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It’s hard to envisage the circumstances in which Starmer doesn’t become PM – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited February 2023 in General
imageIt’s hard to envisage the circumstances in which Starmer doesn’t become PM – politicalbetting.com

I have been trying to envisage the electoral under which Starmer doesn’t become PM.

Read the full story here

«13

Comments

  • Keep Calmer and...
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    FPT:

    Both the Times and the Telegraph refer to “the Queen” rather than “the Queen Consort” on their front pages.

    Not good.

    If this is the new official style, it’s a clumsy move by Charles.
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,695
    edited February 2023
    Third-rate like the Tories in 2024
  • Yes Keir will be moving into No 10 next year! I have no great enthusiasm for this but it's happening!

    Probably with a small overall majority maybe around 30?
  • FPT:

    Both the Times and the Telegraph refer to “the Queen” rather than “the Queen Consort” on their front pages.

    Not good.

    If this is the new official style, it’s a clumsy move by Charles.

    Queen Mistress more like :lol:
  • Nigelb said:

    One for Morris Dancer ?

    John Malcovitch is appearing in a German comedy (?!) about Seneca.
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=APZEhv-3xDw

    Malkovich Malkovich?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6Fuxkinhug
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,695
    edited February 2023

    Yes Keir will be moving into No 10 next year! I have no great enthusiasm for this but it's happening!

    Probably with a small overall majority maybe around 30?

    I'd place the majority nearer to single digits. Will be 1974 all over again and I'd expect the second half of the decade to me just as miserable as the second half of the 70s lol!
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,695
    edited February 2023
    How long into the next Parliament will it be before Mike is doing daily thread headers about "Kiers Women Problem" ?

    What goes around comes around! :D
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Most likely in my view is it is 2010 in reverse and Starmer becomes PM but with Labour most seats not a majority
  • HYUFD said:

    Most likely in my view is it is 2010 in reverse and Starmer becomes PM but with Labour most seats not a majority

    That's not what the polls say 😈
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709

    HYUFD said:

    Most likely in my view is it is 2010 in reverse and Starmer becomes PM but with Labour most seats not a majority

    That's not what the polls say 😈
    In 2009 the polls said it would be a Cameron landslide
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Most likely in my view is it is 2010 in reverse and Starmer becomes PM but with Labour most seats not a majority

    That's not what the polls say 😈
    In 2009 the polls said it would be a Cameron landslide
    There's still a long way to go before the election!

    GN all 👍
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,695
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Most likely in my view is it is 2010 in reverse and Starmer becomes PM but with Labour most seats not a majority

    That's not what the polls say 😈
    In 2009 the polls said it would be a Cameron landslide
    Swwwwwwwwwiiiiiiiinnnnnnnbbbbbbbaaaaaaccccccccckkkkkk
  • FPT:

    Both the Times and the Telegraph refer to “the Queen” rather than “the Queen Consort” on their front pages.

    Not good.

    If this is the new official style, it’s a clumsy move by Charles.

    Not really. It is the norm. The wife of the King has always been called Queen. There is nothing unusual about it at all.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,787
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Most likely in my view is it is 2010 in reverse and Starmer becomes PM but with Labour most seats not a majority

    That's not what the polls say 😈
    In 2009 the polls said it would be a Cameron landslide
    That last year it felt like Peter Mandelson was single-handedly running the government.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891
    edited February 2023
    I have a feeling he'll turn out to be much more interesting than anticipated and even if he isn't he's honest and decent which will be a pleasant change. I can hardly remember what it was like to have a leader who wasn't a lying crook.

    I heard Jonathan Dimbleby say on Newsnight that the Chairman of the BBC would have to resign. It'll take a long time for Johnson's poison to dissipate from our body politic
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,695
    Roger said:

    I have a feeling he'll turn out to be much more interesting than anticipated and even if he isn't he's honest and decent which will be a pleasant change. I can hardly rememberwhat it was like to have a PM who wasn't a lying crook. I heard Jonathan Dimbleby saying on Newsnight that the Chairman of the BBC would have to resign. It'll take a long time for Johnson's poison to dissipate from our body politic

    I fear... Disappointment after disappointment after disappointment awaits Roger...
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Weirder, and weirder


    “The Pentagon is yet to recover debris from the three UFOs shot down this weekend over Alaska, Canada and Michigan and is yet to offer any kind of explanation as to what they are, how they were able to fly, or whether they pose a genuine threat to America.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11745005/Pentagon-recovered-debris-three-UFOs-shot-Alaska-Canada-Michigan.html

    ...so says that authoritative source the Daily Mail.

    The White House however has just said "there is no evidence of aliens or extra terrestrial activity".
    “so says that authoritative source the Daily Mail.“

    The Mail’s front page today shows how badly they are losing it. That arch remainers will meet in a country house and go through a PowerPoint slide pack is not a news story - that arch brexiteers like Gove joined them is a news story, but not the angle the mail is reporting on - arch remainers plot against Brexit is how they splashing it you have to read down to find the incendiary facts Gove and other leader brexiteers were there. 😆
    Brexit has really gone super-exclusive if Gove is no longer deemed a 'proper' Leaver.
    Proper Leaverdom is very loosely correlated with reality. Remainer Truss is a Proper Leaver, passionate leaver Sunak is not.
    I don't think we need such abstract concepts as personality/'connection to reality' (as defined by remainers naturally) to judge 'proper' leaverdom. Proper leavers wish us to use the flexibility afforded by Brexit for the benefit of the UK. That may involve actually repealing some EU laws, stepping away from some EU projects, tax cuts that were hitherto forbidden, institutional changes away from harmonised administration across the bloc etc. Some want all of those, some just some. A 'not-proper' leaver may speak through gritted teeth about 'the opportunities of Brexit' but will oppose any moves like those above that would make hiccoughs on the road to rejoining. That's why it is difficult to call Sunak or Gove 'proper leavers' at this time.
    Claiming Gove is not a proper leaver just because he wants to try and make things work rather than Johnson and Rees Mogg's bull in a china shop approach is just plain dumb. He is one of the few Ministers who actually tried to start doing something positive around post Brexit reforms, particularly at DEFRA. The idea that the only 'pure and proper' Brexit is one that sweeps away every last vestige of EU law in as short a time as possible is really, really stupid.
    I agree with you. I think it goes back to how the Mail were being so weird in how they covered the story. It’s not just the bull in a China shop Brexit that will satisfy all leave voters, to use your phrase, but it is the only Brexit that will satisfy the bull in the China shop brexiteers. Hence they build the story around Frosty the noman saying his Brexit deal is not a failure, it was never properly implemented is the failure. That’s the story the mail is pushing.

    The actual story is leading brexiteers and remainers are talking to each other about next steps. Don’t get me wrong, we will probably never be in EU ever again to the extent we were - but the reason for Gove and Mandleson in a next steps seminar together is because the bull in the China shop Brexit favoured by the mail is dead, it was never going to deliver, it’s going to be consigned to the dustbin forever, because they only had the one chance to make bull in China shop Brexit work, they failed, and they will never have the power for a bull in a China shop Brexit ever again, that moment has sailed.

    Hence the next steps seminar. The country moves on.

    I can't find any element of this that reflects reality. Lord Frost is very critical of his own deal, which he blames on the lack of leverage because the country wasn't able to leave without a deal.

    JRM's Retained EU law bill is actually quite carefully considered, and I cannot see any evidence for the sort of legal vacuum scenario that Richard mentions within the way the bill is planned. We have left the EU, why would we remain subject to EU law, and why would that law remain superior to parliamentary statute? That's not an extreme version of Brexit, it's the basic version as expected and understood by everyone on both sides of the Brexit debate.

    Gove has undoubted merits, but has always been a slimy toad. It is zero surprise that nobody trusts him on Brexit - it would be daft to trust him with a sharp pair of scissors.
    Ireland slipped into a bloody civil war over wether to accept a deal or not. Michael Collins led the yes to the deal faction. The labour movement split over Europe, Lord Jenkins led a labour MP faction voting for Europe membership in a crucial vote Tory Primeminister would have lost if they hadn’t. That faction become the SDP whilst Labour put Brexit into its election manifesto.

    What do I mean? Sometime during the next parliament Gove leads a faction of Tory MPs into the Labour Government lobby in a big vote on tweaking the existing Brexit deal. The Tories become split and bloody civil war over it.

    Anyone who thinks day after the next GE the cleansing is over and it’s all uphill for the Tories is utterly deluded.
    You'll be relieved to learn that I have managed to plough through one of your medium length essays. To be fair there were a few points I couldn't disagree with. But don't you think the Conservatives are like cockroaches and they will survive Armageddon?
    Maybe not a split over brexit.

    To be fair to LuckyMan, he defines brexit as no role at all for EU law - Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more - so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out worthy of Michael Collins or Lord Jenkins?

    Do you see what I mean? The Tory problems with Brexit are only just beginning, if you consider up to this time it was a vague Brexit means Brexit and will bring sunlit uplands. Now, like the split in Irish politics long ago, they have to define the basis of a Brexit deal that both honours what Brexit means and brings sunlit uplands, without splitting as a party and a voter base.

    Yes this could be the end of the Conservative Party. When you have always been fearing the darkness, no longer embracing the light you go to the raptures.
    If you want to get to heaven you first have to pass through hell...

    Sorry but fantasies about the death of the Conservative Party will prove as reliable as they did from around 1995 to 2002 and fantasies about the death of the Labour Party around 1992 and 2019.

    Sure, they're going to lose the next election but the Tories are like cockroaches... they will always survive!
    Exactly, the only way the Conservative Party ever dies is if RefUK overtakes it as the main party of the right under FPTP
    Not true HY.

    The party and voter base could pretty neatly split - just like Labour did in my example, and IRA did to leave two parties, in my example.

    Note how Labour tensions did not split the party until after the election loss.

    Also note exactly how the Tory Party splits during the next parliament had been beautifully defined for us tonight by LuckyMan.
    Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more, so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out, versus, the best Brexit deal for UK can include some small EU legal involvement only over very limited areas of the deal.

    A neat split, but a bloody one over a key point of Brexit principle. RefUK don’t even exist after this split, subsumed into the first group, yet two groups of the right and centre right fielding candidates against each other as centre left and left did in the 1980s.
    May have happened had May stayed, not now Brexit has been delivered. In fact the Conservatives will become even more like RefUK if they lose.

    In 1983 the SDP only prospered as the centre between the Thatcherite Conservative hard right and the Foot Labour hard left but under FPTP still came 3rd in 1983.

    Starmer already occupiers the centre ground so no room really for a pro EU centrist Tory party, especially under FPTP. Indeed the LDs already occupy that ground now anyway
    Totally agree with you there is no “room really for a pro EU centrist Tory party”. But that doesn’t stop splits over Europe happening does it, it didn’t in the eighties.

    I can tell you exactly why you are wrong, I can easily prove it to you. “But now Brexit has been delivered”

    Are you saying there will never be votes in House of Commons where Tory rebels join Labour in changes to the Johnson Frost Brexit deal? You are saying never? That’s where I say you have it wrong.

    And the proof comes from putting you on the spot. Which one are you?

    Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more, so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out,
    versus,
    the best Brexit deal for UK economy and business can include some small EU legal involvement only over very limited areas of the deal.

    Which one are you, you have to be one or the other? Are you with Gove and the rebels voting with Starmer (like Jenkins and crew 1973) or punching and spitting at the sell out traitors (like the Irish Civil War?)
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,695
    edited February 2023

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Weirder, and weirder


    “The Pentagon is yet to recover debris from the three UFOs shot down this weekend over Alaska, Canada and Michigan and is yet to offer any kind of explanation as to what they are, how they were able to fly, or whether they pose a genuine threat to America.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11745005/Pentagon-recovered-debris-three-UFOs-shot-Alaska-Canada-Michigan.html

    ...so says that authoritative source the Daily Mail.

    The White House however has just said "there is no evidence of aliens or extra terrestrial activity".
    “so says that authoritative source the Daily Mail.“

    The Mail’s front page today shows how badly they are losing it. That arch remainers will meet in a country house and go through a PowerPoint slide pack is not a news story - that arch brexiteers like Gove joined them is a news story, but not the angle the mail is reporting on - arch remainers plot against Brexit is how they splashing it you have to read down to find the incendiary facts Gove and other leader brexiteers were there. 😆
    Brexit has really gone super-exclusive if Gove is no longer deemed a 'proper' Leaver.
    Proper Leaverdom is very loosely correlated with reality. Remainer Truss is a Proper Leaver, passionate leaver Sunak is not.
    I don't think we need such abstract concepts as personality/'connection to reality' (as defined by remainers naturally) to judge 'proper' leaverdom. Proper leavers wish us to use the flexibility afforded by Brexit for the benefit of the UK. That may involve actually repealing some EU laws, stepping away from some EU projects, tax cuts that were hitherto forbidden, institutional changes away from harmonised administration across the bloc etc. Some want all of those, some just some. A 'not-proper' leaver may speak through gritted teeth about 'the opportunities of Brexit' but will oppose any moves like those above that would make hiccoughs on the road to rejoining. That's why it is difficult to call Sunak or Gove 'proper leavers' at this time.
    Claiming Gove is not a proper leaver just because he wants to try and make things work rather than Johnson and Rees Mogg's bull in a china shop approach is just plain dumb. He is one of the few Ministers who actually tried to start doing something positive around post Brexit reforms, particularly at DEFRA. The idea that the only 'pure and proper' Brexit is one that sweeps away every last vestige of EU law in as short a time as possible is really, really stupid.
    I agree with you. I think it goes back to how the Mail were being so weird in how they covered the story. It’s not just the bull in a China shop Brexit that will satisfy all leave voters, to use your phrase, but it is the only Brexit that will satisfy the bull in the China shop brexiteers. Hence they build the story around Frosty the noman saying his Brexit deal is not a failure, it was never properly implemented is the failure. That’s the story the mail is pushing.

