Will the Truss link be as damaging to the CON brand as Corbyn was to LAB? – politicalbetting.com

tlg86 said:

rcs1000 said:

As an aside, this is probably pretty smart:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/30/23431931/twitter-paid-verification-elon-musk-blue-monthly-subscription

Basically, if you have a blue check mark on Twitter, and want to keep it, it's $20/month.

There are - approximately - 300,000 verified Twitter accounts.

That's $6m/month, or $72m a year. Admittedly, based on the assumption that there's 100% take up.

Putting a price on egotism. I like it!

Ad revenue: $3.2bn/year
This nonsense: $72m/year

mwadams said:

tlg86 said:

rcs1000 said:

As an aside, this is probably pretty smart:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/30/23431931/twitter-paid-verification-elon-musk-blue-monthly-subscription

Basically, if you have a blue check mark on Twitter, and want to keep it, it's $20/month.

There are - approximately - 300,000 verified Twitter accounts.

That's $6m/month, or $72m a year. Admittedly, based on the assumption that there's 100% take up.

Putting a price on egotism. I like it!

Ad revenue: $3.2bn/year
This nonsense: $72m/year

Musk cannot afford to lose much advertising then.

I see he has deleted his Pelosi conspiracy tweet.

rcs1000 said:

mwadams said:

tlg86 said:

rcs1000 said:

As an aside, this is probably pretty smart:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/30/23431931/twitter-paid-verification-elon-musk-blue-monthly-subscription

Basically, if you have a blue check mark on Twitter, and want to keep it, it's $20/month.

There are - approximately - 300,000 verified Twitter accounts.

That's $6m/month, or $72m a year. Admittedly, based on the assumption that there's 100% take up.

Putting a price on egotism. I like it!

Ad revenue: $3.2bn/year
This nonsense: $72m/year

Don't be guilty of "silver bullet syndrome":

As this doesn't solve all the problems, it's not worth doing

Everything is iteration.

Yes, but it remains to be seen what percentage take-up you get from such a small pool of people. (Despite the ego factor, it won't be anything like 100%, and it is too small a pool.)

I agree that there is no silver bullet. You need to salami slice the 400m users - the goal being to get them to give you their payment details so that the barrier to incremental payments is reduced.

Other platforms do that by incentives for content providers to persuade their followers to part with cash in microtransactions (e.g. YT 'superchats' and 'memberships') I'm not sure that relationship exists on Twitter so they'll have to innovate.

Musk is also making it much harder as he spooks the advertisers, so he's going to have to fill that black hole as Twitter was just approaching break even.

rcs1000 said:

nico679 said:

Bolsonaro tried everything . Last minute bribes to the electorate in a desperate bid to win during the final debate .

Good riddance to the stain on humanity.

I detest Bolsanaro, but Lula is pretty bloody awful too. Poor Brazilians.

Yes, his acquittal from the fraud charges was highly procedural and did not cast much doubt on the central charge that he took a bribe. Pretty remarkable that someone with that on their record was chosen as the candidate for his party again and has won. Bolsonaro's party look likely to have a majority in the Congress too.

Last time around Lula had money pouring in from the newly developing oil fields but the financial situation will be much tighter this time around.

DougSeal said:

On topic. I take the entirely opposite view. Truss will be back in No 10 within 12 months and she will win the next election, handsomely.

How do you think this will come about?

...

Excellent thread:

NEW: a column in the Times argues that the only way to tackle obesity is through fat shaming (yes, you read that right).

It’s an astonishing argument to make, and unsurprisingly it falls to pieces under scrutiny.

Let’s take a look, and see if we can do better:

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1586761974708322304

CorrectHorseBattery3 said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

CorrectHorseBattery3 said:

Leon/SeanT/MissyG/whoever is a nasty, racist, horrible bully and when he comes on the site the quality drops quickly. I now actively avoid the site when he is around.

Got to say I think you are comprehensively wrong in this assessment. I don't recognise any of what you claim about him. He is forthright and does a fine line in abuse but he is no bully. He doesn't expect anyone to be cowed by his postings and delights in people fighting back against him. I would suggest that it is undeniable that he is an asset to this site even though I disagree with him on the majority of what he posts.

