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Could 2023 see Sunak’s Tories edging back in the polls? – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited January 2023 in General
imageCould 2023 see Sunak’s Tories edging back in the polls? – politicalbetting.com

Can Sunak’s Tories reverse the trend in the polling which appears to have swung a bit back to LAB.

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Comments

  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,341
    edited January 2023
    Yes

    First.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    algarkirk said:

    Yes

    First.

    A first that isn't TSE? Can somebody check he's OK?
  • Politico.com - New data shows the folly of Trump’s crusade against early voting
    Vermont, Kentucky and Nevada dramatically expanded the ability to cast ballots before Election Day, and neither party gained an edge.

    https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/02/trump-early-voting-new-data-00075611
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    edited January 2023

    Politico.com - New data shows the folly of Trump’s

    I'm surprised anyone needed new data to prove whatever came after that.
  • Politico.com - New data shows the folly of Trump’s crusade against early voting
    Vermont, Kentucky and Nevada dramatically expanded the ability to cast ballots before Election Day, and neither party gained an edge.

    https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/02/trump-early-voting-new-data-00075611

    The "crusade" was to support the fiction that would allow Trump to try and steal the election, or at least de-legitimise it if they lost, not because they thought it really was a partisan problem.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052
    To answer the question in the header, it would be hard not to creep back up. There is the possibility of extinction I suppose, but surely at core "Donkey with a blue rosette" level at 20% ish already.
  • Foxy said:

    To answer the question in the header, it would be hard not to creep back up. There is the possibility of extinction I suppose, but surely at core "Donkey with a blue rosette" level at 20% ish already.

    The donkey might perform better than a couple of the last Tory leaders though.
  • ydoethur said:

    algarkirk said:

    Yes

    First.

    A first that isn't TSE? Can somebody check he's OK?
    I'm ok, unlike these Russians.

    Some 400 newly-mobilised Russian army recruits were killed by a strike on a facility in occupied eastern Ukraine over new year, the Ukrainian armed forces have claimed.

    “Santa packed close to 400 corpses of pigdogs in his sack,” the strategic communications branch of Ukraine’s armed forces wrote in a Telegram post late Sunday, adding that the strike was conducted on New Year’s Eve. The missiles hit the base in Makiivka, a city of around 300,000 people, some 15km east of Donetsk.

    The Russian Ministry of Defence acknowledged the attack, which it said was carried out by US Himars systems, but accused Ukraine of exaggerating the number of casualties. It claimed 63 had died so far, while a source in Russian-backed administration of the Donetsk region said “less than 100” had been killed.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/400-russian-recruits-killed-in-donetsk-missile-strike-rdlr8sdml
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,956
    edited January 2023
    On topic.

    Unlikely, the economic pain is going to get worse.

    Plus Sunak's shit, remember he lost to Liz Truss, that's like getting beaten by a cat at chess.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052

    ydoethur said:

    algarkirk said:

    Yes

    First.

    A first that isn't TSE? Can somebody check he's OK?
    I'm ok, unlike these Russians.

    Some 400 newly-mobilised Russian army recruits were killed by a strike on a facility in occupied eastern Ukraine over new year, the Ukrainian armed forces have claimed.

    “Santa packed close to 400 corpses of pigdogs in his sack,” the strategic communications branch of Ukraine’s armed forces wrote in a Telegram post late Sunday, adding that the strike was conducted on New Year’s Eve. The missiles hit the base in Makiivka, a city of around 300,000 people, some 15km east of Donetsk.

    The Russian Ministry of Defence acknowledged the attack, which it said was carried out by US Himars systems, but accused Ukraine of exaggerating the number of casualties. It claimed 63 had died so far, while a source in Russian-backed administration of the Donetsk region said “less than 100” had been killed.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/400-russian-recruits-killed-in-donetsk-missile-strike-rdlr8sdml
    It does seem unfortunate for them to be billeted in a place also used as an ammo dump. HIMARS struck as they were watching Putins New Year speech it seems.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,840

    Politico.com - New data shows the folly of Trump’s crusade against early voting
    Vermont, Kentucky and Nevada dramatically expanded the ability to cast ballots before Election Day, and neither party gained an edge.

    https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/02/trump-early-voting-new-data-00075611

    The "crusade" was to support the fiction that would allow Trump to try and steal the election, or at least de-legitimise it if they lost, not because they thought it really was a partisan problem.
    Yep - a rare example of him thinking more than 5 minutes ahead.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,786

    ydoethur said:

    algarkirk said:

    Yes

    First.

    A first that isn't TSE? Can somebody check he's OK?
    I'm ok, unlike these Russians.

    Some 400 newly-mobilised Russian army recruits were killed by a strike on a facility in occupied eastern Ukraine over new year, the Ukrainian armed forces have claimed.

    “Santa packed close to 400 corpses of pigdogs in his sack,” the strategic communications branch of Ukraine’s armed forces wrote in a Telegram post late Sunday, adding that the strike was conducted on New Year’s Eve. The missiles hit the base in Makiivka, a city of around 300,000 people, some 15km east of Donetsk.

    The Russian Ministry of Defence acknowledged the attack, which it said was carried out by US Himars systems, but accused Ukraine of exaggerating the number of casualties. It claimed 63 had died so far, while a source in Russian-backed administration of the Donetsk region said “less than 100” had been killed.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/400-russian-recruits-killed-in-donetsk-missile-strike-rdlr8sdml
    I saw a post directed towards Russian citizens that accused the Ukrainians of trying to exaggerate the number of casualties in order to discredit the Russian leadership. It went on to say that "what you need to know is that the Ukrainians have lost far more over the last few months", which is not exactly a refutation.
  • If there was a God, he'd smote Patriarch Kirill.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,138
    edited January 2023
    My prediction: polls stay poor or slightly worsen for the Tories between now and local elections. The full impact of the NHS crisis is only just starting to cut through, and we’re still in the early stages of those eye watering winter heating bills. Offsetting this a little, migration will decline in salience during the winter off-season for boat crossings so Refuk may decline a little to the marginal benefit of Con.

    The spring budget will be a relatively positive affair as less spending on the energy price cap due to lower than expected prices and consumption will create a bit of room for loosening in key spending areas.

    The local elections themselves will be disastrous for the government but already priced in, and not as good as expected for Labour. We’ll then see a moderate recovery in Con polling through the rest of 2023 as inflation starts to come down, but they will never take a poll lead.

    With Sunak in no10 there’s less chance of the stupid unforced errors of the last 2 PMs. Conversely there’s less chance of him opportunistically taking the national war leader plaudits for some major challenge like Covid or Ukraine.

    Biggest new risk for Sunak I think would be indecision and slowness to respond if we have something like major flooding or another non-economic crisis. That or one of his cabinet doing something stupid and crooked.

    Tories end the year around 10-12% behind Labour.
  • This is the wife of Clarence Thomas and yet he doesn't recuse himself.

  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052
    TimS said:

    My prediction: polls stay poor or slightly worsen for the Tories between now and local elections. The full impact of the NHS crisis is only just starting to cut through, and we’re still in the early stages of those eye watering winter hearing bills. Offsetting this a little, migration will decline in salience during the winter off season for boat crossings so Refuk may decline a little to the marginal benefit of Con.

    The spring budget will be a relatively positive affair as less spending on the energy price cap due to lower than expected prices and consumption will create a bit of room for a bit of loosening in key spending areas.

    The local elections themselves will be disastrous for the government but already priced in, and not as good as expected for Labour. We’ll then see a moderate recovery in Con polling through the rest of 2023 as inflation starts to come down, but they will never take a poll lead.

    With Sunak in no10 there’s less chance of the stupid unforced errors of the last 2 PMs. Conversely there’s less chance of him opportunistically taking the national war leader plaudits for some major challenge like Covid or Ukraine.

    Biggest risk for Sunak I think would be indecision and slowness to respond if we have something like major flooding or another non-economic crisis.

    Tories end the year around 10-12% behind Labour.

    Your final sentence seems to imply quite a good second half to the year from the Tories. I am not sure what would drive that.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,341

    If there was a God, he'd smote Patriarch Kirill.

    If there is a God that actually is God, that God doesn't get advice off anyone.

  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,138
    Foxy said:

    TimS said:

    My prediction: polls stay poor or slightly worsen for the Tories between now and local elections. The full impact of the NHS crisis is only just starting to cut through, and we’re still in the early stages of those eye watering winter hearing bills. Offsetting this a little, migration will decline in salience during the winter off season for boat crossings so Refuk may decline a little to the marginal benefit of Con.

    The spring budget will be a relatively positive affair as less spending on the energy price cap due to lower than expected prices and consumption will create a bit of room for a bit of loosening in key spending areas.

    The local elections themselves will be disastrous for the government but already priced in, and not as good as expected for Labour. We’ll then see a moderate recovery in Con polling through the rest of 2023 as inflation starts to come down, but they will never take a poll lead.

    With Sunak in no10 there’s less chance of the stupid unforced errors of the last 2 PMs. Conversely there’s less chance of him opportunistically taking the national war leader plaudits for some major challenge like Covid or Ukraine.

    Biggest risk for Sunak I think would be indecision and slowness to respond if we have something like major flooding or another non-economic crisis.

    Tories end the year around 10-12% behind Labour.

    Your final sentence seems to imply quite a good second half to the year from the Tories. I am not sure what would drive that.
    Reversion to the mean, pure and simple. I think the current polling is being suppressed by active anger from 2022’s debacles. A quiet few months will see the waverers come back home.
  • Politico.com - New data shows the folly of Trump’s crusade against early voting
    Vermont, Kentucky and Nevada dramatically expanded the ability to cast ballots before Election Day, and neither party gained an edge.

    https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/02/trump-early-voting-new-data-00075611

    The "crusade" was to support the fiction that would allow Trump to try and steal the election, or at least de-legitimise it if they lost, not because they thought it really was a partisan problem.
    Assume by "they" you really mean "he"? Because millions of his followers took him at his word, and believed his bullshit.

    Personally know of at least one WA State legislative seat the GOP pissed away on this basis, as well as WA CD03.

    Also the Arizona races for Governor AND Attorney General. Ditto Nevada US Senate.

    Trump urging his minions to NOT vote early was hardly the only factor, but it DID have impact methinks in these very close races.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    If they can squeeze the RefUK vote and DKs maybe
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,138

    If there was a God, he'd smote Patriarch Kirill.