    The actual story is leading brexiteers and remainers are talking to each other about next steps. Don’t get me wrong, we will probably never be in EU ever again to the extent we were - but the reason for Gove and Mandleson in a next steps seminar together is because the bull in the China shop Brexit favoured by the mail is dead, it was never going to deliver, it’s going to be consigned to the dustbin forever, because they only had the one chance to make bull in China shop Brexit work, they failed, and they will never have the power for a bull in a China shop Brexit ever again, that moment has sailed.

    Hence the next steps seminar. The country moves on.

    I can't find any element of this that reflects reality. Lord Frost is very critical of his own deal, which he blames on the lack of leverage because the country wasn't able to leave without a deal.

    JRM's Retained EU law bill is actually quite carefully considered, and I cannot see any evidence for the sort of legal vacuum scenario that Richard mentions within the way the bill is planned. We have left the EU, why would we remain subject to EU law, and why would that law remain superior to parliamentary statute? That's not an extreme version of Brexit, it's the basic version as expected and understood by everyone on both sides of the Brexit debate.

    Gove has undoubted merits, but has always been a slimy toad. It is zero surprise that nobody trusts him on Brexit - it would be daft to trust him with a sharp pair of scissors.
    Ireland slipped into a bloody civil war over wether to accept a deal or not. Michael Collins led the yes to the deal faction. The labour movement split over Europe, Lord Jenkins led a labour MP faction voting for Europe membership in a crucial vote Tory Primeminister would have lost if they hadn’t. That faction become the SDP whilst Labour put Brexit into its election manifesto.

    What do I mean? Sometime during the next parliament Gove leads a faction of Tory MPs into the Labour Government lobby in a big vote on tweaking the existing Brexit deal. The Tories become split and bloody civil war over it.

    Anyone who thinks day after the next GE the cleansing is over and it’s all uphill for the Tories is utterly deluded.
    You'll be relieved to learn that I have managed to plough through one of your medium length essays. To be fair there were a few points I couldn't disagree with. But don't you think the Conservatives are like cockroaches and they will survive Armageddon?
    Maybe not a split over brexit.

    To be fair to LuckyMan, he defines brexit as no role at all for EU law - Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more - so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out worthy of Michael Collins or Lord Jenkins?

    Do you see what I mean? The Tory problems with Brexit are only just beginning, if you consider up to this time it was a vague Brexit means Brexit and will bring sunlit uplands. Now, like the split in Irish politics long ago, they have to define the basis of a Brexit deal that both honours what Brexit means and brings sunlit uplands, without splitting as a party and a voter base.

    Yes this could be the end of the Conservative Party. When you have always been fearing the darkness, no longer embracing the light you go to the raptures.
    If you want to get to heaven you first have to pass through hell...

    Sorry but fantasies about the death of the Conservative Party will prove as reliable as they did from around 1995 to 2002 and fantasies about the death of the Labour Party around 1992 and 2019.

    Sure, they're going to lose the next election but the Tories are like cockroaches... they will always survive!
    Exactly, the only way the Conservative Party ever dies is if RefUK overtakes it as the main party of the right under FPTP
    Not true HY.

    The party and voter base could pretty neatly split - just like Labour did in my example, and IRA did to leave two parties, in my example.

    Note how Labour tensions did not split the party until after the election loss.

    Also note exactly how the Tory Party splits during the next parliament had been beautifully defined for us tonight by LuckyMan.
    Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more, so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out, versus, the best Brexit deal for UK can include some small EU legal involvement only over very limited areas of the deal.

    A neat split, but a bloody one over a key point of Brexit principle. RefUK don’t even exist after this split, subsumed into the first group, yet two groups of the right and centre right fielding candidates against each other as centre left and left did in the 1980s.
    May have happened had May stayed, not now Brexit has been delivered. In fact the Conservatives will become even more like RefUK if they lose.

    In 1983 the SDP only prospered as the centre between the Thatcherite Conservative hard right and the Foot Labour hard left but under FPTP still came 3rd in 1983.

    Starmer already occupiers the centre ground so no room really for a pro EU centrist Tory party, especially under FPTP. Indeed the LDs already occupy that ground now anyway
    Totally agree with you there is no “room really for a pro EU centrist Tory party”. But that doesn’t stop splits over Europe happening does it, it didn’t in the eighties.

    I can tell you exactly why you are wrong, I can easily prove it to you. “But now Brexit has been delivered”

    Are you saying there will never be votes in House of Commons where Tory rebels join Labour in changes to the Johnson Frost Brexit deal? You are saying never? That’s where I say you have it wrong.

    And the proof comes from putting you on the spot. Which one are you?

    Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more, so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out,
    versus,
    the best Brexit deal for UK economy and business can include some small EU legal involvement only over very limited areas of the deal.

    Which one are you, you have to be one or the other? Are you with Gove and the rebels voting with Starmer (like Jenkins and crew 1973) or punching and spitting at the sell out traitors (like the Irish Civil War?)
    My guess is that Starmer will either very minimally tinker at the edges with Brexit or will do nothing at all (which in itself will present all sorts of problems for Labour as you just know so many remainers like @Scott_xP are hanging onto Labours coat tails hoping there will be a reversal of Brexit)

    Labour will have enough problems governing with a tiny majority, no money to spend and the Unions in an increasingly hostile and militant mood to do much about Brexit...
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,280
    edited February 2023
    "By my reckoning if the Tory losses are more than 47 seats Starmer could become Prime Minister of a minority government even if his party came second on seats and had fewer votes than the Tories."

    It could be more like 57 seats under the new boundaries, which are due to be confirmed later this year.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415

    GIN1138 said:

    Good evening PB.

    Has @Leon declared whether or not an alien invasion has begun?

    If the Chinese have been doing this for years, as the sheer number reported that annually hover over Taiwan is remotely true, and only now governments and military have started taking action to these things spying on their bases in North America, then they have been asleep at the wheel and it’s a bit of a scandal.

    so what we have is a game of reaction and seen to be doing something, as they go from fast asleep to the hysterical, every backyard science project is blasted as all part of growing tensions with China.

    https://blog.jgc.org/2011/04/gaga-1-flight.html

    For me ET playing no part in this. But if China was doing this for years without political or military reaction, it’s going to become a political football for opposition politicians to score goals with.
    There is a fascinating bit of history reported in the book 'Trading with the Enemy' by Charles Higham. In the late 1930s the US military decided they wanted to have all of their bases photographed from the ground and air. They were persuaded by some well placed German- American businessmen to use the latest AGFA cameras and film and have the photos processed by General Aniline and Film - which was a subsidiary of IG Farben the huge German chemicals company. Needless top say, this meant that in 1939 Berlin ended up with photographs of all the US bases around the Pacific, copies of which were found at the end of the war in the Japanese Military Headquarters in Tokyo. The Germans even kept the originals and gave the US Government copies.

    Who needs balloons when your enemy asks you to take the photos yourselves with their blessing.
    That’s another astonishing piece of history from PB tonight.




    Actually, to counter my own argument, one of the reasons why the West haven’t turned it into a shooting match till now, could be based on if there’s any grain of truth with the laughing Chinese claiming “but you’ve been doing this yourself for years!”
  • WillGWillG Posts: 1,995
    GIN1138 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Weirder, and weirder


    “The Pentagon is yet to recover debris from the three UFOs shot down this weekend over Alaska, Canada and Michigan and is yet to offer any kind of explanation as to what they are, how they were able to fly, or whether they pose a genuine threat to America.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11745005/Pentagon-recovered-debris-three-UFOs-shot-Alaska-Canada-Michigan.html

    ...so says that authoritative source the Daily Mail.

    The White House however has just said "there is no evidence of aliens or extra terrestrial activity".
    “so says that authoritative source the Daily Mail.“

    The Mail’s front page today shows how badly they are losing it. That arch remainers will meet in a country house and go through a PowerPoint slide pack is not a news story - that arch brexiteers like Gove joined them is a news story, but not the angle the mail is reporting on - arch remainers plot against Brexit is how they splashing it you have to read down to find the incendiary facts Gove and other leader brexiteers were there. 😆
    Brexit has really gone super-exclusive if Gove is no longer deemed a 'proper' Leaver.
    Proper Leaverdom is very loosely correlated with reality. Remainer Truss is a Proper Leaver, passionate leaver Sunak is not.
    I don't think we need such abstract concepts as personality/'connection to reality' (as defined by remainers naturally) to judge 'proper' leaverdom. Proper leavers wish us to use the flexibility afforded by Brexit for the benefit of the UK. That may involve actually repealing some EU laws, stepping away from some EU projects, tax cuts that were hitherto forbidden, institutional changes away from harmonised administration across the bloc etc. Some want all of those, some just some. A 'not-proper' leaver may speak through gritted teeth about 'the opportunities of Brexit' but will oppose any moves like those above that would make hiccoughs on the road to rejoining. That's why it is difficult to call Sunak or Gove 'proper leavers' at this time.
    Claiming Gove is not a proper leaver just because he wants to try and make things work rather than Johnson and Rees Mogg's bull in a china shop approach is just plain dumb. He is one of the few Ministers who actually tried to start doing something positive around post Brexit reforms, particularly at DEFRA. The idea that the only 'pure and proper' Brexit is one that sweeps away every last vestige of EU law in as short a time as possible is really, really stupid.
    I agree with you. I think it goes back to how the Mail were being so weird in how they covered the story. It’s not just the bull in a China shop Brexit that will satisfy all leave voters, to use your phrase, but it is the only Brexit that will satisfy the bull in the China shop brexiteers. Hence they build the story around Frosty the noman saying his Brexit deal is not a failure, it was never properly implemented is the failure. That’s the story the mail is pushing.

    The actual story is leading brexiteers and remainers are talking to each other about next steps. Don’t get me wrong, we will probably never be in EU ever again to the extent we were - but the reason for Gove and Mandleson in a next steps seminar together is because the bull in the China shop Brexit favoured by the mail is dead, it was never going to deliver, it’s going to be consigned to the dustbin forever, because they only had the one chance to make bull in China shop Brexit work, they failed, and they will never have the power for a bull in a China shop Brexit ever again, that moment has sailed.

    Hence the next steps seminar. The country moves on.

    I can't find any element of this that reflects reality. Lord Frost is very critical of his own deal, which he blames on the lack of leverage because the country wasn't able to leave without a deal.

    JRM's Retained EU law bill is actually quite carefully considered, and I cannot see any evidence for the sort of legal vacuum scenario that Richard mentions within the way the bill is planned. We have left the EU, why would we remain subject to EU law, and why would that law remain superior to parliamentary statute? That's not an extreme version of Brexit, it's the basic version as expected and understood by everyone on both sides of the Brexit debate.

    Gove has undoubted merits, but has always been a slimy toad. It is zero surprise that nobody trusts him on Brexit - it would be daft to trust him with a sharp pair of scissors.
    Ireland slipped into a bloody civil war over wether to accept a deal or not. Michael Collins led the yes to the deal faction. The labour movement split over Europe, Lord Jenkins led a labour MP faction voting for Europe membership in a crucial vote Tory Primeminister would have lost if they hadn’t. That faction become the SDP whilst Labour put Brexit into its election manifesto.

    What do I mean? Sometime during the next parliament Gove leads a faction of Tory MPs into the Labour Government lobby in a big vote on tweaking the existing Brexit deal. The Tories become split and bloody civil war over it.

    Anyone who thinks day after the next GE the cleansing is over and it’s all uphill for the Tories is utterly deluded.
    You'll be relieved to learn that I have managed to plough through one of your medium length essays. To be fair there were a few points I couldn't disagree with. But don't you think the Conservatives are like cockroaches and they will survive Armageddon?
    Maybe not a split over brexit.

    To be fair to LuckyMan, he defines brexit as no role at all for EU law - Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more - so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out worthy of Michael Collins or Lord Jenkins?

    Do you see what I mean? The Tory problems with Brexit are only just beginning, if you consider up to this time it was a vague Brexit means Brexit and will bring sunlit uplands. Now, like the split in Irish politics long ago, they have to define the basis of a Brexit deal that both honours what Brexit means and brings sunlit uplands, without splitting as a party and a voter base.

    Yes this could be the end of the Conservative Party. When you have always been fearing the darkness, no longer embracing the light you go to the raptures.
    If you want to get to heaven you first have to pass through hell...

    Sorry but fantasies about the death of the Conservative Party will prove as reliable as they did from around 1995 to 2002 and fantasies about the death of the Labour Party around 1992 and 2019.

    Sure, they're going to lose the next election but the Tories are like cockroaches... they will always survive!
    Exactly, the only way the Conservative Party ever dies is if RefUK overtakes it as the main party of the right under FPTP
    Not true HY.

    The party and voter base could pretty neatly split - just like Labour did in my example, and IRA did to leave two parties, in my example.

    Note how Labour tensions did not split the party until after the election loss.

    Also note exactly how the Tory Party splits during the next parliament had been beautifully defined for us tonight by LuckyMan.
    Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more, so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out, versus, the best Brexit deal for UK can include some small EU legal involvement only over very limited areas of the deal.

    A neat split, but a bloody one over a key point of Brexit principle. RefUK don’t even exist after this split, subsumed into the first group, yet two groups of the right and centre right fielding candidates against each other as centre left and left did in the 1980s.
    May have happened had May stayed, not now Brexit has been delivered. In fact the Conservatives will become even more like RefUK if they lose.

    In 1983 the SDP only prospered as the centre between the Thatcherite Conservative hard right and the Foot Labour hard left but under FPTP still came 3rd in 1983.

