New Ipsos poll sees sharp decline in Sunak’s ratings – politicalbetting.com

Sandpit said:

Dorset police in the news today. The Met must be breathing a sigh of relief.

Yes, it’s another rapist with a warrant card.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/30/serving-dorset-police-officer-charged-rape/

Allegedly

TheScreamingEagles said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Best thing you can say about Sunak is that he’s not Truss or Johnson or the rest of the freak show that is the modern freak show that is the Tory Party.

All of these events that lead to the inevitable thrashing of the Tories at the next election were started when the braindead end of the Tory membership thought it a good idea to someone who was a walking moral vacuum as leader because he is "popular". Member such as @HYUFD who continue to make excuses for him because he won a majority persist in overlooking that even with his majority he was a walking disaster area for party and country

I fear that the membership's collective stupidity will keep the Conservative Party out of office for years and we will be stuck with a Labour party that bloats the public sector and drives down our competitiveness year on year. I just hope they are not as bad as I fear they might be.

I fear the party will get madder with opposition.

Brexiteers like Casino Royale have observed the current Brexit settlement is unsustainable and that something will replace it.

Eventually Starmer will catch up to the polling and as de minimis we rejoin the Single Market, that will be another tipping point for the madness.

You make it sound like it's up to the UK what happens de minimus and beyond. It's not, sadly.

TimS said:

Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.

Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair

Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron

Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak

Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson

Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss

Heath probably deserves to be in box one for taking us into the Common Market as it was then known. Whether you are pro-Europe or a frothing reality denying Brexiteer (a dying breed), the reality is that it was a policy that changed Britain....

Actually screw all that. By the same token it means that the person who took us out ............... and that is just too ludicrous. No let's stick with your original ranking.

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Chris said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

CarlottaVance said:

Interesting pre-print paper which explores possible reasons for the unexpectedly high number of transgender people in Newham & Brent:

https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/yw45p/

Mistakes in filling in the form owing to mistranslation and misunderstanding? The authors might be right but it's a bit of a reach. Is there evidence of similar anomalies around other questions in those boroughs, for instance? And why not other places with large immigrant communities?

As you'll have seen, the authors asked the same question (p. 7):
"My conjecture about the anomalies in returns is readily tested. The ONS just needs to cross-tabulate gender identity with language or with country of birth ..."

As I did see, that is a different question.

I see. And you decided, having thought about all that, not to mention any of it?

I won't say that what you say isn't true, but certainly it gave a misleading impression of your reading of the preprint.

Nigel_Foremain said:

TimS said:

Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.

Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair

Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron

Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak

Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson

Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss

Heath probably deserves to be in box one for taking us into the Common Market as it was then known. Whether you are pro-Europe or a frothing reality denying Brexiteer (a dying breed), the reality is that it was a policy that changed Britain....

Actually screw all that. By the same token it means that the person who took us out ............... and that is just too ludicrous. No let's stick with your original ranking.

I'd put Heath, and Brown tbf, in Box 3.

On interpreting national data, I'm put in mind of the group that wrote an article (might have been in bmj, I forget...) highlighting the poor quality of data collected from hospital admissions with the poster example of the many people of male sex recorded in maternity episode records.

They failed, of course, to do sufficient research to understand that it's not only mothers that appear in maternity records, but also babies.

Selebian said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

CarlottaVance said:

Interesting pre-print paper which explores possible reasons for the unexpectedly high number of transgender people in Newham & Brent:

https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/yw45p/

Mistakes in filling in the form owing to mistranslation and misunderstanding? The authors might be right but it's a bit of a reach. Is there evidence of similar anomalies around other questions in those boroughs, for instance? And why not other places with large immigrant communities?

Is there perhaps widespread under-reporting, with the head of household being less likely to report trans offspring, whereas single people completing their own forms can be more open?

I'd also like to see more exploration of this. The tone, which should not be important, but soes make me wonder, comes across as the author having a particular viewpoint, rather than just being interested in the anomaly. May be this is the explanation for the apparent anomaly or it may be that it's not.

I understand that the disquiet over the sex question may also have caused some to boycott the gender question too. It's not implausible that such a boycott would gain more traction in an area like Brighton with a larger (or at least more visible) transgender community through word of mouth etc than in some other places. Non-response would be a key thing to consider too, I think - which may be in the pre-print, I did not read it fully...

Yes, I think that's quite likely a fair number. The lack of trust in government (rational or not in respect if the census) is considerable. I don't know how you might estimate that number.

Nigel_Foremain said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Best thing you can say about Sunak is that he’s not Truss or Johnson or the rest of the freak show that is the modern freak show that is the Tory Party.

All of these events that lead to the inevitable thrashing of the Tories at the next election were started when the braindead end of the Tory membership thought it a good idea to someone who was a walking moral vacuum as leader because he is "popular". Member such as @HYUFD who continue to make excuses for him because he won a majority persist in overlooking that even with his majority he was a walking disaster area for party and country

I fear that the membership's collective stupidity will keep the Conservative Party out of office for years and we will be stuck with a Labour party that bloats the public sector and drives down our competitiveness year on year. I just hope they are not as bad as I fear they might be.

