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In an hour we’ll find out if Penny Mordaunt is the new Boris Johnson – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited November 2022 in General
In an hour we’ll find out if Penny Mordaunt is the new Boris Johnson – politicalbetting.com

When I mention that the Mordaunt campaign has over 90 MPs supporting it to a Government minister walking past my table in Parliament, he guffaws with laughter and yells: "No prospect," before stalking off.

Read the full story here

«134

Comments

  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
    Not 102nd.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    I wouldn't Bozza about it.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,959
    Let's just have a PM and be done with it, Penny.

    No-one will thank you for dragging it out another week.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    I'm hopeful he'll be better than his predecessor.
  • Just under an hour to go until Sunak gets it by coronation.

    Gutted to miss out on the £5000, but will take that as a moral, Pyrrhic victory.

    Hopefully Sunak has learned that increasing National Insurance was a mistake and won't do that again.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    I'm hopeful he'll be better than his predecessor.

    I'm hoping he'll be better than the last two.
  • Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981
    ydoethur said:

    I'm hopeful he'll be better than his predecessor.

    I'm hoping he'll be better than the last two.
    Three.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    ydoethur said:

    I'm hopeful he'll be better than his predecessor.

    I'm hoping he'll be better than the last two.
    I bet he tucks his shirt in
  • Just under an hour to go until Sunak gets it by coronation.

    Gutted to miss out on the £5000, but will take that as a moral, Pyrrhic victory.

    Hopefully Sunak has learned that increasing National Insurance was a mistake and won't do that again.

    Hopefully Sunak takes a balanced overview and doesn't listen to obsessive lobbyists.

    Everything needs to go up. Sadly.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    You can do it Penny!
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    edited October 2022
    Ishmael_Z said:

    ydoethur said:

    I'm hopeful he'll be better than his predecessor.

    I'm hoping he'll be better than the last two.
    Three.
    Theresa May had her faults, but Truss and Johnson were just a class apart in the diabolical stakes.

    They finally dethroned Goderich from the position of worst ever PM he had occupied it without realistic challenge for the previous 191 years.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    Nigel Adams:
    Bob Blackman MP, Joint Secretary of the 1922 Committee…has independently verified the nomination paperwork and confirmed to me that Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP was above the threshold required to stand for the Conservative Party leadership in this leadership election.”

    Statement adds: “Therefore Mr Johnson could have proceeded to the ballot had he chosen to do so”.

    https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1584518455503355904
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,960
    Ishmael_Z said:

    ydoethur said:

    I'm hopeful he'll be better than his predecessor.

    I'm hoping he'll be better than the last two.
    Three.
    Seven.

    :)
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,522
    ydoethur said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    ydoethur said:

    I'm hopeful he'll be better than his predecessor.

    I'm hoping he'll be better than the last two.
    Three.
    Theresa May had her faults, but Truss and Johnson were just a class apart in the diabolical stakes.

    They finally dethroned Goderich from the position of worst ever PM he had occupied it without realistic challenge for the previous 191 years.
    Boris at least achieved some stuff. Unlike Truss and, say, Brown.
  • Just under an hour to go until Sunak gets it by coronation.

    Gutted to miss out on the £5000, but will take that as a moral, Pyrrhic victory.

    Hopefully Sunak has learned that increasing National Insurance was a mistake and won't do that again.

    Hopefully Sunak takes a balanced overview and doesn't listen to obsessive lobbyists.

    Everything needs to go up. Sadly.
    If everything needs to go up, then start with Income Tax, which is paid by everyone, rather than NI which is only paid by those who work.

    There is no justification slashing Income Tax by 4p, while increasing NI, is there?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    Scott_xP said:

    Nigel Adams:
    Bob Blackman MP, Joint Secretary of the 1922 Committee…has independently verified the nomination paperwork and confirmed to me that Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP was above the threshold required to stand for the Conservative Party leadership in this leadership election.”

    Statement adds: “Therefore Mr Johnson could have proceeded to the ballot had he chosen to do so”.

    https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1584518455503355904

    Blimey. Plot twist.
  • ydoethur said:

    I'm hopeful he'll be better than his predecessor.

    I'm hoping he'll be better than the last two.
    When was the last period where we had serious government?
    Truss 2022: Batshit
    Johnson: post Covid: unable to escape controversies it created
    Johnson during Covid: pandemic removes all other policies
    Johnson Dec 2019 - Covid: possible, though other than completing our exit of the EU did they actually do anything else?
    Johnson Summer 2019 - Election: Batshit. Fired his own MPs to have a majority of -40. Geoffrey Cox roaring at the House demanding an election
    May post 2017 Election: Brexit Blockade and nothing else
    May 2016 - 2017: possible? Whilst she mulled over the form that Brexit would take did they actually govern?

    So its more than 5 years since we had an effective government and possibly more than that. Hardly an advert for Tory government is it?
  • Scott_xP said:

    Nigel Adams:
    Bob Blackman MP, Joint Secretary of the 1922 Committee…has independently verified the nomination paperwork and confirmed to me that Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP was above the threshold required to stand for the Conservative Party leadership in this leadership election.”

    Statement adds: “Therefore Mr Johnson could have proceeded to the ballot had he chosen to do so”.

    https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1584518455503355904

    Hold on, I thought we were told on here that it was all bullshit and Johnson had nowhere near that number....
  • ERG: Not European, don't do Research, no longer a Group.
  • My last point from FPT :

    Re; the ethnicity and prime ministership, this is actually a significant moment. I don't see minority candidates becoming prime minister in most other European countries anytime soon. So although Britain has fallen socially behind from some, or many, other points of view, from this very important point of view , of inclusion and tolerance, it's still actually ahead of most of its European peers.
  • I'm busy until around 4pm for work related reasons.

    So.....
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    edited October 2022
    🚨NEW POLL🚨

    How would you describe Rishi Sunak in one word?

    https://twitter.com/savantacomres/status/1584515625803972613?s=46&t=bcM6O2lsVIeDod02qK3vqg
  • Just under an hour to go until Sunak gets it by coronation.

    Gutted to miss out on the £5000, but will take that as a moral, Pyrrhic victory.

    Hopefully Sunak has learned that increasing National Insurance was a mistake and won't do that again.

    Hopefully Sunak takes a balanced overview and doesn't listen to obsessive lobbyists.

    Everything needs to go up. Sadly.
    If everything needs to go up, then start with Income Tax, which is paid by everyone, rather than NI which is only paid by those who work.

    There is no justification slashing Income Tax by 4p, while increasing NI, is there?
    Like I said, you are obsessive on your pet subject and don't care about the rest. I have no problem with NI going back up as part of a package of everything going up. Country is fucked thanks in part to the economic policies you obsessively lobby about.
  • Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981
    ydoethur said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    ydoethur said:

    I'm hopeful he'll be better than his predecessor.

    I'm hoping he'll be better than the last two.
    Three.
    Theresa May had her faults, but Truss and Johnson were just a class apart in the diabolical stakes.

    They finally dethroned Goderich from the position of worst ever PM he had occupied it without realistic challenge for the previous 191 years.
    He goderich or died trying, and was the subject of some ripon yarns, but I thought he was the poster boy for brevity rather than badness? What about dear old North?
  • If there were a prize for this year's most ridiculous and disbelievable statistic, will it be Johnson's 102 MPs or Putin's 98% ?

    Populism - what is it good for?
  • 🚨NEW POLL🚨

    How would you describe Rishi Sunak in one word?

    https://twitter.com/savantacomres/status/1584515625803972613?s=46&t=bcM6O2lsVIeDod02qK3vqg


    ‘Hello sir. Can I stop you a moment? How would you describe Rishi Sunak in one word?’

    ‘Brian, no.’



  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084
    Scott_xP said:

    Nigel Adams:
    Bob Blackman MP, Joint Secretary of the 1922 Committee…has independently verified the nomination paperwork and confirmed to me that Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP was above the threshold required to stand for the Conservative Party leadership in this leadership election.”