    Starmer already occupiers the centre ground so no room really for a pro EU centrist Tory party, especially under FPTP. Indeed the LDs already occupy that ground now anyway
    Totally agree with you there is no “room really for a pro EU centrist Tory party”. But that doesn’t stop splits over Europe happening does it, it didn’t in the eighties.

    I can tell you exactly why you are wrong, I can easily prove it to you. “But now Brexit has been delivered”

    Are you saying there will never be votes in House of Commons where Tory rebels join Labour in changes to the Johnson Frost Brexit deal? You are saying never? That’s where I say you have it wrong.

    And the proof comes from putting you on the spot. Which one are you?

    Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more, so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out,
    versus,
    the best Brexit deal for UK economy and business can include some small EU legal involvement only over very limited areas of the deal.

    Which one are you, you have to be one or the other? Are you with Gove and the rebels voting with Starmer (like Jenkins and crew 1973) or punching and spitting at the sell out traitors (like the Irish Civil War?)
    My guess is that Starmer will either very minimally tinker at the edges with Brexit or will do nothing at all (which in itself will present all sorts of problems for Labour as you just know so many remainers like @Scott_xP are hanging onto Labours coat tails hoping there will be a reversal of Brexit)

    Labour will have enough problems governing with a tiny majority, no money to spend and the Unions in an increasingly hostile and militant mood to do much about Brexit...
    Labour are clearly going to storm the next election. But I think they have a soft underbelly on immigration. The median voter and the party activists are just too far apart. And as we have seen before, once immigration gets a bit of coverage in the press, it can touch a nerve with the British public.
  • WillGWillG Posts: 1,995

    FPT:

    Both the Times and the Telegraph refer to “the Queen” rather than “the Queen Consort” on their front pages.

    Not good.

    If this is the new official style, it’s a clumsy move by Charles.

    Not really. It is the norm. The wife of the King has always been called Queen. There is nothing unusual about it at all.
    It still leaves a bad taste in the mouth. The King's affair partner, with whom he cheated for his entire first marriage, becoming Queen.
  • WillG said:

    FPT:

    Both the Times and the Telegraph refer to “the Queen” rather than “the Queen Consort” on their front pages.

    Not good.

    If this is the new official style, it’s a clumsy move by Charles.

    Not really. It is the norm. The wife of the King has always been called Queen. There is nothing unusual about it at all.
    It still leaves a bad taste in the mouth. The King's affair partner, with whom he cheated for his entire first marriage, becoming Queen.
    Not to me it doesn't.
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,695
    WillG said:

    GIN1138 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Weirder, and weirder


    “The Pentagon is yet to recover debris from the three UFOs shot down this weekend over Alaska, Canada and Michigan and is yet to offer any kind of explanation as to what they are, how they were able to fly, or whether they pose a genuine threat to America.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11745005/Pentagon-recovered-debris-three-UFOs-shot-Alaska-Canada-Michigan.html

    ...so says that authoritative source the Daily Mail.

    The White House however has just said "there is no evidence of aliens or extra terrestrial activity".
    “so says that authoritative source the Daily Mail.“

    The Mail’s front page today shows how badly they are losing it. That arch remainers will meet in a country house and go through a PowerPoint slide pack is not a news story - that arch brexiteers like Gove joined them is a news story, but not the angle the mail is reporting on - arch remainers plot against Brexit is how they splashing it you have to read down to find the incendiary facts Gove and other leader brexiteers were there. 😆
    Brexit has really gone super-exclusive if Gove is no longer deemed a 'proper' Leaver.
    Proper Leaverdom is very loosely correlated with reality. Remainer Truss is a Proper Leaver, passionate leaver Sunak is not.
    I don't think we need such abstract concepts as personality/'connection to reality' (as defined by remainers naturally) to judge 'proper' leaverdom. Proper leavers wish us to use the flexibility afforded by Brexit for the benefit of the UK. That may involve actually repealing some EU laws, stepping away from some EU projects, tax cuts that were hitherto forbidden, institutional changes away from harmonised administration across the bloc etc. Some want all of those, some just some. A 'not-proper' leaver may speak through gritted teeth about 'the opportunities of Brexit' but will oppose any moves like those above that would make hiccoughs on the road to rejoining. That's why it is difficult to call Sunak or Gove 'proper leavers' at this time.
    Claiming Gove is not a proper leaver just because he wants to try and make things work rather than Johnson and Rees Mogg's bull in a china shop approach is just plain dumb. He is one of the few Ministers who actually tried to start doing something positive around post Brexit reforms, particularly at DEFRA. The idea that the only 'pure and proper' Brexit is one that sweeps away every last vestige of EU law in as short a time as possible is really, really stupid.
    I agree with you. I think it goes back to how the Mail were being so weird in how they covered the story. It’s not just the bull in a China shop Brexit that will satisfy all leave voters, to use your phrase, but it is the only Brexit that will satisfy the bull in the China shop brexiteers. Hence they build the story around Frosty the noman saying his Brexit deal is not a failure, it was never properly implemented is the failure. That’s the story the mail is pushing.

    The actual story is leading brexiteers and remainers are talking to each other about next steps. Don’t get me wrong, we will probably never be in EU ever again to the extent we were - but the reason for Gove and Mandleson in a next steps seminar together is because the bull in the China shop Brexit favoured by the mail is dead, it was never going to deliver, it’s going to be consigned to the dustbin forever, because they only had the one chance to make bull in China shop Brexit work, they failed, and they will never have the power for a bull in a China shop Brexit ever again, that moment has sailed.

    Hence the next steps seminar. The country moves on.

    I can't find any element of this that reflects reality. Lord Frost is very critical of his own deal, which he blames on the lack of leverage because the country wasn't able to leave without a deal.

    JRM's Retained EU law bill is actually quite carefully considered, and I cannot see any evidence for the sort of legal vacuum scenario that Richard mentions within the way the bill is planned. We have left the EU, why would we remain subject to EU law, and why would that law remain superior to parliamentary statute? That's not an extreme version of Brexit, it's the basic version as expected and understood by everyone on both sides of the Brexit debate.

    Gove has undoubted merits, but has always been a slimy toad. It is zero surprise that nobody trusts him on Brexit - it would be daft to trust him with a sharp pair of scissors.
    Ireland slipped into a bloody civil war over wether to accept a deal or not. Michael Collins led the yes to the deal faction. The labour movement split over Europe, Lord Jenkins led a labour MP faction voting for Europe membership in a crucial vote Tory Primeminister would have lost if they hadn’t. That faction become the SDP whilst Labour put Brexit into its election manifesto.

    What do I mean? Sometime during the next parliament Gove leads a faction of Tory MPs into the Labour Government lobby in a big vote on tweaking the existing Brexit deal. The Tories become split and bloody civil war over it.

    Anyone who thinks day after the next GE the cleansing is over and it’s all uphill for the Tories is utterly deluded.
    You'll be relieved to learn that I have managed to plough through one of your medium length essays. To be fair there were a few points I couldn't disagree with. But don't you think the Conservatives are like cockroaches and they will survive Armageddon?
    Maybe not a split over brexit.

    To be fair to LuckyMan, he defines brexit as no role at all for EU law - Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more - so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out worthy of Michael Collins or Lord Jenkins?

    Do you see what I mean? The Tory problems with Brexit are only just beginning, if you consider up to this time it was a vague Brexit means Brexit and will bring sunlit uplands. Now, like the split in Irish politics long ago, they have to define the basis of a Brexit deal that both honours what Brexit means and brings sunlit uplands, without splitting as a party and a voter base.

    Yes this could be the end of the Conservative Party. When you have always been fearing the darkness, no longer embracing the light you go to the raptures.
    If you want to get to heaven you first have to pass through hell...

    Sorry but fantasies about the death of the Conservative Party will prove as reliable as they did from around 1995 to 2002 and fantasies about the death of the Labour Party around 1992 and 2019.

    Sure, they're going to lose the next election but the Tories are like cockroaches... they will always survive!
    Exactly, the only way the Conservative Party ever dies is if RefUK overtakes it as the main party of the right under FPTP
    Not true HY.

    The party and voter base could pretty neatly split - just like Labour did in my example, and IRA did to leave two parties, in my example.

    Note how Labour tensions did not split the party until after the election loss.

    Also note exactly how the Tory Party splits during the next parliament had been beautifully defined for us tonight by LuckyMan.
    Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more, so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out, versus, the best Brexit deal for UK can include some small EU legal involvement only over very limited areas of the deal.

    A neat split, but a bloody one over a key point of Brexit principle. RefUK don’t even exist after this split, subsumed into the first group, yet two groups of the right and centre right fielding candidates against each other as centre left and left did in the 1980s.
    May have happened had May stayed, not now Brexit has been delivered. In fact the Conservatives will become even more like RefUK if they lose.

    In 1983 the SDP only prospered as the centre between the Thatcherite Conservative hard right and the Foot Labour hard left but under FPTP still came 3rd in 1983.

    Starmer already occupiers the centre ground so no room really for a pro EU centrist Tory party, especially under FPTP. Indeed the LDs already occupy that ground now anyway
    Totally agree with you there is no “room really for a pro EU centrist Tory party”. But that doesn’t stop splits over Europe happening does it, it didn’t in the eighties.

    I can tell you exactly why you are wrong, I can easily prove it to you. “But now Brexit has been delivered”

    Are you saying there will never be votes in House of Commons where Tory rebels join Labour in changes to the Johnson Frost Brexit deal? You are saying never? That’s where I say you have it wrong.

    And the proof comes from putting you on the spot. Which one are you?

    Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more, so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out,
    versus,
    the best Brexit deal for UK economy and business can include some small EU legal involvement only over very limited areas of the deal.

    Which one are you, you have to be one or the other? Are you with Gove and the rebels voting with Starmer (like Jenkins and crew 1973) or punching and spitting at the sell out traitors (like the Irish Civil War?)
    My guess is that Starmer will either very minimally tinker at the edges with Brexit or will do nothing at all (which in itself will present all sorts of problems for Labour as you just know so many remainers like @Scott_xP are hanging onto Labours coat tails hoping there will be a reversal of Brexit)

    Labour will have enough problems governing with a tiny majority, no money to spend and the Unions in an increasingly hostile and militant mood to do much about Brexit...
    Labour are clearly going to storm the next election.
    I'm very unsure about that. They will win the next election and form the next government but the swing they need for a majority of just 1 seat is absolutely enormous.

    Despite what the current polls are showing talk of Labour landslides and big majorities is for the birds IMO but I could be wrong.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    GIN1138 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Weirder, and weirder


    “The Pentagon is yet to recover debris from the three UFOs shot down this weekend over Alaska, Canada and Michigan and is yet to offer any kind of explanation as to what they are, how they were able to fly, or whether they pose a genuine threat to America.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11745005/Pentagon-recovered-debris-three-UFOs-shot-Alaska-Canada-Michigan.html

    ...so says that authoritative source the Daily Mail.

    The White House however has just said "there is no evidence of aliens or extra terrestrial activity".
    “so says that authoritative source the Daily Mail.“

    The Mail’s front page today shows how badly they are losing it. That arch remainers will meet in a country house and go through a PowerPoint slide pack is not a news story - that arch brexiteers like Gove joined them is a news story, but not the angle the mail is reporting on - arch remainers plot against Brexit is how they splashing it you have to read down to find the incendiary facts Gove and other leader brexiteers were there. 😆
    Brexit has really gone super-exclusive if Gove is no longer deemed a 'proper' Leaver.
    Proper Leaverdom is very loosely correlated with reality. Remainer Truss is a Proper Leaver, passionate leaver Sunak is not.
    I don't think we need such abstract concepts as personality/'connection to reality' (as defined by remainers naturally) to judge 'proper' leaverdom. Proper leavers wish us to use the flexibility afforded by Brexit for the benefit of the UK. That may involve actually repealing some EU laws, stepping away from some EU projects, tax cuts that were hitherto forbidden, institutional changes away from harmonised administration across the bloc etc. Some want all of those, some just some. A 'not-proper' leaver may speak through gritted teeth about 'the opportunities of Brexit' but will oppose any moves like those above that would make hiccoughs on the road to rejoining. That's why it is difficult to call Sunak or Gove 'proper leavers' at this time.
    Claiming Gove is not a proper leaver just because he wants to try and make things work rather than Johnson and Rees Mogg's bull in a china shop approach is just plain dumb. He is one of the few Ministers who actually tried to start doing something positive around post Brexit reforms, particularly at DEFRA. The idea that the only 'pure and proper' Brexit is one that sweeps away every last vestige of EU law in as short a time as possible is really, really stupid.
    I agree with you. I think it goes back to how the Mail were being so weird in how they covered the story. It’s not just the bull in a China shop Brexit that will satisfy all leave voters, to use your phrase, but it is the only Brexit that will satisfy the bull in the China shop brexiteers. Hence they build the story around Frosty the noman saying his Brexit deal is not a failure, it was never properly implemented is the failure. That’s the story the mail is pushing.

    The actual story is leading brexiteers and remainers are talking to each other about next steps. Don’t get me wrong, we will probably never be in EU ever again to the extent we were - but the reason for Gove and Mandleson in a next steps seminar together is because the bull in the China shop Brexit favoured by the mail is dead, it was never going to deliver, it’s going to be consigned to the dustbin forever, because they only had the one chance to make bull in China shop Brexit work, they failed, and they will never have the power for a bull in a China shop Brexit ever again, that moment has sailed.

    Hence the next steps seminar. The country moves on.

    I can't find any element of this that reflects reality. Lord Frost is very critical of his own deal, which he blames on the lack of leverage because the country wasn't able to leave without a deal.