Perhaps you missed when he came on here and posted a photo of somebody he called an autistic virgin and then said that was what I look like. What is that if not bullying? He then did it to several other posters.

You are wrong Richard, completely wrong.

you still whinging about Sean, get a grip.

Foxy said:

I see Lord Dannatt threatens a military coup.

https://twitter.com/MetroUK/status/1586832338239033350?t=SC3l3ufn3KFZt_B0iA2x8A&s=09

I am happy to serve as Lord Protector if the coup is successful.

DougSeal said:

StuartDickson said:

Wulfrun_Phil said:

Heathener said:

On the Truss story, the overnight front pages are the first ones to be (almost) universally damaging to Sunak's Government. From the Liz Truss story to the appalling Suella Braverman to Rishi Sunak's frankly disgraceful decision to boycott COP27 (which he might be about to U-turn on) this tory Government's sleaze is floating back to the surface like the turds in the sea that they encourage. Apologies to any of you having breakfast at this point. Their lackadaisical approach to national security would take my breath away if it any longer caused me surprise.

I was prepared to give Rishi Sunak time and grace but his Cabinet appointments revealed him to be a weak man or poor judgement: an indecisiveness which characterised his failure to take down Johnson at peak partygate, to the cost of this country.

He is also himself mired in sleaze and dodgy money.

This idea that Sunak and Truss are not joined at the hip also won't wash. They both stood by their Prime Minister Boris Johnson, one as his Chancellor of the Exchequer, the other as his Foreign Secretary.

And the dire economic situation that the country still remains in is due in good part to the actions of that Chancellor from 2020 to July 2022, and not a couple of weeks of temporary madness by Truss/Kwarteng.

And on thread. Labour is best ignoring Truss for that reason, downplaying her role in order to point the finger at Sunak (and his predecessors) for he economic mess.

I agree.

The SNP, Labour, Greens and Lib Dems must set aside the Truss catastrophe and focus laser-like on Sunak’s self-inflicted mess.

The voters will *never* forget Truss. The woman is going to become legendary. All the takings are banked.

Agreed on the last point. She’ll be back in No 10 sooner than we think.

Occasionally a PBer will place such a shocking political bet that OGH and myself will make an intervention.

Here's the first step of the intervention process.

https://www.begambleaware.org/

TheScreamingEagles said:

Foxy said:

I see Lord Dannatt threatens a military coup.

https://twitter.com/MetroUK/status/1586832338239033350?t=SC3l3ufn3KFZt_B0iA2x8A&s=09

I am happy to serve as Lord Protector if the coup is successful.

Jimmy has got his fairly secret army ready for you.

Foxy said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

DougSeal said:

StuartDickson said:

Wulfrun_Phil said:

Heathener said:

On the Truss story, the overnight front pages are the first ones to be (almost) universally damaging to Sunak's Government. From the Liz Truss story to the appalling Suella Braverman to Rishi Sunak's frankly disgraceful decision to boycott COP27 (which he might be about to U-turn on) this tory Government's sleaze is floating back to the surface like the turds in the sea that they encourage. Apologies to any of you having breakfast at this point. Their lackadaisical approach to national security would take my breath away if it any longer caused me surprise.

I was prepared to give Rishi Sunak time and grace but his Cabinet appointments revealed him to be a weak man or poor judgement: an indecisiveness which characterised his failure to take down Johnson at peak partygate, to the cost of this country.

He is also himself mired in sleaze and dodgy money.

This idea that Sunak and Truss are not joined at the hip also won't wash. They both stood by their Prime Minister Boris Johnson, one as his Chancellor of the Exchequer, the other as his Foreign Secretary.

And the dire economic situation that the country still remains in is due in good part to the actions of that Chancellor from 2020 to July 2022, and not a couple of weeks of temporary madness by Truss/Kwarteng.

And on thread. Labour is best ignoring Truss for that reason, downplaying her role in order to point the finger at Sunak (and his predecessors) for he economic mess.

I agree.