    Statement adds: “Therefore Mr Johnson could have proceeded to the ballot had he chosen to do so”.

    https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1584518455503355904

    So he got an offer he couldn’t refuse, as I expected he would.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,625

    My last point from FPT :

    Re; the ethnicity and prime ministership, this is actually a significant moment. I don't see minority candidates becoming prime minister in most other European countries anytime soon. So although Britain has fallen socially behind from some, or many, other points of view, from this very important point of view , of inclusion and tolerance, it's still actually ahead of most of its European peers.

    https://www.enar-eu.org/wp-content/uploads/2019_06-Racial-diversity-EU-Parliament-elected-MEPs.pdf

    "The UK elected 7 minority MEPs, France 6, Germany 5 and Sweden 4. Only 13 of the 28 EU Member States elected ethnic minority MEPs."

    "5% (approximately 36 MEPs) of the total elected MEPs -> After Brexit, this figure will reduce to 4%.
    People of colour specifically amount to only 4% (approximately 30) of the total elected MEPs -> After Brexit, reducing to 3% (24)."
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880
    This is her last ever chance to be PM so she might as well go for it. The alternative is Foreign Sec (if she's lucky) or Six Counties (if she's not) for 12-24 months then a backbencher in an opposition party where everybody hates her.
  • 🚨NEW POLL🚨

    How would you describe Rishi Sunak in one word?

    https://twitter.com/savantacomres/status/1584515625803972613?s=46&t=bcM6O2lsVIeDod02qK3vqg

    I imagine a loser like you find someone being described as "rich" as being a bad thing. It might also have something to do with his name perhaps?

    Keep clutching at those straws
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    edited October 2022

    Just under an hour to go until Sunak gets it by coronation.

    Gutted to miss out on the £5000, but will take that as a moral, Pyrrhic victory.

    Hopefully Sunak has learned that increasing National Insurance was a mistake and won't do that again.

    Small but important edit required. I'll do it.

    Hopefully he's learnt that when there's a need for extra funding for the NHS and Social Care increasing National Insurance instead of Income Tax was a mistake and he won't do that again.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,522

    🚨NEW POLL🚨

    How would you describe Rishi Sunak in one word?

    https://twitter.com/savantacomres/status/1584515625803972613?s=46&t=bcM6O2lsVIeDod02qK3vqg

    The biggest words are all either positive or neutral (or should be).
  • Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981

    🚨NEW POLL🚨

    How would you describe Rishi Sunak in one word?

    https://twitter.com/savantacomres/status/1584515625803972613?s=46&t=bcM6O2lsVIeDod02qK3vqg


    ‘Hello sir. Can I stop you a moment? How would you describe Rishi Sunak in one word?’

    ‘Brian, no.’



    Fucking hilarious that Indian is colour coded the way it is.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 4,534

    Scott_xP said:

    Nigel Adams:
    Bob Blackman MP, Joint Secretary of the 1922 Committee…has independently verified the nomination paperwork and confirmed to me that Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP was above the threshold required to stand for the Conservative Party leadership in this leadership election.”

    Statement adds: “Therefore Mr Johnson could have proceeded to the ballot had he chosen to do so”.

    https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1584518455503355904

    Hold on, I thought we were told on here that it was all bullshit and Johnson had nowhere near that number....
    No one cares anymore . The media have already moved on .
  • Just under an hour to go until Sunak gets it by coronation.

    Gutted to miss out on the £5000, but will take that as a moral, Pyrrhic victory.

    Hopefully Sunak has learned that increasing National Insurance was a mistake and won't do that again.

    Hopefully Sunak takes a balanced overview and doesn't listen to obsessive lobbyists.

    Everything needs to go up. Sadly.
    If everything needs to go up, then start with Income Tax, which is paid by everyone, rather than NI which is only paid by those who work.

    There is no justification slashing Income Tax by 4p, while increasing NI, is there?
    Like I said, you are obsessive on your pet subject and don't care about the rest. I have no problem with NI going back up as part of a package of everything going up. Country is fucked thanks in part to the economic policies you obsessively lobby about.
    Sorry but that's utter bovine manure.

    Taxes should be fair, and paid by everyone.

    We can debate whether taxes need to go up or down, til the cows come home. But exempting a select portion of the population from paying taxes, while further increasing taxes on everyone else, is not legitimate.

    Its also completely regressive, since those with only their wages on PAYE to support them tend to include the poorest while those who have secondary incomes or can arrange their income to be exempt from NI are not.
  • Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981

    My last point from FPT :

    Re; the ethnicity and prime ministership, this is actually a significant moment. I don't see minority candidates becoming prime minister in most other European countries anytime soon. So although Britain has fallen socially behind from some, or many, other points of view, from this very important point of view , of inclusion and tolerance, it's still actually ahead of most of its European peers.

    Ireland...
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    Spot TTF is now negative.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,281

    Just under an hour to go until Sunak gets it by coronation.

    Gutted to miss out on the £5000, but will take that as a moral, Pyrrhic victory.

    Hopefully Sunak has learned that increasing National Insurance was a mistake and won't do that again.

    Hopefully Sunak takes a balanced overview and doesn't listen to obsessive lobbyists.

    Everything needs to go up. Sadly.
    If everything needs to go up, then start with Income Tax, which is paid by everyone, rather than NI which is only paid by those who work.

    There is no justification slashing Income Tax by 4p, while increasing NI, is there?
    No there isn't. Either extend NI to all earned income, or increase Income Tax by N+4p and reduce NI by Np in the pound - where N is about 13.25 ;-)
  • kinabalu said:

    Just under an hour to go until Sunak gets it by coronation.

    Gutted to miss out on the £5000, but will take that as a moral, Pyrrhic victory.

    Hopefully Sunak has learned that increasing National Insurance was a mistake and won't do that again.

    Small but important edit required. I'll do it.

    Hopefully he's learnt that when there's a need for extra funding for the NHS and Social Care increasing National Insurance instead of Income Tax was a mistake and he won't do that again.
    I'm OK with that.

    If you want to increase taxes, then put them up on everyone. You and I can actually agree for once. 👍
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,704
    Housing projects on hold and many likely to be scrapped due to new phosphate targets in rivers.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-63285821
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    Dutch TTF Gas Nov '22 (TGX22)
    95.120 -18.456 (-16.25%) 07:14 CT [ENDEX]

    Please tell me Truss didn't sign any long term deals at way above market................
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    ydoethur said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    ydoethur said:

    I'm hopeful he'll be better than his predecessor.

    I'm hoping he'll be better than the last two.
    Three.
    Theresa May had her faults, but Truss and Johnson were just a class apart in the diabolical stakes.

    They finally dethroned Goderich from the position of worst ever PM he had occupied it without realistic challenge for the previous 191 years.
    Quite.
    But it's not a great prospect if he's only just better than the last two.
  • Just under an hour to go until Sunak gets it by coronation.

    Gutted to miss out on the £5000, but will take that as a moral, Pyrrhic victory.

    Hopefully Sunak has learned that increasing National Insurance was a mistake and won't do that again.

    Hopefully Sunak takes a balanced overview and doesn't listen to obsessive lobbyists.

    Everything needs to go up. Sadly.
    If everything needs to go up, then start with Income Tax, which is paid by everyone, rather than NI which is only paid by those who work.

    There is no justification slashing Income Tax by 4p, while increasing NI, is there?
    Like I said, you are obsessive on your pet subject and don't care about the rest. I have no problem with NI going back up as part of a package of everything going up. Country is fucked thanks in part to the economic policies you obsessively lobby about.
    Sorry but that's utter bovine manure.

    Taxes should be fair, and paid by everyone.

    We can debate whether taxes need to go up or down, til the cows come home. But exempting a select portion of the population from paying taxes, while further increasing taxes on everyone else, is not legitimate.

    Its also completely regressive, since those with only their wages on PAYE to support them tend to include the poorest while those who have secondary incomes or can arrange their income to be exempt from NI are not.
    Its cowshit to point out that your libertarian economic platform crashed and burned under Truss?

    If you say so. I am happy to discuss taxation policies and strategies, but your starting position is a little way outside of sanity. As the Truss sensation demonstrated to such a huge cost to the country.
  • AbandonedHopeAbandonedHope Posts: 73
    edited October 2022
    Pulpstar said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Nigel Adams:
    Bob Blackman MP, Joint Secretary of the 1922 Committee…has independently verified the nomination paperwork and confirmed to me that Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP was above the threshold required to stand for the Conservative Party leadership in this leadership election.”