    Who says Christianity can’t do bearded extremist clerics?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited January 2023

    If there was a God, he'd smote Patriarch Kirill.

    Depends if he is in a Russian Orthodox or Ukranian Orthodox mood as they both worship him anyway
  • Politico.com - New data shows the folly of Trump’s crusade against early voting
    Vermont, Kentucky and Nevada dramatically expanded the ability to cast ballots before Election Day, and neither party gained an edge.

    https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/02/trump-early-voting-new-data-00075611

    The "crusade" was to support the fiction that would allow Trump to try and steal the election, or at least de-legitimise it if they lost, not because they thought it really was a partisan problem.
    Assume by "they" you really mean "he"? Because millions of his followers took him at his word, and believed his bullshit.

    Personally know of at least one WA State legislative seat the GOP pissed away on this basis, as well as WA CD03.

    Also the Arizona races for Governor AND Attorney General. Ditto Nevada US Senate.

    Trump urging his minions to NOT vote early was hardly the only factor, but it DID have impact methinks in these very close races.
    They include a lot of the team, including family, lawyers and politicians around him, his media surrogates in Fox and elsewhere and plenty of informed Republicans nowhere near the inner circle. I concur most Republicans were not fully in on the lie and genuinely believed his nonsense.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,007
    I have a good feeling about this year.

    Things will get better.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,007
    Sunak needs to go COBRA on the NHS and crisis mode it for 6-9 months to clear the backlog - possibly longer. Nightingale it.

    I don't know how much this would cost (£10bn? £20bn? £30bn?) but I'd say doing that is probably more electorally crucial for him right now than banking up for 1p off income tax, which probably won't shift the dial that much.

    A lot will be down to luck- whether the economy starts to turn the corner or not, and thus help out HMT. Personally, I think it will.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    HYUFD said:

    If there was a God, he'd smote Patriarch Kirill.

    Depends if he is in a Russian Orthodox or Ukranian Orthodox mood as they both worship him anyway
    No way do the Ukrainian Orthodox worship Patriarch Kirill.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    edited January 2023

    ydoethur said:

    algarkirk said:

    Yes

    First.

    A first that isn't TSE? Can somebody check he's OK?
    I'm ok, unlike these Russians.

    Some 400 newly-mobilised Russian army recruits were killed by a strike on a facility in occupied eastern Ukraine over new year, the Ukrainian armed forces have claimed.

    Santa packed close to 400 corpses of pigdogs in his sack,” the strategic communications branch of Ukraine’s armed forces wrote in a Telegram post late Sunday, adding that the strike was conducted on New Year’s Eve. The missiles hit the base in Makiivka, a city of around 300,000 people, some 15km east of Donetsk.

    The Russian Ministry of Defence acknowledged the attack, which it said was carried out by US Himars systems, but accused Ukraine of exaggerating the number of casualties. It claimed 63 had died so far, while a source in Russian-backed administration of the Donetsk region said “less than 100” had been killed.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/400-russian-recruits-killed-in-donetsk-missile-strike-rdlr8sdml
    I admire the Ukrainians' determination and fortitude enormously - but that is really quite epically tasteless.
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701
    I’ve watched the full incident on TikTok and Heenan points out his Mother is in hospital with cancer.

    Marler wouldn’t have known that but he really is a jerk. The ban is pathetic too.
  • ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    algarkirk said:

    Yes

    First.

    A first that isn't TSE? Can somebody check he's OK?
    I'm ok, unlike these Russians.

    Some 400 newly-mobilised Russian army recruits were killed by a strike on a facility in occupied eastern Ukraine over new year, the Ukrainian armed forces have claimed.

    Santa packed close to 400 corpses of pigdogs in his sack,” the strategic communications branch of Ukraine’s armed forces wrote in a Telegram post late Sunday, adding that the strike was conducted on New Year’s Eve. The missiles hit the base in Makiivka, a city of around 300,000 people, some 15km east of Donetsk.

    The Russian Ministry of Defence acknowledged the attack, which it said was carried out by US Himars systems, but accused Ukraine of exaggerating the number of casualties. It claimed 63 had died so far, while a source in Russian-backed administration of the Donetsk region said “less than 100” had been killed.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/400-russian-recruits-killed-in-donetsk-missile-strike-rdlr8sdml
    I admire the Ukrainians' determination and fortitude enormously - but that is really quite epically tasteless.
    I'm not condoning it but I understand why they would say such a thing.

    If you see your country getting levelled on a regular basis you can only have anger at the people causing it.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited January 2023
    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    If there was a God, he'd smote Patriarch Kirill.

    Depends if he is in a Russian Orthodox or Ukranian Orthodox mood as they both worship him anyway
    No way do the Ukrainian Orthodox worship Patriarch Kirill.
    God I meant. Kirill is only head of the Russian Orthodox Church not the Ukranian Orthodox Church.

    The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is primus inter pares of all the Eastern Orthodox Churches
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,007

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    algarkirk said:

    Yes

    First.

    A first that isn't TSE? Can somebody check he's OK?
    I'm ok, unlike these Russians.

    Some 400 newly-mobilised Russian army recruits were killed by a strike on a facility in occupied eastern Ukraine over new year, the Ukrainian armed forces have claimed.

    Santa packed close to 400 corpses of pigdogs in his sack,” the strategic communications branch of Ukraine’s armed forces wrote in a Telegram post late Sunday, adding that the strike was conducted on New Year’s Eve. The missiles hit the base in Makiivka, a city of around 300,000 people, some 15km east of Donetsk.

    The Russian Ministry of Defence acknowledged the attack, which it said was carried out by US Himars systems, but accused Ukraine of exaggerating the number of casualties. It claimed 63 had died so far, while a source in Russian-backed administration of the Donetsk region said “less than 100” had been killed.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/400-russian-recruits-killed-in-donetsk-missile-strike-rdlr8sdml
    I admire the Ukrainians' determination and fortitude enormously - but that is really quite epically tasteless.
    I'm not condoning it but I understand why they would say such a thing.

    If you see your country getting levelled on a regular basis you can only have anger at the people causing it.
    Those numbers are almost certainly too high.
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701
    I would expect, if the forecasts for the economy improving are right and the govt can sort the strikes out, the gap will narrow to around 5-10%

    I think there is antipathy towards the Tories but it doesn’t feel like 95-7 where there was a national wave of enthusiasm for Blair and New Labour.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    Depends....how much "bad times just around the corner" is already priced in....?

    Then of course, this rumbles on and Starmer's position does seem....curious....

    A new report by Policy Exchange today exposes a letter written by North Bristol NHS Trust (NBT) that states the Trust will not guarantee same-sex intimate care for patients, putting staff preferences above the needs of patients. This is despite the trust’s biggest hospital recording up to 30 sexual assaults against females having taken place on hospital property.

    https://policyexchange.org.uk/publication/gender-identity-ideology-in-the-nhs/
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,007
    Taz said:

    I would expect, if the forecasts for the economy improving are right and the govt can sort the strikes out, the gap will narrow to around 5-10%

    I think there is antipathy towards the Tories but it doesn’t feel like 95-7 where there was a national wave of enthusiasm for Blair and New Labour.

    I think Tories are still traumatised and terrified by 1995-97 (I know I am) and Labour similarly excited by it, but history just doesn't repeat itself like that.

    Only 15 months ago, fresh off the vaccine roll-out, Boris Johnson and his team were talking about another decade in power.

    Politics is awfully volatile these days.
  • Good evening

    A happy new year to everyone on PB

    I have maintained for a long time that mid May will be the time to assess the government in the polls as the inflation rises to the pensions, benefits, and living wage will have just been reflected in people's incomes and Hunt will have delivered his budget. Also the coronation may be a popular event

    The terrible headlines on the NHS are evident not just in England, but Scotland and Wales under the devolved administrations of SNP and Labour, and while I have little interest in the CoE, Welby is correct to identify the care sector as very much an issue and it needs bringing into the NHS and possibly upwards of 50 billion to address the crisis

    I have no idea why GPS work 5 day weeks nor apparently the poor use of upto date IT in administration, but until we accept the NHS needs reform, is not a religion, and needs cross party support then I fear it will not get better

    I am becoming Apolitical as I reject the ERG and right of the conservative party, want to see a closer relationship with the EU which I just cannot see Labour achieving without a complete U turn, and of course indyref2 continues to be an issue, and do not get me started on AI

    I did notice someone say a few days ago to watch how I react as the election nears and as long as Sunak leads the conservatives he has my support, but anything else including the resurrection of Jonson would see me move to the Lib Dems

  • Depends....how much "bad times just around the corner" is already priced in....?

    Then of course, this rumbles on and Starmer's position does seem....curious....

    A new report by Policy Exchange today exposes a letter written by North Bristol NHS Trust (NBT) that states the Trust will not guarantee same-sex intimate care for patients, putting staff preferences above the needs of patients. This is despite the trust’s biggest hospital recording up to 30 sexual assaults against females having taken place on hospital property.

    https://policyexchange.org.uk/publication/gender-identity-ideology-in-the-nhs/

    As a matter of interest, who do you think has been running the NHS for the past dozen or so years? Whatever the merits of this case or the trans debate in general, how exactly will voters hold Starmer responsible?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    If inflation falls to 3% by the middle of the year, (as forecast by some), it'll solve a lot of the government's problems, to state the obvious.
  • Andy_JS said:

    If inflation falls to 3% by the middle of the year, (as forecast by some), it'll solve a lot of the government's problems, to state the obvious.

    No it won't if the current government strategy remains in place.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,874
    Andy_JS said:

    If inflation falls to 3% by the middle of the year, (as forecast by some), it'll solve a lot of the government's problems, to state the obvious.

    It seems certain to start dropping by some degree in the next few months as the large increases of last spring start to drop out.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    ydoethur said:

    algarkirk said:

    Yes

    First.

    A first that isn't TSE? Can somebody check he's OK?
    I'm ok, unlike these Russians.

    Some 400 newly-mobilised Russian army recruits were killed by a strike on a facility in occupied eastern Ukraine over new year, the Ukrainian armed forces have claimed.

    “Santa packed close to 400 corpses of pigdogs in his sack,” the strategic communications branch of Ukraine’s armed forces wrote in a Telegram post late Sunday, adding that the strike was conducted on New Year’s Eve. The missiles hit the base in Makiivka, a city of around 300,000 people, some 15km east of Donetsk.