Edit: Whoops replied to my own post in error lol

mwadams said:

swing_voter said:

TimS said:

Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.

Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair

Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron

Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak

Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson

Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss

I think you are generous to Cameron & Brown..... but like the idea (mainly agree)

And Churchill was box 1 and box 3.

Depends which Churchill. His record outside wartime was pretty moderate but without his wartime performance would we even be here?

Chris said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Chris said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

CarlottaVance said:

Interesting pre-print paper which explores possible reasons for the unexpectedly high number of transgender people in Newham & Brent:

https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/yw45p/

Mistakes in filling in the form owing to mistranslation and misunderstanding? The authors might be right but it's a bit of a reach. Is there evidence of similar anomalies around other questions in those boroughs, for instance? And why not other places with large immigrant communities?

As you'll have seen, the authors asked the same question (p. 7):
"My conjecture about the anomalies in returns is readily tested. The ONS just needs to cross-tabulate gender identity with language or with country of birth ..."

As I did see, that is a different question.

I see. And you decided, having thought about all that, not to mention any of it?

I won't say that what you say isn't true, but certainly it gave a misleading impression of your reading of the preprint.

Is that what they call passive aggressive, or merely snide? Of course I read the pre-print or I would not have been able to suggest questions arising from it.

Sandpit said:

Dorset police in the news today. The Met must be breathing a sigh of relief.

Yes, it’s another rapist with a warrant card.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/30/serving-dorset-police-officer-charged-rape/

Once you know that that the way it works is -

1) Officer gets investigated
2) Retirement because of stress
3) This terminates investigation
4) Gets job with another force.....

Why are you surprised?

Well, oceans of Tory sleaze, looming Labour landslides ... if it weren't for my wizened old face in the mirror I'd think it was the 90s!

WhisperingOracle said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

mwadams said:

swing_voter said:

TimS said:

Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.

Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair

Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron

Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak

Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson

Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss

I think you are generous to Cameron & Brown..... but like the idea (mainly agree)

And Churchill was box 1 and box 3.

Depends which Churchill. His record outside wartime was pretty moderate but without his wartime performance would we even be here?

A drunken but highly creative thug-genius who saved the country. You can't really think of anyone else like him.

Life is full of paradoxes and politics has more than most.

WhisperingOracle said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

mwadams said:

swing_voter said:

TimS said:

Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.

Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair

Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron

Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak

Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson

Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss

I think you are generous to Cameron & Brown..... but like the idea (mainly agree)

And Churchill was box 1 and box 3.

Depends which Churchill. His record outside wartime was pretty moderate but without his wartime performance would we even be here?

A drunken but highly creative thug-genius who saved the country. You can't really think of anyone else like him.

Oliver Reed?

kinabalu said:

Well, oceans of Tory sleaze, looming Labour landslides ... if it weren't for my wizened old face in the mirror I'd think it was the 90s!

Note however Starmer only leads Sunak as preferred PM 39% to 33% in today's Ipsos.

That would give a hung parliament with the Tories over 250 seats, even if the headline voting intention gives a Labour landslide

https://twitter.com/JMagosh/status/1620018028825182208?s=20&t=WHs4TTCR8BaIiFJunOorrw

CorrectHorseBattery3 said:

Pro_Rata said:

Sunak has brought back a degree of normality to the Tory party, which is not too say they are not still in an awful polling position, mired in sleaze and a discredited talent pool from which to choose.

What is does say though is that the manner of any Sunak exit would likely be pretty normal, and not done in Truss time.

This would entail a number of things including, Sunak resisting any pressure on him and declaring himself up for the fight; malcontents, perhaps Boris supporters, ramping that they have 20-30 letters in and will bring Sunak down "soon" for months on end; if they do get to 53/4 letters having to then persuade their fellow MPs that an uncertain leadership process, likely with more normal rules and multiple candidates and doubts over whether Boris will even stand, is a good idea.

Even with a solid base of Boris supporters, at each stage there is a threshold, doubt, a reading of the wider room. All those protections that kept Boris in post for so long.

And the underlying question of whether changing yet again will really, this time, advance the cause, "no" being a highly plausible answer, or simply shred further their remaining tiny tissue of credibility.

If there is an air of resignation, it is not surprising.

Hope you are keeping well mate

Hi. Thanks for the concern Horse. I'm fine, I
guess you saw me getting a bit reminiscency about my late father overnight and it was good to post that little bit of ongoing processing. It's good to see you back on here fighting the good cause.

TimS said:

Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.

Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair

Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron

Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak

Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson

Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss

Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).

Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.

Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3

Selebian said:

Malmesbury said:

Selebian said:

On interpreting national data, I'm put in mind of the group that wrote an article (might have been in bmj, I forget...) highlighting the poor quality of data collected from hospital admissions with the poster example of the many people of male sex recorded in maternity episode records.

They failed, of course, to do sufficient research to understand that it's not only mothers that appear in maternity records, but also babies.

Don't tell me - 33% ?