    Statement adds: “Therefore Mr Johnson could have proceeded to the ballot had he chosen to do so”.

    https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1584518455503355904

    Blimey. Plot twist.
    A brave move on the part of Nigel Adams to draw Bob Blackman in this. One assumes that Blackman has said that he can quote him in this way.

    But... if Blackman has "independently verified" the paperwork and has said that Boris was, in fact, "above the threshold required"...

    He wouldn't, would he? Bluff. Double Bluff.
  • jonny83jonny83 Posts: 1,261
    If she doesn't have the numbers what time would she concede? 35 mins to go, it must be tight...
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    edited October 2022
    Pulpstar said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Nigel Adams:
    Bob Blackman MP, Joint Secretary of the 1922 Committee…has independently verified the nomination paperwork and confirmed to me that Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP was above the threshold required to stand for the Conservative Party leadership in this leadership election.”

    Statement adds: “Therefore Mr Johnson could have proceeded to the ballot had he chosen to do so”.

    https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1584518455503355904

    Blimey. Plot twist.
    Ironic!

    Johnson exits stage right,
    telling the truth!!!!

    Didn’t see that one coming!
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    ydoethur said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    ydoethur said:

    I'm hopeful he'll be better than his predecessor.

    I'm hoping he'll be better than the last two.
    Three.
    Theresa May had her faults, but Truss and Johnson were just a class apart in the diabolical stakes.

    They finally dethroned Goderich from the position of worst ever PM he had occupied it without realistic challenge for the previous 191 years.
    Nigel Goderich, of Radiohead?
  • Ishmael_Z said:

    My last point from FPT :

    Re; the ethnicity and prime ministership, this is actually a significant moment. I don't see minority candidates becoming prime minister in most other European countries anytime soon. So although Britain has fallen socially behind from some, or many, other points of view, from this very important point of view , of inclusion and tolerance, it's still actually ahead of most of its European peers.

    Ireland...
    Where also they, in spite of being still considered as backward by some uninformed Brits (who still obsess about Catholicism), they also elected a man who was openly gay.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited October 2022
    Ishmael_Z said:

    My last point from FPT :

    Re; the ethnicity and prime ministership, this is actually a significant moment. I don't see minority candidates becoming prime minister in most other European countries anytime soon. So although Britain has fallen socially behind from some, or many, other points of view, from this very important point of view , of inclusion and tolerance, it's still actually ahead of most of its European peers.

    Ireland...
    Yes, but I don't see much sign of any similar anywhere else.

    As much as the Irish might hate to admit it, they're also influenced by the anglophone multiculturalism originating actually in Canada, like Britain and the US.
  • Just under an hour to go until Sunak gets it by coronation.

    Gutted to miss out on the £5000, but will take that as a moral, Pyrrhic victory.

    Hopefully Sunak has learned that increasing National Insurance was a mistake and won't do that again.

    Hopefully Sunak takes a balanced overview and doesn't listen to obsessive lobbyists.

    Everything needs to go up. Sadly.
    If everything needs to go up, then start with Income Tax, which is paid by everyone, rather than NI which is only paid by those who work.

    There is no justification slashing Income Tax by 4p, while increasing NI, is there?
    Like I said, you are obsessive on your pet subject and don't care about the rest. I have no problem with NI going back up as part of a package of everything going up. Country is fucked thanks in part to the economic policies you obsessively lobby about.
    Sorry but that's utter bovine manure.

    Taxes should be fair, and paid by everyone.

    We can debate whether taxes need to go up or down, til the cows come home. But exempting a select portion of the population from paying taxes, while further increasing taxes on everyone else, is not legitimate.

    Its also completely regressive, since those with only their wages on PAYE to support them tend to include the poorest while those who have secondary incomes or can arrange their income to be exempt from NI are not.
    Its cowshit to point out that your libertarian economic platform crashed and burned under Truss?

    If you say so. I am happy to discuss taxation policies and strategies, but your starting position is a little way outside of sanity. As the Truss sensation demonstrated to such a huge cost to the country.
    My economic platform of charging everyone on the same income the same real rate of tax, so those currently exempt from paying NI or a 'graduate tax' etc all pay the same tax rate as others do, was never implemented.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,285
    edited October 2022
    Scott_xP said:

    Nigel Adams:
    Bob Blackman MP, Joint Secretary of the 1922 Committee…has independently verified the nomination paperwork and confirmed to me that Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP was above the threshold required to stand for the Conservative Party leadership in this leadership election.”

    Statement adds: “Therefore Mr Johnson could have proceeded to the ballot had he chosen to do so”.

    https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1584518455503355904

    My prediction yesterday was that Boris did actually have 100 nominations.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    Pulpstar said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Nigel Adams:
    Bob Blackman MP, Joint Secretary of the 1922 Committee…has independently verified the nomination paperwork and confirmed to me that Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP was above the threshold required to stand for the Conservative Party leadership in this leadership election.”

    Statement adds: “Therefore Mr Johnson could have proceeded to the ballot had he chosen to do so”.

    https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1584518455503355904

    Blimey. Plot twist.
    If true it shows that the notion "he wins and is PM again if he gets on the ballot" was nonsense.

    Which was why I thought the lay very safe. His path was rocky even if he'd scraped the 100.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,005
    Pulpstar said:

    Dutch TTF Gas Nov '22 (TGX22)
    95.120 -18.456 (-16.25%) 07:14 CT [ENDEX]

    Please tell me Truss didn't sign any long term deals at way above market................

    I can't remember the detail now but I remember worrying that we might end up doing that.
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 4,793
    edited October 2022
    Saw the perennial lab-leak vs zoonosis discussion on the previous thread.

    For me, I was loosely in the "accidental lab leak" as being at least as plausible as zoonosis camp. Yes, all the millions of previous viruses came from zoonosis, but the presence of a research centre close by did make me decide that it's got to be as plausible as the normal method.

    However, it does look to me more like you have to go through more and more unlikely hoops to support the lab leak hypothesis now.

    - Tracing the outbreak back to the wet market and to one area in the wet market: that looked a good piece of work - but left the question of where it came from "upstream."

    But given that they also examined loads of more likely superspreading sites (shopping malls, public transport hubs, leisure facilities, etc), and found that none of them (including about 50 sites where superspreading opportunities would be more likely) did make it a bit less plausible that someone would go from the lab, straight to the market and only the market, infect someone there, and then go nowhere else. While the upstream route to the wetmarket was the plausible standard route of bringing in an infected animal.

    But still very circumstantial. Might be unlikely someone would do that, but unlikely things happen.

    The thing that made me go, "Oh, I guess not," was that there were two lineages (A and B ) which spread out from the wet-market at different times. Two weeks apart.
    (B has outcompeted A; all our current variants are B-descended).

    And it wouldn't be the same person, because they'd have been infected the first time and probably not in good state to do the same thing all over again.

    So we need two people, doing exactly the same thing two weeks apart, carelessly getting infected with different strains of the same virus, going directly to the wet market and only the wet market, managing to infect people there in a superspreader event on two separate occasions. That "unlikely" is now squared.

    Whereas bringing in a bunch of live animals from the same source to the same point in the market that sells those animals and having them there for a prolonged time (increasing infection chance and superspreading chance) looks a huge lot more plausible now.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,281
    Andy_JS said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Nigel Adams:
    Bob Blackman MP, Joint Secretary of the 1922 Committee…has independently verified the nomination paperwork and confirmed to me that Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP was above the threshold required to stand for the Conservative Party leadership in this leadership election.”

    Statement adds: “Therefore Mr Johnson could have proceeded to the ballot had he chosen to do so”.

    https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1584518455503355904

    My prediction yesterday was that Boris did actually have 100 nominations.
    Can you make a prediction about something in the past? ;-)
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    Pulpstar said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Nigel Adams:
    Bob Blackman MP, Joint Secretary of the 1922 Committee…has independently verified the nomination paperwork and confirmed to me that Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP was above the threshold required to stand for the Conservative Party leadership in this leadership election.”