    JRM's Retained EU law bill is actually quite carefully considered, and I cannot see any evidence for the sort of legal vacuum scenario that Richard mentions within the way the bill is planned. We have left the EU, why would we remain subject to EU law, and why would that law remain superior to parliamentary statute? That's not an extreme version of Brexit, it's the basic version as expected and understood by everyone on both sides of the Brexit debate.

    Gove has undoubted merits, but has always been a slimy toad. It is zero surprise that nobody trusts him on Brexit - it would be daft to trust him with a sharp pair of scissors.
    Ireland slipped into a bloody civil war over wether to accept a deal or not. Michael Collins led the yes to the deal faction. The labour movement split over Europe, Lord Jenkins led a labour MP faction voting for Europe membership in a crucial vote Tory Primeminister would have lost if they hadn’t. That faction become the SDP whilst Labour put Brexit into its election manifesto.

    What do I mean? Sometime during the next parliament Gove leads a faction of Tory MPs into the Labour Government lobby in a big vote on tweaking the existing Brexit deal. The Tories become split and bloody civil war over it.

    Anyone who thinks day after the next GE the cleansing is over and it’s all uphill for the Tories is utterly deluded.
    You'll be relieved to learn that I have managed to plough through one of your medium length essays. To be fair there were a few points I couldn't disagree with. But don't you think the Conservatives are like cockroaches and they will survive Armageddon?
    Maybe not a split over brexit.

    To be fair to LuckyMan, he defines brexit as no role at all for EU law - Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more - so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out worthy of Michael Collins or Lord Jenkins?

    Do you see what I mean? The Tory problems with Brexit are only just beginning, if you consider up to this time it was a vague Brexit means Brexit and will bring sunlit uplands. Now, like the split in Irish politics long ago, they have to define the basis of a Brexit deal that both honours what Brexit means and brings sunlit uplands, without splitting as a party and a voter base.

    Yes this could be the end of the Conservative Party. When you have always been fearing the darkness, no longer embracing the light you go to the raptures.
    If you want to get to heaven you first have to pass through hell...

    Sorry but fantasies about the death of the Conservative Party will prove as reliable as they did from around 1995 to 2002 and fantasies about the death of the Labour Party around 1992 and 2019.

    Sure, they're going to lose the next election but the Tories are like cockroaches... they will always survive!
    Exactly, the only way the Conservative Party ever dies is if RefUK overtakes it as the main party of the right under FPTP
    Not true HY.

    The party and voter base could pretty neatly split - just like Labour did in my example, and IRA did to leave two parties, in my example.

    Note how Labour tensions did not split the party until after the election loss.

    Also note exactly how the Tory Party splits during the next parliament had been beautifully defined for us tonight by LuckyMan.
    Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more, so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out, versus, the best Brexit deal for UK can include some small EU legal involvement only over very limited areas of the deal.

    A neat split, but a bloody one over a key point of Brexit principle. RefUK don’t even exist after this split, subsumed into the first group, yet two groups of the right and centre right fielding candidates against each other as centre left and left did in the 1980s.
    May have happened had May stayed, not now Brexit has been delivered. In fact the Conservatives will become even more like RefUK if they lose.

    In 1983 the SDP only prospered as the centre between the Thatcherite Conservative hard right and the Foot Labour hard left but under FPTP still came 3rd in 1983.

    Starmer already occupiers the centre ground so no room really for a pro EU centrist Tory party, especially under FPTP. Indeed the LDs already occupy that ground now anyway
    Totally agree with you there is no “room really for a pro EU centrist Tory party”. But that doesn’t stop splits over Europe happening does it, it didn’t in the eighties.

    I can tell you exactly why you are wrong, I can easily prove it to you. “But now Brexit has been delivered”

    Are you saying there will never be votes in House of Commons where Tory rebels join Labour in changes to the Johnson Frost Brexit deal? You are saying never? That’s where I say you have it wrong.

    And the proof comes from putting you on the spot. Which one are you?

    Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more, so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out,
    versus,
    the best Brexit deal for UK economy and business can include some small EU legal involvement only over very limited areas of the deal.

    Which one are you, you have to be one or the other? Are you with Gove and the rebels voting with Starmer (like Jenkins and crew 1973) or punching and spitting at the sell out traitors (like the Irish Civil War?)
    My guess is that Starmer will either very minimally tinker at the edges with Brexit or will do nothing at all (which in itself will present all sorts of problems for Labour as you just know so many remainers like @Scott_xP are hanging onto Labours coat tails hoping there will be a reversal of Brexit)

    Labour will have enough problems governing with a tiny majority, no money to spend and the Unions in an increasingly hostile and militant mood to do much about Brexit...
    So which side are you on when the inevitable vote does come, turning a Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more, so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out, deal of Johnson Frost, into the best Brexit deal for UK economy and business can include some small EU legal involvement only over very limited areas of the deal of Mandleson Gove? With the Tory rebel splitters or against them?
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    GIN1138 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Most likely in my view is it is 2010 in reverse and Starmer becomes PM but with Labour most seats not a majority

    That's not what the polls say 😈
    In 2009 the polls said it would be a Cameron landslide
    Swwwwwwwwwiiiiiiiinnnnnnnbbbbbbbaaaaaaccccccccckkkkkk
    and you forgot the g.
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,695
    edited February 2023

    GIN1138 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Weirder, and weirder


    “The Pentagon is yet to recover debris from the three UFOs shot down this weekend over Alaska, Canada and Michigan and is yet to offer any kind of explanation as to what they are, how they were able to fly, or whether they pose a genuine threat to America.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11745005/Pentagon-recovered-debris-three-UFOs-shot-Alaska-Canada-Michigan.html

    ...so says that authoritative source the Daily Mail.

    The White House however has just said "there is no evidence of aliens or extra terrestrial activity".
    “so says that authoritative source the Daily Mail.“

    The Mail’s front page today shows how badly they are losing it. That arch remainers will meet in a country house and go through a PowerPoint slide pack is not a news story - that arch brexiteers like Gove joined them is a news story, but not the angle the mail is reporting on - arch remainers plot against Brexit is how they splashing it you have to read down to find the incendiary facts Gove and other leader brexiteers were there. 😆
    Brexit has really gone super-exclusive if Gove is no longer deemed a 'proper' Leaver.
    Proper Leaverdom is very loosely correlated with reality. Remainer Truss is a Proper Leaver, passionate leaver Sunak is not.
    I don't think we need such abstract concepts as personality/'connection to reality' (as defined by remainers naturally) to judge 'proper' leaverdom. Proper leavers wish us to use the flexibility afforded by Brexit for the benefit of the UK. That may involve actually repealing some EU laws, stepping away from some EU projects, tax cuts that were hitherto forbidden, institutional changes away from harmonised administration across the bloc etc. Some want all of those, some just some. A 'not-proper' leaver may speak through gritted teeth about 'the opportunities of Brexit' but will oppose any moves like those above that would make hiccoughs on the road to rejoining. That's why it is difficult to call Sunak or Gove 'proper leavers' at this time.
    Claiming Gove is not a proper leaver just because he wants to try and make things work rather than Johnson and Rees Mogg's bull in a china shop approach is just plain dumb. He is one of the few Ministers who actually tried to start doing something positive around post Brexit reforms, particularly at DEFRA. The idea that the only 'pure and proper' Brexit is one that sweeps away every last vestige of EU law in as short a time as possible is really, really stupid.
    I agree with you. I think it goes back to how the Mail were being so weird in how they covered the story. It’s not just the bull in a China shop Brexit that will satisfy all leave voters, to use your phrase, but it is the only Brexit that will satisfy the bull in the China shop brexiteers. Hence they build the story around Frosty the noman saying his Brexit deal is not a failure, it was never properly implemented is the failure. That’s the story the mail is pushing.

    The actual story is leading brexiteers and remainers are talking to each other about next steps. Don’t get me wrong, we will probably never be in EU ever again to the extent we were - but the reason for Gove and Mandleson in a next steps seminar together is because the bull in the China shop Brexit favoured by the mail is dead, it was never going to deliver, it’s going to be consigned to the dustbin forever, because they only had the one chance to make bull in China shop Brexit work, they failed, and they will never have the power for a bull in a China shop Brexit ever again, that moment has sailed.

    Hence the next steps seminar. The country moves on.

    I can't find any element of this that reflects reality. Lord Frost is very critical of his own deal, which he blames on the lack of leverage because the country wasn't able to leave without a deal.

    JRM's Retained EU law bill is actually quite carefully considered, and I cannot see any evidence for the sort of legal vacuum scenario that Richard mentions within the way the bill is planned. We have left the EU, why would we remain subject to EU law, and why would that law remain superior to parliamentary statute? That's not an extreme version of Brexit, it's the basic version as expected and understood by everyone on both sides of the Brexit debate.

    Gove has undoubted merits, but has always been a slimy toad. It is zero surprise that nobody trusts him on Brexit - it would be daft to trust him with a sharp pair of scissors.
    Ireland slipped into a bloody civil war over wether to accept a deal or not. Michael Collins led the yes to the deal faction. The labour movement split over Europe, Lord Jenkins led a labour MP faction voting for Europe membership in a crucial vote Tory Primeminister would have lost if they hadn’t. That faction become the SDP whilst Labour put Brexit into its election manifesto.

    What do I mean? Sometime during the next parliament Gove leads a faction of Tory MPs into the Labour Government lobby in a big vote on tweaking the existing Brexit deal. The Tories become split and bloody civil war over it.

    Anyone who thinks day after the next GE the cleansing is over and it’s all uphill for the Tories is utterly deluded.
    You'll be relieved to learn that I have managed to plough through one of your medium length essays. To be fair there were a few points I couldn't disagree with. But don't you think the Conservatives are like cockroaches and they will survive Armageddon?
    Maybe not a split over brexit.

    To be fair to LuckyMan, he defines brexit as no role at all for EU law - Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more - so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out worthy of Michael Collins or Lord Jenkins?

    Do you see what I mean? The Tory problems with Brexit are only just beginning, if you consider up to this time it was a vague Brexit means Brexit and will bring sunlit uplands. Now, like the split in Irish politics long ago, they have to define the basis of a Brexit deal that both honours what Brexit means and brings sunlit uplands, without splitting as a party and a voter base.

    Yes this could be the end of the Conservative Party. When you have always been fearing the darkness, no longer embracing the light you go to the raptures.
    If you want to get to heaven you first have to pass through hell...

    Sorry but fantasies about the death of the Conservative Party will prove as reliable as they did from around 1995 to 2002 and fantasies about the death of the Labour Party around 1992 and 2019.

    Sure, they're going to lose the next election but the Tories are like cockroaches... they will always survive!
    Exactly, the only way the Conservative Party ever dies is if RefUK overtakes it as the main party of the right under FPTP
    Not true HY.

    The party and voter base could pretty neatly split - just like Labour did in my example, and IRA did to leave two parties, in my example.

    Note how Labour tensions did not split the party until after the election loss.

    Also note exactly how the Tory Party splits during the next parliament had been beautifully defined for us tonight by LuckyMan.
    Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more, so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out, versus, the best Brexit deal for UK can include some small EU legal involvement only over very limited areas of the deal.

    A neat split, but a bloody one over a key point of Brexit principle. RefUK don’t even exist after this split, subsumed into the first group, yet two groups of the right and centre right fielding candidates against each other as centre left and left did in the 1980s.
    May have happened had May stayed, not now Brexit has been delivered. In fact the Conservatives will become even more like RefUK if they lose.

    In 1983 the SDP only prospered as the centre between the Thatcherite Conservative hard right and the Foot Labour hard left but under FPTP still came 3rd in 1983.

    Starmer already occupiers the centre ground so no room really for a pro EU centrist Tory party, especially under FPTP. Indeed the LDs already occupy that ground now anyway
    Totally agree with you there is no “room really for a pro EU centrist Tory party”. But that doesn’t stop splits over Europe happening does it, it didn’t in the eighties.

    I can tell you exactly why you are wrong, I can easily prove it to you. “But now Brexit has been delivered”

    Are you saying there will never be votes in House of Commons where Tory rebels join Labour in changes to the Johnson Frost Brexit deal? You are saying never? That’s where I say you have it wrong.

    And the proof comes from putting you on the spot. Which one are you?

    Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more, so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out,
    versus,
    the best Brexit deal for UK economy and business can include some small EU legal involvement only over very limited areas of the deal.

    Which one are you, you have to be one or the other? Are you with Gove and the rebels voting with Starmer (like Jenkins and crew 1973) or punching and spitting at the sell out traitors (like the Irish Civil War?)
    My guess is that Starmer will either very minimally tinker at the edges with Brexit or will do nothing at all (which in itself will present all sorts of problems for Labour as you just know so many remainers like @Scott_xP are hanging onto Labours coat tails hoping there will be a reversal of Brexit)

    Labour will have enough problems governing with a tiny majority, no money to spend and the Unions in an increasingly hostile and militant mood to do much about Brexit...
    So which side are you on when the inevitable vote does come, turning a Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more, so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out, deal of Johnson Frost, into the best Brexit deal for UK economy and business can include some small EU legal involvement only over very limited areas of the deal of Mandleson Gove? With the Tory rebel splitters or against them?
    Honestly, I couldn't really care less about Brexit any more. I've moved on.

    The referendum result was delivered after the 2019 Con landslide after the outrage of the 2017-19 parliament trying to subvert democracy. What happens after that with Britain's future relationship with the EU remains to be seen (at the outset, in 2016, I'd have been happy with "Norway" so that should tell you what I think)

    But if you're expecting Brexit to split the Tories and keep them out of power/Labour in power "forever" I think you're gonna be disappointed.

    Just my opinion. Could be wrong.
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,695
    edited February 2023
    Dura_Ace said:

    GIN1138 said:


    Labour will have enough problems governing with a tiny majority, no money to spend and the Unions in an increasingly hostile and militant mood to do much about Brexit...