The SNP, Labour, Greens and Lib Dems must set aside the Truss catastrophe and focus laser-like on Sunak’s self-inflicted mess.

The voters will *never* forget Truss. The woman is going to become legendary. All the takings are banked.

Agreed on the last point. She’ll be back in No 10 sooner than we think.

Occasionally a PBer will place such a shocking political bet that OGH and myself will make an intervention.
value bet
Here's the first step of the intervention process.

https://www.begambleaware.org/

Remember Diane Abbott next Labour leader? 😀

It was a value bet.

Yet another wave of missile attacks in Ukraine this morning causing loss of power and water shortages: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63454230

NATO really needs to step up their missile defence contributions urgently.

LostPassword said:

rcs1000 said:

mwadams said:

tlg86 said:

rcs1000 said:

As an aside, this is probably pretty smart:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/30/23431931/twitter-paid-verification-elon-musk-blue-monthly-subscription

Basically, if you have a blue check mark on Twitter, and want to keep it, it's $20/month.

There are - approximately - 300,000 verified Twitter accounts.

That's $6m/month, or $72m a year. Admittedly, based on the assumption that there's 100% take up.

Putting a price on egotism. I like it!

Ad revenue: $3.2bn/year
This nonsense: $72m/year

Don't be guilty of "silver bullet syndrome":

As this doesn't solve all the problems, it's not worth doing

Everything is iteration.

Suppose the charge drives off 5% of the verified users, and collectively verified users drive half of engagement, then the loss is 2.5% of engagement. If that follows through to a proportionate decline in ad revenue that's an $80m loss in ad revenue and a net $8m loss overall.

Maybe Musk is about to upend existing internet paradigms but thus far it's generally been pretty simple. Make access free, drive engagement, benefit from network effects, sell advertising.

And that's before you reverse out the increase in ad revenue since they stayed to get their house in order with respect to hate and conspiracy speech. (Although Musk deleting his conspiracy tweet might indicate that someone has told him he's in the toilet if he goes down that path.)

DavidL said:

Yet another wave of missile attacks in Ukraine this morning causing loss of power and water shortages: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63454230

NATO really needs to step up their missile defence contributions urgently.

ATACMS and F-16s. Give Ukraine the means to hit the launch sites.

rcs1000 said:

As an aside, this is probably pretty smart:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/30/23431931/twitter-paid-verification-elon-musk-blue-monthly-subscription

Basically, if you have a blue check mark on Twitter, and want to keep it, it's $20/month.

There are - approximately - 300,000 verified Twitter accounts.

That's $6m/month, or $72m a year. Admittedly, based on the assumption that there's 100% take up.

No, it's pretty stupid.
This seems to be the reaction of most journalists.

https://mobile.twitter.com/JamesFallows/status/1586931244994105344
The “pay for blue check” scheme is really weird.

-Why would people who already have one, pay for it? Is the fear that surplus followers will leave? And so…?

-It debases people who keep one. Turns them into equivalent of advertorial-writers.

Very quick way to torpedo the site.

And the amount of revenue is minor in comparison to the potential damage.

Foxy said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

DougSeal said:

StuartDickson said:

Wulfrun_Phil said:

Heathener said:

On the Truss story, the overnight front pages are the first ones to be (almost) universally damaging to Sunak's Government. From the Liz Truss story to the appalling Suella Braverman to Rishi Sunak's frankly disgraceful decision to boycott COP27 (which he might be about to U-turn on) this tory Government's sleaze is floating back to the surface like the turds in the sea that they encourage. Apologies to any of you having breakfast at this point. Their lackadaisical approach to national security would take my breath away if it any longer caused me surprise.

I was prepared to give Rishi Sunak time and grace but his Cabinet appointments revealed him to be a weak man or poor judgement: an indecisiveness which characterised his failure to take down Johnson at peak partygate, to the cost of this country.

He is also himself mired in sleaze and dodgy money.

This idea that Sunak and Truss are not joined at the hip also won't wash. They both stood by their Prime Minister Boris Johnson, one as his Chancellor of the Exchequer, the other as his Foreign Secretary.