    Statement adds: “Therefore Mr Johnson could have proceeded to the ballot had he chosen to do so”.

    https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1584518455503355904

    Blimey. Plot twist.
    Suggests that the anti-Rishi camp is still bigger than most (including me) had assumed. Mordaunt may make it yet.
  • TheValiantTheValiant Posts: 1,678
    IanB2 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Nigel Adams:
    Bob Blackman MP, Joint Secretary of the 1922 Committee…has independently verified the nomination paperwork and confirmed to me that Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP was above the threshold required to stand for the Conservative Party leadership in this leadership election.”

    Statement adds: “Therefore Mr Johnson could have proceeded to the ballot had he chosen to do so”.

    https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1584518455503355904

    So he got an offer he couldn’t refuse, as I expected he would.
    What offer could be better than Prime Minister?
    If he was in the final two, he wins. Everyone knew that. Had it been announced it was Rishi and Boris, I'd have expected Rishi to withdraw.

    Unless its a cold hard cash offer. Rishi simply bribed him with money? (Johnson probably needs it)
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    Ishmael_Z said:

    My last point from FPT :

    Re; the ethnicity and prime ministership, this is actually a significant moment. I don't see minority candidates becoming prime minister in most other European countries anytime soon. So although Britain has fallen socially behind from some, or many, other points of view, from this very important point of view , of inclusion and tolerance, it's still actually ahead of most of its European peers.

    Ireland...
    He was only half Indian, of course. But does the fact he's openly gay cancel out this disadvantage on the Wokeometer?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575

    🚨NEW POLL🚨

    How would you describe Rishi Sunak in one word?

    https://twitter.com/savantacomres/status/1584515625803972613?s=46&t=bcM6O2lsVIeDod02qK3vqg


    ‘Hello sir. Can I stop you a moment? How would you describe Rishi Sunak in one word?’

    ‘Brian, no.’



    "Backstabbing calm prime male person", apparently.
    Is that good, or bad ?
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Sir Keir Starmer says "it's a straight no from me" on the question on whether a Labour Government would take Britain back in to the EU.

    https://twitter.com/theousherwood/status/1584456533986811909?s=46&t=bcM6O2lsVIeDod02qK3vqg

    72% of the Scottish public support joining the EU.

    Labour, not good enough for Scotland.

    https://twitter.com/frcola1/status/1584466979741585410?s=46&t=bcM6O2lsVIeDod02qK3vqg
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772

    kinabalu said:

    Just under an hour to go until Sunak gets it by coronation.

    Gutted to miss out on the £5000, but will take that as a moral, Pyrrhic victory.

    Hopefully Sunak has learned that increasing National Insurance was a mistake and won't do that again.

    Small but important edit required. I'll do it.

    Hopefully he's learnt that when there's a need for extra funding for the NHS and Social Care increasing National Insurance instead of Income Tax was a mistake and he won't do that again.
    I'm OK with that.

    If you want to increase taxes, then put them up on everyone. You and I can actually agree for once. 👍
    The way to make sure that they go up for everyone is to combine IT and NI so that pensioners, directors and those living on investments also pay a fair share.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 4,534
    Andy_JS said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Nigel Adams:
    Bob Blackman MP, Joint Secretary of the 1922 Committee…has independently verified the nomination paperwork and confirmed to me that Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP was above the threshold required to stand for the Conservative Party leadership in this leadership election.”

    Statement adds: “Therefore Mr Johnson could have proceeded to the ballot had he chosen to do so”.

    https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1584518455503355904

    My prediction yesterday was that Boris did actually have 100 nominations.
    Bob Blackman has always been a Bozo arse licker so it’s fake news !

  • Just under an hour to go until Sunak gets it by coronation.

    Gutted to miss out on the £5000, but will take that as a moral, Pyrrhic victory.

    Hopefully Sunak has learned that increasing National Insurance was a mistake and won't do that again.

    Hopefully Sunak takes a balanced overview and doesn't listen to obsessive lobbyists.

    Everything needs to go up. Sadly.
    If everything needs to go up, then start with Income Tax, which is paid by everyone, rather than NI which is only paid by those who work.

    There is no justification slashing Income Tax by 4p, while increasing NI, is there?
    No there isn't. Either extend NI to all earned income, or increase Income Tax by N+4p and reduce NI by Np in the pound - where N is about 13.25 ;-)
    Good start.

    We could go further. Increase Income Tax by 9 above that and abolish 'student loan repayments'.

    Everyone should pay the same rate of income tax. If you think that rate is too high for you, its too high for anyone else too.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    Pulpstar said:

    Dutch TTF Gas Nov '22 (TGX22)
    95.120 -18.456 (-16.25%) 07:14 CT [ENDEX]

    Please tell me Truss didn't sign any long term deals at way above market................

    That's a temporary price, caused by a mild winter and full storage.

    Still... It's very good news, because every day Europe is not drawing down stored gas gets us closer to surviving this winter.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084
    edited October 2022

    IanB2 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Nigel Adams:
    Bob Blackman MP, Joint Secretary of the 1922 Committee…has independently verified the nomination paperwork and confirmed to me that Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP was above the threshold required to stand for the Conservative Party leadership in this leadership election.”

    Statement adds: “Therefore Mr Johnson could have proceeded to the ballot had he chosen to do so”.

    https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1584518455503355904

    So he got an offer he couldn’t refuse, as I expected he would.
    What offer could be better than Prime Minister?
    If he was in the final two, he wins. Everyone knew that. Had it been announced it was Rishi and Boris, I'd have expected Rishi to withdraw.

    Unless its a cold hard cash offer. Rishi simply bribed him with money? (Johnson probably needs it)
    No, you need to rewatch the movies! Offers you can’t refuse aren’t usually carrots. Or chocolate.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,281
    Pulpstar said:

    Dutch TTF Gas Nov '22 (TGX22)
    95.120 -18.456 (-16.25%) 07:14 CT [ENDEX]

    Please tell me Truss didn't sign any long term deals at way above market................

    She didn't have time did she?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    Pulpstar said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Nigel Adams:
    Bob Blackman MP, Joint Secretary of the 1922 Committee…has independently verified the nomination paperwork and confirmed to me that Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP was above the threshold required to stand for the Conservative Party leadership in this leadership election.”

    Statement adds: “Therefore Mr Johnson could have proceeded to the ballot had he chosen to do so”.

    https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1584518455503355904

    Blimey. Plot twist.
    Ironic!

    Johnson exits stage right,
    telling the truth!!!!

    Didn’t see that one coming!
    That's extraordinary.

    That Boris Johnson should ever tell the truth is scarcely credible.

    It's as though @bigjohnowls had said something positive about Starmer.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 4,534
    Would Blackman have confirmed that Bozo was lying ?
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,281

    Just under an hour to go until Sunak gets it by coronation.

    Gutted to miss out on the £5000, but will take that as a moral, Pyrrhic victory.

    Hopefully Sunak has learned that increasing National Insurance was a mistake and won't do that again.

    Hopefully Sunak takes a balanced overview and doesn't listen to obsessive lobbyists.

    Everything needs to go up. Sadly.
    If everything needs to go up, then start with Income Tax, which is paid by everyone, rather than NI which is only paid by those who work.

    There is no justification slashing Income Tax by 4p, while increasing NI, is there?
    No there isn't. Either extend NI to all earned income, or increase Income Tax by N+4p and reduce NI by Np in the pound - where N is about 13.25 ;-)
    Good start.

    We could go further. Increase Income Tax by 9 above that and abolish 'student loan repayments'.

    Everyone should pay the same rate of income tax. If you think that rate is too high for you, its too high for anyone else too.
    It's funny how far apart we on most things but agree on that. Also, I believe, on the need to move away from taxing income towards taxing wealth.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    Roger said:

    To be honest, Steve Baker interests me, for two reasons, he interviews so well, quite a brilliant communicator. But he also knows his mind - he describes himself as Free Market Left, and if he wishes to expand on what that means anytime I would be keen to listen.

