedly because of hapless Truss's mini budget that most everyone now knows sound finance is required and that the OBR and IMF are very much in the headlines and being quoted by labour, (and some conservatives) daily and the media
The next GE will require labour to satisfy these organisations with a credible fully costed programme and not just one they say is fully costed
It follows that this conservative disaster may be a blessing in disguise if all political parties are held to scrutiny on the financial viability of their policies
One consequence of the last few days is that a future Starmer government is going to come under huge pressure for a rejoin referendum. The Brexit / Singapore-on-Thames dream is now dead in the water.
Rejoin ref IndyRef2 PR
too many things too quickly.
If Labour has a majority it's hard to see how IndyRef2 comes into place and likewise rejoining has to be a longer term project.
The important change in the next election is to change our electoral system so that we aren't left with a 2 party system where 1 or other has the risk of being hijacked towards the extremes.
Rejoining won’t happen anytime soon and why would the EU have us given the trouble we have been.
A closer relationship is the best we can hope for.
The relationdhip we have now is fine tbh. There is a whole world to forge ties with, without all the EU bulllshit
Have you come from mars?
Norfolk surely?
Indeed. A fine poster from a fine city, full of Eastern promise
Really? I thought it was a rustic backwater surrounded by swamps? A sort of Florida but without either sunshine or alligators?
Norwich is a glorious place to life. The wife would go back like a shot. Great shopping, decent nightlife. Big enough and remote enough that most U.K. tours touch down there. Occasional premiership football. Decent coast twenty miles away. The Norfolk broads. Glorious.
"The Norfolk broads."
MODS!! Must we tolerate this kind of misogynist outburst here on PB???
These women deserve respect!! Even if they do come from Norfolk!!!
The old ones are the best 😉
Lacking any personal experience of Norfolk Broads be they young or old, I'll take your word for it.
In the 1992 Parliament Labour did enjoy Gallup poll leads in excess of 40% in 1994 & 1995. It won the 1997 GE by 13%.
And your point?
My point is that in a GE likely to be two years away Labour's lead could still fall back to less than 10%.
You are utterly deluded. See my post below about just how much worse the economic situation is than during 1992-7.
Total delusion. It's a sea change.
I want the tories gone as much as the next man, but believing in these polls at the moment, is a one-way ticket to the poor house, there is no way these numbers would be replicated at a GE, its almost certainly 2 years away, time enough for the right wing media to train their guns on their true enemy, the Labour Party, and as usual they will throw everything at Starmer, enough for the stupid and gullible to think, I will give the Tories one last chance, I still believe the Tories floor is around 30 %, but that could still provide a drubbing
It is interesting to note something has happened quite unexpectedly because of hapless Truss's mini budget that most everyone now knows sound finance is required and that the OBR and IMF are very much in the headlines and being quoted by labour, (and some conservatives) daily and the media
The next GE will require labour to satisfy these organisations with a credible fully costed programme and not just one they say is fully costed
It follows that this conservative disaster may be a blessing in disguise if all political parties are held to scrutiny on the financial viability of their policies
And we need big Joes approval to do anything too don't forget. 'And hes not the only one who thinks so'
One consequence of the last few days is that a future Starmer government is going to come under huge pressure for a rejoin referendum. The Brexit / Singapore-on-Thames dream is now dead in the water.
Rejoin ref IndyRef2 PR
Would be nice if someone did a bet to predict how many of those 3 happen in the next parliament
There are already markets on the first two aren’t there?
That 56% Labour share is the highest in any national poll since 24th March 1997
Their 36% lead is the highest since the 8th January 1996
The next General Election will be a shellacking for the tories
You mean PM Huntdaunt won't get a 20 point bounce?!
I think PM Mordaunt and Chancellor Hunt would probably get the Cons back to 30% or so by the end of the year. Possibly further recovery after another year or so.
Yeah, i think a 1997 to 2001 type result is possible with the LDs lower
I don't disagree - though the Labour lead in 2001 was 'only' 9% .
I concede that within Brussels the answer to EU problems is “more Europe”, and this presented an issue for UK membership.
Cameron’s rather weak response to this was to exempt UK from “ever closer union” clauses.
Personally my belief is that the UK must and can change the architectural framework in Europe to find a comfortable berth, and that it was possible to do this inside the EU.
It would have been the third great project for the UK after the creation of the Single Market and Eastern Enlargement.