    Starmer could engineer some favourable economic winds and the support of business by going back into the single market though so that must be tempting. He just has to ensure he doesn't enrage the blood and soil leavers too much before the election.
    I mean he could do.

    It seems pretty far fetched that he'd do that while lurching from crisis to crisis with virtually no majority but who knows?

    If we end up like Norway I wouldn't mind personally... I just can't see it happening (not in the next Parliament anyway)
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    GIN1138 said:

    GIN1138 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Weirder, and weirder


    “The Pentagon is yet to recover debris from the three UFOs shot down this weekend over Alaska, Canada and Michigan and is yet to offer any kind of explanation as to what they are, how they were able to fly, or whether they pose a genuine threat to America.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11745005/Pentagon-recovered-debris-three-UFOs-shot-Alaska-Canada-Michigan.html

    ...so says that authoritative source the Daily Mail.

    The White House however has just said "there is no evidence of aliens or extra terrestrial activity".
    “so says that authoritative source the Daily Mail.“

    The Mail’s front page today shows how badly they are losing it. That arch remainers will meet in a country house and go through a PowerPoint slide pack is not a news story - that arch brexiteers like Gove joined them is a news story, but not the angle the mail is reporting on - arch remainers plot against Brexit is how they splashing it you have to read down to find the incendiary facts Gove and other leader brexiteers were there. 😆
    Brexit has really gone super-exclusive if Gove is no longer deemed a 'proper' Leaver.
    Proper Leaverdom is very loosely correlated with reality. Remainer Truss is a Proper Leaver, passionate leaver Sunak is not.
    I don't think we need such abstract concepts as personality/'connection to reality' (as defined by remainers naturally) to judge 'proper' leaverdom. Proper leavers wish us to use the flexibility afforded by Brexit for the benefit of the UK. That may involve actually repealing some EU laws, stepping away from some EU projects, tax cuts that were hitherto forbidden, institutional changes away from harmonised administration across the bloc etc. Some want all of those, some just some. A 'not-proper' leaver may speak through gritted teeth about 'the opportunities of Brexit' but will oppose any moves like those above that would make hiccoughs on the road to rejoining. That's why it is difficult to call Sunak or Gove 'proper leavers' at this time.
    Claiming Gove is not a proper leaver just because he wants to try and make things work rather than Johnson and Rees Mogg's bull in a china shop approach is just plain dumb. He is one of the few Ministers who actually tried to start doing something positive around post Brexit reforms, particularly at DEFRA. The idea that the only 'pure and proper' Brexit is one that sweeps away every last vestige of EU law in as short a time as possible is really, really stupid.
    I agree with you. I think it goes back to how the Mail were being so weird in how they covered the story. It’s not just the bull in a China shop Brexit that will satisfy all leave voters, to use your phrase, but it is the only Brexit that will satisfy the bull in the China shop brexiteers. Hence they build the story around Frosty the noman saying his Brexit deal is not a failure, it was never properly implemented is the failure. That’s the story the mail is pushing.

    The actual story is leading brexiteers and remainers are talking to each other about next steps. Don’t get me wrong, we will probably never be in EU ever again to the extent we were - but the reason for Gove and Mandleson in a next steps seminar together is because the bull in the China shop Brexit favoured by the mail is dead, it was never going to deliver, it’s going to be consigned to the dustbin forever, because they only had the one chance to make bull in China shop Brexit work, they failed, and they will never have the power for a bull in a China shop Brexit ever again, that moment has sailed.

    Hence the next steps seminar. The country moves on.

    I can't find any element of this that reflects reality. Lord Frost is very critical of his own deal, which he blames on the lack of leverage because the country wasn't able to leave without a deal.

    JRM's Retained EU law bill is actually quite carefully considered, and I cannot see any evidence for the sort of legal vacuum scenario that Richard mentions within the way the bill is planned. We have left the EU, why would we remain subject to EU law, and why would that law remain superior to parliamentary statute? That's not an extreme version of Brexit, it's the basic version as expected and understood by everyone on both sides of the Brexit debate.

    Gove has undoubted merits, but has always been a slimy toad. It is zero surprise that nobody trusts him on Brexit - it would be daft to trust him with a sharp pair of scissors.
    Ireland slipped into a bloody civil war over wether to accept a deal or not. Michael Collins led the yes to the deal faction. The labour movement split over Europe, Lord Jenkins led a labour MP faction voting for Europe membership in a crucial vote Tory Primeminister would have lost if they hadn’t. That faction become the SDP whilst Labour put Brexit into its election manifesto.

    What do I mean? Sometime during the next parliament Gove leads a faction of Tory MPs into the Labour Government lobby in a big vote on tweaking the existing Brexit deal. The Tories become split and bloody civil war over it.

    Anyone who thinks day after the next GE the cleansing is over and it’s all uphill for the Tories is utterly deluded.
    You'll be relieved to learn that I have managed to plough through one of your medium length essays. To be fair there were a few points I couldn't disagree with. But don't you think the Conservatives are like cockroaches and they will survive Armageddon?
    Maybe not a split over brexit.

    To be fair to LuckyMan, he defines brexit as no role at all for EU law - Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more - so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out worthy of Michael Collins or Lord Jenkins?

    Do you see what I mean? The Tory problems with Brexit are only just beginning, if you consider up to this time it was a vague Brexit means Brexit and will bring sunlit uplands. Now, like the split in Irish politics long ago, they have to define the basis of a Brexit deal that both honours what Brexit means and brings sunlit uplands, without splitting as a party and a voter base.

    Yes this could be the end of the Conservative Party. When you have always been fearing the darkness, no longer embracing the light you go to the raptures.
    If you want to get to heaven you first have to pass through hell...

    Sorry but fantasies about the death of the Conservative Party will prove as reliable as they did from around 1995 to 2002 and fantasies about the death of the Labour Party around 1992 and 2019.

    Sure, they're going to lose the next election but the Tories are like cockroaches... they will always survive!
    Exactly, the only way the Conservative Party ever dies is if RefUK overtakes it as the main party of the right under FPTP
    Not true HY.

    The party and voter base could pretty neatly split - just like Labour did in my example, and IRA did to leave two parties, in my example.

    Note how Labour tensions did not split the party until after the election loss.

    Also note exactly how the Tory Party splits during the next parliament had been beautifully defined for us tonight by LuckyMan.
    Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more, so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out, versus, the best Brexit deal for UK can include some small EU legal involvement only over very limited areas of the deal.

    A neat split, but a bloody one over a key point of Brexit principle. RefUK don’t even exist after this split, subsumed into the first group, yet two groups of the right and centre right fielding candidates against each other as centre left and left did in the 1980s.
    May have happened had May stayed, not now Brexit has been delivered. In fact the Conservatives will become even more like RefUK if they lose.

    In 1983 the SDP only prospered as the centre between the Thatcherite Conservative hard right and the Foot Labour hard left but under FPTP still came 3rd in 1983.

    Starmer already occupiers the centre ground so no room really for a pro EU centrist Tory party, especially under FPTP. Indeed the LDs already occupy that ground now anyway
    Totally agree with you there is no “room really for a pro EU centrist Tory party”. But that doesn’t stop splits over Europe happening does it, it didn’t in the eighties.

    I can tell you exactly why you are wrong, I can easily prove it to you. “But now Brexit has been delivered”

    Are you saying there will never be votes in House of Commons where Tory rebels join Labour in changes to the Johnson Frost Brexit deal? You are saying never? That’s where I say you have it wrong.

    And the proof comes from putting you on the spot. Which one are you?

    Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more, so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out,
    versus,
    the best Brexit deal for UK economy and business can include some small EU legal involvement only over very limited areas of the deal.

    Which one are you, you have to be one or the other? Are you with Gove and the rebels voting with Starmer (like Jenkins and crew 1973) or punching and spitting at the sell out traitors (like the Irish Civil War?)
    My guess is that Starmer will either very minimally tinker at the edges with Brexit or will do nothing at all (which in itself will present all sorts of problems for Labour as you just know so many remainers like @Scott_xP are hanging onto Labours coat tails hoping there will be a reversal of Brexit)

    Labour will have enough problems governing with a tiny majority, no money to spend and the Unions in an increasingly hostile and militant mood to do much about Brexit...
    So which side are you on when the inevitable vote does come, turning a Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more, so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out, deal of Johnson Frost, into the best Brexit deal for UK economy and business can include some small EU legal involvement only over very limited areas of the deal of Mandleson Gove? With the Tory rebel splitters or against them?
    Honestly, I couldn't really care less about Brexit any more. I've moved on.

    The referendum result was delivered after the 2019 Con landslide after the outrage of the 2017-19 parliament trying to subvert democracy. What happens after that with Britain's future relationship with the EU remains to be seen (at the outset, in 2016, I'd have been happy with "Norway" so that should tell you what I think)

    But if you're expecting Brexit to split the Tories and keep them out of power/Labour in power forever I think you're gonna be disappointed.

    Just my opinion. Could be wrong.
    I never said Labour would be in forever! That’s crazy talk.

    But a Tory Brexit split could keep them in there for eighteen years (there’s precedent) whilst one of the two former Conservative Party groupings devours the other.

    It’s interesting coy response I’m getting to the “LuckyMan” question. ‘Brexits done. All in the past now. No threat to the Tories. I don’t need to answer your silly forced question.”

    The day shall come. Why do I have the suspicion most PB Tory Brexiteers will come out for Gove and the rebels, and applaud them into the Labour Lobby? 🤔
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,695



    I never said Labour would be in forever! That’s crazy talk.

    But a Tory Brexit split could keep them in there for eighteen years (there’s precedent) whilst one of the two former Conservative Party groupings devours the other.

    It’s interesting coy response I’m getting to the “LuckyMan” question. ‘Brexits done. All in the past now. No threat to the Tories. I don’t need to answer your silly forced question.”

    The day shall come. Why do I have the suspicion most PB Tory Brexiteers will come out for Gove and the rebels, and applaud them into the Labour Lobby? 🤔

    It all remains to be seen. The 2024-2029 Parliament is going to be interesting to say the least.
  • On election night 2015, Ed Miliband went to bed expecting to wake up as Prime Minister.
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,695
    edited February 2023

    On election night 2015, Ed Miliband went to bed expecting to wake up as Prime Minister.

    Did he?

    The exit poll was clear that the Tories were on the cusp of being the largest party (if not having an overall majority) while Labour was a long way behind with the Lib-Dems facing meltdown and Labour facing total oblivion to the SNP in Scotland.

    So at 10pm the writing was on the Edstone lol.

    That said, I get what you're saying. We're a long way from the election and a lot can happen. Maybe we'll have an alien invasion... that would probably be regarded as "events dear boy" and change the narrative hahahaha!

    Night PB :D
  • DJ41aDJ41a Posts: 174
    edited February 2023
    PB herds towards lumping on Labour, and not just on Labour but on Starmer at 1/4.
    One answer to the implied question in the header is if the Tories keep their majority. They do that by bigging up immigration. If necessary they can ditch no.4 in a row of their own leaders. The last one who went of his own accord was David Cameron.
    GIN1138 said:

    On election night 2015, Ed Miliband went to bed expecting to wake up as Prime Minister.

    Did he?

    The exit poll was clear that the Tories were on the cusp of being the largest party (if not having an overall majority) while Labour was a long way behind with the Lib-Dems facing meltdown and Labour facing total oblivion to the SNP in Scotland.

    So at 10pm the writing was on the Edstone lol.

    That said, I get what you're saying. We're a long way from the election and a lot can happen. Maybe we'll have an alien invasion... that would probably be regarded as "events dear boy" and change the narrative hahahaha!
    Indeed. Or WW3. Or an economic catastrophe. Anyone who lumps on the favourite when things are so volatile is taking a bigger risk than they think.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,280

    On election night 2015, Ed Miliband went to bed expecting to wake up as Prime Minister.

    Metaphorically he might have done. In reality, he was spending all night at the Doncaster North election count.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    Andy_JS said:

    On election night 2015, Ed Miliband went to bed expecting to wake up as Prime Minister.

    Metaphorically he might have done. In reality, he was spending all night at the Doncaster North election count.
    Just what I was thinking.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    GIN1138 said:

    Yes Keir will be moving into No 10 next year! I have no great enthusiasm for this but it's happening!

    Probably with a small overall majority maybe around 30?

    I'd place the majority nearer to single digits. Will be 1974 all over again and I'd expect the second half of the decade to me just as miserable as the second half of the 70s lol!
    The second half the 70s saw the Bee Gees release How Deep is Your Love.

    It saw government debt drop from around 50% of GDP to under 40%.
  • Two thoughts...

    1 A corollary of "It's hard to see the circumstances in which Starmer doesn't become PM" is "It's hard to see the circumstances in which Rayner doesn't become Deputy PM".

    2 Would Starmer offer Sturgeon IndyRef2 for a coalition? My guess is "No" (not least because it will vindicate the attack lines the Tories will surely wheel out increasingly over the next 23 months). If Labour can't patch a majority together -- and without the SNP that's entirely feasible -- then wouldn't Sunak form a minority administration (if the Tories had most seats and most votes it would be hard to justify a Starmer minority administration over a Sunak one).

    I guess my point it that the SNP will feel far less obliged to act in the (UK's) national interest than the 2010 Lib Dems did. The Lib Dems were desperate for power, and Cameron offered them that. The SNP will be desperate for a referendum, but that may not be on the table. And in those circumstances, I *can* see Starmer not getting the keys to No. 10.