    Compare and contrast Steve Baker so strong on media rounds this weekend with Penny Mourdant’s latest car crash interview. I am saying the differential between them is Steve Baker knows his mind, to answer questions he goes straight to that, out comes confident clear answers, Mourdant turns to a lot of empty space where there are no answers.

    I’m not making an ideological point, the point I am making is politics works best, and more honestly, when politicians and parties have a clear ethos, and they just want to honestly talk about it and explain it.

    Yes, this is why Corbyn did better than expected in 2017. The problem is often that people who have a clear idea of what they believe in are nuts. Their thoughts are clear and easy to express because they can't engage with the complexity of the real world. I have the impression that Baker is in that camp.
    Johnson is nuts too of course, in a different way. He deals with the complexity of the world by believing in nothing except his own advancement, and simply tells people what they want to hear. This turns out to be a surprisingly successful strategy in the right hands.
    I suspect Sunak is not nuts but will struggle to get a hearing from the electorate. The Tories will get a bounce because he is an improvement on Truss. But I think they'd be better off choosing Johnson again. They're screwed whatever, anyway.
    “problem is often that people who have a clear idea of what they believe in are nuts. I have the impression that Baker is in that camp.”

    Well let us at least hear Baker explain himself - Free Market Left appeals to me as a philosophy, I might even be one myself without knowing it yet.

    A year before Corbyn became leader would you have told me he would fight two General elections? similarly in 1973 you would have told me Margaret Thatcher would win 3 general elections and completely change the country by taking it down the road of popular capital ownership?

    I might be thinking and speculating it a bit too far forward for some to want to debate with me on this today, but I am coming from the position what the problems actually are and so what the solutions are, and pretty sure now in my mind Boris, Sunak and Starmer do not have answers, and likely to just make things worse.

    Maxed out credit card, highest tax take since after the war, debt, deficits, public services literally falling apart, a long period of slow growth - there is no anti growth coalition, because from right to left everyone recognises growth is the only real answer - the real idealogical fault line in our politics today is between those, admittedly a small group at present, who accept we need to take liberal measures to turn our sinking country around, and those who don’t accept this.
    What sort of 'liberal' measures might turn the ship round? I heard a program the other night which said Norway in the 60's was one of the poorest countries in the World. Now it's the richest. Their population is the same as Scotland. No jiggery pokery with rich peoples tax rates. If there are simplistic answers I'd advise Scotland to follow Norway and start a rapid hunt for more oil and then get out of this stifling Union,
    “What sort of 'liberal' measures might turn the ship round?”

    I can answer your question Roger, through explaining what has made Sunak Primeminister.

    Alternatives, such as Boris 2.0 makes Ready 4 Rishi seem more appetising than it really is. Sunak has won despite being an abysmal campaigner who literally cannot understand what voters want, he does not moderate his pitch from "I know what's best for you, so I don't need to listen" this proved as fact watching Team Truss running rings around Rishi all summer.
    Most of all he won by riding a wave of kudos and credibility right now, from saying to Truss if you win and attempt your economic policies, you will break the economy. So everyone from MPs down through party members down to ordinary voters have it in mind Rishi is the right man for the moment, to tackle the economic crisis.

    But here’s the kicker, Sunak’s wave of fiscal credibility is fake. Liz and Kwarzi did not break the economy, Sunak handed it to them broken.

    From 2010 to 2019 UK borrowed about £750 billion of which half was created by the Bank of England through QE. Since 2001 UK has borrowed £1.4 trillion. Rishi then borrowed further £375 billion throwing money at Covid in a pandemic fighting splurge as though ‘austerity’ is a ‘political choice’. Pointless money-pits like Eat Out to Help Out only served to show that the government treated borrowed cash like confetti. Sunak sprayed a further £30bn of confetti to gangsters and fraudsters.

    Sunak’s dangerous economic thinking is because Sunakonomics is all part of a decade of ultra-low interest rates and money printing creating inflation, this inflation was first mainly in the housing market and stock exchange, but January 2022, a month before Russia invaded Ukraine, inflation was running at 5.5 per cent in the UK, 5.1 per cent in the EU and 7.5 per cent in the USA. When Liz Truss told Rishi control over interest rates must be taken from the BoE, Liz Truss was right. The current economic orthodoxy has failed us - an insane housing market, negative real interest rates, double digit inflation, taxes at a 70 year high, exponential spending on the worst health service in Europe, £2.4 trillion of debt and lower wages than we had in 2008. The country needs the change to the liberal economics Truss espoused - BoE and Rishi Sunak will not run the liberal economic policy the country needs.

    So I am saying all the MPs and voters are wrong to be so ready for Rishi? Yep. My argument is going back to Rishi’s economics is just plain wrong, stupid and dangerous - it’s a doom loop, low interest rates creates debt, coupled with a reluctance to tackle inflation because raising interest rates will make people poorer, so inflation persists.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    nico679 said:

    Would Blackman have confirmed that Bozo was lying ?

    Why would he need to? It's the default assumption with anything he says.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842

    Pulpstar said:

    Dutch TTF Gas Nov '22 (TGX22)
    95.120 -18.456 (-16.25%) 07:14 CT [ENDEX]

    Please tell me Truss didn't sign any long term deals at way above market................

    She didn't have time did she?
    I hope not, obviously the spot going negative was due to stuff that can't be delivered waiting around and is a temp phenomenon much like -ve oil was during covid but medium term the US price should arb up to meet the downward closing top jaw of european prices.
  • DavidL said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Nigel Adams:
    Bob Blackman MP, Joint Secretary of the 1922 Committee…has independently verified the nomination paperwork and confirmed to me that Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP was above the threshold required to stand for the Conservative Party leadership in this leadership election.”

    Statement adds: “Therefore Mr Johnson could have proceeded to the ballot had he chosen to do so”.

    https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1584518455503355904

    Blimey. Plot twist.
    Suggests that the anti-Rishi camp is still bigger than most (including me) had assumed. Mordaunt may make it yet.
    It also demonstrates that on the very odd occasion that Johnson tells the truth everyone assumes he is lying
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880
    DavidL said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Nigel Adams:
    Bob Blackman MP, Joint Secretary of the 1922 Committee…has independently verified the nomination paperwork and confirmed to me that Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP was above the threshold required to stand for the Conservative Party leadership in this leadership election.”

    Statement adds: “Therefore Mr Johnson could have proceeded to the ballot had he chosen to do so”.

    https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1584518455503355904

    Blimey. Plot twist.
    Suggests that the anti-Rishi camp is still bigger than most (including me) had assumed. Mordaunt may make it yet.
    I fucking despise her but I'd still like her to do it at this point just to see the reaction of the wankers on here who have been gargling Sunak's small, hairless and perfectly spherical balls for the past 24 hours.
  • Pulpstar said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Nigel Adams:
    Bob Blackman MP, Joint Secretary of the 1922 Committee…has independently verified the nomination paperwork and confirmed to me that Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP was above the threshold required to stand for the Conservative Party leadership in this leadership election.”

    Statement adds: “Therefore Mr Johnson could have proceeded to the ballot had he chosen to do so”.

    https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1584518455503355904

    Blimey. Plot twist.
    A brave move on the part of Nigel Adams to draw Bob Blackman in this. One assumes that Blackman has said that he can quote him in this way.

    But... if Blackman has "independently verified" the paperwork and has said that Boris was, in fact, "above the threshold required"...

    He wouldn't, would he? Bluff. Double Bluff.
    Now that I think about it... No. Boris and his crew aren't that clever.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    nico679 said:

    Would Blackman have confirmed that Bozo was lying ?

    He's 1922 exec, it'd be like Brady lieing about the number of letters he has. They either tell the truth or keep silent.
    So Boris had over 100 is my take.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    edited October 2022
    Ishmael_Z said:

    ydoethur said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    ydoethur said:

    I'm hopeful he'll be better than his predecessor.

    I'm hoping he'll be better than the last two.
    Three.
    Theresa May had her faults, but Truss and Johnson were just a class apart in the diabolical stakes.