Others think this is futile, but we will now have to find such a berth outside the EU which seems much harder.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 26m Keep an eye on the way Jeremy Hunt was specifically talking up Rupert Harrison’s appointment to his new Economic Advisory Council. One MP says “people are missing the big picture. It’s not a Jeremy Hunt coup. It’s a George Osborne coup”.
That 56% Labour share is the highest in any national poll since 24th March 1997
Their 36% lead is the highest since the 8th January 1996
The next General Election will be a shellacking for the tories
You mean PM Huntdaunt won't get a 20 point bounce?!
I think PM Mordaunt and Chancellor Hunt would probably get the Cons back to 30% or so by the end of the year. Possibly further recovery after another year or so.
Yeah, i think a 1997 to 2001 type result is possible with the LDs lower
I don't disagree - though the Labour lead in 2001 was 'only' 9% .
I meant more in seats. With boundaries and electorates equalisation i think low teens % lead might produce 2001
One consequence of the last few days is that a future Starmer government is going to come under huge pressure for a rejoin referendum. The Brexit / Singapore-on-Thames dream is now dead in the water.
Rejoin ref IndyRef2 PR
too many things too quickly.
If Labour has a majority it's hard to see how IndyRef2 comes into place and likewise rejoining has to be a longer term project.
The important change in the next election is to change our electoral system so that we aren't left with a 2 party system where 1 or other has the risk of being hijacked towards the extremes.
Rejoining won’t happen anytime soon and why would the EU have us given the trouble we have been.
A closer relationship is the best we can hope for.
The relationdhip we have now is fine tbh. There is a whole world to forge ties with, without all the EU bulllshit
Have you come from mars?
No, i wafted in from paradise (bonus points for actress/model and product advertised)
Why limit ourselves to the EU when we can have the herbs and spices of four continents?
I can get that in Tesco...
Even after Brexit? That’s amazing, I thought Brexit was the end of the world.
TBH, there are gaps on the spice shelves. Quite a lot of them. I had trouble getting a few like ginger, paprika and even mixed herbs. No tomato puree either...
Tbf there are gaps on shelves everywhere in tbe world. Check out the number of container ships sitting idle outside Shanghai and other big commercial ports. Shortages will be commonplace next year. At some point we will stop gawking at our own clusterfuck and realise the multifuck happening.
Yes, but tomato puree and mixed herbs don't come from China on container ships. They tend to come from what used to be called the Continent.
Tomato products are on a general shortage due to production costs soaring. I expect spices are in the same boat. I would be extremely surprised if it were a brexit issue. Or a UK specific issue
Looks like this BBC update timed at 7.25pm is what moved the Exit Date market:
"Prime Minister Liz Truss has acknowledged "mistakes have been made" when meeting the 100-strong One Nation group of centrist Tory MPs, Conservative Party chairman Jake Berry has said.
He told journalists "unity" had been the focus of the meeting and that the prime minister was "bringing the party together".
Berry also said former Health Secretary Matt Hancock made a "really good intervention", saying that "we've got to get behind the PM"."
Comments
You might of course be right that the pig Leave voters were sold was very much in a poke, and that they were never going to get anything like it. But that was the pig they thought they were buying.
NYT ($) - Trump Hotels Charged Secret Service Exorbitant Rates, House Inquiry Finds
Records obtained by the House Oversight Committee show the former president’s properties charged more than $1.4 million to agents protecting him and his family.
WASHINGTON — The Trump Organization charged the Secret Service up to $1,185 per night for hotel rooms used by agents protecting former President Donald J. Trump and his family, according to documents released on Monday by the House Oversight Committee, forcing a federal agency to pay well above government rates.
The committee released Secret Service records showing more than $1.4 million in payments by the department to Trump properties since Mr. Trump took office in 2017. The committee said that the accounting was incomplete, however, because it did not include payments to Mr. Trump’s foreign properties — where agents accompanied his family repeatedly — and because the records stopped in September 2021.
The records the panel managed to obtain provided new details about an arrangement in which Mr. Trump and his family effectively turned the Secret Service into a captive customer of their business — by visiting their properties hundreds of times, and then charging the government rates far above its usual spending limits for their protectors to follow.
The records also make clear that Mr. Trump’s son Eric — who ran the family business while his father was in office — provided a misleading account of what his company was charging.
In 2019, Eric Trump said the Trump Organization charged the government only “like $50” for hotel rooms during presidential visits.