    The Russian Ministry of Defence acknowledged the attack, which it said was carried out by US Himars systems, but accused Ukraine of exaggerating the number of casualties. It claimed 63 had died so far, while a source in Russian-backed administration of the Donetsk region said “less than 100” had been killed.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/400-russian-recruits-killed-in-donetsk-missile-strike-rdlr8sdml
    I know it’s not nice to cheer death, but when the idiots are so stupid as to have hundreds of soldiers barracked in the same building as a massive arms store, in territory that your enemy considers to be their own…
  • boulay said:

    ydoethur said:

    algarkirk said:

    Yes

    First.

    A first that isn't TSE? Can somebody check he's OK?
    I'm ok, unlike these Russians.

    Some 400 newly-mobilised Russian army recruits were killed by a strike on a facility in occupied eastern Ukraine over new year, the Ukrainian armed forces have claimed.

    “Santa packed close to 400 corpses of pigdogs in his sack,” the strategic communications branch of Ukraine’s armed forces wrote in a Telegram post late Sunday, adding that the strike was conducted on New Year’s Eve. The missiles hit the base in Makiivka, a city of around 300,000 people, some 15km east of Donetsk.

    The Russian Ministry of Defence acknowledged the attack, which it said was carried out by US Himars systems, but accused Ukraine of exaggerating the number of casualties. It claimed 63 had died so far, while a source in Russian-backed administration of the Donetsk region said “less than 100” had been killed.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/400-russian-recruits-killed-in-donetsk-missile-strike-rdlr8sdml
    It’s quite easy to crow and enjoy this sort of thing but these guys aren’t likely to be ideologues, Wagner types, Russian army lifers. Just normal people who didn’t really have a choice about it.

    If a fine upstanding chap such as yourself had been conscripted into the Sheffield pals during WW1 and wiped out your parents and family would have lost a son, brother, your shoe dealer would have lost its biggest customer and your friends lost their cockiest associate.

    It’s just fucking sad anyone is dying for this Ukraine situation but revelling from the safety of the UK is a bit grim.
    I'm not revelling in it.
  • ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    algarkirk said:

    Yes

    First.

    A first that isn't TSE? Can somebody check he's OK?
    I'm ok, unlike these Russians.

    Some 400 newly-mobilised Russian army recruits were killed by a strike on a facility in occupied eastern Ukraine over new year, the Ukrainian armed forces have claimed.

    Santa packed close to 400 corpses of pigdogs in his sack,” the strategic communications branch of Ukraine’s armed forces wrote in a Telegram post late Sunday, adding that the strike was conducted on New Year’s Eve. The missiles hit the base in Makiivka, a city of around 300,000 people, some 15km east of Donetsk.

    The Russian Ministry of Defence acknowledged the attack, which it said was carried out by US Himars systems, but accused Ukraine of exaggerating the number of casualties. It claimed 63 had died so far, while a source in Russian-backed administration of the Donetsk region said “less than 100” had been killed.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/400-russian-recruits-killed-in-donetsk-missile-strike-rdlr8sdml
    I admire the Ukrainians' determination and fortitude enormously - but that is really quite epically tasteless.
    Himars is also a bugger of a weapon, which would get rather negative press if the bad guys were using it.

    But this does make sense as a propaganda exercise if Ukr thinks Russia is about to up its enlistment game.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729

    Andy_JS said:

    If inflation falls to 3% by the middle of the year, (as forecast by some), it'll solve a lot of the government's problems, to state the obvious.

    No it won't if the current government strategy remains in place.
    They have a strategy?
  • Sandpit said:

    ydoethur said:

    algarkirk said:

    Yes

    First.

    A first that isn't TSE? Can somebody check he's OK?
    I'm ok, unlike these Russians.

    Some 400 newly-mobilised Russian army recruits were killed by a strike on a facility in occupied eastern Ukraine over new year, the Ukrainian armed forces have claimed.

    “Santa packed close to 400 corpses of pigdogs in his sack,” the strategic communications branch of Ukraine’s armed forces wrote in a Telegram post late Sunday, adding that the strike was conducted on New Year’s Eve. The missiles hit the base in Makiivka, a city of around 300,000 people, some 15km east of Donetsk.

    The Russian Ministry of Defence acknowledged the attack, which it said was carried out by US Himars systems, but accused Ukraine of exaggerating the number of casualties. It claimed 63 had died so far, while a source in Russian-backed administration of the Donetsk region said “less than 100” had been killed.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/400-russian-recruits-killed-in-donetsk-missile-strike-rdlr8sdml
    I know it’s not nice to cheer death, but when the idiots are so stupid as to have hundreds of soldiers barracked in the same building as a massive arms store, in territory that your enemy considers to be their own…
    What the Dhahran base attack in 1991 shows this thing happens a lot and a lot of it, sometimes it is blind luck if these attacks are successful or not.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    algarkirk said:

    Yes

    First.

    A first that isn't TSE? Can somebody check he's OK?
    I'm ok, unlike these Russians.

    Some 400 newly-mobilised Russian army recruits were killed by a strike on a facility in occupied eastern Ukraine over new year, the Ukrainian armed forces have claimed.

    Santa packed close to 400 corpses of pigdogs in his sack,” the strategic communications branch of Ukraine’s armed forces wrote in a Telegram post late Sunday, adding that the strike was conducted on New Year’s Eve. The missiles hit the base in Makiivka, a city of around 300,000 people, some 15km east of Donetsk.

    The Russian Ministry of Defence acknowledged the attack, which it said was carried out by US Himars systems, but accused Ukraine of exaggerating the number of casualties. It claimed 63 had died so far, while a source in Russian-backed administration of the Donetsk region said “less than 100” had been killed.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/400-russian-recruits-killed-in-donetsk-missile-strike-rdlr8sdml
    I admire the Ukrainians' determination and fortitude enormously - but that is really quite epically tasteless.
    I'm not condoning it but I understand why they would say such a thing.

    If you see your country getting levelled on a regular basis you can only have anger at the people causing it.
    And to a great degree I understand that too.

    I just hope it doesn't come back to haunt them as a tool for the drunken neo-Nazis Putin's little helpers the Republican Party and the hard left in this country to up their campaign for western aid to be withdrawn.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    boulay said:

    ydoethur said:

    algarkirk said:

    Yes

    First.

    A first that isn't TSE? Can somebody check he's OK?
    I'm ok, unlike these Russians.

    Some 400 newly-mobilised Russian army recruits were killed by a strike on a facility in occupied eastern Ukraine over new year, the Ukrainian armed forces have claimed.

    “Santa packed close to 400 corpses of pigdogs in his sack,” the strategic communications branch of Ukraine’s armed forces wrote in a Telegram post late Sunday, adding that the strike was conducted on New Year’s Eve. The missiles hit the base in Makiivka, a city of around 300,000 people, some 15km east of Donetsk.

    The Russian Ministry of Defence acknowledged the attack, which it said was carried out by US Himars systems, but accused Ukraine of exaggerating the number of casualties. It claimed 63 had died so far, while a source in Russian-backed administration of the Donetsk region said “less than 100” had been killed.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/400-russian-recruits-killed-in-donetsk-missile-strike-rdlr8sdml
    It’s quite easy to crow and enjoy this sort of thing but these guys aren’t likely to be ideologues, Wagner types, Russian army lifers. Just normal people who didn’t really have a choice about it.

    If a fine upstanding chap such as yourself had been conscripted into the Sheffield pals during WW1 and wiped out your parents and family would have lost a son, brother, your shoe dealer would have lost its biggest customer and your friends lost their cockiest associate.

    It’s just fucking sad anyone is dying for this Ukraine situation but revelling from the safety of the UK is a bit grim.
    If they wiped out the Wagner regiment or Kadyrov's units with one strike I reckon the cheers would be loudest from the Russian conscripts. Well, OK, second behind the Ukrainians but it would still be pretty deafening.

    Sadly, as you say, it probably wasn't them.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,741

    Taz said:

    I would expect, if the forecasts for the economy improving are right and the govt can sort the strikes out, the gap will narrow to around 5-10%

    I think there is antipathy towards the Tories but it doesn’t feel like 95-7 where there was a national wave of enthusiasm for Blair and New Labour.

    I think Tories are still traumatised and terrified by 1995-97 (I know I am) and Labour similarly excited by it, but history just doesn't repeat itself like that.

    Only 15 months ago, fresh off the vaccine roll-out, Boris Johnson and his team were talking about another decade in power.

    Politics is awfully volatile these days.
    Yes but it seems the Conservative supporters on here are relying on people having the attention span of the average gnat and forgetting about the past year's turmoil and basically everything else that has happened since early 2020 and concentrating on 4-6 weeks of an election campaign.

    I suspect most people won't easily forget what has happened and while you are so quick to dismiss the 95-97 analogy, let's not forget the British economy was in a very good shape in May 1997 (thanks in no small way to Ken Clarke) and it didn't stop large numbers of Conservative voters switching to Labour.

    Sometimes, if things are going well, people argue they can afford to make the switch - the counter argument to 1992 when the feeling was it was too much of a risk to change to Kinnock's Labour.

    Starmer knows (well, if I know it, I'm sure he does) none of these poll leads matter. It's only actual votes in actual ballot boxes in actual elections which matter and he won't take anything for granted and neither will or should the Labour Party. They will fight for every vote.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,007
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    algarkirk said:

    Yes

    First.

    A first that isn't TSE? Can somebody check he's OK?
    I'm ok, unlike these Russians.

    Some 400 newly-mobilised Russian army recruits were killed by a strike on a facility in occupied eastern Ukraine over new year, the Ukrainian armed forces have claimed.

    Santa packed close to 400 corpses of pigdogs in his sack,” the strategic communications branch of Ukraine’s armed forces wrote in a Telegram post late Sunday, adding that the strike was conducted on New Year’s Eve. The missiles hit the base in Makiivka, a city of around 300,000 people, some 15km east of Donetsk.

    The Russian Ministry of Defence acknowledged the attack, which it said was carried out by US Himars systems, but accused Ukraine of exaggerating the number of casualties. It claimed 63 had died so far, while a source in Russian-backed administration of the Donetsk region said “less than 100” had been killed.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/400-russian-recruits-killed-in-donetsk-missile-strike-rdlr8sdml
    I admire the Ukrainians' determination and fortitude enormously - but that is really quite epically tasteless.
    I'm not condoning it but I understand why they would say such a thing.