    They finally dethroned Goderich from the position of worst ever PM he had occupied it without realistic challenge for the previous 191 years.
    He goderich or died trying, and was the subject of some ripon yarns, but I thought he was the poster boy for brevity rather than badness? What about dear old North?
    Leaving aside that North lasted twelve years and was not only concerned with the defeat in America, yes, Goderich was far worse than he was. North wasn't so useless that the monarch actually had to remove him out of fear he would cause the complete implosion of the system of government if he didn't.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084
    Her odds are lengthening, so punters don’t appear to believe she’ll make it.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 4,534
    ydoethur said:

    nico679 said:

    Would Blackman have confirmed that Bozo was lying ?

    Why would he need to? It's the default assumption with anything he says.
    True. I still don’t believe he had the numbers because Bozo would never put his party ahead of his own ambitions .
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    Pulpstar said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Nigel Adams:
    Bob Blackman MP, Joint Secretary of the 1922 Committee…has independently verified the nomination paperwork and confirmed to me that Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP was above the threshold required to stand for the Conservative Party leadership in this leadership election.”

    Statement adds: “Therefore Mr Johnson could have proceeded to the ballot had he chosen to do so”.

    https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1584518455503355904

    Blimey. Plot twist.
    No-one believed him at the time and it makes no difference now. That's the problem with being percieved as a liar.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 18,156
    edited October 2022

    Just under an hour to go until Sunak gets it by coronation.

    Gutted to miss out on the £5000, but will take that as a moral, Pyrrhic victory.

    Hopefully Sunak has learned that increasing National Insurance was a mistake and won't do that again.

    Hopefully Sunak takes a balanced overview and doesn't listen to obsessive lobbyists.

    Everything needs to go up. Sadly.
    If everything needs to go up, then start with Income Tax, which is paid by everyone, rather than NI which is only paid by those who work.

    There is no justification slashing Income Tax by 4p, while increasing NI, is there?
    No there isn't. Either extend NI to all earned income, or increase Income Tax by N+4p and reduce NI by Np in the pound - where N is about 13.25 ;-)
    Good start.

    We could go further. Increase Income Tax by 9 above that and abolish 'student loan repayments'.

    Everyone should pay the same rate of income tax. If you think that rate is too high for you, its too high for anyone else too.
    It's funny how far apart we on most things but agree on that. Also, I believe, on the need to move away from taxing income towards taxing wealth.
    I don't agree with taxing wealth, but do agree with taxing land, which amounts to much the same thing.

    If I were in charge I'd start by increasing income tax by 22.25% and abolishing NI and Student Loans. Abolish Stamp Duty and Council Tax and replace with an annual Land Tax.

    If there's a budget surplus, then we can start reducing income tax, for everyone uniformly.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,009
    edited October 2022
    Nigelb said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Nigel Adams:
    Bob Blackman MP, Joint Secretary of the 1922 Committee…has independently verified the nomination paperwork and confirmed to me that Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP was above the threshold required to stand for the Conservative Party leadership in this leadership election.”

    Statement adds: “Therefore Mr Johnson could have proceeded to the ballot had he chosen to do so”.

    https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1584518455503355904

    Blimey. Plot twist.
    A brave move on the part of Nigel Adams to draw Bob Blackman in this. One assumes that Blackman has said that he can quote him in this way.

    But... if Blackman has "independently verified" the paperwork and has said that Boris was, in fact, "above the threshold required"...

    He wouldn't, would he? Bluff. Double Bluff.
    I'd be hesistant to question his veracity.

    Though he does seem to have a slight problem with numbers (Wikipedia):
    In 2015, the compliance officer for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) made a judgement that Blackman had submitted 732 inaccurate mileage claims...
    That and Islamophobia, homophobia and acting as a lobbyist for the government of Azerbaijan. But perhaps that's par for the course as far as Tory backbenchers are concerned.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,005
    So lots of Johnson supporters didn't want it to be public knowledge. Have I got that?
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,522
    Ishmael_Z said:

    My last point from FPT :

    Re; the ethnicity and prime ministership, this is actually a significant moment. I don't see minority candidates becoming prime minister in most other European countries anytime soon. So although Britain has fallen socially behind from some, or many, other points of view, from this very important point of view , of inclusion and tolerance, it's still actually ahead of most of its European peers.

    Ireland...
    "most"?
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    Just under an hour to go until Sunak gets it by coronation.

    Gutted to miss out on the £5000, but will take that as a moral, Pyrrhic victory.

    Hopefully Sunak has learned that increasing National Insurance was a mistake and won't do that again.

    These are the city rumours - income tax up by 1p in all brackets (taking the top rate to 48p for a working person 😱) and potentially a showdown over NI on pension age people and income.
  • MikeLMikeL Posts: 7,281
    Surely if she didn't have the numbers she would drop out?

    Suggests to me she does, or is very close.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    Interesting (and very bad) test data from US schools.

    https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/24/american-test-scores-schools-00063067
    ...Statistics released Monday defy easy explanations and standard political partisanship. Declines afflicted states and major cities whether they were led by Republicans who pushed to quickly reopen schools amid the pandemic or Democrats who urged a more cautious return to normal classes. Federal testing officials insist the results reveal no singular correlation between scores and remote or in-person learning....
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,674

    Just under an hour to go until Sunak gets it by coronation.

    Gutted to miss out on the £5000, but will take that as a moral, Pyrrhic victory.

    Hopefully Sunak has learned that increasing National Insurance was a mistake and won't do that again.

    Hopefully Sunak takes a balanced overview and doesn't listen to obsessive lobbyists.

    Everything needs to go up. Sadly.
    If everything needs to go up, then start with Income Tax, which is paid by everyone, rather than NI which is only paid by those who work.

    There is no justification slashing Income Tax by 4p, while increasing NI, is there?
    No there isn't. Either extend NI to all earned income, or increase Income Tax by N+4p and reduce NI by Np in the pound - where N is about 13.25 ;-)
    Good start.

    We could go further. Increase Income Tax by 9 above that and abolish 'student loan repayments'.

    Everyone should pay the same rate of income tax. If you think that rate is too high for you, its too high for anyone else too.
    It's funny how far apart we on most things but agree on that. Also, I believe, on the need to move away from taxing income towards taxing wealth.
    I don't agree with taxing wealth, but do agree with taxing land, which amounts to much the same thing.

    If I were in charge I'd start by increasing income tax by 22.25% and abolishing NI and Student Loans. Abolish Stamp Duty and Council Tax and replace with an annual Land Tax.

    If there's a budget surplus, then we can start reducing income tax, for everyone uniformly.
    Luckily there is no chance of you ever being near the levers of power to do your double Truss magic.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,522
    nico679 said:

    Would Blackman have confirmed that Bozo was lying ?

    He could have said nothing.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772

    Roger said:

    To be honest, Steve Baker interests me, for two reasons, he interviews so well, quite a brilliant communicator. But he also knows his mind - he describes himself as Free Market Left, and if he wishes to expand on what that means anytime I would be keen to listen.

    Compare and contrast Steve Baker so strong on media rounds this weekend with Penny Mourdant’s latest car crash interview. I am saying the differential between them is Steve Baker knows his mind, to answer questions he goes straight to that, out comes confident clear answers, Mourdant turns to a lot of empty space where there are no answers.

    I’m not making an ideological point, the point I am making is politics works best, and more honestly, when politicians and parties have a clear ethos, and they just want to honestly talk about it and explain it.

    Yes, this is why Corbyn did better than expected in 2017. The problem is often that people who have a clear idea of what they believe in are nuts. Their thoughts are clear and easy to express because they can't engage with the complexity of the real world. I have the impression that Baker is in that camp.
    Johnson is nuts too of course, in a different way. He deals with the complexity of the world by believing in nothing except his own advancement, and simply tells people what they want to hear. This turns out to be a surprisingly successful strategy in the right hands.
    I suspect Sunak is not nuts but will struggle to get a hearing from the electorate. The Tories will get a bounce because he is an improvement on Truss. But I think they'd be better off choosing Johnson again. They're screwed whatever, anyway.
    “problem is often that people who have a clear idea of what they believe in are nuts. I have the impression that Baker is in that camp.”

    Well let us at least hear Baker explain himself - Free Market Left appeals to me as a philosophy, I might even be one myself without knowing it yet.