    I'm not a betting man (I married a Methodist) but 80% therefore seems about right to me.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069
    I see Starmer having a comfortable majority and the Tories on between 100 and 200 seats, probably at the lower end of that range. I cannot see anything likely to revive Sunak, and black swans are more likely to make things worse for him than better. The writing is on the wall.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,585
    GIN1138 said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    GIN1138 said:


    Labour will have enough problems governing with a tiny majority, no money to spend and the Unions in an increasingly hostile and militant mood to do much about Brexit...

    Starmer could engineer some favourable economic winds and the support of business by going back into the single market though so that must be tempting. He just has to ensure he doesn't enrage the blood and soil leavers too much before the election.
    I mean he could do.

    It seems pretty far fetched that he'd do that while lurching from crisis to crisis with virtually no majority but who knows?

    If we end up like Norway I wouldn't mind personally... I just can't see it happening (not in the next Parliament anyway)
    So the Starmer premiership is disastrous? Best we stick with the experienced "I got all the big calls right" steady-as-she-goes Johnson then.

    It's going to be 1992 all over again so I guess we'll never know how bad Starmer would have been anyway.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    ‘Significant’ debris from China spy balloon retrieved, says US military
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/13/biden-ufo-shot-down-michigan-flying-objects
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    1800 weather balloons are launched every day.

    What is ‘sky trash’ and is it linked to the mystery objects shot down by US?
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/14/what-is-sky-trash-and-is-it-linked-to-the-mystery-objects-shot-down-by-us
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    Interesting.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/feb/13/what-exactly-was-michael-gove-doing-at-a-secret-brexit-summit
    ...Gove is said to still believe the Conservatives have a chance at the next election and has stressed to colleagues that delivering on housing and levelling up will be two key deciders – in “red wall” seats that voted Tory for the first time and in winning over voters under 50, for whom housing is a major issue.

    He is stymied hugely by the nimbys in his own party, to whom the government caved over housing targets – but his current focus is the quality of housing stock, including building safety and the state of social housing.

    Last week, he was offered the opportunity in the mini-reshuffle to move to the helm of the new science department, but opted to stay at the DLUHC. If Gove’s optimism is misplaced, and he has just two years left in government, perhaps it is easier to secure a personal legacy with bricks and mortar than gene editing or AI.
  • Dura_Ace said:

    GIN1138 said:


    Labour will have enough problems governing with a tiny majority, no money to spend and the Unions in an increasingly hostile and militant mood to do much about Brexit...

    Starmer could engineer some favourable economic winds and the support of business by going back into the single market though so that must be tempting. He just has to ensure he doesn't enrage the blood and soil leavers too much before the election.
    Yes, it's very clear that Starmer is lying about what be intends to do post election.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    DJ41a said:

    PB herds towards lumping on Labour, and not just on Labour but on Starmer at 1/4.
    One answer to the implied question in the header is if the Tories keep their majority. They do that by bigging up immigration. If necessary they can ditch no.4 in a row of their own leaders. The last one who went of his own accord was David Cameron.

    GIN1138 said:

    On election night 2015, Ed Miliband went to bed expecting to wake up as Prime Minister.

    Did he?

    The exit poll was clear that the Tories were on the cusp of being the largest party (if not having an overall majority) while Labour was a long way behind with the Lib-Dems facing meltdown and Labour facing total oblivion to the SNP in Scotland.

    So at 10pm the writing was on the Edstone lol.

    That said, I get what you're saying. We're a long way from the election and a lot can happen. Maybe we'll have an alien invasion... that would probably be regarded as "events dear boy" and change the narrative hahahaha!
    Indeed. Or WW3. Or an economic catastrophe. Anyone who lumps on the favourite when things are so volatile is taking a bigger risk than they think.
    I don't think immigration can save the Tories.
    Recent comment on Talk (No fans of Labour) do point out they used to send more people back.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Most likely in my view is it is 2010 in reverse and Starmer becomes PM but with Labour most seats not a majority

    That's not what the polls say 😈
    In 2009 the polls said it would be a Cameron landslide
    That last year it felt like Peter Mandelson was single-handedly running the government.
    Agreed. He kept the show on the road whilst Brown had his meltdown. The inside story of that period is still to come out in my view.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    Well, I don't know about you lot, but I can easily envisage scenarios where Starmer does not become Prime Minister.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    rcs1000 said:

    Well, I don't know about you lot, but I can easily envisage scenarios where Starmer does not become Prime Minister.

    For example ?
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891
    GIN1138 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Weirder, and weirder


    “The Pentagon is yet to recover debris from the three UFOs shot down this weekend over Alaska, Canada and Michigan and is yet to offer any kind of explanation as to what they are, how they were able to fly, or whether they pose a genuine threat to America.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11745005/Pentagon-recovered-debris-three-UFOs-shot-Alaska-Canada-Michigan.html

    ...so says that authoritative source the Daily Mail.

    The White House however has just said "there is no evidence of aliens or extra terrestrial activity".
    “so says that authoritative source the Daily Mail.“

    The Mail’s front page today shows how badly they are losing it. That arch remainers will meet in a country house and go through a PowerPoint slide pack is not a news story - that arch brexiteers like Gove joined them is a news story, but not the angle the mail is reporting on - arch remainers plot against Brexit is how they splashing it you have to read down to find the incendiary facts Gove and other leader brexiteers were there. 😆
    Brexit has really gone super-exclusive if Gove is no longer deemed a 'proper' Leaver.
    Proper Leaverdom is very loosely correlated with reality. Remainer Truss is a Proper Leaver, passionate leaver Sunak is not.
    I don't think we need such abstract concepts as personality/'connection to reality' (as defined by remainers naturally) to judge 'proper' leaverdom. Proper leavers wish us to use the flexibility afforded by Brexit for the benefit of the UK. That may involve actually repealing some EU laws, stepping away from some EU projects, tax cuts that were hitherto forbidden, institutional changes away from harmonised administration across the bloc etc. Some want all of those, some just some. A 'not-proper' leaver may speak through gritted teeth about 'the opportunities of Brexit' but will oppose any moves like those above that would make hiccoughs on the road to rejoining. That's why it is difficult to call Sunak or Gove 'proper leavers' at this time.
    Claiming Gove is not a proper leaver just because he wants to try and make things work rather than Johnson and Rees Mogg's bull in a china shop approach is just plain dumb. He is one of the few Ministers who actually tried to start doing something positive around post Brexit reforms, particularly at DEFRA. The idea that the only 'pure and proper' Brexit is one that sweeps away every last vestige of EU law in as short a time as possible is really, really stupid.
    I agree with you. I think it goes back to how the Mail were being so weird in how they covered the story. It’s not just the bull in a China shop Brexit that will satisfy all leave voters, to use your phrase, but it is the only Brexit that will satisfy the bull in the China shop brexiteers. Hence they build the story around Frosty the noman saying his Brexit deal is not a failure, it was never properly implemented is the failure. That’s the story the mail is pushing.

    The actual story is leading brexiteers and remainers are talking to each other about next steps. Don’t get me wrong, we will probably never be in EU ever again to the extent we were - but the reason for Gove and Mandleson in a next steps seminar together is because the bull in the China shop Brexit favoured by the mail is dead, it was never going to deliver, it’s going to be consigned to the dustbin forever, because they only had the one chance to make bull in China shop Brexit work, they failed, and they will never have the power for a bull in a China shop Brexit ever again, that moment has sailed.

    Hence the next steps seminar. The country moves on.

    I can't find any element of this that reflects reality. Lord Frost is very critical of his own deal, which he blames on the lack of leverage because the country wasn't able to leave without a deal.

    JRM's Retained EU law bill is actually quite carefully considered, and I cannot see any evidence for the sort of legal vacuum scenario that Richard mentions within the way the bill is planned. We have left the EU, why would we remain subject to EU law, and why would that law remain superior to parliamentary statute? That's not an extreme version of Brexit, it's the basic version as expected and understood by everyone on both sides of the Brexit debate.

    Gove has undoubted merits, but has always been a slimy toad. It is zero surprise that nobody trusts him on Brexit - it would be daft to trust him with a sharp pair of scissors.
    Ireland slipped into a bloody civil war over wether to accept a deal or not. Michael Collins led the yes to the deal faction. The labour movement split over Europe, Lord Jenkins led a labour MP faction voting for Europe membership in a crucial vote Tory Primeminister would have lost if they hadn’t. That faction become the SDP whilst Labour put Brexit into its election manifesto.

    What do I mean? Sometime during the next parliament Gove leads a faction of Tory MPs into the Labour Government lobby in a big vote on tweaking the existing Brexit deal. The Tories become split and bloody civil war over it.

    Anyone who thinks day after the next GE the cleansing is over and it’s all uphill for the Tories is utterly deluded.
    You'll be relieved to learn that I have managed to plough through one of your medium length essays. To be fair there were a few points I couldn't disagree with. But don't you think the Conservatives are like cockroaches and they will survive Armageddon?
    Maybe not a split over brexit.

    To be fair to LuckyMan, he defines brexit as no role at all for EU law - Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more - so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out worthy of Michael Collins or Lord Jenkins?

    Do you see what I mean? The Tory problems with Brexit are only just beginning, if you consider up to this time it was a vague Brexit means Brexit and will bring sunlit uplands. Now, like the split in Irish politics long ago, they have to define the basis of a Brexit deal that both honours what Brexit means and brings sunlit uplands, without splitting as a party and a voter base.

    Yes this could be the end of the Conservative Party. When you have always been fearing the darkness, no longer embracing the light you go to the raptures.
    If you want to get to heaven you first have to pass through hell...

    Sorry but fantasies about the death of the Conservative Party will prove as reliable as they did from around 1995 to 2002 and fantasies about the death of the Labour Party around 1992 and 2019.

    Sure, they're going to lose the next election but the Tories are like cockroaches... they will always survive!
    Exactly, the only way the Conservative Party ever dies is if RefUK overtakes it as the main party of the right under FPTP
    Not true HY.

    The party and voter base could pretty neatly split - just like Labour did in my example, and IRA did to leave two parties, in my example.

    Note how Labour tensions did not split the party until after the election loss.

    Also note exactly how the Tory Party splits during the next parliament had been beautifully defined for us tonight by LuckyMan.
    Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more, so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out, versus, the best Brexit deal for UK can include some small EU legal involvement only over very limited areas of the deal.

    A neat split, but a bloody one over a key point of Brexit principle. RefUK don’t even exist after this split, subsumed into the first group, yet two groups of the right and centre right fielding candidates against each other as centre left and left did in the 1980s.
    May have happened had May stayed, not now Brexit has been delivered. In fact the Conservatives will become even more like RefUK if they lose.

    In 1983 the SDP only prospered as the centre between the Thatcherite Conservative hard right and the Foot Labour hard left but under FPTP still came 3rd in 1983.

    Starmer already occupiers the centre ground so no room really for a pro EU centrist Tory party, especially under FPTP. Indeed the LDs already occupy that ground now anyway
    Totally agree with you there is no “room really for a pro EU centrist Tory party”. But that doesn’t stop splits over Europe happening does it, it didn’t in the eighties.

    I can tell you exactly why you are wrong, I can easily prove it to you. “But now Brexit has been delivered”

    Are you saying there will never be votes in House of Commons where Tory rebels join Labour in changes to the Johnson Frost Brexit deal? You are saying never? That’s where I say you have it wrong.

    And the proof comes from putting you on the spot. Which one are you?

    Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more, so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out,
    versus,
    the best Brexit deal for UK economy and business can include some small EU legal involvement only over very limited areas of the deal.

    Which one are you, you have to be one or the other? Are you with Gove and the rebels voting with Starmer (like Jenkins and crew 1973) or punching and spitting at the sell out traitors (like the Irish Civil War?)
    My guess is that Starmer will either very minimally tinker at the edges with Brexit or will do nothing at all (which in itself will present all sorts of problems for Labour as you just know so many remainers like @Scott_xP are hanging onto Labours coat tails hoping there will be a reversal of Brexit)

    Labour will have enough problems governing with a tiny majority, no money to spend and the Unions in an increasingly hostile and militant mood to do much about Brexit...
    BREXIT will become synonymous with STRIKES....INFLATION... Tory SLEAZE .....Covid ....War in Europe....MORE SLEAZE....JOHNSON....TRUSS ...BRAVERMAN......PATEL....J-R M...DORRIES....GOVE....FROST....ERG....

    With a small majority he'll do the obvious. Steady the ship and call another election. Then on a wave of optimism and hope gain a huge majority with carte blanche to re-tie the knot with Europe.....
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Well, I don't know about you lot, but I can easily envisage scenarios where Starmer does not become Prime Minister.

    For example ?
    Heart attack.
    War with Russia.
    Labour losing the election.
    Aliens taking control of the world.
    Global ebola pandemic.

    That kind of thing.

    Sometimes I think you guys really lack imagination.

  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    For anyone interested in Ukraine and potential fighter jets, the following video with Ward Carroll and Justin Bronk is long, but IMO very good:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5pr0MUGn9k

    TL:DW; the best would be Gripen and Meteor.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Well, I don't know about you lot, but I can easily envisage scenarios where Starmer does not become Prime Minister.

    For example ?
    Heart attack.
    War with Russia.
    Labour losing the election.
    Aliens taking control of the world.
    Global ebola pandemic.

    That kind of thing.

    Sometimes I think you guys really lack imagination.
    I was just interested in what you’d come up with.
    “Labour losing the election” isn’t a very interesting scenario.

    And it would take more than an ebola outbreak to stop him - unless he were a victim.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Well, I don't know about you lot, but I can easily envisage scenarios where Starmer does not become Prime Minister.

    For example ?
    Heart attack.
    War with Russia.
    Labour losing the election.
    Aliens taking control of the world.
    Global ebola pandemic.

    That kind of thing.