In fairness (and I cannot find it now) it was quite a bit lower, I think, the kind of thing that could have looked like an error without an obvious explanation other than just bad data. May have been related to babies actually requiring extra care and generating a record when they wouldn't normally (or they'd filtered out the actual delivery records). It wasn't a completely simple, stupid error, but something that was readily apparent to - and pointed out - by people actually using those data frequently.

Yes - it is one of those things that sounds ridiculous until someone points out the data includes....

HYUFD said:

TimS said:

Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.

Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair

Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron

Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak

Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson

Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss

Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).

Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.

Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3

It's hard to argue against Johnson being in Tier 1 - the harm he's done to the UK via the form of Brexit he implemented is going to take decades to resolve...

HYUFD said:

TimS said:

Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.

Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair

Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron

Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak

Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson

Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss

Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).

Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.

Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3

I am not sure you understand this game. Johnson is in a category all on his own. If he comes back and finishes the job of crashing the nation into oblivion, you may have a point.

I suppose Sunak might have time to turn the supertanker around before it hits the rocks, although my money would be on a massive pollution incident.

HYUFD said:

Mexicanpete said:

swing_voter said:

TimS said:

Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.

Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair

Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron

Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak

Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson

Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss

I think you are generous to Cameron & Brown..... but like the idea (mainly agree)

I agree. Cameron resides in Box 2 until 2015 after which he firmly sits in Box 3. He was red carded mid way through the second half. Brown always was and always will be Box 3.

Home was not a weak PM if not a great one either. He left a reasonable economy in 1964 and won most seats in England against the odds in 1964 even if he lost across the UK very narrowly overall, he was also an outstanding diplomat and came back as Heath's Foreign Secretary

Home is definitely Box 3 too.

Sturgeon getting into a terrible muddle;

Does Scotland’s First Minister believe all trans women are women?

Scottish Gov has just implemented an effective ban on trans prisoners who’ve committed sexual & violent crimes against women being moved to a women-only prison. @itvnews[VIDEO]

https://twitter.com/peteradamsmith/status/1620051699900755970

TimS said:

Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.

Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair

Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron

Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak

Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson

Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss

These aren't mutually exclusive categories. No doubt, like others here, to me Johnson is in Box 4, but also Box 1. Brexit, and especially the form chosen, has changed the country considerably, and will continue to do so.

If we return to being members of the EU, Johnson will gradually go back to only being in box 4, but I agree unless we do he's probably in box 1, too.

HYUFD said:

kinabalu said:

Well, oceans of Tory sleaze, looming Labour landslides ... if it weren't for my wizened old face in the mirror I'd think it was the 90s!

Note however Starmer only leads Sunak as preferred PM 39% to 33% in today's Ipsos.

That would give a hung parliament with the Tories over 250 seats, even if the headline voting intention gives a Labour landslide

https://twitter.com/JMagosh/status/1620018028825182208?s=20&t=WHs4TTCR8BaIiFJunOorrw

Clutching at straws.

Before the 2015 general election, with IPSOS Mori, Cameron had a net +17% advantage over Miliband in terms of satisfaction with each of them on how they were doing their jobs as PM and LOTO respectively.

On exactly the same measure, in today's IPSOS Mori poll, Starmer has a net +26% advantage over Sunak.

CarlottaVance said:

YBarddCwsc said:

Nigelb said:

YBarddCwsc said:

Anyone who had to deal with a problem like Zahawi knows that it is difficult because of allegation & counter-allegation.

I personally favour all allegations against politicians being investigated quickly, then a report (& evidence) being made public and swift action taken.

So, Sunak does seem to me to have handled this OK. Just as the Labour Party did OK over the allegations regarding Chris Matheson, ex MP for Chester. They did not suspend him until after an independent report that confirmed that the sexual harassment allegations were true.

If you sack people just because there is an allegation, then you end up with instances like Conor Burns. He was cleared of all wrongdoing after a sexual harassment story was leaked to the public, but by then he had been sacked. The alleged victim hadn’t made a complaint & AIUI there was no evidence of misconduct.

Now in Zahawi's case, tax law is complex and his affairs were (probably) in the hands of a tax advisor. So, whether he was personally culpable did need a bit of time to investigate.

Though his offence was his failure to disclose his dispute with HMRC, rather than the dispute itself.
All the enquiry did was reveal he had failed to disclose it on several more occasions.

I don't see he has any defence to that either before or after the enquiry.

Once upon a time, when I ran an organisation, I had to deal with a serious case of bullying.

Although it was pretty obvious to me that the alleged bully was likely guilty, it still took over 6 months.

The alleged bully's defence still actually needed to be examined.

And all the while, folks were saying: why has @YBarddCwsc not taken swift action against bullying?

Sharon Shoesmith says hello:
It is worth reflecting that one of the key reasons why Ms Shoesmith was in such a strong legal position was due to the sheer trigger happy conduct of Mr Ed Balls who effectively removed Miss Shoesmith from her statutory role at Haringey with no warning and flouting the most basic legal procedures.