    A year before Corbyn became leader would you have told me he would fight two General elections? similarly in 1973 you would have told me Margaret Thatcher would win 3 general elections and completely change the country by taking it down the road of popular capital ownership?

    I might be thinking and speculating it a bit too far forward for some to want to debate with me on this today, but I am coming from the position what the problems actually are and so what the solutions are, and pretty sure now in my mind Boris, Sunak and Starmer do not have answers, and likely to just make things worse.

    Maxed out credit card, highest tax take since after the war, debt, deficits, public services literally falling apart, a long period of slow growth - there is no anti growth coalition, because from right to left everyone recognises growth is the only real answer - the real idealogical fault line in our politics today is between those, admittedly a small group at present, who accept we need to take liberal measures to turn our sinking country around, and those who don’t accept this.
    What sort of 'liberal' measures might turn the ship round? I heard a program the other night which said Norway in the 60's was one of the poorest countries in the World. Now it's the richest. Their population is the same as Scotland. No jiggery pokery with rich peoples tax rates. If there are simplistic answers I'd advise Scotland to follow Norway and start a rapid hunt for more oil and then get out of this stifling Union,
    “What sort of 'liberal' measures might turn the ship round?”

    I can answer your question Roger, through explaining what has made Sunak Primeminister.

    Alternatives, such as Boris 2.0 makes Ready 4 Rishi seem more appetising than it really is. Sunak has won despite being an abysmal campaigner who literally cannot understand what voters want, he does not moderate his pitch from "I know what's best for you, so I don't need to listen" this proved as fact watching Team Truss running rings around Rishi all summer.
    Most of all he won by riding a wave of kudos and credibility right now, from saying to Truss if you win and attempt your economic policies, you will break the economy. So everyone from MPs down through party members down to ordinary voters have it in mind Rishi is the right man for the moment, to tackle the economic crisis.

    But here’s the kicker, Sunak’s wave of fiscal credibility is fake. Liz and Kwarzi did not break the economy, Sunak handed it to them broken.

    From 2010 to 2019 UK borrowed about £750 billion of which half was created by the Bank of England through QE. Since 2001 UK has borrowed £1.4 trillion. Rishi then borrowed further £375 billion throwing money at Covid in a pandemic fighting splurge as though ‘austerity’ is a ‘political choice’. Pointless money-pits like Eat Out to Help Out only served to show that the government treated borrowed cash like confetti. Sunak sprayed a further £30bn of confetti to gangsters and fraudsters.

    Sunak’s dangerous economic thinking is because Sunakonomics is all part of a decade of ultra-low interest rates and money printing creating inflation, this inflation was first mainly in the housing market and stock exchange, but January 2022, a month before Russia invaded Ukraine, inflation was running at 5.5 per cent in the UK, 5.1 per cent in the EU and 7.5 per cent in the USA. When Liz Truss told Rishi control over interest rates must be taken from the BoE, Liz Truss was right. The current economic orthodoxy has failed us - an insane housing market, negative real interest rates, double digit inflation, taxes at a 70 year high, exponential spending on the worst health service in Europe, £2.4 trillion of debt and lower wages than we had in 2008. The country needs the change to the liberal economics Truss espoused - BoE and Rishi Sunak will not run the liberal economic policy the country needs.

    So I am saying all the MPs and voters are wrong to be so ready for Rishi? Yep. My argument is going back to Rishi’s economics is just plain wrong, stupid and dangerous - it’s a doom loop, low interest rates creates debt, coupled with a reluctance to tackle inflation because raising interest rates will make people poorer, so inflation persists.
    Interest rates, and indeed inflation, are really matters for the independent BoE. Sunak respected that independence even although the Bank were clearly making a serious mistake in keeping interest rates too low for too long. We don't know what Rishi's position on that was.

    Sunak also had to deal with the pandemic. He did well but it is hardly surprising that the cost of those programs meant that taxes had to edge higher, if only to pay the interest on the additional borrowing. He was also taking instructions from the man next door who was far more populist in his spending habits.

    Now he is the man next door and he might just want to temper Hunt's austerity tendencies just a little. We shall see.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,960
    Pulpstar said:

    nico679 said:

    Would Blackman have confirmed that Bozo was lying ?

    He's 1922 exec, it'd be like Brady lieing about the number of letters he has. They either tell the truth or keep silent.
    So Boris had over 100 is my take.
    Er, or Adams is lying, and knows Blackman won't call him out on it.
  • theProletheProle Posts: 948
    kinabalu said:

    Just under an hour to go until Sunak gets it by coronation.

    Gutted to miss out on the £5000, but will take that as a moral, Pyrrhic victory.

    Hopefully Sunak has learned that increasing National Insurance was a mistake and won't do that again.

    Small but important edit required. I'll do it.

    Hopefully he's learnt that when there's a need for extra funding for the NHS and Social Care increasing National Insurance instead of Income Tax was a mistake and he won't do that again.
    Go on, under what circumstance should NI be raised, given that there'll always be to option to raise income tax to achieve broadly the same effect in a fairer way?

    If Sunak has any sense, he (or his chancellor) would announce that NI (both employers and employees) will fall by 0.5% a year until they hit zero and are abolished, and income tax would go up by 1% PA to match. It would be a win in so many ways - tax simplification, increased fairness, a small net increase in tax take, but done smoothly enough that things adjust without creating lots of instant winners and loosers. Doing this gradually would fix the issue where the money save from abolishing employers NI might not be immediately passed onto pay rates by employers - over time the labour market will fix it naturally.

    As a pro-growth bonus, having started on this road, they could then kill IR35 stone dead as it will only be worth having a PSC if you actually need one, given it will no longer allow you to dodge NI.
  • jonny83jonny83 Posts: 1,261
    MikeL said:

    Surely if she didn't have the numbers she would drop out?

    Suggests to me she does, or is very close.

    Yeah, I don't see what she has to gain from dragging it out if she is nowhere close.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,281

    Just under an hour to go until Sunak gets it by coronation.

    Gutted to miss out on the £5000, but will take that as a moral, Pyrrhic victory.

    Hopefully Sunak has learned that increasing National Insurance was a mistake and won't do that again.

    Hopefully Sunak takes a balanced overview and doesn't listen to obsessive lobbyists.

    Everything needs to go up. Sadly.
    If everything needs to go up, then start with Income Tax, which is paid by everyone, rather than NI which is only paid by those who work.

    There is no justification slashing Income Tax by 4p, while increasing NI, is there?
    No there isn't. Either extend NI to all earned income, or increase Income Tax by N+4p and reduce NI by Np in the pound - where N is about 13.25 ;-)
    Good start.

    We could go further. Increase Income Tax by 9 above that and abolish 'student loan repayments'.

    Everyone should pay the same rate of income tax. If you think that rate is too high for you, its too high for anyone else too.
    It's funny how far apart we on most things but agree on that. Also, I believe, on the need to move away from taxing income towards taxing wealth.
    I don't agree with taxing wealth, but do agree with taxing land, which amounts to much the same thing.

    If I were in charge I'd start by increasing income tax by 22.25% and abolishing NI and Student Loans. Abolish Stamp Duty and Council Tax and replace with an annual Land Tax.

    If there's a budget surplus, then we can start reducing income tax, for everyone uniformly.
    "... increasing income tax by 22.25% and abolishing NI..."

    That would be catastrophic of course. Truss levels of chaos.

    You'd need to be careful increasing the tax on the 20% + 13.25% NI taxpayers. Your proposal would reduce the net income of that group by 15% at a stroke.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,618

    Roger said:

    OT. I just saw the first overt racism I've witnessed for a long time. (I owe TSE an apology).

    I was having two tyres changed on my car and the fitter was talking to me about his motorbikes when he said 'Powell was right. He said we'd be taken over by Muslims in 15 years and it's happened'

    'Sorry?' I said thinking I'd misheard

    'With this Rishi' he said. 'We'll all have to wear face coverings!'

    'That Truss woman was hopeless. She walked sideways'

    'Walked sideways?' I asked

    He then did an impersonation.