    If you see your country getting levelled on a regular basis you can only have anger at the people causing it.
    And to a great degree I understand that too.

    I just hope it doesn't come back to haunt them as a tool for the drunken neo-Nazis Putin's little helpers the Republican Party and the hard left in this country to up their campaign for western aid to be withdrawn.
    War is always tragic.

    Ordinary Ukrainians and Russians are both victims of Putin's aggrandisement, and the former don't have much of a choice but to strike the latter until the Kremlin is forced to the table.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 3,769

    boulay said:

    ydoethur said:

    algarkirk said:

    Yes

    First.

    A first that isn't TSE? Can somebody check he's OK?
    I'm ok, unlike these Russians.

    Some 400 newly-mobilised Russian army recruits were killed by a strike on a facility in occupied eastern Ukraine over new year, the Ukrainian armed forces have claimed.

    “Santa packed close to 400 corpses of pigdogs in his sack,” the strategic communications branch of Ukraine’s armed forces wrote in a Telegram post late Sunday, adding that the strike was conducted on New Year’s Eve. The missiles hit the base in Makiivka, a city of around 300,000 people, some 15km east of Donetsk.

    The Russian Ministry of Defence acknowledged the attack, which it said was carried out by US Himars systems, but accused Ukraine of exaggerating the number of casualties. It claimed 63 had died so far, while a source in Russian-backed administration of the Donetsk region said “less than 100” had been killed.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/400-russian-recruits-killed-in-donetsk-missile-strike-rdlr8sdml
    It’s quite easy to crow and enjoy this sort of thing but these guys aren’t likely to be ideologues, Wagner types, Russian army lifers. Just normal people who didn’t really have a choice about it.

    If a fine upstanding chap such as yourself had been conscripted into the Sheffield pals during WW1 and wiped out your parents and family would have lost a son, brother, your shoe dealer would have lost its biggest customer and your friends lost their cockiest associate.

    It’s just fucking sad anyone is dying for this Ukraine situation but revelling from the safety of the UK is a bit grim.
    I'm not revelling in it.
    Fair enough. It just makes me angry that the architects of this are safe and the poor buggers ripped apart by ball bearings have no say and probably just wanted to spend Russian Christmas ahead with a few bottles of vodka and get home.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    boulay said:

    boulay said:

    ydoethur said:

    algarkirk said:

    Yes

    First.

    A first that isn't TSE? Can somebody check he's OK?
    I'm ok, unlike these Russians.

    Some 400 newly-mobilised Russian army recruits were killed by a strike on a facility in occupied eastern Ukraine over new year, the Ukrainian armed forces have claimed.

    “Santa packed close to 400 corpses of pigdogs in his sack,” the strategic communications branch of Ukraine’s armed forces wrote in a Telegram post late Sunday, adding that the strike was conducted on New Year’s Eve. The missiles hit the base in Makiivka, a city of around 300,000 people, some 15km east of Donetsk.

    The Russian Ministry of Defence acknowledged the attack, which it said was carried out by US Himars systems, but accused Ukraine of exaggerating the number of casualties. It claimed 63 had died so far, while a source in Russian-backed administration of the Donetsk region said “less than 100” had been killed.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/400-russian-recruits-killed-in-donetsk-missile-strike-rdlr8sdml
    It’s quite easy to crow and enjoy this sort of thing but these guys aren’t likely to be ideologues, Wagner types, Russian army lifers. Just normal people who didn’t really have a choice about it.

    If a fine upstanding chap such as yourself had been conscripted into the Sheffield pals during WW1 and wiped out your parents and family would have lost a son, brother, your shoe dealer would have lost its biggest customer and your friends lost their cockiest associate.

    It’s just fucking sad anyone is dying for this Ukraine situation but revelling from the safety of the UK is a bit grim.
    I'm not revelling in it.
    Fair enough. It just makes me angry that the architects of this are safe and the poor buggers ripped apart by ball bearings have no say and probably just wanted to spend Russian Christmas ahead with a few bottles of vodka and get home.
    One of the most striking things about this conflict is it has shown just what physical cowards the Russian leaders are.

    I don't believe any of them have been within striking distance of the front line at all.

    That's probably not going to look too good for them when the dust settles even if they're still in power.

    The contrast with Zelensky who has been very visibly close to his soldiers throughout is both marked and profoundly embarrassing for a Russian leadership that pretends to military prowess.
  • Andy_JS said:

    If inflation falls to 3% by the middle of the year, (as forecast by some), it'll solve a lot of the government's problems, to state the obvious.

    It seems certain to start dropping by some degree in the next few months as the large increases of last spring start to drop out.
    Even if that happen most people will see their mobile and BB/landline costs go up by somewhere around 15%.
  • Andy_JS said:

    If inflation falls to 3% by the middle of the year, (as forecast by some), it'll solve a lot of the government's problems, to state the obvious.

    It seems certain to start dropping by some degree in the next few months as the large increases of last spring start to drop out.
    I have noticed that petrol is 1.40-odd a litre now where it was 1.80-odd 6 months ago.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Scott_xP said:
    No, if Boris gets any comeback it will be a month or 2 before a 2024 general election if Sunak has not improved the Tory poll rating by then.

    Tory MPs have no desire to have a government led by Boris back, at most only to use his record as an election winner to save a few of their seats as a last resort
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766

    This is the wife of Clarence Thomas and yet he doesn't recuse himself.

    It's rather scary isn't it?
  • ydoethur said:

    boulay said:

    boulay said:

    ydoethur said:

    algarkirk said:

    Yes

    First.

    A first that isn't TSE? Can somebody check he's OK?
    I'm ok, unlike these Russians.

    Some 400 newly-mobilised Russian army recruits were killed by a strike on a facility in occupied eastern Ukraine over new year, the Ukrainian armed forces have claimed.

    “Santa packed close to 400 corpses of pigdogs in his sack,” the strategic communications branch of Ukraine’s armed forces wrote in a Telegram post late Sunday, adding that the strike was conducted on New Year’s Eve. The missiles hit the base in Makiivka, a city of around 300,000 people, some 15km east of Donetsk.

    The Russian Ministry of Defence acknowledged the attack, which it said was carried out by US Himars systems, but accused Ukraine of exaggerating the number of casualties. It claimed 63 had died so far, while a source in Russian-backed administration of the Donetsk region said “less than 100” had been killed.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/400-russian-recruits-killed-in-donetsk-missile-strike-rdlr8sdml
    It’s quite easy to crow and enjoy this sort of thing but these guys aren’t likely to be ideologues, Wagner types, Russian army lifers. Just normal people who didn’t really have a choice about it.

    If a fine upstanding chap such as yourself had been conscripted into the Sheffield pals during WW1 and wiped out your parents and family would have lost a son, brother, your shoe dealer would have lost its biggest customer and your friends lost their cockiest associate.

    It’s just fucking sad anyone is dying for this Ukraine situation but revelling from the safety of the UK is a bit grim.
    I'm not revelling in it.
    Fair enough. It just makes me angry that the architects of this are safe and the poor buggers ripped apart by ball bearings have no say and probably just wanted to spend Russian Christmas ahead with a few bottles of vodka and get home.
    One of the most striking things about this conflict is it has shown just what physical cowards the Russian leaders are.

    I don't believe any of them have been within striking distance of the front line at all.

    That's probably not going to look too good for them when the dust settles even if they're still in power.

    The contrast with Zelensky who has been very visibly close to his soldiers throughout is both marked and profoundly embarrassing for a Russian leadership that pretends to military prowess.
    One of the pieces I keep on meaning to write is wondering what will happen to a political commissar or equivalent fighting in Ukraine like Nikita Khrushchev.

    What would they learn about the SMO?
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,007
    stodge said:

    Taz said:

    I would expect, if the forecasts for the economy improving are right and the govt can sort the strikes out, the gap will narrow to around 5-10%

    I think there is antipathy towards the Tories but it doesn’t feel like 95-7 where there was a national wave of enthusiasm for Blair and New Labour.

    I think Tories are still traumatised and terrified by 1995-97 (I know I am) and Labour similarly excited by it, but history just doesn't repeat itself like that.

    Only 15 months ago, fresh off the vaccine roll-out, Boris Johnson and his team were talking about another decade in power.

    Politics is awfully volatile these days.
    Yes but it seems the Conservative supporters on here are relying on people having the attention span of the average gnat and forgetting about the past year's turmoil and basically everything else that has happened since early 2020 and concentrating on 4-6 weeks of an election campaign.

    I suspect most people won't easily forget what has happened and while you are so quick to dismiss the 95-97 analogy, let's not forget the British economy was in a very good shape in May 1997 (thanks in no small way to Ken Clarke) and it didn't stop large numbers of Conservative voters switching to Labour.

    Sometimes, if things are going well, people argue they can afford to make the switch - the counter argument to 1992 when the feeling was it was too much of a risk to change to Kinnock's Labour.

    Starmer knows (well, if I know it, I'm sure he does) none of these poll leads matter. It's only actual votes in actual ballot boxes in actual elections which matter and he won't take anything for granted and neither will or should the Labour Party. They will fight for every vote.
    That post is a bit sneery, Stodge, and phrases like "while you are so quick to dismiss the 95-97 analogy" are unnecessary. If you're implying I'm delusional or dismissive of any evidence the Tories could be heading for a drumming, and more interested in bigging up the Tories prospects, that simply isn't the case.

    All I am saying is that history doesn't repeat itself and, whilst the 95-97 period remains a clear point of reference for all of us, event are very unlikely to play out in the same way.

    For one thing, this time, we don't have large number of Conservative voters switching to Labour this time - we have a very modest movement and a huge movement to WNV/DNK and Reform. We also don't have Starmer's Labour enthusing the wider electorate in anything like the same manner that Blair did.

    As political betters what we must do is to anticipate how things could play out this time, and the broad range of error within that - and, yes, I fully accept it could be even worse for the Tories in 2024/2025 - but I also think the gap could close.

    Which will happen?

    At this stage we simply don't know.
  • rcs1000 said:

    This is the wife of Clarence Thomas and yet he doesn't recuse himself.

    It's rather scary isn't it?
    Indeed, yet 'Seer' Leon tells us the most dangerous thing in America is the woke.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Andy_JS said:

    If inflation falls to 3% by the middle of the year, (as forecast by some), it'll solve a lot of the government's problems, to state the obvious.