And the dire economic situation that the country still remains in is due in good part to the actions of that Chancellor from 2020 to July 2022, and not a couple of weeks of temporary madness by Truss/Kwarteng.

And on thread. Labour is best ignoring Truss for that reason, downplaying her role in order to point the finger at Sunak (and his predecessors) for he economic mess.

I agree.

The SNP, Labour, Greens and Lib Dems must set aside the Truss catastrophe and focus laser-like on Sunak’s self-inflicted mess.

The voters will *never* forget Truss. The woman is going to become legendary. All the takings are banked.

Agreed on the last point. She’ll be back in No 10 sooner than we think.

Occasionally a PBer will place such a shocking political bet that OGH and myself will make an intervention.

Here's the first step of the intervention process.

https://www.begambleaware.org/

Remember Diane Abbott next Labour leader? 😀

As I said at the time I suggested it, I was being sarcastic

Has Bolsonaro conceded yet?

LostPassword said:

DavidL said:

Farooq said:

DavidL said:

Yet another wave of missile attacks in Ukraine this morning causing loss of power and water shortages: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63454230

NATO really needs to step up their missile defence contributions urgently.

NATO?

Its members. The US will inevitably do most the heavy lifting here but other countries like France and Germany need to step up too. These attacks will not defeat Ukraine but they are going to cause untold misery this winter.

The Germans have delivered IRIS, with more to come. France and Italy will be sending SAMP-T, and some other system. NASAMS from the US is nearly there.

But there's a limit to what missile defence can achieve. Much easier to intercept the missiles weekend they're on the ground, before they've launched. With the number of missiles Russia may be buying from Iran this is the crucial step.

Subliminal wishes emerging in typos.

Jonathan said:

Twitter might like to have tiers of membership, where if you go over 10 tweets a day you have to pay 10 bucks a month. Over 20 and you pay 50 bucks. Companies pay 1000 bucks a month. A tax on bots, corporate PR and gobshites.

Would work quite well, when something happens and you’re desperate to say something you’ll sign up.

But who will fund covid twitter? Those endless doomsayers still wearing masks and calling the next wave that means we all should lockdown?

Jonathan said:

Twitter might like to have tiers of membership, where if you go over 10 tweets a day you have to pay 10 bucks a month. Over 20 and you pay 50 bucks. Companies pay 1000 bucks a month. A tax on bots, corporate PR and gobshites.

Would work quite well, when something happens and you’re desperate to say something you’ll sign up.

Until a new, free, platform comes and takes its place.

Interesting how world leaders in western countries have quickly congratulated Lula on his win .

This looks like an attempt to put pressure on Bolsonaro to not cause any drama .

nico679 said:

Interesting how world leaders in western countries have quickly congratulated Lula on his win .

This looks like an attempt to put pressure on Bolsonaro to not cause any drama .

Has it not already been declared? So hardly contraversial to congratulate the winner.

Foxy said:

I see Lord Dannatt threatens a military coup.

https://twitter.com/MetroUK/status/1586832338239033350?t=SC3l3ufn3KFZt_B0iA2x8A&s=09

Surely a military coup is something we keep in the back pocket for a Labour administration.

mwadams said:

Nigelb said:

Jonathan said:

Twitter might like to have tiers of membership, where if you go over 10 tweets a day you have to pay 10 bucks a month. Over 20 and you pay 50 bucks. Companies pay 1000 bucks a month. A tax on bots, corporate PR and gobshites.

Would work quite well, when something happens and you’re desperate to say something you’ll sign up.

That would entirely upend its business, and would probably collapse it.

Everyone's ideas for monetisation always seem to upend the fact that you need the mass audience for the advertising base.

As I said down thread the only other mechanism that has ever worked for monetizing social is getting people to pay content providers for 3rd party content and taking a slice of those transactions. (Which Twitter is not well set up for.)

Anything else will be have to be innovative, not just "charging for the existing service".

Agreed.
I thought Musk might have some interesting ideas for expanding what Twitter does.

He might still, but this one is a bust.