    He'd told me earlier that he was ex military. He had a BMW motorbike and belonged to a motorbike club. He and his pals go on trips to Europe. What was rather shocking was that he could have this conversation with a complete stranger

    You have never witnessed any overt racism towards Muslims / Arabs / North Africans in all the time you spend in France...about as likely as the story you just told.
    Fair point about France, but why on Earth would Roger make up the mechanic story? It's unlike you to accuse people of lying for no reason.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,522

    Roger said:

    To be honest, Steve Baker interests me, for two reasons, he interviews so well, quite a brilliant communicator. But he also knows his mind - he describes himself as Free Market Left, and if he wishes to expand on what that means anytime I would be keen to listen.

    Compare and contrast Steve Baker so strong on media rounds this weekend with Penny Mourdant’s latest car crash interview. I am saying the differential between them is Steve Baker knows his mind, to answer questions he goes straight to that, out comes confident clear answers, Mourdant turns to a lot of empty space where there are no answers.

    I’m not making an ideological point, the point I am making is politics works best, and more honestly, when politicians and parties have a clear ethos, and they just want to honestly talk about it and explain it.

    Yes, this is why Corbyn did better than expected in 2017. The problem is often that people who have a clear idea of what they believe in are nuts. Their thoughts are clear and easy to express because they can't engage with the complexity of the real world. I have the impression that Baker is in that camp.
    Johnson is nuts too of course, in a different way. He deals with the complexity of the world by believing in nothing except his own advancement, and simply tells people what they want to hear. This turns out to be a surprisingly successful strategy in the right hands.
    I suspect Sunak is not nuts but will struggle to get a hearing from the electorate. The Tories will get a bounce because he is an improvement on Truss. But I think they'd be better off choosing Johnson again. They're screwed whatever, anyway.
    “problem is often that people who have a clear idea of what they believe in are nuts. I have the impression that Baker is in that camp.”

    Well let us at least hear Baker explain himself - Free Market Left appeals to me as a philosophy, I might even be one myself without knowing it yet.

    A year before Corbyn became leader would you have told me he would fight two General elections? similarly in 1973 you would have told me Margaret Thatcher would win 3 general elections and completely change the country by taking it down the road of popular capital ownership?

    I might be thinking and speculating it a bit too far forward for some to want to debate with me on this today, but I am coming from the position what the problems actually are and so what the solutions are, and pretty sure now in my mind Boris, Sunak and Starmer do not have answers, and likely to just make things worse.

    Maxed out credit card, highest tax take since after the war, debt, deficits, public services literally falling apart, a long period of slow growth - there is no anti growth coalition, because from right to left everyone recognises growth is the only real answer - the real idealogical fault line in our politics today is between those, admittedly a small group at present, who accept we need to take liberal measures to turn our sinking country around, and those who don’t accept this.
    What sort of 'liberal' measures might turn the ship round? I heard a program the other night which said Norway in the 60's was one of the poorest countries in the World. Now it's the richest. Their population is the same as Scotland. No jiggery pokery with rich peoples tax rates. If there are simplistic answers I'd advise Scotland to follow Norway and start a rapid hunt for more oil and then get out of this stifling Union,
    “What sort of 'liberal' measures might turn the ship round?”

    I can answer your question Roger, through explaining what has made Sunak Primeminister.

    Alternatives, such as Boris 2.0 makes Ready 4 Rishi seem more appetising than it really is. Sunak has won despite being an abysmal campaigner who literally cannot understand what voters want, he does not moderate his pitch from "I know what's best for you, so I don't need to listen" this proved as fact watching Team Truss running rings around Rishi all summer.
    Most of all he won by riding a wave of kudos and credibility right now, from saying to Truss if you win and attempt your economic policies, you will break the economy. So everyone from MPs down through party members down to ordinary voters have it in mind Rishi is the right man for the moment, to tackle the economic crisis.

    But here’s the kicker, Sunak’s wave of fiscal credibility is fake. Liz and Kwarzi did not break the economy, Sunak handed it to them broken.

    From 2010 to 2019 UK borrowed about £750 billion of which half was created by the Bank of England through QE. Since 2001 UK has borrowed £1.4 trillion. Rishi then borrowed further £375 billion throwing money at Covid in a pandemic fighting splurge as though ‘austerity’ is a ‘political choice’. Pointless money-pits like Eat Out to Help Out only served to show that the government treated borrowed cash like confetti. Sunak sprayed a further £30bn of confetti to gangsters and fraudsters.

    Sunak’s dangerous economic thinking is because Sunakonomics is all part of a decade of ultra-low interest rates and money printing creating inflation, this inflation was first mainly in the housing market and stock exchange, but January 2022, a month before Russia invaded Ukraine, inflation was running at 5.5 per cent in the UK, 5.1 per cent in the EU and 7.5 per cent in the USA. When Liz Truss told Rishi control over interest rates must be taken from the BoE, Liz Truss was right. The current economic orthodoxy has failed us - an insane housing market, negative real interest rates, double digit inflation, taxes at a 70 year high, exponential spending on the worst health service in Europe, £2.4 trillion of debt and lower wages than we had in 2008. The country needs the change to the liberal economics Truss espoused - BoE and Rishi Sunak will not run the liberal economic policy the country needs.

    So I am saying all the MPs and voters are wrong to be so ready for Rishi? Yep. My argument is going back to Rishi’s economics is just plain wrong, stupid and dangerous - it’s a doom loop, low interest rates creates debt, coupled with a reluctance to tackle inflation because raising interest rates will make people poorer, so inflation persists.
    The problem is that the economic orthodoxy which has failed (but is still espoused by, amongst others, Sunak and Sir Keir) is the only one the markets will allow.
  • TheValiantTheValiant Posts: 1,678
    nico679 said:

    ydoethur said:

    nico679 said:

    Would Blackman have confirmed that Bozo was lying ?

    Why would he need to? It's the default assumption with anything he says.
    True. I still don’t believe he had the numbers because Bozo would never put his party ahead of his own ambitions .
    I don't either.

    It was obvious by his resignation speech he didn't want to leave.
    He was then on a long extended holiday (surprise surprise) he suddenly cut short to come back to the UK, texting all and sundry he was going to 'do it'.
    He has Mogg out on the Sunday programmes claiming he's going to run, and spends Saturday and Sunday constantly leaking that he's got his 100 supporters.
    He GETS a lot of support from MPs, no doubt about that. Must be 50-70.
    He's probably had loads of emails from members asking him to stand, and privately knows that he would win the membership in a landslide.

    He wants to be Prime Minister again, like his hero Churchill who did the same. Coming in and saving the day would be an excellent narrative in his book (things like having to assemble a cabinet and having to do work can be ignored.... again).

    If he had got 100, he'd have stood and run, and nothing could've persuaded him otherwise.
    So I call bullshit on Bob Blackman or anyone else who claims he got over 100. He clearly didn't.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,674
    theProle said:

    kinabalu said:

    Just under an hour to go until Sunak gets it by coronation.

    Gutted to miss out on the £5000, but will take that as a moral, Pyrrhic victory.

    Hopefully Sunak has learned that increasing National Insurance was a mistake and won't do that again.

    Small but important edit required. I'll do it.

    Hopefully he's learnt that when there's a need for extra funding for the NHS and Social Care increasing National Insurance instead of Income Tax was a mistake and he won't do that again.
    Go on, under what circumstance should NI be raised, given that there'll always be to option to raise income tax to achieve broadly the same effect in a fairer way?

    If Sunak has any sense, he (or his chancellor) would announce that NI (both employers and employees) will fall by 0.5% a year until they hit zero and are abolished, and income tax would go up by 1% PA to match. It would be a win in so many ways - tax simplification, increased fairness, a small net increase in tax take, but done smoothly enough that things adjust without creating lots of instant winners and loosers. Doing this gradually would fix the issue where the money save from abolishing employers NI might not be immediately passed onto pay rates by employers - over time the labour market will fix it naturally.

    As a pro-growth bonus, having started on this road, they could then kill IR35 stone dead as it will only be worth having a PSC if you actually need one, given it will no longer allow you to dodge NI.
    That is too sensible to be taken up by the swivel eyed loonies on here
This discussion has been closed.