Instead, records obtained by the committee showed, the Trump International Hotel in Washington repeatedly charged the Secret Service rates more than $600 per night. In one case, the hotel charged the Secret Service $1,160 a night for a room used while protecting Eric Trump in 2017. That was more than four times higher than the government’s usual spending limit for Washington hotels — but Secret Service officials approved, the records show.
The same year, the records showed, Mr. Trump’s hotel in Washington charged the service $1,185 for a room used while guarding Donald Trump Jr.
“Per diem rates could not be obtained,” a Secret Service record said, referring to the government’s official maximum rate. By law, the department is allowed to exceed those maximum payments when its protective mission requires.
Previously, the highest rate that the Trump Organization was known to have charged the government for a hotel room was $650 per night, for rooms at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla. . . .
But I think it's only about 20% woo, and that's because it's a hasty couple of parahraphs rather than a detailed essay - because of course there are arguments on the other side.
But do you think Italy's growth would be so non-existent had they retained the lire? My view is that its polotical problems stem from its economic problems, which stem from the euro.
The track record of the EU and its members in further and further integration; in every question requiring the answer 'more Europe' suggests to me the only way of not ending up in a superstate was to leave. Remaining was like trying ro climb the down escalator: a lot of effort to stay in ine place.
That's the scale of this armageddon into which the Conservative Government now stares.
The Mail is not pulling punches. And I notice, er, they're not mentioning coalitions of chaos any more. They have clearly realised that Truss is crap and have turned on her.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
Do I feel sorry for Truss? Yes and no. No because she was ludicrously ambitious and over-reached herself. But yes because were it not for that wicked buffoon Boris Johnson's behaviour she, and we, wouldn't be in this mess.
People didn't vote for the consequences of that, but the consequences are Someone Else's Fault.
Much like the way the government could have borrowed tens of billions and blamed the markets for the consequences.
Have a nice evening everyone!
It was never on the table, not after Brown nixed it (something he strangely gets little recognition for).
So why fear of the Euro is sufficient to justify Hard Brexit is senseless to me.
If you want to drop that and concentrate on the idea that the EU’s teleology is “more Europe”, that’s a much better argument, albeit one I would still disagree on.
If you Tories don’t realise that there’s a country out here full of people with homes, jobs, lives - and very real fears for our future - and stop obsessing over your incessant internal squabbling, then you really do deserve to be consigned to electoral oblivion.
Although given Westminster's extraordinary incompetence whether they'll ever set up border checks is another question.
If so I'd have paid someone with relevant expertise to say so rather than hand over £12m to my fellow photoshoppee.
Their 36% lead is the highest since the 8th January 1996
The next General Election will be a shellacking for the tories
Can get Dijon, English and German, but not French. Or at least, not easily.
Cornflour is oddly hard to find as well.
So, she may not be the most impartial of judges.
She was over-ambitious and over-reached herself but whilst a lot of the flak has to rightly land on her, the Tory Party (and a commentariat that went along with them) enabled her.
She just wasn't very good but was lauded as a serious politician with clever ideas.
I called it the "Emperor's New Clothes" effect on here because I think it was easy to overlook Truss' obvious flaws and assume that because people rated her, she was going to be better than your head might suggest. I honestly did start to wonder during the leadership contest if she could surprise us - and I will hold my hands up and admit that.
This time they have managed to add mountains of sleaze to economic incompetence, a tanking economy on top of a critical cost of living crisis. And we've lived through 3 of the shittiest years since WWII.
The electorate are going to wipe them out. And they f-ing deserve it.
But the EU's express purpose is ever closer union. Even if they can't in practice achieve this it is only through thr consrant battles of its more recalcitrant members.
I was an enthusiastic and idealistic European once. And later a "not perfect but lets stay and fix it" type. But the longer the project went on the less it appeared Europe wanted to be fixed.
Anyway, I'm getting off topic, whuch is anotger feature of discussions about the EU. This argument has been rumbling since the start of pb and I don't imagine will ever stop; the best we can hope for is that it rumbles on politely. I am off to cook tea now so feel free to have the last word!
Shortages will be commonplace next year. At some point we will stop gawking at our own clusterfuck and realise the multifuck happening.
Berlusconi had a ten year golden period to use the savings from the reduction in Italian debt servicing costs after joining the euro to restructure Italy's economy.
We all know that Bunga Bunga was higher on his list of priorities.
The fact you think competitive devaluation of the lira to protect Italy's manufacturing sector is a viable strategy now is... Interesting.