Mexicanpete said:

Foxy said:

I see Lord Dannatt threatens a military coup.

https://twitter.com/MetroUK/status/1586832338239033350?t=SC3l3ufn3KFZt_B0iA2x8A&s=09

Surely a military coup is something we keep in the back pocket for a Labour administration.

If even a retired General has such dread power, I shudder to think what a working one could do.

Jonathan said:

Twitter might like to have tiers of membership, where if you go over 10 tweets a day you have to pay 10 bucks a month. Over 20 and you pay 50 bucks. Companies pay 1000 bucks a month. A tax on bots, corporate PR and gobshites.

Would work quite well, when something happens and you’re desperate to say something you’ll sign up.

That would be fantastic. How much would they pay me to not be on it at all?

mwadams said:

LostPassword said:

rcs1000 said:

mwadams said:

tlg86 said:

rcs1000 said:

As an aside, this is probably pretty smart:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/30/23431931/twitter-paid-verification-elon-musk-blue-monthly-subscription

Basically, if you have a blue check mark on Twitter, and want to keep it, it's $20/month.

There are - approximately - 300,000 verified Twitter accounts.

That's $6m/month, or $72m a year. Admittedly, based on the assumption that there's 100% take up.

Putting a price on egotism. I like it!

Ad revenue: $3.2bn/year
This nonsense: $72m/year

Don't be guilty of "silver bullet syndrome":

As this doesn't solve all the problems, it's not worth doing

Everything is iteration.

Suppose the charge drives off 5% of the verified users, and collectively verified users drive half of engagement, then the loss is 2.5% of engagement. If that follows through to a proportionate decline in ad revenue that's an $80m loss in ad revenue and a net $8m loss overall.

Maybe Musk is about to upend existing internet paradigms but thus far it's generally been pretty simple. Make access free, drive engagement, benefit from network effects, sell advertising.

And that's before you reverse out the increase in ad revenue since they stayed to get their house in order with respect to hate and conspiracy speech. (Although Musk deleting his conspiracy tweet might indicate that someone has told him he's in the toilet if he goes down that path.)

That he even made the tweet in the first place, however, suggests he isn’t going to change. The owner of Twitter posting conspiracy theories and libel isn’t going to end well. Even if they’re soon deleted.

Malmesbury said:

mwadams said:

Nigelb said:

Jonathan said:

Twitter might like to have tiers of membership, where if you go over 10 tweets a day you have to pay 10 bucks a month. Over 20 and you pay 50 bucks. Companies pay 1000 bucks a month. A tax on bots, corporate PR and gobshites.

Would work quite well, when something happens and you’re desperate to say something you’ll sign up.

That would entirely upend its business, and would probably collapse it.

Everyone's ideas for monetisation always seem to upend the fact that you need the mass audience for the advertising base.

As I said down thread the only other mechanism that has ever worked for monetizing social is getting people to pay content providers for 3rd party content and taking a slice of those transactions. (Which Twitter is not well set up for.)

Anything else will be have to be innovative, not just "charging for the existing service".

It’s fairly clear that Musk wants to turn Twitter into a mega-platorm. Think all kinds of content, payments etc. Several of the Chinese social media apps went that way.

Yes. The question is...how do? Where does the content come from? The Chinese social media apps had...certain market advantages.

The Institute for the study of war (ISW) have tried to put themseleves in Putin's mind to predict his likely actions. I'm summarising.

They think a nuclear attack is very unlikely. They predict a Spring '23 offensive, hoping a cold winter will have changed the West's enthusiasm for arming Ukraine. By then, some of his new untrained recruits may have bedded in. The last one is my own guess, so you can ignore it.

They didn't postulate how he'd like the political scene to change, but this forum might. Here's my tongue-in-cheek predictions.

Obviously, he'd like Angela back (Get rid of Nuclear, tie yourself to Russian gas), but that's unlikely. Encourage the loons in XR to run amok, and hope that Wee Jimmy succeeds. and means it when she threatens to have an independent Scotland leave NATO.

Remove Starmer for the triumphant return of Corbyn. A big ask, but the Tories are currently making themselves unelectable. Putin's aim of removing Western hegemony might need putting on the back-burner unless Trump is elected, but he's a loose cannon and might do more harm than good.