Mr Balls was Children's Secretary at the time of Ms Shoesmith's sacking.

https://www.human-law.co.uk/_cmroot/human-law.co.uk/blog/2014/07/how-did-sharon-shoesmith-obtain-so-much-damages.aspx

A very good point, and a pleasant diversion from the Joanne Rowling narrative, well done!

Sharon Shoesmith was lynched by the press and the Labour Government's defence of lets pick on a scapegoat. A personal vilification to smokescreen a wider failure.

Wulfrun_Phil said:

HYUFD said:

kinabalu said:

Well, oceans of Tory sleaze, looming Labour landslides ... if it weren't for my wizened old face in the mirror I'd think it was the 90s!

Note however Starmer only leads Sunak as preferred PM 39% to 33% in today's Ipsos.

That would give a hung parliament with the Tories over 250 seats, even if the headline voting intention gives a Labour landslide

https://twitter.com/JMagosh/status/1620018028825182208?s=20&t=WHs4TTCR8BaIiFJunOorrw

Clutching at straws.

Before the 2015 general election, with IPSOS Mori, Cameron had a net +17% advantage over Miliband in terms of satisfaction with each of them on how they were doing their jobs as PM and LOTO respectively.

On exactly the same measure, in today's IPSOS Mori poll, Starmer has a net +26% advantage over Sunak.

"Before the 2015 general election"? Does that mean "immediately before"? If so, the comparison with a midterm poll is less valid than you would like.

Edit: oh, and comparing net with net is double-counting.

HYUFD said:

Mexicanpete said:

HYUFD said:

TimS said:

Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.

Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair

Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron

Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak

Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson

Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss

Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).

Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.

Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3

I am not sure you understand this game. Johnson is in a category all on his own. If he comes back and finishes the job of crashing the nation into oblivion, you may have a point.

I suppose Sunak might have time to turn the supertanker around before it hits the rocks, although my money would be on a massive pollution incident.

HYUFD said:

Mexicanpete said:

swing_voter said:

TimS said:

Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.

Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair

Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron

Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak

Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson

Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss

I think you are generous to Cameron & Brown..... but like the idea (mainly agree)

I agree. Cameron resides in Box 2 until 2015 after which he firmly sits in Box 3. He was red carded mid way through the second half. Brown always was and always will be Box 3.

Home was not a weak PM if not a great one either. He left a reasonable economy in 1964 and won most seats in England against the odds in 1964 even if he lost across the UK very narrowly overall, he was also an outstanding diplomat and came back as Heath's Foreign Secretary

Home is definitely Box 3 too.

No he isn't, I would in fact put Home as the second best PM between 1955 and 1979 after MacMillan, at least in terms of foreign policy and leaving relative prosperity and stability when they left office.

Though Wilson left a longer legacy admittedly with legal homosexuality and abortion and comprehensive schools and the Open University coming when he was PM

So you pretty much only need boxes 1, which is now very crowded, 3 and 5.

Anyway I thought you wanted to replace Comprehensive Schools.

CarlottaVance said:

YBarddCwsc said:

Nigelb said:

YBarddCwsc said:

Anyone who had to deal with a problem like Zahawi knows that it is difficult because of allegation & counter-allegation.

I personally favour all allegations against politicians being investigated quickly, then a report (& evidence) being made public and swift action taken.

So, Sunak does seem to me to have handled this OK. Just as the Labour Party did OK over the allegations regarding Chris Matheson, ex MP for Chester. They did not suspend him until after an independent report that confirmed that the sexual harassment allegations were true.

If you sack people just because there is an allegation, then you end up with instances like Conor Burns. He was cleared of all wrongdoing after a sexual harassment story was leaked to the public, but by then he had been sacked. The alleged victim hadn’t made a complaint & AIUI there was no evidence of misconduct.

Now in Zahawi's case, tax law is complex and his affairs were (probably) in the hands of a tax advisor. So, whether he was personally culpable did need a bit of time to investigate.

Though his offence was his failure to disclose his dispute with HMRC, rather than the dispute itself.
All the enquiry did was reveal he had failed to disclose it on several more occasions.

I don't see he has any defence to that either before or after the enquiry.

Once upon a time, when I ran an organisation, I had to deal with a serious case of bullying.

Although it was pretty obvious to me that the alleged bully was likely guilty, it still took over 6 months.

The alleged bully's defence still actually needed to be examined.

And all the while, folks were saying: why has @YBarddCwsc not taken swift action against bullying?

Sharon Shoesmith says hello:
It is worth reflecting that one of the key reasons why Ms Shoesmith was in such a strong legal position was due to the sheer trigger happy conduct of Mr Ed Balls who effectively removed Miss Shoesmith from her statutory role at Haringey with no warning and flouting the most basic legal procedures.

Mr Balls was Children's Secretary at the time of Ms Shoesmith's sacking.

https://www.human-law.co.uk/_cmroot/human-law.co.uk/blog/2014/07/how-did-sharon-shoesmith-obtain-so-much-damages.aspx

Yes, but employment law doesn't apply to ministerial appointments. They can be fired at will with no notice.

What possible circumstances could have exonerated Zahawi? He accepted his guilt when he paid the penalty charge.