    Sometimes I think you guys really lack imagination.
    He meets BJO…
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    Another mass shooting in the US:

    Michigan State: Three killed in shooting at university
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64632879
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Well, I don't know about you lot, but I can easily envisage scenarios where Starmer does not become Prime Minister.

    For example ?
    Heart attack.
    War with Russia.
    Labour losing the election.
    Aliens taking control of the world.
    Global ebola pandemic.

    That kind of thing.

    Sometimes I think you guys really lack imagination.
    I was just interested in what you’d come up with.
    “Labour losing the election” isn’t a very interesting scenario.

    And it would take more than an ebola outbreak to stop him - unless he were a victim.
    It’s quite an interesting scenario, as at this moment you would assume it includes at least one of widespread bribery, electoral fraud or mass hypnosis.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069
    edited February 2023

    Dura_Ace said:

    GIN1138 said:


    Labour will have enough problems governing with a tiny majority, no money to spend and the Unions in an increasingly hostile and militant mood to do much about Brexit...

    Starmer could engineer some favourable economic winds and the support of business by going back into the single market though so that must be tempting. He just has to ensure he doesn't enrage the blood and soil leavers too much before the election.
    Yes, it's very clear that Starmer is lying about what be intends to do post election.
    Why do you say that apart from deeply held antipathy to anything Labour?

    Apart from anything else Starmer has said very little about what he intends to do, so not really anything to be caught out lying over.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    For anyone interested in Ukraine and potential fighter jets, the following video with Ward Carroll and Justin Bronk is long, but IMO very good:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5pr0MUGn9k

    TL:DW; the best would be Gripen and Meteor.

    That makes the good point that it’s not just a few jets that are required, it’s everything else that supports them in the field - from logistics and maintainance, intelligence, signals, and war command systems.

    Sending a handful of planes will accomplish nothing, if they’re quickly rendered unserviceable or attacked by friendly forces. It’s a massive task, to properly integrate new systems into the Ukranian military.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    On topic, I still think the most likely recent analogy for the next election is 2010. A tired government runs out of steam despite a decent majority, and is overturned at the ballot box - but the Opposition don’t make sufficient gains to take over without cobbling together a coalition of some sort.

    One might actually say that Starmer’s chances got a little bit better with the recent Scotland polls. He’s not going to get a majority without a couple of dozen gains north of the border.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    Sandpit said:

    For anyone interested in Ukraine and potential fighter jets, the following video with Ward Carroll and Justin Bronk is long, but IMO very good:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5pr0MUGn9k

    TL:DW; the best would be Gripen and Meteor.

    That makes the good point that it’s not just a few jets that are required, it’s everything else that supports them in the field - from logistics and maintainance, intelligence, signals, and war command systems.

    Sending a handful of planes will accomplish nothing, if they’re quickly rendered unserviceable or attacked by friendly forces. It’s a massive task, to properly integrate new systems into the Ukranian military.
    Yep, It also makes the point that Soviet-era aircraft have a different design philosophy from NATO jets - with single-function dials and switches rather that 'modey' multifunction displays. It's therefore useful to get Ukrainian pilots trained on virtually *any* NATO aircraft to get familiar with the different concept. Although sims can also probably do a lot of that work as well...
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    Foxy said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    GIN1138 said:


    Labour will have enough problems governing with a tiny majority, no money to spend and the Unions in an increasingly hostile and militant mood to do much about Brexit...

    Starmer could engineer some favourable economic winds and the support of business by going back into the single market though so that must be tempting. He just has to ensure he doesn't enrage the blood and soil leavers too much before the election.
    Yes, it's very clear that Starmer is lying about what be intends to do post election.
    Why do you say that apart from deeply held antipathy to anything Labour?

    Apart from anything else Starmer has said very little about what he intends to do, so not really anything to be caught out lying over.
    I would have thought if Starmer is lying about his intentions, that would be good news from CR's point of view. No VAT on private school fees.
  • rcs1000 said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Yes Keir will be moving into No 10 next year! I have no great enthusiasm for this but it's happening!

    Probably with a small overall majority maybe around 30?

    I'd place the majority nearer to single digits. Will be 1974 all over again and I'd expect the second half of the decade to me just as miserable as the second half of the 70s lol!
    The second half the 70s saw the Bee Gees release How Deep is Your Love.

    It saw government debt drop from around 50% of GDP to under 40%.
    The seventies were great. Cool music, strong growth in real incomes, loads of cheap housing, I was born... What's not to like?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,249
    Yes, but this is ignoring the Trans issue, and it is high time we addressed that. We can't keep ignoring Trans issues any more, we need a proper Trans debate, instead of hiding the Trans problem away

    TRANS
  • Nigelb said:

    Interesting.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/feb/13/what-exactly-was-michael-gove-doing-at-a-secret-brexit-summit
    ...Gove is said to still believe the Conservatives have a chance at the next election and has stressed to colleagues that delivering on housing and levelling up will be two key deciders – in “red wall” seats that voted Tory for the first time and in winning over voters under 50, for whom housing is a major issue.

    He is stymied hugely by the nimbys in his own party, to whom the government caved over housing targets – but his current focus is the quality of housing stock, including building safety and the state of social housing.

    Last week, he was offered the opportunity in the mini-reshuffle to move to the helm of the new science department, but opted to stay at the DLUHC. If Gove’s optimism is misplaced, and he has just two years left in government, perhaps it is easier to secure a personal legacy with bricks and mortar than gene editing or AI.

    Gove New Town has a certain ring to it.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751

    rcs1000 said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Yes Keir will be moving into No 10 next year! I have no great enthusiasm for this but it's happening!

    Probably with a small overall majority maybe around 30?

    I'd place the majority nearer to single digits. Will be 1974 all over again and I'd expect the second half of the decade to me just as miserable as the second half of the 70s lol!
    The second half the 70s saw the Bee Gees release How Deep is Your Love.

    It saw government debt drop from around 50% of GDP to under 40%.
    The seventies were great. Cool music, strong growth in real incomes, loads of cheap housing, I was born... What's not to like?
    The decor. All those revolting browns.

    The electrical kit. So many shorts you'd think you were on a beach in Bermuda.

    The cars. Build quality was just embarrassing.

    True, our politicians weren't as bad, and although the economy was in a mess it wasn't as great a mess as it is now. But in other ways...
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    rcs1000 said:

    Well, I don't know about you lot, but I can easily envisage scenarios where Starmer does not become Prime Minister.

    Me too. Very easy. If not likely.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Sandpit said:

    For anyone interested in Ukraine and potential fighter jets, the following video with Ward Carroll and Justin Bronk is long, but IMO very good:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5pr0MUGn9k

    TL:DW; the best would be Gripen and Meteor.

    That makes the good point that it’s not just a few jets that are required, it’s everything else that supports them in the field - from logistics and maintainance, intelligence, signals, and war command systems.

    Sending a handful of planes will accomplish nothing, if they’re quickly rendered unserviceable or attacked by friendly forces. It’s a massive task, to properly integrate new systems into the Ukranian military.
    Yep, It also makes the point that Soviet-era aircraft have a different design philosophy from NATO jets - with single-function dials and switches rather that 'modey' multifunction displays. It's therefore useful to get Ukrainian pilots trained on virtually *any* NATO aircraft to get familiar with the different concept. Although sims can also probably do a lot of that work as well...
    Indeed so. There were stories a couple of weeks ago that suggested Ukranian pilots were already training in the UK - I suspect that would be on the Hawk or something similar as a first NATO jet, rather than on Typhoon!

    I also suspect that, given the timescales involved in training the Ukranians, Zelensky is secretly hoping for some sort of a covert NATO fighter mission in the shorter term - with Western ‘volunteers’ sent into Ukraine wearing blue and yellow badges. Not sure there’s the political appetite for such obvious poking of the bear just yet, but if it gets to the point where the brass hats think they can get away with it…
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880
    Sandpit said:

    For anyone interested in Ukraine and potential fighter jets, the following video with Ward Carroll and Justin Bronk is long, but IMO very good:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5pr0MUGn9k

    TL:DW; the best would be Gripen and Meteor.

    That makes the good point that it’s not just a few jets that are required, it’s everything else that supports them in the field - from logistics and maintainance, intelligence, signals, and war command systems.

    Sending a handful of planes will accomplish nothing, if they’re quickly rendered unserviceable or attacked by friendly forces. It’s a massive task, to properly integrate new systems into the Ukranian military.
    The only way to make an immediate difference is give UkrAF something they already know. There are 45 Fulcrums in Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria that could be replaced by Vipers from the boneyard within months. There's also another 23 in storage in Hungary that probably aren't flightworthy but would be an excellent source of parts and particularly engines. Doing that would triple the air combat power of the UkrAF yet the US chooses not to make it happen. All else such as talk of Gripen is Top Trumps bullshit that isn't going to have any near term effect on the conflict.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    Incidentally, why is Mad Vlad trying to stir things up in Moldova? I mean, he can't even control the fecking Donbas, what chance has he got of dealing with a country that he doesn't share a border with?
  • ydoethur said:

    Incidentally, why is Mad Vlad trying to stir things up in Moldova? I mean, he can't even control the fecking Donbas, what chance has he got of dealing with a country that he doesn't share a border with?

    Because he's an increasingly mad Mad Vlad?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Dura_Ace said:

    Sandpit said:

    For anyone interested in Ukraine and potential fighter jets, the following video with Ward Carroll and Justin Bronk is long, but IMO very good:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5pr0MUGn9k

    TL:DW; the best would be Gripen and Meteor.

    That makes the good point that it’s not just a few jets that are required, it’s everything else that supports them in the field - from logistics and maintainance, intelligence, signals, and war command systems.

    Sending a handful of planes will accomplish nothing, if they’re quickly rendered unserviceable or attacked by friendly forces. It’s a massive task, to properly integrate new systems into the Ukranian military.
    The only way to make an immediate difference is give UkrAF something they already know. There are 45 Fulcrums in Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria that could be replaced by Vipers from the boneyard within months. There's also another 23 in storage in Hungary that probably aren't flightworthy but would be an excellent source of parts and particularly engines. Doing that would triple the air combat power of the UkrAF yet the US chooses not to make it happen. All else such as talk of Gripen is Top Trumps bullshit that isn't going to have any near term effect on the conflict.
    Agreed re: Fulcrum. The sensible short term approach should be to empty NATO countries of soviet-era kit, that has a faster learning curve for the Ukranians, and backfill from other sources. That has to be much easier, than training what must seem like a space shuttle learning curve for most of the pilots and techs.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575

    rcs1000 said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Yes Keir will be moving into No 10 next year! I have no great enthusiasm for this but it's happening!

    Probably with a small overall majority maybe around 30?

    I'd place the majority nearer to single digits. Will be 1974 all over again and I'd expect the second half of the decade to me just as miserable as the second half of the 70s lol!
    The second half the 70s saw the Bee Gees release How Deep is Your Love.

    It saw government debt drop from around 50% of GDP to under 40%.
    The seventies were great. Cool music, strong growth in real incomes, loads of cheap housing, I was born... What's not to like?
    Since you ask...
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    edited February 2023
    Dura_Ace said:

    Sandpit said:

    For anyone interested in Ukraine and potential fighter jets, the following video with Ward Carroll and Justin Bronk is long, but IMO very good:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5pr0MUGn9k

    TL:DW; the best would be Gripen and Meteor.

    That makes the good point that it’s not just a few jets that are required, it’s everything else that supports them in the field - from logistics and maintainance, intelligence, signals, and war command systems.

    Sending a handful of planes will accomplish nothing, if they’re quickly rendered unserviceable or attacked by friendly forces. It’s a massive task, to properly integrate new systems into the Ukranian military.
    The only way to make an immediate difference is give UkrAF something they already know. There are 45 Fulcrums in Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria that could be replaced by Vipers from the boneyard within months. There's also another 23 in storage in Hungary that probably aren't flightworthy but would be an excellent source of parts and particularly engines. Doing that would triple the air combat power of the UkrAF yet the US chooses not to make it happen. All else such as talk of Gripen is Top Trumps bullshit that isn't going to have any near term effect on the conflict.
    If the war continues into next year then it's not bullshit at all. Otherwise you'll then be arguing it's too late to train up Ukraine's AF to operate modern aircraft.

    But agreed about the old Soviet stuff.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    ydoethur said:

    Incidentally, why is Mad Vlad trying to stir things up in Moldova? I mean, he can't even control the fecking Donbas, what chance has he got of dealing with a country that he doesn't share a border with?

    He’s been fighting with Moldova over the Transnistria region (between Moldova and Ukraine) for a few decades now. He probably needs his troops back from there, and is telling Moldova not to try anything ‘silly’ while they’re gone - like take back their territory.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069
    edited February 2023
    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    For anyone interested in Ukraine and potential fighter jets, the following video with Ward Carroll and Justin Bronk is long, but IMO very good:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5pr0MUGn9k

    TL:DW; the best would be Gripen and Meteor.

    That makes the good point that it’s not just a few jets that are required, it’s everything else that supports them in the field - from logistics and maintainance, intelligence, signals, and war command systems.

    Sending a handful of planes will accomplish nothing, if they’re quickly rendered unserviceable or attacked by friendly forces. It’s a massive task, to properly integrate new systems into the Ukranian military.
    Yep, It also makes the point that Soviet-era aircraft have a different design philosophy from NATO jets - with single-function dials and switches rather that 'modey' multifunction displays. It's therefore useful to get Ukrainian pilots trained on virtually *any* NATO aircraft to get familiar with the different concept. Although sims can also probably do a lot of that work as well...
    Indeed so. There were stories a couple of weeks ago that suggested Ukranian pilots were already training in the UK - I suspect that would be on the Hawk or something similar as a first NATO jet, rather than on Typhoon!