Portugal shows that reform is possible for smaller countries inside the euro. Greece's political class has failed the test dismally.
2040?
Total delusion. It's a sea change.
What's disturbing is that it still made perfect sense until I read the date...
MODS!! Must we tolerate this kind of misogynist outburst here on PB???
These women deserve respect!! Even if they do come from Norfolk!!!
Have a punt on Hunt
Taste fresh Coffey
Penny for your votes
Redwood not deadwood
Neither am I convinced that this is such a national disaster. Embarrassing yes. Hunt has basically taken us back to where we were pre-statement. A ludicrous unforced error, yes but terrible mistakes are not ones that are easily reversed like this one. We do actually have an opportunity now under a new government to restore some credibility. With the liar Johnson gone from No 10 I expect a deal is possible with the EU over Northern Ireland. Don't forget much of the loss in market confidence has been due to the threat of trade war with our major trading partner. Gas prices are falling. There will be a painful rise in interest rates but the economy will re-balance and after 15 years of depression economics we might get back to normality.
Is the grass greener on the other side? Perhaps. But the US has big political problems. The Eurozone has major economic issues. All is not lost - yet.
What is going on? Are Con MPs insane?
Also, people shared tweets on here when she left Downing Street, and that was probably about halfway into Penny's turn in the HoC, IIRC.
I'm pretty sure that the Brady excuse (even if he wasn't in the HoC) wasn't it because Penny said something like "I did ask if I was able to say the reasons and was told I couldn't" or words to that effect. When she was talking about Truss she did have a slightly concerned look on her face. From that, therefore, I have surmised either:
1. It was something to do with national security. But COBRA wasn't meeting and I assume that they would have shared that with Starmer on Privy Council terms, so as to avoid a situation where parliament was squabbling but a big national/international incident was underway.
2. She had some kind of mental break this morning/afternoon and pretty much fessed up that she wasn't going to be able to handle the UQ. Hence Penny might have wondered if she was able to say something such as "personal reasons" but was told not to mention it.
3. Penny was told to bullsh*t and ride it out.
I suspect it might be a mix of 2 and 3 - Truss might not have had a full mental break but might have said with everything going on she wasn't going to be up to it and to please make an excuse.
They’ve been exposed as the amateur spinners that they always were. That they fooled enough of the people, enough of the time is one of the mysteries of our politics.
If they aren’t already, even the Mail and the Express will be taking the piss.
Wouldn’t surprise me if the true tory papers switch to bigging up the Lib Dems, soon, to try to limit the Labour landslide and split the vote in a few of the remaining marginals to allow the Tories to slip through the middle and hang on to a rebuildable rump.
Seems to have become the standard unit of crisis, like measuring rainforests in units the size of Wales or football pitches or whatever.
I would be extremely surprised if it were a brexit issue. Or a UK specific issue
But I suppose that relative, for example, to all those who were incinerated in the pyroclastic flow generated by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD79, it's been a good day for some Tories.
Coffey: grindr.
The next GE will require labour to satisfy these organisations with a credible fully costed programme and not just one they say is fully costed
It follows that this conservative disaster may be a blessing in disguise if all political parties are held to scrutiny on the financial viability of their policies
Cameron’s rather weak response to this was to exempt UK from “ever closer union” clauses.
Personally my belief is that the UK must and can change the architectural framework in Europe to find a comfortable berth, and that it was possible to do this inside the EU.
It would have been the third great project for the UK after the creation of the Single Market and Eastern Enlargement.
Others think this is futile, but we will now have to find such a berth outside the EU which seems much harder.
Not sure why.
@DPJHodges
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26m
Keep an eye on the way Jeremy Hunt was specifically talking up Rupert Harrison’s appointment to his new Economic Advisory Council. One MP says “people are missing the big picture. It’s not a Jeremy Hunt coup. It’s a George Osborne coup”.
"Prime Minister Liz Truss has acknowledged "mistakes have been made" when meeting the 100-strong One Nation group of centrist Tory MPs, Conservative Party chairman Jake Berry has said.
He told journalists "unity" had been the focus of the meeting and that the prime minister was "bringing the party together".
Berry also said former Health Secretary Matt Hancock made a "really good intervention", saying that "we've got to get behind the PM"."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-63278993
mirror.co.uk
'Liz Truss laughed as she sacked me' says MP who says it led to depression
https://mobile.twitter.com/MirrorPolitics/status/1582053932414644242