Mexicanpete said:

CarlottaVance said:

YBarddCwsc said:

Nigelb said:

YBarddCwsc said:

Anyone who had to deal with a problem like Zahawi knows that it is difficult because of allegation & counter-allegation.

I personally favour all allegations against politicians being investigated quickly, then a report (& evidence) being made public and swift action taken.

So, Sunak does seem to me to have handled this OK. Just as the Labour Party did OK over the allegations regarding Chris Matheson, ex MP for Chester. They did not suspend him until after an independent report that confirmed that the sexual harassment allegations were true.

If you sack people just because there is an allegation, then you end up with instances like Conor Burns. He was cleared of all wrongdoing after a sexual harassment story was leaked to the public, but by then he had been sacked. The alleged victim hadn’t made a complaint & AIUI there was no evidence of misconduct.

Now in Zahawi's case, tax law is complex and his affairs were (probably) in the hands of a tax advisor. So, whether he was personally culpable did need a bit of time to investigate.

Though his offence was his failure to disclose his dispute with HMRC, rather than the dispute itself.
All the enquiry did was reveal he had failed to disclose it on several more occasions.

I don't see he has any defence to that either before or after the enquiry.

Once upon a time, when I ran an organisation, I had to deal with a serious case of bullying.

Although it was pretty obvious to me that the alleged bully was likely guilty, it still took over 6 months.

The alleged bully's defence still actually needed to be examined.

And all the while, folks were saying: why has @YBarddCwsc not taken swift action against bullying?

Sharon Shoesmith says hello:
It is worth reflecting that one of the key reasons why Ms Shoesmith was in such a strong legal position was due to the sheer trigger happy conduct of Mr Ed Balls who effectively removed Miss Shoesmith from her statutory role at Haringey with no warning and flouting the most basic legal procedures.

Mr Balls was Children's Secretary at the time of Ms Shoesmith's sacking.

https://www.human-law.co.uk/_cmroot/human-law.co.uk/blog/2014/07/how-did-sharon-shoesmith-obtain-so-much-damages.aspx

A very good point, and a pleasant diversion from the Joanne Rowling narrative, well done!

Sharon Shoesmith was lynched by the press and the Labour Government's defence of lets pick on a scapegoat. A personal vilification to smokescreen a wider failure.

Not quite - she was clearly responsible for actively ignoring the concerns about the baby. And responsible for a bizarre vendetta against the junior employee trying to raise the concerns.

The wider system had its failings, yes. Shoesmith was definitely a failure, though.

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Chris said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Chris said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

CarlottaVance said:

Interesting pre-print paper which explores possible reasons for the unexpectedly high number of transgender people in Newham & Brent:

https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/yw45p/

Mistakes in filling in the form owing to mistranslation and misunderstanding? The authors might be right but it's a bit of a reach. Is there evidence of similar anomalies around other questions in those boroughs, for instance? And why not other places with large immigrant communities?

As you'll have seen, the authors asked the same question (p. 7):
"My conjecture about the anomalies in returns is readily tested. The ONS just needs to cross-tabulate gender identity with language or with country of birth ..."

As I did see, that is a different question.

I see. And you decided, having thought about all that, not to mention any of it?

I won't say that what you say isn't true, but certainly it gave a misleading impression of your reading of the preprint.

Is that what they call passive aggressive, or merely snide? Of course I read the pre-print or I would not have been able to suggest questions arising from it.

What I'm saying is that your comment gave the misleading impression that the authors hadn't considered the question about language, when in fact they'd explicitly asked it. I think if you look at your comment again you'll see what I mean.

IanB2 said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

DougSeal said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Best thing you can say about Sunak is that he’s not Truss or Johnson or the rest of the freak show that is the modern freak show that is the Tory Party.

All of these events that lead to the inevitable thrashing of the Tories at the next election were started when the braindead end of the Tory membership thought it a good idea to someone who was a walking moral vacuum as leader because he is "popular". Member such as @HYUFD who continue to make excuses for him because he won a majority persist in overlooking that even with his majority he was a walking disaster area for party and country

I fear that the membership's collective stupidity will keep the Conservative Party out of office for years and we will be stuck with a Labour party that bloats the public sector and drives down our competitiveness year on year. I just hope they are not as bad as I fear they might be.

I fear the party will get madder with opposition.

Brexiteers like Casino Royale have observed the current Brexit settlement is unsustainable and that something will replace it.

Eventually Starmer will catch up to the polling and as de minimis we rejoin the Single Market, that will be another tipping point for the madness.

You make it sound like it's up to the UK what happens de minimus and beyond. It's not, sadly.

The EU will take us back, the prodigal son is back etc.

Any student of history knows that the entire thrust of English and then British foreign policy has been to avoid any one power dominating the continent.

So, big picture, our current position is, thanks to the Tories, one of epic and catastrophic failure.

Hmm. Too early to say for sure. With Poland likely to become a major military power in Europe, its influence on the EU will grow. If the former eastern bloc and Scandinavian countries gain influence against that of France and Germany then all bets are off in terms of how the EU develops. It may be something we want to rejoin but it will be different from what we left.