    I also suspect that, given the timescales involved in training the Ukranians, Zelensky is secretly hoping for some sort of a covert NATO fighter mission in the shorter term - with Western ‘volunteers’ sent into Ukraine wearing blue and yellow badges. Not sure there’s the political appetite for such obvious poking of the bear just yet, but if it gets to the point where the brass hats think they can get away with it…
    Considering the pisspoor state of flight training for British trainee pilots, do we really have the capacity to train Ukranians for planes they have not got?

    https://news.sky.com/story/uks-ability-to-train-fast-jet-pilots-in-crisis-due-to-faulty-aircraft-and-instructors-shortage-leaked-documents-suggest-12666275

    Rather like the sale of armed forces housing, it looks very much like another cocked up episode of privatisation.
  • Pulpstar said:

    DJ41a said:

    PB herds towards lumping on Labour, and not just on Labour but on Starmer at 1/4.
    One answer to the implied question in the header is if the Tories keep their majority. They do that by bigging up immigration. If necessary they can ditch no.4 in a row of their own leaders. The last one who went of his own accord was David Cameron.

    GIN1138 said:

    On election night 2015, Ed Miliband went to bed expecting to wake up as Prime Minister.

    Did he?

    The exit poll was clear that the Tories were on the cusp of being the largest party (if not having an overall majority) while Labour was a long way behind with the Lib-Dems facing meltdown and Labour facing total oblivion to the SNP in Scotland.

    So at 10pm the writing was on the Edstone lol.

    That said, I get what you're saying. We're a long way from the election and a lot can happen. Maybe we'll have an alien invasion... that would probably be regarded as "events dear boy" and change the narrative hahahaha!
    Indeed. Or WW3. Or an economic catastrophe. Anyone who lumps on the favourite when things are so volatile is taking a bigger risk than they think.
    I don't think immigration can save the Tories.
    Recent comment on Talk (No fans of Labour) do point out they used to send more people back.
    Immigration is the albatross around the Tory neck.

    Their own supporters would be very happy to see a country with no immigrants, with the "just drown them" rhetoric always simmering away.

    Problem is that as they refuse to engage with solutions, drowning them is basically all they have left and the Royal Navy refused last time it was proposed.

    Dead migrants may excite a few, but repulses anyone who isn't a total stard. The newspaper front pages with the dead toddler face down on the beach in Greece horrified people - if we had the same on the beach at Hythe as a result of government policy there would be absolute outrage. Doubly so from the stards who were demanding exactly this kind of policy.

    There is No Way to stop the boats because the Tories refuse to co-operate internationally. And the libertarian wing of the party looks at the ever growing labour shortage, and the migrants brought in and housed in misery not allowed to work and thinks "exploitable labour pool". All Starmer has to do to win on this subject is propose what the Tories can't do - control our borders.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    ydoethur said:

    Incidentally, why is Mad Vlad trying to stir things up in Moldova? I mean, he can't even control the fecking Donbas, what chance has he got of dealing with a country that he doesn't share a border with?

    You know the one about the scorpion and the frog ?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    edited February 2023
    A work in progress.

    My new favorite thing - Bing's new ChatGPT bot argues with a user, gaslights them about the current year being 2022, says their phone might have a virus, and says "You have not been a good user"

    Why? Because the person asked where Avatar 2 is showing nearby

    https://mobile.twitter.com/MovingToTheSun/status/1625156575202537474

    Google search chief warns AI chatbots can give 'convincing but completely fictitious' answers.
    Google felt the "urgency" to release its chatbot Bard to the public
    https://www.businessinsider.com/google-search-boss-warns-ai-can-give-fictitious-answers-report-2023-2
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069
    Sandpit said:

    ydoethur said:

    Incidentally, why is Mad Vlad trying to stir things up in Moldova? I mean, he can't even control the fecking Donbas, what chance has he got of dealing with a country that he doesn't share a border with?

    He’s been fighting with Moldova over the Transnistria region (between Moldova and Ukraine) for a few decades now. He probably needs his troops back from there, and is telling Moldova not to try anything ‘silly’ while they’re gone - like take back their territory.
    Moldova has virtually no military, and what it has is obsolete Soviet stuff. It is no military threat.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Nigelb said:

    A work in progress.

    My new favorite thing - Bing's new ChatGPT bot argues with a user, gaslights them about the current year being 2022, says their phone might have a virus, and says "You have not been a good user"

    Why? Because the person asked where Avatar 2 is showing nearby

    https://mobile.twitter.com/MovingToTheSun/status/1625156575202537474

    What is it with Microsoft and AI experiments? The last time they tried getting the public to interact with one, it only took a few hours for it to become very racist and sexist.

    https://www.techrepublic.com/article/why-microsofts-tay-ai-bot-went-wrong/
  • Sandpit said:

    On topic, I still think the most likely recent analogy for the next election is 2010. A tired government runs out of steam despite a decent majority, and is overturned at the ballot box - but the Opposition don’t make sufficient gains to take over without cobbling together a coalition of some sort.

    One might actually say that Starmer’s chances got a little bit better with the recent Scotland polls. He’s not going to get a majority without a couple of dozen gains north of the border.

    I get the analogy. But this is 1996 not 2009. It isn't a tired government running out of steam. Its a corrupt government running out of excuses. Major was drowning in scandals from his own benches and ran out of MPs who would back him. Sunak said hold my sparkling mineral water and has rampant corruption and malfeasance at the highest levels of government, and despite a paper majority north of 70 is absolutely held hostage by his own MPs.

    The difference is that Starmer has no far not shown any signs of being Blair. But that may not make a difference. I know you lean Tory from your expat home, but here on the ground the general sense of disgust in a government is nothing I have ever experienced. By the time the 1997 election came around people genuinely wanted the hope Blair was selling. I doubt Starmer will find the same mega optimism. But people also wanted shut of the Tories and punish voted them out of the way.

    Once that mindset is embedded - and it truly is - voters will do all kinds of impossible. As frankly they did to Corbyn in 2019. That would have been a Thatcher-scale majority had Farage not deployed wrecking tactics. So don't tell me Labour can't win seats x and y, because the Tories won their own list of impossibles just over 3 years ago.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Yes Keir will be moving into No 10 next year! I have no great enthusiasm for this but it's happening!

    Probably with a small overall majority maybe around 30?

    I'd place the majority nearer to single digits. Will be 1974 all over again and I'd expect the second half of the decade to me just as miserable as the second half of the 70s lol!
    The second half the 70s saw the Bee Gees release How Deep is Your Love.

    It saw government debt drop from around 50% of GDP to under 40%.
    The seventies were great. Cool music, strong growth in real incomes, loads of cheap housing, I was born... What's not to like?
    Since you ask...
    Apologies to OnlyLivingBoy; uncalled for.

    But the 70s... shudder. Mostly.
  • Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    A work in progress.

    My new favorite thing - Bing's new ChatGPT bot argues with a user, gaslights them about the current year being 2022, says their phone might have a virus, and says "You have not been a good user"

    Why? Because the person asked where Avatar 2 is showing nearby

    https://mobile.twitter.com/MovingToTheSun/status/1625156575202537474

    What is it with Microsoft and AI experiments? The last time they tried getting the public to interact with one, it only took a few hours for it to become very racist and sexist.

    https://www.techrepublic.com/article/why-microsofts-tay-ai-bot-went-wrong/
    Leading edge AI is Tesla, with every vehicle schooling the neural AI which is gradually unlocking autonomous vehicles. But given Lord Elon's love of the reefer and the various mentalist "jokes" encoded into his cars, I do worry that the Tesla AI / bot thing will just be a massive stoner. And then kill us all in a fit of depression.

    Ah. I am channelling @leon this morning
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand we're back
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,165
    Scott_xP said:

    Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand we're back

    For good this time?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Ooh, Vanilla fixed their data centre?
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited February 2023
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Yes Keir will be moving into No 10 next year! I have no great enthusiasm for this but it's happening!

    Probably with a small overall majority maybe around 30?

    I'd place the majority nearer to single digits. Will be 1974 all over again and I'd expect the second half of the decade to me just as miserable as the second half of the 70s lol!
    The second half the 70s saw the Bee Gees release How Deep is Your Love.

    It saw government debt drop from around 50% of GDP to under 40%.
    The seventies were great. Cool music, strong growth in real incomes, loads of cheap housing, I was born... What's not to like?
    Since you ask...
    Apologies to OnlyLivingBoy; uncalled for.

    But the 70s... shudder. Mostly.
    A much more interesting decade than is often given credit for nowadays, I think. Quite a lot of creativity, in the arts and media.
  • Sandpit said:

    Ooh, Vanilla fixed their data centre?

    That is what they'd have you believe, although it was a considerable time before Vanilla's status page even acknowledged the outage.
    https://status.vanillaforums.com/
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited February 2023

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Yes Keir will be moving into No 10 next year! I have no great enthusiasm for this but it's happening!

    Probably with a small overall majority maybe around 30?

    I'd place the majority nearer to single digits. Will be 1974 all over again and I'd expect the second half of the decade to me just as miserable as the second half of the 70s lol!
    The second half the 70s saw the Bee Gees release How Deep is Your Love.

    It saw government debt drop from around 50% of GDP to under 40%.
    The seventies were great. Cool music, strong growth in real incomes, loads of cheap housing, I was born... What's not to like?
    Since you ask...
    Apologies to OnlyLivingBoy; uncalled for.

    But the 70s... shudder. Mostly.
    A much more interesting decade than is often given credit for nowadays, I think. Quite a lot of creativity, in the arts and media.
    The 60s and 70s were by far the most interesting decades in recent history, an incredible flowering of creative energy. The 80s represented a huge step backwards and everything since has been dull.
    I would tend to agree with this. The '70s in particular have been misrepresented often enough.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,087
    Sandpit said:

    For anyone interested in Ukraine and potential fighter jets, the following video with Ward Carroll and Justin Bronk is long, but IMO very good:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5pr0MUGn9k

    TL:DW; the best would be Gripen and Meteor.

    That makes the good point that it’s not just a few jets that are required, it’s everything else that supports them in the field - from logistics and maintainance, intelligence, signals, and war command systems.

    Sending a handful of planes will accomplish nothing, if they’re quickly rendered unserviceable or attacked by friendly forces. It’s a massive task, to properly integrate new systems into the Ukranian military.
    Didn't we know that TL:DR already? :smile:

    IMO the logistics chain is why it should be Gripen.

    But that may need the Sweden NATO Entry logjam to be cleared first, which requires Turkey to shift, with elections due in a couple of months.

    Was it not an earthquake that partly destabilised Abdullah Gul the last President of Turkey back in 2014?
  • Sandpit said:

    Ooh, Vanilla fixed their data centre?

    02:00 PST is obviously not going to inconvenience too many people.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,674

    FPT:

    Both the Times and the Telegraph refer to “the Queen” rather than “the Queen Consort” on their front pages.

    Not good.

    If this is the new official style, it’s a clumsy move by Charles.

    Not really. It is the norm. The wife of the King has always been called Queen. There is nothing unusual about it at all.
    Why then was Phillip not the "King"
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    Sandpit said:

    Ooh, Vanilla fixed their data centre?

    It's patch Tuesday...
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,695
    edited February 2023
    Some interesting polling from The Good Lord Ashcroft this morning on the SNP, Sturgeon and the gender recognition bill.

    https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2023/02/scottish-independence-gender-recognition-de-facto-referendum-my-latest-polling-from-scotland/

    The upshot seems to be that Nicola has well and truly shat the bed! :D

  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,674

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Yes Keir will be moving into No 10 next year! I have no great enthusiasm for this but it's happening!

    Probably with a small overall majority maybe around 30?

    I'd place the majority nearer to single digits. Will be 1974 all over again and I'd expect the second half of the decade to me just as miserable as the second half of the 70s lol!
    The second half the 70s saw the Bee Gees release How Deep is Your Love.

    It saw government debt drop from around 50% of GDP to under 40%.
    The seventies were great. Cool music, strong growth in real incomes, loads of cheap housing, I was born... What's not to like?
    Since you ask...
    Apologies to OnlyLivingBoy; uncalled for.

    But the 70s... shudder. Mostly.
    A much more interesting decade than is often given credit for nowadays, I think. Quite a lot of creativity, in the arts and media.
    The 60s and 70s were by far the most interesting decades in recent history, an incredible flowering of creative energy. The 80s represented a huge step backwards and everything since has been dull.
    Just when us hard working pensioners were in work bursting our guts to improve ourselves, unlike the whining whimpering z generation of today who want everything handed to them on a silver plate.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    malcolmg said:

    FPT:

    Both the Times and the Telegraph refer to “the Queen” rather than “the Queen Consort” on their front pages.

    Not good.

    If this is the new official style, it’s a clumsy move by Charles.

    Not really. It is the norm. The wife of the King has always been called Queen. There is nothing unusual about it at all.
    Why then was Phillip not the "King"
    Because the husband of the Queen Regnant has historically never been so, (save for William and Mary who reigned jointly in their own right). So Victoria’s husband was Prince Albert but George III’s wife was Queen Charlotte. It’s not fair or logical but this is a monarchy we’re talking about. It’s not about fairness or logic.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,522
    .
    malcolmg said:

    FPT:

    Both the Times and the Telegraph refer to “the Queen” rather than “the Queen Consort” on their front pages.

    Not good.

    If this is the new official style, it’s a clumsy move by Charles.

    Not really. It is the norm. The wife of the King has always been called Queen. There is nothing unusual about it at all.
    Why then was Phillip not the "King"
    Because A=>B doesn't imply B=>A.

    The short version is, there are three kinds of Queen (regnant, consort and dowager) but only one kind of King.
This discussion has been closed.