Tories, huh, yeah, what are they good for? Absolutely nothing, uhh – politicalbetting.com
Tories, huh, yeah, what are they good for? Absolutely nothing, uhh – politicalbetting.com
Quite some word cloud, from @GoodwinMJ's poll question, what have the Conservatives got right since coming to power? Safe to say voters are grumpy right now. pic.twitter.com/yGui2lHcY6
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64279654
Focus group finds first-time Tory supporters have sympathy for struggling health service staff and little faith in Rishi Sunak
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/01/14/dire-situation-red-wall-tory-voters-furious-nhs-collapse/ (£££)
Football: well, Lorient did fail to win, which is a shame, but Manchester United did, which is nice. Green for the last set of bets, probably still just in the red overall this year (haven't updated my records yet).
Politics: Conservatives are in a rough spot, partly of their own making (the prior two PMs) and partly due to strategic reasons. Easy Labour win next time round, but what they actually do when they inherit problems that can't be fixed by an abundance of straightforward spending due to an economy in fantastic shape will make it trickier to govern than campaign.
Mind you, things are looking up and we're no longer a Protected Species. Sell out at Brisbane Road again yesterday.
Shame about the game.
Fpt: I am not even a Boris supporter, though I've said he would be marginally better than the current ongoing disaster. I just know a smear campaign when I see one.
I see 'Covid' and the rollout get a positive mention. Well, Covid generally was a bit of mixed bag but the main kudos went to Kate Bingham and the vaccine rollout. Whether or not you can claim that as a Gov success is debateable but let's give it a pass.
Furlough too was right in principle, even if the detail wasn't that great.
Keeping Labour out would also be a good one for anybody to the right of the Ken Clarke. Not being Jeremy Corbyn would be particularly meritorious.
Brexit, of course, if you think it was a great idea.
Beyond that I'm struggling unless you want to go back to Cameron/Osborne and things like austerity and the introduction of gay marriage. The latter was an overdue but unequivocal success.
It's not great for 12 years, especially as the shittier stuff is the more recent and therefore the more memorable and relevant to electoral prospects.
As expected, Labour's lead is flattening out around 20 points. It's not scaremongering, or wishful thinking, to suggest that at the GE it is as likely as not to be worse than that for the Government.
What price the SNP as the Official Opposition?
His political message is that he is there to fix problems. It’s all he talks about. As such it’s hardly surprising that there is a consensus that he has inherited nothing but problems. He wanted to contrast himself with Truss and Johnson.
Whilst it’s true that he’s inherited an ungodly mess of the Tories making, a more experienced politician would have a balanced the message with a positive project building on a past success. Tough to do given the raw material, but he has created a rod for his own back.
Doug Barrowman is banned from giving money directly to the Conservatives because of where he lives – but it recently emerged that a company linked to him handed over £170,000 to the party.
Now we can reveal his charity, the Barrowman Foundation, has also donated nearly £500,000 to the Centre for Social Justice, which has boasted of its access to “the corridors of power”.
He has also been charged with corporate tax evasion in Spain, where he could face jail if found guilty.
Between 2017 and 2021, it made donations of £1.97 million but its accounts didn’t show where the cash was going. Government rules state charities must publish details of where money has come from and how it is spent.
The books for 2019 and 2020 both claim only that the single “main pledge” was to the Prince’s Trust – set up by King Charles when he was the Prince of Wales.
The Foundation’s three trustees are Barrowman, Baroness Mone and Arthur Lancaster, who is a former business associate of Prince Andrew and a director of Lancaster Knox LLP.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/michelle-mones-husband-row-over-28956861
https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/stuffing-their-mouths-with-gold/zvw68xs
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jan/14/ministers-refuse-fund-medical-school-uk-doctor-shortage
https://twitter.com/dinosofos/status/1614190496775012352?t=s4tfIFxmOyaLzWIeXz_gzg&s=19
https://twitter.com/dinosofos/status/1614190496775012352?s=46&t=C4zYaZLgIvXtpNX6w60Bbw
The PM’s comments came after allies of Mr Johnson reportedly claimed he would agree not to challenge Mr Sunak’s leadership in return for a safer Tory stronghold.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-uxbridge-constituency-stand-mp-next-general-election-rishi-sunak-b1052832.html
Tory peer Michelle Mone’s billionaire husband took part in a scheme to suck millions out of a company in a massive corporate tax fraud, prosecutors allege.