Mexicanpete said:

HYUFD said:

Mexicanpete said:

HYUFD said:

TimS said:

Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.

Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair

Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron

Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak

Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson

Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss

Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).

Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.

Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3

I am not sure you understand this game. Johnson is in a category all on his own. If he comes back and finishes the job of crashing the nation into oblivion, you may have a point.

I suppose Sunak might have time to turn the supertanker around before it hits the rocks, although my money would be on a massive pollution incident.

HYUFD said:

Mexicanpete said:

swing_voter said:

TimS said:

Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.

Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair

Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron

Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak

Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson

Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss

I think you are generous to Cameron & Brown..... but like the idea (mainly agree)

I agree. Cameron resides in Box 2 until 2015 after which he firmly sits in Box 3. He was red carded mid way through the second half. Brown always was and always will be Box 3.

Home was not a weak PM if not a great one either. He left a reasonable economy in 1964 and won most seats in England against the odds in 1964 even if he lost across the UK very narrowly overall, he was also an outstanding diplomat and came back as Heath's Foreign Secretary

Home is definitely Box 3 too.

No he isn't, I would in fact put Home as the second best PM between 1955 and 1979 after MacMillan, at least in terms of foreign policy and leaving relative prosperity and stability when they left office.

Though Wilson left a longer legacy admittedly with legal homosexuality and abortion and comprehensive schools and the Open University coming when he was PM

So you pretty much only need boxes 1, which is now very crowded, 3 and 5.

Anyway I thought you wanted to replace Comprehensive Schools.

HYUFD doesn't approve of the Open University either, one is forced to conclude. Not posh enough?

Carnyx said:

Mexicanpete said:

HYUFD said:

Mexicanpete said:

HYUFD said:

TimS said:

Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.

Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair

Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron

Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak

Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson

Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss

Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).

Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.

Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3

I am not sure you understand this game. Johnson is in a category all on his own. If he comes back and finishes the job of crashing the nation into oblivion, you may have a point.

I suppose Sunak might have time to turn the supertanker around before it hits the rocks, although my money would be on a massive pollution incident.

HYUFD said:

Mexicanpete said:

swing_voter said:

TimS said:

Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.

Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair

Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron

Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak

Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson

Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss

I think you are generous to Cameron & Brown..... but like the idea (mainly agree)

I agree. Cameron resides in Box 2 until 2015 after which he firmly sits in Box 3. He was red carded mid way through the second half. Brown always was and always will be Box 3.

Home was not a weak PM if not a great one either. He left a reasonable economy in 1964 and won most seats in England against the odds in 1964 even if he lost across the UK very narrowly overall, he was also an outstanding diplomat and came back as Heath's Foreign Secretary

Home is definitely Box 3 too.

No he isn't, I would in fact put Home as the second best PM between 1955 and 1979 after MacMillan, at least in terms of foreign policy and leaving relative prosperity and stability when they left office.

Though Wilson left a longer legacy admittedly with legal homosexuality and abortion and comprehensive schools and the Open University coming when he was PM

So you pretty much only need boxes 1, which is now very crowded, 3 and 5.

Anyway I thought you wanted to replace Comprehensive Schools.

HYUFD doesn't approve of the Open University either, one is forced to conclude. Not posh enough?

The quality of the course materials that the OU provides is outstanding. The trouble nowadays is the cost of the courses, which since education tuition became a charageable affair is often prohibitive.

Notable that nobody is quibbling with Truss sitting in glitches in the matrix.

TheKitchenCabinet said:

HYUFD said:

TimS said:

Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.

Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair

Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron

Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak

Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson

Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss

Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).

Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.

Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3

I'd disagree with Callaghan in Tier 3. He gets criticised for his decision not to go to the polls early and his "Crisis, what crisis" but he was a PM with no majority, an extremely militant trade union sector but one, who by the end of his time, was showing economically better results

Tier 3 has got a bit mashed by having to introduce Tiers 4 and 5 beyond it. Major was more substantial and plausible than May or Eden. Probably on a level with Brown and Callaghan.

This is why people marking essays come up with monstrosities like C+/B- or C+?+.

TheKitchenCabinet said:

HYUFD said:

TimS said:

Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.

Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair

Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron

Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak

Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson

Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss

Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).

Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.

Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3

I'd disagree with Callaghan in Tier 3. He gets criticised for his decision not to go to the polls early and his "Crisis, what crisis" but he was a PM with no majority, an extremely militant trade union sector but one, who by the end of his time, was showing economically better results

There is perhaps a fundamental divide between PMs who made the political weather, and those who were blown about by the political weather. Some of whom floundered on the rocks of course, while others managed to salvage some of the cargo and bring a damaged, limping ship into harbour.

On which score much as I hate to admit it, Johnson manages to sit in the first camp of those who made the political weather.

Stuartinromford said:

TheKitchenCabinet said:

HYUFD said:

TimS said:

Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.

Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair

Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron

Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak

Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson

Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss

Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).

Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.

Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3

I'd disagree with Callaghan in Tier 3. He gets criticised for his decision not to go to the polls early and his "Crisis, what crisis" but he was a PM with no majority, an extremely militant trade union sector but one, who by the end of his time, was showing economically better results

Tier 3 has got a bit mashed by having to introduce Tiers 4 and 5 beyond it. Major was more substantial and plausible than May or Eden. Probably on a level with Brown and Callaghan.

This is why people marking essays come up with monstrosities like C+/B- or C+?+.

@TimS was more-or-less on the money to start with, it was only when HY got involved that every Conservative (except May and Truss) and Wilson joined Box 1.

TimS said:

TheKitchenCabinet said:

HYUFD said:

TimS said:

Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.

Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair

Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron

Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak

Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson

Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss

Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).

Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.

Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3

I'd disagree with Callaghan in Tier 3. He gets criticised for his decision not to go to the polls early and his "Crisis, what crisis" but he was a PM with no majority, an extremely militant trade union sector but one, who by the end of his time, was showing economically better results

There is perhaps a fundamental divide between PMs who made the political weather, and those who were blown about by the political weather. Some of whom floundered on the rocks of course, while others managed to salvage some of the cargo and bring a damaged, limping ship into harbour.

On which score much as I hate to admit it, Johnson manages to sit in the first camp of those who made the political weather.

That's as good an analysis as I've seen. On that metric, Brown is probably sui generis - as PM he was blown about by the weather, but it was the weather he had made as Chancellor.

Driver said:

Wulfrun_Phil said:

HYUFD said:

kinabalu said:

Well, oceans of Tory sleaze, looming Labour landslides ... if it weren't for my wizened old face in the mirror I'd think it was the 90s!

Note however Starmer only leads Sunak as preferred PM 39% to 33% in today's Ipsos.

That would give a hung parliament with the Tories over 250 seats, even if the headline voting intention gives a Labour landslide

https://twitter.com/JMagosh/status/1620018028825182208?s=20&t=WHs4TTCR8BaIiFJunOorrw

Clutching at straws.

Before the 2015 general election, with IPSOS Mori, Cameron had a net +17% advantage over Miliband in terms of satisfaction with each of them on how they were doing their jobs as PM and LOTO respectively.

On exactly the same measure, in today's IPSOS Mori poll, Starmer has a net +26% advantage over Sunak.

"Before the 2015 general election"? Does that mean "immediately before"? If so, the comparison with a midterm poll is less valid than you would like.

Edit: oh, and comparing net with net is double-counting.

It is anything but double counting. Satisfaction with Sunak is -29%, with Starmer -3%. Satisfaction with Cameron was -2%, with Miliband -19%. They are individual ratings.

Yes, those figures I quote were immediately before the 2015 general election and I accept that it's still midterm in terms of a general election now. It's not midterm though in terms of Sunak as PM. He is hardly out of his honeymoon period time wise. Sunak's ratings could improve. Initially though his satisfaction ratings have trended downwards, the same direction of overall trend as those of Johnson, May, Cameron and Major did over their first two years as PM.

Bear in mind though that I was not actually trying to use the ratings of Sunak and Starmer to debunk the opinion polls. I was replying to a post that made a risible attempt to do that. As far as I am concerned, at the moment I see nothing in the satisfaction ratings to contradict the opinion poll ratings that put Labour way out in front.

Mexicanpete said:

Stuartinromford said:

TheKitchenCabinet said:

HYUFD said:

TimS said:

Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.

Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair

Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron

Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak

Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson

Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss

Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).

Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.

Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3

I'd disagree with Callaghan in Tier 3. He gets criticised for his decision not to go to the polls early and his "Crisis, what crisis" but he was a PM with no majority, an extremely militant trade union sector but one, who by the end of his time, was showing economically better results

Tier 3 has got a bit mashed by having to introduce Tiers 4 and 5 beyond it. Major was more substantial and plausible than May or Eden. Probably on a level with Brown and Callaghan.

This is why people marking essays come up with monstrosities like C+/B- or C+?+.

@TimS was more-or-less on the money to start with, it was only when HY got involved that every Conservative (except May and Truss) and Wilson joined Box 1.

Since when was Wilson a Conservative? I also moved Tory Heath from Tier 2 to Tier 3

Carnyx said:

Mexicanpete said:

HYUFD said:

Mexicanpete said:

HYUFD said:

TimS said:

Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.

Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair

Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron

Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak

Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson

Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss

Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).

Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.

Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3

I am not sure you understand this game. Johnson is in a category all on his own. If he comes back and finishes the job of crashing the nation into oblivion, you may have a point.

I suppose Sunak might have time to turn the supertanker around before it hits the rocks, although my money would be on a massive pollution incident.

HYUFD said:

Mexicanpete said:

swing_voter said:

TimS said:

Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.

Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair

Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron

Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak

Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson

Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss

I think you are generous to Cameron & Brown..... but like the idea (mainly agree)

I agree. Cameron resides in Box 2 until 2015 after which he firmly sits in Box 3. He was red carded mid way through the second half. Brown always was and always will be Box 3.