He must be an optimist, but his disdain of Western governments is a given. Six months is a long time when you're a mad poisoner who assumes something will turn up, and you control the communications.

DougSeal said:

On topic. I take the entirely opposite view. Truss will be back in No 10 within 12 months and she will win the next election, handsomely.

That must go down as the most eye-catching predictions yet on here. If I were offering odds (which I'm not) I'd put that at 1000/1.

One of us is going to look an idiot after the next GE.

Alistair said:

Blue Check mark is mostly for the benefit of the masses not the checkmark owner.

It is so I know I am reading the account of the actual Elon Musk and not some conspiracy peddling crypto-shilling fake.

Though not everyone appears to understand its utility.

Delighted to see that The Daily Mail has had the good sense to quote me regarding the government’s sensible idea to disperse sewage in coastal waters in a safe manner whilst beaches are empty.
The Daily Mail continues to be an example of rigorous & well researched journalism...
https://mobile.twitter.com/MichaelTakeMP/status/1586844713373646854

(The non-existent ex MP, for a non existent constituency, Sir Michael Take...)

Similarly excoriating on R4

“Because of the Home Office decision not to book hotel space, the inevitable has happened”.

Conservative MP Sir Roger Gale tells @GMB that numbers at Manston asylum processing centre have gone from 2500 to 4000 in four days. Seems to blame Home Sec.

https://twitter.com/paulbranditv/status/1586995307941871616

He doesn’t know whether it was Patel or Braverman.

turbotubbs said:

Jonathan said:

Twitter might like to have tiers of membership, where if you go over 10 tweets a day you have to pay 10 bucks a month. Over 20 and you pay 50 bucks. Companies pay 1000 bucks a month. A tax on bots, corporate PR and gobshites.

Would work quite well, when something happens and you’re desperate to say something you’ll sign up.

But who will fund covid twitter? Those endless doomsayers still wearing masks and calling the next wave that means we all should lockdown?

I stumbled across one of those a few weeks ago He was saying that the latest ‘wave’ of Covid had just peaked. I was amazed both that there was a wave worthy of the name and that anyone was still monitoring covid to that degree, but some people simply cannot move on. It’s very saddening when you meet someone who has been mentally boxed-in to that extent by the experience.

Theuniondivvie said:

DavidL said:

Yet another wave of missile attacks in Ukraine this morning causing loss of power and water shortages: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63454230

NATO really needs to step up their missile defence contributions urgently.

It gives me no satisfaction to say it but optimistic predictions of Putin running out of tanks, men, drones, missiles, willpower etc seem to be a regular occurrence.
On the targeting of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure it seems surprising that VVP hasn’t concentrated on this before, unless with uncharacteristic strategic cunning he’s been waiting for the encroachment of winter.

To a certain extent Russia has run out of tanks, drones and missiles, which is why they're now taking tanks from Belarus and drones/missiles from Iran.

Another day of large Russian losses reported by Ukraine, 620 men, 32 APCs, after 950/52 yesterday. This suggests that Russia is attempting large-scale advances with its newly-mobilised, barely-trained, poorly-equipped forces, and suffering consequently high casualties.

I guess Putin can keep on doing this for as long as his people will follow his orders, and he can find someone willing to provide him with equipment and ammunition.

Theuniondivvie said:

DavidL said:

Yet another wave of missile attacks in Ukraine this morning causing loss of power and water shortages: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63454230

NATO really needs to step up their missile defence contributions urgently.

It gives me no satisfaction to say it but optimistic predictions of Putin running out of tanks, men, drones, missiles, willpower etc seem to be a regular occurrence.
On the targeting of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure it seems surprising that VVP hasn’t concentrated on this before, unless with uncharacteristic strategic cunning he’s been waiting for the encroachment of winter.

Having to import weapons, including small cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, from Iran is *not* a sign of massive weapons stocks. Using increasingly-aged tanks and APC's likewise.