The Record has seen a copy of the four-page indictment against Doug Barrowman and six other British businessmen due to stand trial in Spain next May for corporate tax evasion and misappropriation.
We told how he faces up to five-and-a-half years in jail if convicted on two charges.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/michelle-mones-husband-bogus-55-28951207?int_source=nba
And "grumpy" is to put it mildly. I've never known such anger.
They're in for a shellacking.
https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2019-12-09/boris-johnson-takes-itv-reporter-s-phone-after-refusing-to-look-at-photo-of-boy-on-hospital-floor
Intransigence by the government has not weakened the resolve of aggrieved workers; it has increased their determination to express their anger about their pay and conditions.
Ministers also misread the temper of the country. Public opinion has not been shifting in the direction the government anticipated. The Opinium poll we publish today indicates that support for NHS staff...remains high. When asked what they think overall about the public sector strikes, those voters who hold the government responsible outnumber those who blame the unions. Ministers are losing the competition to look like the “reasonable” side of the argument.
Ministers would probably do a deal with the RCN tomorrow were it not for the fear in the Treasury and Number 10 that this would embolden other workers in the health service and elsewhere in the public sector to press their claims harder and for longer.
There have been some indications over the past few days that the government is beginning to recalibrate its approach. Suggestions of how pay offers might be enhanced have begun to float out of departments.
Yet the government is still sending mixed messages... In the same week that the government invited unions to talks, it infuriated them by launching anti-strike legislation. This will be debated in the Commons on Monday. Expect turbulent scenes. Given the resistance this legislation will face in the House of Lords and the challenges that will be mounted in the courts, its only impact on the present wave of strikes will be to inject further poison into relations between the government and its employees.
The macho strategy has failed the prime minister. Sooner or later, the government will have to cut some deals. For the country’s sake and his own, Mr Sunak would be best advised to do it sooner rather than later.
The name changed to Orient as a result of a spat between chairman Brian Winstone and the local Council and stayed that way for many years after he left. Can't remember when it went back to Leyton Orient but I prefer it. The ground is, after all, in Leyton.
Recent years have been a real roller coaster. They were pretty successful under the excellent stewardship of Barry Hearn and got within one penalty kick of the Championship. He then sold out - a decision he now regrets - and the club was taken over by a bunch of crooks (literally). Results deteriorated sharply; they dropped out of the football league and almost out of existence completely. They are now in the hands of a small group of wealthy supporters and are prospering again under the management of Richie Wellens. They look certain for promotion back to Div 1, which is probably where they belong.
This is really reminding me of the last two years of John Major's Government, when people paid less and less attention to the Conservatives and more and more to the positive policies of the incoming Government.
I know people will talk about taking nothing for granted but the writing's on the wall.
Our revelations come after the UK Government won the right in court earlier this month to keep the names of companies that received more than £47billion in Covid loans secret.
Companies House records show One Rebel has failed to meet its legal obligation to file accounts by December 28.
Failure to file accounts is a criminal offence and can lead to fines and action against directors.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/massive-covid-loan-paid-out-28956721
Vaccine
Vaccines
Vaccine rollout
COVID vaccine
COVID vaccines
COVID vaccination
COVID vaccinations
COVID vaccination program
Which are all listed separately?