Home was not a weak PM if not a great one either. He left a reasonable economy in 1964 and won most seats in England against the odds in 1964 even if he lost across the UK very narrowly overall, he was also an outstanding diplomat and came back as Heath's Foreign Secretary

Home is definitely Box 3 too.

No he isn't, I would in fact put Home as the second best PM between 1955 and 1979 after MacMillan, at least in terms of foreign policy and leaving relative prosperity and stability when they left office.

Though Wilson left a longer legacy admittedly with legal homosexuality and abortion and comprehensive schools and the Open University coming when he was PM

So you pretty much only need boxes 1, which is now very crowded, 3 and 5.

Anyway I thought you wanted to replace Comprehensive Schools.

HYUFD doesn't approve of the Open University either, one is forced to conclude. Not posh enough?

I approve of the Open University rather more than I approve of comprehensive schools replacing grammar schools

TheKitchenCabinet said:

HYUFD said:

TimS said:

Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.

Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair

Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron

Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak

Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson

Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss

Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).

Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.

Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3

I'd disagree with Callaghan in Tier 3. He gets criticised for his decision not to go to the polls early and his "Crisis, what crisis" but he was a PM with no majority, an extremely militant trade union sector but one, who by the end of his time, was showing economically better results

Callaghan left more strikes and higher inflation and lower growth and more inefficient industry in 1979 than Major did in 1979

TheScreamingEagles said:

Difficult this one.

The Kremlin accuses Boris Johnson of lying.

Past form suggests….

https://news.sky.com/story/amp/kremlin-dismisses-boris-johnsons-claim-vladimir-putin-threatened-to-kill-him-with-missile-in-call-ahead-of-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-12798288

who would you trust not to be lying Johnson or Putin, toss of a coin time

HYUFD said:

TheKitchenCabinet said:

HYUFD said:

TimS said:

Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.

Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair

Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron

Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak

Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson

Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss

Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).

Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.

Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3

I'd disagree with Callaghan in Tier 3. He gets criticised for his decision not to go to the polls early and his "Crisis, what crisis" but he was a PM with no majority, an extremely militant trade union sector but one, who by the end of his time, was showing economically better results

Callaghan left more strikes and higher inflation and lower growth and more inefficient industry in 1979 than Major did in 1979

I think you might have needed to proofread that.

Beibheirli_C said:

Stuartinromford said:

TimS said:

Notable that nobody is quibbling with Truss sitting in glitches in the matrix.

Pray for the history teachers yet to come, who are going to have to teach 2022 to teenagers. They're not going to believe a word of it.

It will just be seen as part of the decline of Britain during the period known as the Interregnum which occurred between the UK's memberships of the EU.

The EU won’t let us back, other than that spot on.

Just had a presentation from a company we've invested in, 45% reduction in complaints due to automation of responses for common queries using an NLP parser and pattern matching for answers. Headcount pressure eased, they were previously looking at 10 new permanent hires in their customer service division, now holding steady and team being retrained to work on better automation and macros as well as rolling out a chatbot on site and being backup to the chatbot where it's necessary to have a real person.

Very impressive metrics as well, I wonder how much the NHS and other giant public sector orgs would benefit from this kind of approach. They mentioned around 80% of incoming emails/queries had some or all of their issues resolved by the NLP bot leaving the team to actually help the 20% of more complex problems that needed real human interaction and resolution, hence the massive reduction in complaints. Most common question from end users was "I ordered X items, can I cancel/return/change some" and the NLP parser just sends along a link to the amend order page for their latest order with some nice language that someone has pre-written.

In the NHS how many person hours are wasted manually responding to this kind of stuff around appointment booking, rebooking and cancelling, or even slightly more complex issues around repeat prescriptions timing.

@Leon is right about one thing, AI should greatly improve workplace productivity as fewer and fewer manual tasks such as these are necessary. This was a fairly simple bit of NLP and pattern matching, the scope for what is possible is huge and the government must force all of the public sector to utilise AI for productivity improvement so we can start shedding jobs, improving efficiency of service delivery and cutting tax/close the deficit.

Wulfrun_Phil said:

Driver said:

Wulfrun_Phil said:

It is anything but double counting.

Sure it is.

[See what I did there, I edited out the substance of the case you made to make your point, just as you did mine. If you insist on being petty like that I will continue to follow suit.]

Oh no it isn't.

Had I quoted a 43% improvement (17%+26%), you would have been perfectly entitled to point out that the swing was only 21.5%, in terms of how of Starmer's satisfaction rating v Sunak has improved on that of Miliband compared to Cameron. But since I didn't quote any "swing", just the raw figures, you have invented a straw man.

The problem is that net satisfaction is an incomplete measure. 40/45 giving -5 is better than 30/30 giving 0. And given that nearly everyone giving one leader a positive rating will be giving the other one a negative rating, you're definitely double counting.

What are the real satisfaction figures, not the net?

Chinese Foreign Ministry re-tweeting Pfizer “scoop”.

Interesting that the US government and media keep mum about this seemingly important relevation. Apparently "truth" and "transparency" are standards that the US holds other countries to.

https://twitter.com/SpokespersonCHN/status/1620080142495240195