As for your latter point: Putin's excuses for his war have always been confused, but early on there was somewhat of a "Those poor Ukrainians are part of us; we need to remove those evil Nazis from ruling them (*)". Hitting vital infrastructure was somewhat against that - especially if he hoped to take over the country.

Now he's just in a "burn everything" punishment beating mode. It's a sign that he does not expect to take over all of Ukraine.

(*) " ... and replace them with a fascist such as myself", he'd never add.

DavidL said:

Yet another wave of missile attacks in Ukraine this morning causing loss of power and water shortages: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63454230

NATO really needs to step up their missile defence contributions urgently.

There has been a real clampdown by Russia on news and images out of Sevastopol after the Ukrainian drone attack on the Black Sea Fleet. Suggestions that the replacement flagship for the sunk Moscow has also been seriously damaged. A huge wave of missiles is the predictable Russian response to any setback (it happened after the Crimea bridge attack too.) Be interesting to see what news leaks out about the damage inflicted by the attack.

RochdalePioneers said:

In The Grocer. There is reported alarm amongst farmers about the return of Therese Coffey to Defra...

...

MarqueeMark said:

DavidL said:

Yet another wave of missile attacks in Ukraine this morning causing loss of power and water shortages: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63454230

NATO really needs to step up their missile defence contributions urgently.

There has been a real clampdown by Russia on news and images out of Sevastopol after the Ukrainian drone attack on the Black Sea Fleet. Suggestions that the replacement flagship for the sunk Moscow has also been seriously damaged. A huge wave of missiles is the predictable Russian response to any setback (it happened after the Crimea bridge attack too.) Be interesting to see what news leaks out about the damage inflicted by the attack.

When Ukraine hit the landing ship in Berdyansk there were some satellite photos of the partially submerged ship. If we're lucky there will be breaks in the cloud to enable similar.

The pension triple lock has become impossible to defend

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/10/31/pension-triple-lock-has-become-impossible-defend/

Ishmael_Z said:

RochdalePioneers said:

In The Grocer. There is reported alarm amongst farmers about the return of Therese Coffey to Defra...

Bloody useless cartoon, only gove recognisable. Loving the Sunak is an Alien slur, mind. Clever.

Alien? He's Frankestein's Monster...

TheScreamingEagles said:

Sir Christopher Chope, the MP for Christchurch, claimed that the vaccines were “not perfectly safe” and that there was a question about “whether they are effective”.

Someone should ask Dopey Chopey for a list of things that are "perfectly safe".

Anyway, lets all be happy that in preference to a period of calm and sensible government, Sunak has opted for a series of calamities and scandals. More fun this way.

Ishmael_Z said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Ishmael_Z said:

RochdalePioneers said:

In The Grocer. There is reported alarm amongst farmers about the return of Therese Coffey to Defra...

Bloody useless cartoon, only gove recognisable. Loving the Sunak is an Alien slur, mind. Clever.

Alien? He's Frankestein's Monster...

Excellent, another good play on his Indian origins

Nobody ever suggested F's M was monophthalmic. Just basic incompetence.

So in a Halloween cartoon posted in the Halloween issue your take of Frankenstein's Monster is that it is a high-brow racist dig because the monster and the PM share "indian origins".

Its an opinion...

Ishmael_Z said:

Emily Thornberry
@EmilyThornberry
The Sunday Times today carries jaw-dropping extracts from the new Liz Truss book about three overseas trips she made shortly after becoming Trade Secretary in 2019. In this thread, I want to focus on one aspect of those revelations: her expenses. (1/10).

Thornberry on Truss's case over travel expenses.

Linky https://twitter.com/EmilyThornberry/status/1586702297282879488

Ishmael_Z said:

Emily Thornberry
@EmilyThornberry
The Sunday Times today carries jaw-dropping extracts from the new Liz Truss book about three overseas trips she made shortly after becoming Trade Secretary in 2019. In this thread, I want to focus on one aspect of those revelations: her expenses. (1/10).

Thornberry on Truss's case over travel expenses.

The amount of heavy and late drinking on those trips suggests the Downing Street lockdown parties were not the exception to how government departments have been operating.