(Similarly “f*ck all”, “nothing at all” and “absolutely nothing” could reasonably be combined with “Nothing”)
He claimed the Pole had told him:
“thank you for not allowing the Polish government drive you crazy regarding the Leopard 2 tanks”
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1614250538698170368
Yeah, I expect he regularly encounters folks who agree with his position while out jogging…
In my family, if you weren't an Orient supporter, the Arsenal was an acceptable alternative. Tottenham was not. West Ham was ok, but it was geographically some distance from the part of Hackney from which my tribe originated.
Challenge: fill in the gap in the sentence "This government has to go, but X is alright." I'm finding myself landing on Gove, which ought to be unthinkable.
Hopefully Sunak and Hunt are restoring their reputation for fiscal discipline too
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64279654
Voters may not like Sunak much but he is still seen as more competent than Major 1997 was and Starmer lacks the charisma and appeal to Middle England Blair had in 1997, he is more John Smith
As Rawnsley says, they need to do it ASAP.
You have to wonder who is advising the govt on this. In the U.K. the NHS is put on a pedestal and revered. Picking a fight with nurses is mad.
The devolved Scottish and Welsh govt have been no better but, at least, in Scotland it looks like some progress is finally being made.
Allowing direct self referral to physio, or changing from a partnership model to direct employment of GPs isn't reform, it is just rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.
Staff retention and training, capital investment and public health are the keys to greater productivity, and on that we hear nothing from either party.
I do think Starmer would be a more principled PM than Blair and a labour govt under Starmer would be less self serving than new labour. He has a way to go to seal the deal.
For me it is like 2010 with Brown.
The worried well, and the hypochondriacs will have a field day. Are Labour serious?
Though no doubt there’s the odd poster who’ll call it a smear campaign.
Not inappropriate for sporting injuries for physio perhaps.
Today, I think the problems are rather different. Major still had strong waves of Thatcherism about him, no one wondered what the Tories were for, whether they liked it or not. Now? The kindest description one could give of the current party is pragmatic managerialism and they are not very good at that as the failure to resolve the NHS strikes shows. It's not good enough and they need what will almost certainly be a longish period in opposition to work out what they are for.
The worry for the country is that SKS regards pragmatic managerialism as an aspiration, and that is before they even start.
Because that is the truth. And the truth has a virtue of its own
Self-referral works in a lot of PMI schemes. Our work one allows it for skin cancer checks and various things like osteopathy and physio. Presumably the hypochondriac issue could be managed by requiring a repeat referral to go through a GP.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/13/2147015/-Somewhere-on-Thwaites-Glacier-is-a-fissure-so-deep-that-it-threatens-the-world-s-coastlines
Basically the Thwaites glacier and sea ice sheet has been protected by large icebergs that had grounded on undersea mountains. They are now breaking free and when they do, within the next few years, the sea ice behind them will collapse driving sea levels up by 2 feet fairly quickly and ultimately by 10 feet once the Thwaites glacier collapses into the sea. A likely trigger point for this is the El Nino effect which starts this year.
Its going to get a little damp in London and many other coastal cities.
They really are a popular side well beyond the confines of Leyton.
Listening to Starmer on the NHS he really does seem determined to reform it root and branch and take on the vested interests including the BMA
I believe the NHS needs to lose its religious zeal and change and frankly Starmer is best placed to take this huge issue on as he will be, lest we forget, a Labour PM
BoZo's reputation as a winner doesn't stand up to scrutiny when you look at his opponents
Extraordinary the number of famous people born in the Leyton/Leytonstone area. Ever been in the Sir Alfred Hitchcock, the pub just down the road from Whipps Cross named after the local lad?
Labour have only recovered having ended their civil war and purged their lunatics. Tory lunatics remain in offices like Home Secretary so there is no chance of dealing with them yet.
Good to see he has turned his career around.
Hampstead would be safe though, and socially speaking it's an island already.
The Swiss had NO problem selling air defence systems to Qatar to protect stadiums during the soccer World Cup.
https://twitter.com/eastveterans/status/1614193611654025218
Can this seriously be right? Jesus.
Early sixties, mid nineties, early twenties.
Not much anyone can do tbh.