    It seems certain to start dropping by some degree in the next few months as the large increases of last spring start to drop out.
    Even if that happen most people will see their mobile and BB/landline costs go up by somewhere around 15%.
    Most people don’t have the mobile bills you do, and seeing it go up from £10 to £11.50 a month isn’t really going to change their voting intention!
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    Andy_JS said:

    If inflation falls to 3% by the middle of the year, (as forecast by some), it'll solve a lot of the government's problems, to state the obvious.

    It will do more than that:

    Because pay rises are likely to come through *after* inflation has fallen (they will lag), and this means that people will feel incrementally richer as they see their incomes rise faster than pices.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052

    Sunak needs to go COBRA on the NHS and crisis mode it for 6-9 months to clear the backlog - possibly longer. Nightingale it.

    I don't know how much this would cost (£10bn? £20bn? £30bn?) but I'd say doing that is probably more electorally crucial for him right now than banking up for 1p off income tax, which probably won't shift the dial that much.

    A lot will be down to luck- whether the economy starts to turn the corner or not, and thus help out HMT. Personally, I think it will.

    You need to add a zero. 60-90 months is realistically probably £100-£300 billion spent.

    It took 10 years and that sort of spending to get the waiting lists down from the numbers we see today to the level of service that we had in 2010.

    The limiting step is personnel (many of whom are quitting) and facilities more than cash. It takes time to train new people and build modern new facilities, as well as concentrated and disciplined management from the top. As ever, staff retention is the place to start.

    Perhaps Sunak simply has it down in the "too hard" column of problems, and impossible to make headway before the next election. He may well be right, and simply accept the festering NHS crisis has to continue.
  • SandraMcSandraMc Posts: 582
    boulay said:

    ydoethur said:

    algarkirk said:

    Yes

    First.

    A first that isn't TSE? Can somebody check he's OK?
    I'm ok, unlike these Russians.

    Some 400 newly-mobilised Russian army recruits were killed by a strike on a facility in occupied eastern Ukraine over new year, the Ukrainian armed forces have claimed.

    “Santa packed close to 400 corpses of pigdogs in his sack,” the strategic communications branch of Ukraine’s armed forces wrote in a Telegram post late Sunday, adding that the strike was conducted on New Year’s Eve. The missiles hit the base in Makiivka, a city of around 300,000 people, some 15km east of Donetsk.

    The Russian Ministry of Defence acknowledged the attack, which it said was carried out by US Himars systems, but accused Ukraine of exaggerating the number of casualties. It claimed 63 had died so far, while a source in Russian-backed administration of the Donetsk region said “less than 100” had been killed.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/400-russian-recruits-killed-in-donetsk-missile-strike-rdlr8sdml
    It’s quite easy to crow and enjoy this sort of thing but these guys aren’t likely to be ideologues, Wagner types, Russian army lifers. Just normal people who didn’t really have a choice about it.

    If a fine upstanding chap such as yourself had been conscripted into the Sheffield pals during WW1 and wiped out your parents and family would have lost a son, brother, your shoe dealer would have lost its biggest customer and your friends lost their cockiest associate.

    It’s just fucking sad anyone is dying for this Ukraine situation but revelling from the safety of the UK is a bit grim.
    While part of me experiences a"Gotcha" reaction, like boulay I do think about the victims. In preCovid and Ukraine invasion times I would sometimes meet Russian tourists on holiday in Europe and a handful I really liked. One Russian, working as holiday resort staff in Turkey in his uni vacation, kept asking me about the UK as he was thinking about emigrating. He said many of his Uni friends were planning to emigrate. He will be about 32 now and I hope he did get out and hasn't been conscripted.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766

    rcs1000 said:

    This is the wife of Clarence Thomas and yet he doesn't recuse himself.

    It's rather scary isn't it?
    Indeed, yet 'Seer' Leon tells us the most dangerous thing in America is the woke.
    To me, it shows the frailty of the human mental condition.

    There is no evidence of fraud. Indeed, there is no real possibility that there was a giant, US-wide plot to tamper with votes to put Biden in power.

    People will believe what is most convenient to them. And it is easier to believe that there is a giant conspiracy, and that political opponents are not just wrong, but are evil too, than to admit that you lost an election.

    It is incredibly corrosive to civil society, and it is incredibly corrosive to democracy.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,840

    rcs1000 said:

    This is the wife of Clarence Thomas and yet he doesn't recuse himself.

    It's rather scary isn't it?
    Indeed, yet 'Seer' Leon tells us the most dangerous thing in America is the woke.
    Well like he says ... he imagines things.
  • Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    If inflation falls to 3% by the middle of the year, (as forecast by some), it'll solve a lot of the government's problems, to state the obvious.

    It seems certain to start dropping by some degree in the next few months as the large increases of last spring start to drop out.
    Even if that happen most people will see their mobile and BB/landline costs go up by somewhere around 15%.
    Most people don’t have the mobile bills you do, and seeing it go up from £10 to £11.50 a month isn’t really going to change their voting intention!
    Average monthly mobile bill in the UK is around £45 per month.

    Now imagine you've got 3 kids, as well as your own mobile, you're looking at an extra £30 a month on mobiles.

    Depending on your BB package, you're looking at another £10 a month there.

    When people are struggling with a choice of heating or eating, this is another kicker.
  • rcs1000 said:

    This is the wife of Clarence Thomas and yet he doesn't recuse himself.

    It's rather scary isn't it?
    You mean her last sentence where Ginni Thomas mixes up plural subject and singular verb? Hell yes!

    BTW (also FYI) note that Putinism a la the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo is NOT the first sinister cult that she's embraced, as per her wiki bio:

    "I was once in a group that used mind control techniques" . . . "pretty scary people".

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginni_Thomas
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052

    ydoethur said:

    boulay said:

    boulay said:

    ydoethur said:

    algarkirk said:

    Yes

    First.

    A first that isn't TSE? Can somebody check he's OK?
    I'm ok, unlike these Russians.

    Some 400 newly-mobilised Russian army recruits were killed by a strike on a facility in occupied eastern Ukraine over new year, the Ukrainian armed forces have claimed.

    “Santa packed close to 400 corpses of pigdogs in his sack,” the strategic communications branch of Ukraine’s armed forces wrote in a Telegram post late Sunday, adding that the strike was conducted on New Year’s Eve. The missiles hit the base in Makiivka, a city of around 300,000 people, some 15km east of Donetsk.

    The Russian Ministry of Defence acknowledged the attack, which it said was carried out by US Himars systems, but accused Ukraine of exaggerating the number of casualties. It claimed 63 had died so far, while a source in Russian-backed administration of the Donetsk region said “less than 100” had been killed.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/400-russian-recruits-killed-in-donetsk-missile-strike-rdlr8sdml
    It’s quite easy to crow and enjoy this sort of thing but these guys aren’t likely to be ideologues, Wagner types, Russian army lifers. Just normal people who didn’t really have a choice about it.

    If a fine upstanding chap such as yourself had been conscripted into the Sheffield pals during WW1 and wiped out your parents and family would have lost a son, brother, your shoe dealer would have lost its biggest customer and your friends lost their cockiest associate.

    It’s just fucking sad anyone is dying for this Ukraine situation but revelling from the safety of the UK is a bit grim.
    I'm not revelling in it.
    Fair enough. It just makes me angry that the architects of this are safe and the poor buggers ripped apart by ball bearings have no say and probably just wanted to spend Russian Christmas ahead with a few bottles of vodka and get home.
    One of the most striking things about this conflict is it has shown just what physical cowards the Russian leaders are.

    I don't believe any of them have been within striking distance of the front line at all.

    That's probably not going to look too good for them when the dust settles even if they're still in power.

    The contrast with Zelensky who has been very visibly close to his soldiers throughout is both marked and profoundly embarrassing for a Russian leadership that pretends to military prowess.
    One of the pieces I keep on meaning to write is wondering what will happen to a political commissar or equivalent fighting in Ukraine like Nikita Khrushchev.

    What would they learn about the SMO?
    One thing that strikes me is how poorly functioning the whole Command and Control structure of the Russian Army is. The unit of operations is the Battalion Tactical group, and there are failures even at that level, which should have a coordinated combined arms approach.

    There is a mess of units that do not co-operate between military districts, and the Chechens, Wagers, Rsguardia and regular military do not have unified command, with even the regular army split between military districts. This results in ineffective piecemeal attacks at ground level with high casualties because of failure to co-ordinate.

    I am not sure that the Ukranians have a vastly better command structure, but it does seem to function at operational and strategic level, no doubt helped by Western Intelligence.
  • rcs1000 said:

    This is the wife of Clarence Thomas and yet he doesn't recuse himself.

    It's rather scary isn't it?
    You mean her last sentence where Ginni Thomas mixes up plural subject and singular verb? Hell yes!

    BTW (also FYI) note that Putinism a la the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo is NOT the first sinister cult that she's embraced, as per her wiki bio:

    "I was once in a group that used mind control techniques" . . . "pretty scary people".

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginni_Thomas
    Her irregular capitalisation is also a huge red flag.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,007
    Foxy said:

    Sunak needs to go COBRA on the NHS and crisis mode it for 6-9 months to clear the backlog - possibly longer. Nightingale it.

    I don't know how much this would cost (£10bn? £20bn? £30bn?) but I'd say doing that is probably more electorally crucial for him right now than banking up for 1p off income tax, which probably won't shift the dial that much.

    A lot will be down to luck- whether the economy starts to turn the corner or not, and thus help out HMT. Personally, I think it will.

    You need to add a zero. 60-90 months is realistically probably £100-£300 billion spent.

    It took 10 years and that sort of spending to get the waiting lists down from the numbers we see today to the level of service that we had in 2010.

    The limiting step is personnel (many of whom are quitting) and facilities more than cash. It takes time to train new people and build modern new facilities, as well as concentrated and disciplined management from the top. As ever, staff retention is the place to start.

    Perhaps Sunak simply has it down in the "too hard" column of problems, and impossible to make headway before the next election. He may well be right, and simply accept the festering NHS crisis has to continue.
    I think demonstrating intent and a plan for action, even if it hasn't yet born fruit, is politically crucial for him.

    FWIW, I think Sunak is motivated by doing the right thing for Britain long-term as much as he is improving the Tories electoral prospects. He knows re-election in 2 years is a very tall order.

    It's why I like him.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,007
    kinabalu said:

    rcs1000 said:

    This is the wife of Clarence Thomas and yet he doesn't recuse himself.

    It's rather scary isn't it?
    Indeed, yet 'Seer' Leon tells us the most dangerous thing in America is the woke.
    Well like he says ... he imagines things.
    What I found particularly hilarious about that post is the idea that engineers and scientists don't have imagination.

    Chortle.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052
    SandraMc said:

    boulay said:

    ydoethur said:

    algarkirk said:

    Yes

    First.

    A first that isn't TSE? Can somebody check he's OK?
    I'm ok, unlike these Russians.

    Some 400 newly-mobilised Russian army recruits were killed by a strike on a facility in occupied eastern Ukraine over new year, the Ukrainian armed forces have claimed.

    “Santa packed close to 400 corpses of pigdogs in his sack,” the strategic communications branch of Ukraine’s armed forces wrote in a Telegram post late Sunday, adding that the strike was conducted on New Year’s Eve. The missiles hit the base in Makiivka, a city of around 300,000 people, some 15km east of Donetsk.

    The Russian Ministry of Defence acknowledged the attack, which it said was carried out by US Himars systems, but accused Ukraine of exaggerating the number of casualties. It claimed 63 had died so far, while a source in Russian-backed administration of the Donetsk region said “less than 100” had been killed.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/400-russian-recruits-killed-in-donetsk-missile-strike-rdlr8sdml
    It’s quite easy to crow and enjoy this sort of thing but these guys aren’t likely to be ideologues, Wagner types, Russian army lifers. Just normal people who didn’t really have a choice about it.

    If a fine upstanding chap such as yourself had been conscripted into the Sheffield pals during WW1 and wiped out your parents and family would have lost a son, brother, your shoe dealer would have lost its biggest customer and your friends lost their cockiest associate.

    It’s just fucking sad anyone is dying for this Ukraine situation but revelling from the safety of the UK is a bit grim.
    While part of me experiences a"Gotcha" reaction, like boulay I do think about the victims. In preCovid and Ukraine invasion times I would sometimes meet Russian tourists on holiday in Europe and a handful I really liked. One Russian, working as holiday resort staff in Turkey in his uni vacation, kept asking me about the UK as he was thinking about emigrating. He said many of his Uni friends were planning to emigrate. He will be about 32 now and I hope he did get out and hasn't been conscripted.
    I have a couple of Russian friends (though opposed to Putin and the SMO) and think the same. I had a great time in Russia in 2018, and found the people very hospitable. I love Russian culture and literature.

    Ultimately though this is how wars are fought. Ordinary folk kill each other while the guilty leadership lives the high life away from the sharp end.

  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    This is the wife of Clarence Thomas and yet he doesn't recuse himself.

    It's rather scary isn't it?
    Indeed, yet 'Seer' Leon tells us the most dangerous thing in America is the woke.
    To me, it shows the frailty of the human mental condition.

    There is no evidence of fraud. Indeed, there is no real possibility that there was a giant, US-wide plot to tamper with votes to put Biden in power.

    People will believe what is most convenient to them. And it is easier to believe that there is a giant conspiracy, and that political opponents are not just wrong, but are evil too, than to admit that you lost an election.

    It is incredibly corrosive to civil society, and it is incredibly corrosive to democracy.
    Sadly, it does appear that the refusal to accept election results has increasingly become a feature of US politics. Not helped by the fact that the country is split almost exactly 50/50 politically and there have been some incredibly close results going back to Bush v Gore in 2000.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,042

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    algarkirk said:

    Yes

    First.

    A first that isn't TSE? Can somebody check he's OK?
    I'm ok, unlike these Russians.

    Some 400 newly-mobilised Russian army recruits were killed by a strike on a facility in occupied eastern Ukraine over new year, the Ukrainian armed forces have claimed.

    Santa packed close to 400 corpses of pigdogs in his sack,” the strategic communications branch of Ukraine’s armed forces wrote in a Telegram post late Sunday, adding that the strike was conducted on New Year’s Eve. The missiles hit the base in Makiivka, a city of around 300,000 people, some 15km east of Donetsk.

    The Russian Ministry of Defence acknowledged the attack, which it said was carried out by US Himars systems, but accused Ukraine of exaggerating the number of casualties. It claimed 63 had died so far, while a source in Russian-backed administration of the Donetsk region said “less than 100” had been killed.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/400-russian-recruits-killed-in-donetsk-missile-strike-rdlr8sdml
    I admire the Ukrainians' determination and fortitude enormously - but that is really quite epically tasteless.
    I'm not condoning it but I understand why they would say such a thing.

    If you see your country getting levelled on a regular basis you can only have anger at the people causing it.
    This feels oddly like a watershed moment in the somewhat disapproving way that big media organisations are reporting it. I have no idea why - it seems like a legitimate military target to me. Yes, that statement is horrible, but it's still odd. On BBC radio the Russian casualty figure (63) was being given more credence than the Ukrainian figure. On Yahoo News (logging in to my personal email) the same. Israel seems on the turn. Biden has been more muted than us for a while. It will be interesting if the whole propaganda machinery does get thrown into reverse gear.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    This is the wife of Clarence Thomas and yet he doesn't recuse himself.

    It's rather scary isn't it?
    Indeed, yet 'Seer' Leon tells us the most dangerous thing in America is the woke.
    To me, it shows the frailty of the human mental condition.

    There is no evidence of fraud. Indeed, there is no real possibility that there was a giant, US-wide plot to tamper with votes to put Biden in power.

    People will believe what is most convenient to them. And it is easier to believe that there is a giant conspiracy, and that political opponents are not just wrong, but are evil too, than to admit that you lost an election.

    It is incredibly corrosive to civil society, and it is incredibly corrosive to democracy.
    Sadly, it does appear that the refusal to accept election results has increasingly become a feature of US politics. Not helped by the fact that the country is split almost exactly 50/50 politically and there have been some incredibly close results going back to Bush v Gore in 2000.
    With all due respect, the US has always been riven 50-50. And that's the nature (generally) of two party systems, because the parties themselves will move their positions to make it 50-50.

    After 2000, Democrats moaned that *if* there'd been a proper recount, then they would have won. But they didn't suggest that their opponents had rigged the vote.

    Even after 2016, they suggested (probably correctly fwiw) that Russian campaigns on Facebook/Twitter/etc had boosted Trump.

    But neither of those things suggest that their opponents deliberately lied and cheated and conspired to steal an election.

    One is bitching and moaning. One is holding your political opponents to be intrinsically evil. (And that there was *no-one* on the opposing side willing to blow the whistle...)

    There is a tendency to say "oh well, they're all as bad as each other", and normally I'd have a lot of sympathy with that view.

    But in this case, it's simply not true.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    edited January 2023
    Some irony there.
    Liverpool trail to an own goal.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    If inflation falls to 3% by the middle of the year, (as forecast by some), it'll solve a lot of the government's problems, to state the obvious.

    It seems certain to start dropping by some degree in the next few months as the large increases of last spring start to drop out.
    Even if that happen most people will see their mobile and BB/landline costs go up by somewhere around 15%.
    Most people don’t have the mobile bills you do, and seeing it go up from £10 to £11.50 a month isn’t really going to change their voting intention!
    Average monthly mobile bill in the UK is around £45 per month.

    Now imagine you've got 3 kids, as well as your own mobile, you're looking at an extra £30 a month on mobiles.

    Depending on your BB package, you're looking at another £10 a month there.

    When people are struggling with a choice of heating or eating, this is another kicker.
    The phone bill is £45 a month, or the repayment on a £1k handset makes it that much? Don’t kids of struggling families have hand-me-down phones rather than new ones?

    I was in the UK last month and got a PAYG SIM for £15, inc 10GB data and a pile of calls, from a petrol station!
  • Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    If inflation falls to 3% by the middle of the year, (as forecast by some), it'll solve a lot of the government's problems, to state the obvious.

    It seems certain to start dropping by some degree in the next few months as the large increases of last spring start to drop out.
    Even if that happen most people will see their mobile and BB/landline costs go up by somewhere around 15%.
    Most people don’t have the mobile bills you do, and seeing it go up from £10 to £11.50 a month isn’t really going to change their voting intention!
    Average monthly mobile bill in the UK is around £45 per month.

    Now imagine you've got 3 kids, as well as your own mobile, you're looking at an extra £30 a month on mobiles.

    Depending on your BB package, you're looking at another £10 a month there.

    When people are struggling with a choice of heating or eating, this is another kicker.
    The phone bill is £45 a month, or the repayment on a £1k handset makes it that much? Don’t kids of struggling families have hand-me-down phones rather than new ones?

    I was in the UK last month and got a PAYG SIM for £15, inc 10GB data and a pile of calls, from a petrol station!
    But with PAYG you don't get all the features like 5G, VOLTE, or WiFi calling.
  • ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    algarkirk said:

    Yes

    First.

    A first that isn't TSE? Can somebody check he's OK?
    I'm ok, unlike these Russians.

    Some 400 newly-mobilised Russian army recruits were killed by a strike on a facility in occupied eastern Ukraine over new year, the Ukrainian armed forces have claimed.

    Santa packed close to 400 corpses of pigdogs in his sack,” the strategic communications branch of Ukraine’s armed forces wrote in a Telegram post late Sunday, adding that the strike was conducted on New Year’s Eve. The missiles hit the base in Makiivka, a city of around 300,000 people, some 15km east of Donetsk.

    The Russian Ministry of Defence acknowledged the attack, which it said was carried out by US Himars systems, but accused Ukraine of exaggerating the number of casualties. It claimed 63 had died so far, while a source in Russian-backed administration of the Donetsk region said “less than 100” had been killed.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/400-russian-recruits-killed-in-donetsk-missile-strike-rdlr8sdml
    I admire the Ukrainians' determination and fortitude enormously - but that is really quite epically tasteless.
    I'm not condoning it but I understand why they would say such a thing.

    If you see your country getting levelled on a regular basis you can only have anger at the people causing it.
    This feels oddly like a watershed moment in the somewhat disapproving way that big media organisations are reporting it. I have no idea why - it seems like a legitimate military target to me. Yes, that statement is horrible, but it's still odd. On BBC radio the Russian casualty figure (63) was being given more credence than the Ukrainian figure. On Yahoo News (logging in to my personal email) the same. Israel seems on the turn. Biden has been more muted than us for a while. It will be interesting if the whole propaganda machinery does get thrown into reverse gear.
    Russians are the ones who can do the body count.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    dixiedean said:

    Some irony there.
    Liverpool trail to an own goal.

    Brentford thought they had a second for a minute there.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    If inflation falls to 3% by the middle of the year, (as forecast by some), it'll solve a lot of the government's problems, to state the obvious.

    It seems certain to start dropping by some degree in the next few months as the large increases of last spring start to drop out.
    Even if that happen most people will see their mobile and BB/landline costs go up by somewhere around 15%.
    Most people don’t have the mobile bills you do, and seeing it go up from £10 to £11.50 a month isn’t really going to change their voting intention!
    Average monthly mobile bill in the UK is around £45 per month.

    Now imagine you've got 3 kids, as well as your own mobile, you're looking at an extra £30 a month on mobiles.

    Depending on your BB package, you're looking at another £10 a month there.

    When people are struggling with a choice of heating or eating, this is another kicker.
    The phone bill is £45 a month, or the repayment on a £1k handset makes it that much? Don’t kids of struggling families have hand-me-down phones rather than new ones?

    I was in the UK last month and got a PAYG SIM for £15, inc 10GB data and a pile of calls, from a petrol station!
    But with PAYG you don't get all the features like 5G, VOLTE, or WiFi calling.
    Which people on struggling incomes are buying for their kids?
  • TresTres Posts: 2,161
    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    This is the wife of Clarence Thomas and yet he doesn't recuse himself.

    It's rather scary isn't it?
    Indeed, yet 'Seer' Leon tells us the most dangerous thing in America is the woke.
    To me, it shows the frailty of the human mental condition.

    There is no evidence of fraud. Indeed, there is no real possibility that there was a giant, US-wide plot to tamper with votes to put Biden in power.

    People will believe what is most convenient to them. And it is easier to believe that there is a giant conspiracy, and that political opponents are not just wrong, but are evil too, than to admit that you lost an election.

    It is incredibly corrosive to civil society, and it is incredibly corrosive to democracy.
    Sadly, it does appear that the refusal to accept election results has increasingly become a feature of US politics. Not helped by the fact that the country is split almost exactly 50/50 politically and there have been some incredibly close results going back to Bush v Gore in 2000.
    I remember talking to Americans after 2000 and they were going on about how great there democracy was as both sides accepted the result despite the dubious nature of the Florida count. Of course this was because it was the Dems that lost.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,042

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    algarkirk said:

    Yes

    First.

    A first that isn't TSE? Can somebody check he's OK?
    I'm ok, unlike these Russians.

    Some 400 newly-mobilised Russian army recruits were killed by a strike on a facility in occupied eastern Ukraine over new year, the Ukrainian armed forces have claimed.

    Santa packed close to 400 corpses of pigdogs in his sack,” the strategic communications branch of Ukraine’s armed forces wrote in a Telegram post late Sunday, adding that the strike was conducted on New Year’s Eve. The missiles hit the base in Makiivka, a city of around 300,000 people, some 15km east of Donetsk.

    The Russian Ministry of Defence acknowledged the attack, which it said was carried out by US Himars systems, but accused Ukraine of exaggerating the number of casualties. It claimed 63 had died so far, while a source in Russian-backed administration of the Donetsk region said “less than 100” had been killed.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/400-russian-recruits-killed-in-donetsk-missile-strike-rdlr8sdml
    I admire the Ukrainians' determination and fortitude enormously - but that is really quite epically tasteless.
    I'm not condoning it but I understand why they would say such a thing.

    If you see your country getting levelled on a regular basis you can only have anger at the people causing it.
    This feels oddly like a watershed moment in the somewhat disapproving way that big media organisations are reporting it. I have no idea why - it seems like a legitimate military target to me. Yes, that statement is horrible, but it's still odd. On BBC radio the Russian casualty figure (63) was being given more credence than the Ukrainian figure. On Yahoo News (logging in to my personal email) the same. Israel seems on the turn. Biden has been more muted than us for a while. It will be interesting if the whole propaganda machinery does get thrown into reverse gear.
    Russians are the ones who can do the body count.
    They are, but their statements have never been given any credence.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,956
    edited January 2023
    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    If inflation falls to 3% by the middle of the year, (as forecast by some), it'll solve a lot of the government's problems, to state the obvious.

    It seems certain to start dropping by some degree in the next few months as the large increases of last spring start to drop out.
    Even if that happen most people will see their mobile and BB/landline costs go up by somewhere around 15%.
    Most people don’t have the mobile bills you do, and seeing it go up from £10 to £11.50 a month isn’t really going to change their voting intention!
    Average monthly mobile bill in the UK is around £45 per month.

    Now imagine you've got 3 kids, as well as your own mobile, you're looking at an extra £30 a month on mobiles.

    Depending on your BB package, you're looking at another £10 a month there.

    When people are struggling with a choice of heating or eating, this is another kicker.
    The phone bill is £45 a month, or the repayment on a £1k handset makes it that much? Don’t kids of struggling families have hand-me-down phones rather than new ones?

    I was in the UK last month and got a PAYG SIM for £15, inc 10GB data and a pile of calls, from a petrol station!
    But with PAYG you don't get all the features like 5G, VOLTE, or WiFi calling.
    Which people on struggling incomes are buying for their kids?
    If you lived here you'd understand the issue better.

    Over the last few years most of the MNOs and MVNOs have put in a clause in the contracts that put in mid contract price increases of 3.9% plus March CPI.

    Now inflation has exploded, these mid contract price contracts are a ticking timebomb.

    If the government wanted an easy win they'd ban in contract price increases.

    Most of the broadband providers have followed similar patterns, which isn't surprising since there's a bit of cross ownership.

    So most of these contracts were taken out before the cost of living crisis started.
  • Sandpit said:

    ydoethur said:

    algarkirk said:

    Yes

    First.

    A first that isn't TSE? Can somebody check he's OK?
    I'm ok, unlike these Russians.

    Some 400 newly-mobilised Russian army recruits were killed by a strike on a facility in occupied eastern Ukraine over new year, the Ukrainian armed forces have claimed.

    “Santa packed close to 400 corpses of pigdogs in his sack,” the strategic communications branch of Ukraine’s armed forces wrote in a Telegram post late Sunday, adding that the strike was conducted on New Year’s Eve. The missiles hit the base in Makiivka, a city of around 300,000 people, some 15km east of Donetsk.

    The Russian Ministry of Defence acknowledged the attack, which it said was carried out by US Himars systems, but accused Ukraine of exaggerating the number of casualties. It claimed 63 had died so far, while a source in Russian-backed administration of the Donetsk region said “less than 100” had been killed.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/400-russian-recruits-killed-in-donetsk-missile-strike-rdlr8sdml
    I know it’s not nice to cheer death, but when the idiots are so stupid as to have hundreds of soldiers barracked in the same building as a massive arms store, in territory that your enemy considers to be their own…
    Except, if the story is as told, the idiots weren't the ones who died.
  • My kind of Republican: wrong-headed but (intentionally) funny:

    Politico.com - Meet the House GOP’s newly crowned comedy king
    From the borderline to the unpredictable to the absolutely random, everyone in the House GOP has a story about Tim Burchett.

    Every class has its clown, and in the House GOP no one has earned that reputation quite like Rep. Tim Burchett.

    When the Tennessee Republican first met the wife of Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) in 2018, he simultaneously complimented her appearance while jokingly digging at her husband’s — taking off his glasses, handing them to her and saying: “Ma’am, you need these more than me.”

    Another time, after visiting then-President Donald Trump at the White House with other members, Burchett was the last to run onto the bus — yelling they needed to peel out because he’d just stolen the baby Jesus from the Nativity scene (he had not actually done so). . . .

    “I don’t take myself seriously. I take the job seriously,” Burchett said in an interview, one day before Christmas Eve.

    Others agreed. GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy could tick off multiple funny moments courtesy of Burchett, but also praised him as a constituent-focused member. He said Burchett “uses that ‘aw shucks,’ but he’s very smart.”

    “He has the ability to take a serious situation, lighten the room, but also make his point,” McCarthy said.

    This month, Burchett invited media, colleagues and staff to a holiday party set to last 15 minutes, and said there would “possibly” be refreshments. The party, which did in fact last 15 minutes, featured a PB&J sandwich stand, a “charcuterie” board that was just Burchett spraying cheese whiz on Ritz crackers . . . .

    There are plenty of incidents that back up Green’s claim. Rep. David Kustoff (R-Tenn.) said Burchett calls him his “favorite Jew after Jesus.” . . .

    And while his voting record resembles those of members in the House Freedom Caucus, his relationships across the aisle are starkly different. He and Speaker Nancy Pelosi publicly embraced after Burchett told her that he was praying for her husband after the violent assault at Pelosi’s San Francisco home, as the Tennessean recalled. He is also known to fist-bump with Democrats like progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), an association that his GOP colleagues say would destroy other members among base voters.

    But he doesn’t want his interactions with Democrats to end there. He has three goals he remembers listing off to now-former Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.):

    “I want to run down South Beach hand-in-hand with [former Rep.] Donna Shalala. I want to go to the Bronx and party with AOC. I don’t know if she lives in the Bronx or not … I’ve never been to New York,” Burchett said. “And I said I want to party in the Kennedy compound.”

    https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/02/tim-burchett-tennessee-republican-00075874
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    If inflation falls to 3% by the middle of the year, (as forecast by some), it'll solve a lot of the government's problems, to state the obvious.

    It seems certain to start dropping by some degree in the next few months as the large increases of last spring start to drop out.
    Even if that happen most people will see their mobile and BB/landline costs go up by somewhere around 15%.
    Most people don’t have the mobile bills you do, and seeing it go up from £10 to £11.50 a month isn’t really going to change their voting intention!
    Average monthly mobile bill in the UK is around £45 per month.

    Now imagine you've got 3 kids, as well as your own mobile, you're looking at an extra £30 a month on mobiles.

    Depending on your BB package, you're looking at another £10 a month there.

    When people are struggling with a choice of heating or eating, this is another kicker.
    The phone bill is £45 a month, or the repayment on a £1k handset makes it that much? Don’t kids of struggling families have hand-me-down phones rather than new ones?

    I was in the UK last month and got a PAYG SIM for £15, inc 10GB data and a pile of calls, from a petrol station!
    But with PAYG you don't get all the features like 5G, VOLTE, or WiFi calling.
    Which people on struggling incomes are buying for their kids?
    If you lived here you'd understand the issue better.

    Over the last few years most of the MNOs and MVNOs have put in a clause in the contracts that put in mid contract price increases of 3.9% plus March CPI.

    Now inflation has exploded, these mid contract price contracts are a ticking timebomb.

    If the government wanted an easy win they'd ban in contract price increases.

    Most of the broadband providers have followed similar patterns, which isn't surprising since there's a bit of cross ownership.

    So most of these contracts were taken out before the cost of living crisis started.
    I did just live ‘here’ for nearly a month, and spent £15 on a PAYG SIM, I saw post-paid deals for £7.50.

    Surely the service increases apply only to the service part of the contract, rather than the device repayment part - the cost of which would be fixed by the supplier at the time of purchase?

    Again, people on the breadline with kids aren’t buying them new phones on £45 a month contracts - if they are, then that’s a bloody good reason why they’re struggling in the first place!!
  • Liverpool 2 down and another 2 overruled with var
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,042
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    This is the wife of Clarence Thomas and yet he doesn't recuse himself.

    It's rather scary isn't it?
    Indeed, yet 'Seer' Leon tells us the most dangerous thing in America is the woke.
    To me, it shows the frailty of the human mental condition.

    There is no evidence of fraud. Indeed, there is no real possibility that there was a giant, US-wide plot to tamper with votes to put Biden in power.

    People will believe what is most convenient to them. And it is easier to believe that there is a giant conspiracy, and that political opponents are not just wrong, but are evil too, than to admit that you lost an election.

    It is incredibly corrosive to civil society, and it is incredibly corrosive to democracy.
    Perhaps, but the solution isn't to chide people for believing it, the solution is to test the theory to destruction and let that scrutiny make the system stronger and more robust. Their system is hopeless. It is wide open to abuse, and if that abuse isn't happening already, the polarisation of politics makes it odds on that people will try more in the future.
  • Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    If inflation falls to 3% by the middle of the year, (as forecast by some), it'll solve a lot of the government's problems, to state the obvious.

    It seems certain to start dropping by some degree in the next few months as the large increases of last spring start to drop out.
    Even if that happen most people will see their mobile and BB/landline costs go up by somewhere around 15%.
    Most people don’t have the mobile bills you do, and seeing it go up from £10 to £11.50 a month isn’t really going to change their voting intention!
    Average monthly mobile bill in the UK is around £45 per month.

    Now imagine you've got 3 kids, as well as your own mobile, you're looking at an extra £30 a month on mobiles.

    Depending on your BB package, you're looking at another £10 a month there.

    When people are struggling with a choice of heating or eating, this is another kicker.
    The phone bill is £45 a month, or the repayment on a £1k handset makes it that much? Don’t kids of struggling families have hand-me-down phones rather than new ones?

    I was in the UK last month and got a PAYG SIM for £15, inc 10GB data and a pile of calls, from a petrol station!
    But with PAYG you don't get all the features like 5G, VOLTE, or WiFi calling.
    Which people on struggling incomes are buying for their kids?
    If you lived here you'd understand the issue better.

    Over the last few years most of the MNOs and MVNOs have put in a clause in the contracts that put in mid contract price increases of 3.9% plus March CPI.

    Now inflation has exploded, these mid contract price contracts are a ticking timebomb.

    If the government wanted an easy win they'd ban in contract price increases.

    Most of the broadband providers have followed similar patterns, which isn't surprising since there's a bit of cross ownership.

    So most of these contracts were taken out before the cost of living crisis started.
    I did just live ‘here’ for nearly a month, and spent £15 on a PAYG SIM, I saw post-paid deals for £7.50.

    Surely the service increases apply only to the service part of the contract, rather than the device repayment part - the cost of which would be fixed by the supplier at the time of purchase?

    Again, people on the breadline with kids aren’t buying them new phones on £45 a month contracts - if they are, then that’s a bloody good reason why they’re struggling in the first place!!
    Out of the MNOs only O2 and Vodafone split the airtime cost and the handset cost so only the increase to the airtime bill, Three and EE apply the increase to the whole monthly cost.

    Out of the MVNOs only Sky and Tesco split out the cost, so most people in the country.

    The point is they weren't on the breadline when they took out the contracts.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835

    Liverpool 2 down and another 2 overruled with var

    Good job Ivan Toney isn't fit...
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Liverpool 2 down and another 2 overruled with var

    And Liverpool with one cleared off the line in injury time. Not their evening…
  • Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    If inflation falls to 3% by the middle of the year, (as forecast by some), it'll solve a lot of the government's problems, to state the obvious.

    It seems certain to start dropping by some degree in the next few months as the large increases of last spring start to drop out.
    Even if that happen most people will see their mobile and BB/landline costs go up by somewhere around 15%.
    Most people don’t have the mobile bills you do, and seeing it go up from £10 to £11.50 a month isn’t really going to change their voting intention!
    Average monthly mobile bill in the UK is around £45 per month.

    Now imagine you've got 3 kids, as well as your own mobile, you're looking at an extra £30 a month on mobiles.

    Depending on your BB package, you're looking at another £10 a month there.

    When people are struggling with a choice of heating or eating, this is another kicker.
    The phone bill is £45 a month, or the repayment on a £1k handset makes it that much? Don’t kids of struggling families have hand-me-down phones rather than new ones?

    I was in the UK last month and got a PAYG SIM for £15, inc 10GB data and a pile of calls, from a petrol station!
    But with PAYG you don't get all the features like 5G, VOLTE, or WiFi calling.
    Which people on struggling incomes are buying for their kids?
    If you lived here you'd understand the issue better.

    Over the last few years most of the MNOs and MVNOs have put in a clause in the contracts that put in mid contract price increases of 3.9% plus March CPI.

    Now inflation has exploded, these mid contract price contracts are a ticking timebomb.

    If the government wanted an easy win they'd ban in contract price increases.

    Most of the broadband providers have followed similar patterns, which isn't surprising since there's a bit of cross ownership.

    So most of these contracts were taken out before the cost of living crisis started.
    Low upfront cost, what seems like a manageable monthly payment, what's not to like, until it's overtaken by events.

    Good enough for multiple British governments...
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052

    Foxy said:

    Sunak needs to go COBRA on the NHS and crisis mode it for 6-9 months to clear the backlog - possibly longer. Nightingale it.

    I don't know how much this would cost (£10bn? £20bn? £30bn?) but I'd say doing that is probably more electorally crucial for him right now than banking up for 1p off income tax, which probably won't shift the dial that much.

    A lot will be down to luck- whether the economy starts to turn the corner or not, and thus help out HMT. Personally, I think it will.

    You need to add a zero. 60-90 months is realistically probably £100-£300 billion spent.

    It took 10 years and that sort of spending to get the waiting lists down from the numbers we see today to the level of service that we had in 2010.

    The limiting step is personnel (many of whom are quitting) and facilities more than cash. It takes time to train new people and build modern new facilities, as well as concentrated and disciplined management from the top. As ever, staff retention is the place to start.

    Perhaps Sunak simply has it down in the "too hard" column of problems, and impossible to make headway before the next election. He may well be right, and simply accept the festering NHS crisis has to continue.
    I think demonstrating intent and a plan for action, even if it hasn't yet born fruit, is politically crucial for him.

    FWIW, I think Sunak is motivated by doing the right thing for Britain long-term as much as he is improving the Tories electoral prospects. He knows re-election in 2 years is a very tall order.

    It's why I like him.
    I am not convinced. He is a step up from the mendacious buffoon and the bonkers half wit that preceeded him, but it could hardly be a step down from there. He has steadied things rather as a bull in a China shop can do, by falling asleep.

    I don't see any real understanding of how to mend the countries downward spiral, and his choice of cabinet does not inspire confidence. He seems a pleasant enough chap on a personal level, just completely over-promoted.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052

    Liverpool 2 down and another 2 overruled with var

    They need to play the ever obliging Leicester more often. They couldn't score against us either, so we had to help them out with a brace of own goals.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Foxy said:

    Liverpool 2 down and another 2 overruled with var

    They need to play the ever obliging Leicester more often. They couldn't score against us either, so we had to help them out with a brace of own goals.
    That first one was a great candidate for own-goal of the season!
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052
    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    If inflation falls to 3% by the middle of the year, (as forecast by some), it'll solve a lot of the government's problems, to state the obvious.

    It seems certain to start dropping by some degree in the next few months as the large increases of last spring start to drop out.
    Even if that happen most people will see their mobile and BB/landline costs go up by somewhere around 15%.
    Most people don’t have the mobile bills you do, and seeing it go up from £10 to £11.50 a month isn’t really going to change their voting intention!
    Average monthly mobile bill in the UK is around £45 per month.

    Now imagine you've got 3 kids, as well as your own mobile, you're looking at an extra £30 a month on mobiles.

    Depending on your BB package, you're looking at another £10 a month there.

    When people are struggling with a choice of heating or eating, this is another kicker.
    The phone bill is £45 a month, or the repayment on a £1k handset makes it that much? Don’t kids of struggling families have hand-me-down phones rather than new ones?

    I was in the UK last month and got a PAYG SIM for £15, inc 10GB data and a pile of calls, from a petrol station!
    But with PAYG you don't get all the features like 5G, VOLTE, or WiFi calling.
    Which people on struggling incomes are buying for their kids?
    I think you under estimate how core having a decent phone and contract is to youngsters. Perhaps it would be better for them to not have them, but they are addicted to them, and being separated from them is hell.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,874

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    If inflation falls to 3% by the middle of the year, (as forecast by some), it'll solve a lot of the government's problems, to state the obvious.

    It seems certain to start dropping by some degree in the next few months as the large increases of last spring start to drop out.
    Even if that happen most people will see their mobile and BB/landline costs go up by somewhere around 15%.
    Most people don’t have the mobile bills you do, and seeing it go up from £10 to £11.50 a month isn’t really going to change their voting intention!
    Average monthly mobile bill in the UK is around £45 per month.

    Now imagine you've got 3 kids, as well as your own mobile, you're looking at an extra £30 a month on mobiles.

    Depending on your BB package, you're looking at another £10 a month there.

    When people are struggling with a choice of heating or eating, this is another kicker.
    I pay £10 a month, and own my phone. What am I doing wrong?
This discussion has been closed.