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There can only be one conclusion here – Sunak’s toast – politicalbetting.com
There can only be one conclusion here – Sunak’s toast – politicalbetting.com
???Labour leads in the latest Westminster polling, by pollster:24% People Polling22% Findoutnow21% YouGov21% Deltapoll20% Techne 20% Ipsos18% WeThink17% Redfield & Wilton16% Savanta16% More in Common15% Opinium
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Confirmation of the degeneracy of this debauched age (or visa versa).
Might Rishi Sunak be the avocado toast of UKer politicos?
There is a perception that senior officers play favourites when it comes to protesters
Suella Braverman" (£)
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/pro-palestine-protest-london-met-police-cbqnxbtv3
https://x.com/therecount/status/1722435285567340717
Victims of VITT - a new condition identified by specialists - question the Government's monitoring of the vaccine's rollout and its efficacy
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/08/oxford-astrazeneca-covid-jab-defective-claims-legal-case/ (£££)
The triumph of the AstraZeneca vaccine undercut by tragedy
For millions, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was a brilliant discovery. But for the unlucky few, it was a terrifying catastrophe
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/08/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-astrazeneca-vaccine/ (£££)
In the end, the AstraZeneca vaccine just wasn’t as good as its rivals
Those at the lowest risk from Covid were the ones who suffered most from the vaccine
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/08/how-astrazeneca-vaccine-was-shelved/ (£££)
Vivek’s opening line of the debate was to go after MSNBC and the hosts of the debate, about distrust in fake and partisan news, and got a massive cheer from the audience (presumably Republican primary voters) for it.
I don’t think it’s like 97:and there is a tidal wave of enthusiasm for SKS but I do feel people have had enough of the Tories and want a change. Around 150 seat losses and a workable labour majority is what I’m expecting.
Just as Israel is not launching an all out war on Palestinians, or even Gazans, Hamas launched a war on Israel and Israel are fighting back which they are perfectly entitled to do.
If some Gazans/Kurds get killed in the crossfire because Hamas/PKK use them as human shields then that's an unavoidable tragedy but perfectly legal and ethical in war. What is neither legal nor ethical is deliberately targeting civilians alone without targeting the enemy.
How many times does this need explaining before you can grasp the distinction?
Electoral Calculus may be a crude device but it is suggesting 230 on current polls. Of course there is the possibility of swingback, events and black swans, but there is also the near certainty of tactical voting.
Personally I will be surprised if more than 150 Tory MPs survive the coming cull, and it could well be less than 100.
#ThirdRateDump
The current membership fave seems to be James Cleverly. But what do any of us know about anything he thinks or would do?
(He does have the advantage of a somewhat less guilded path to the summit; part of Sunak's problem is that he doesn't appear to understand the concept of things going wrong for him. My first memory of Cleverly is him energetically trying and failing to be elected as a councillor in Lewisham.)
It's a completely irrelevant point. Though it's entirely in brand fir Republicans to want to police the private lives of private individuals, I guess.
Another change of leader would invite ridicule, and I'm really struggling to think of anyone who would obviously be more successful.
https://twitter.com/metroadlib/status/1722429456894050652
Person with (serious) adverse reaction to the vaccine wants a higher payout.
It’s really a lot different from the Telegraph headlines, adverse reactions to vaccines are known about
The Tories have 350 MPs in Parliament. If none of them can do a better job than Sunak, they don't deserve to be in Parliament.
Quite amused at the Mail as a reliable source to back up the Telegraph
Potentially an advantage for AZ of their vaccine being kept out of the USA?
#politicalbadtaste.com
The controversy is Marine Le Pen taking part.
https://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/marche-contre-l-antisemitisme-yael-braun-pivet-et-gerard-larcher-defileront-dimanche-mais-pas-aux-cotes-du-rn-20231108
BBC News: 'Ivanka Trump testimony: Why lack of recall is a common legal strategy'.
Those of us who are following the Post Office/Horizon Inquiry will be familiar with this strategy. It is quite astonishing how often the managers interviewed trot out the line 'I can't remember.'
I wonder if the prospect of some chokey would assist their ailing memory.
Yes, the header seems reasonable.
Do we have any more Hail Mary Passes from Rishi so far today, given that is already 6:50am?
Mostly because it will wind up the Left and muslims.
As for who could make things better for them, I've done a list of names before, but instead today I will simply say anyone who with a straight face could say (and believe) the following:
I want a capital-earning democracy. Every man and woman a capitalist. Housing is the start. If you're a man or woman of property, you've got something. So every man a capitalist, and every man a man of property.
Or could say this: I am much nearer to creating one nation than Labour will ever be. Socialism is two nations. The privileged rulers, and everyone else. And it always gets to that. What I am desperately trying to do is create one nation with everyone being a man of property, or having the opportunity to be a man of property.
Sadly too many Tories today want the two nations, too many today view property not as something everyone should own but as a "commodity" instead which it is not. Too many want the "privilege" of being in a property owning class and having others to pay the rent they can live off instead. That is not what the Tories should represent and if they do, they don't deserve to be anywhere near power.
People are just tired of the Tories. They've had a fair go. They have achieved very little.
The FN became the RN ( Rassemblement Nationale ) a bit before the last presidential. It was a thing in France as lots of the political parties rebranded themselves around the same.
It must have confused the hell out of the electorate.
Ah, my coat...
Any good Tory PM should be doing that too.
Many reasons why that wouldn't work in the UK (centralisation, single party with a large majority), but it would be a suitably Gilbert and Sullivan end to the recent fever dream.
Probably more than any other election in my lifetime, with the sole possible exception of 1997, the die is cast.
A sufficient proportion of voters have made up their minds, to the point where there is now nothing the Conservatives can do to win the coming election.
How long they spend in the wilderness depends on two things. 1. Whether Labour stuff it up 2. How right-wing the party lurches.
There’s a very real prospect that they will be out of office for a decade or more. Possibly a generation.
2. There were very rare side effects. At a country level (or even at an individual level for anyone above about 30), these risks were a price well worth paying.
3. The mRNA vaccines are easier to tailor to new variants and cheaper to make. They therefore have taken essentially all the market.
If mRNA had never happened, AZ would have succeeded in the principle goal: it would have made Covid non-novel.
"the two couples responsible for the star of David's graffiti in Paris were all in contact with the same person, Moldovan businessman Anatoli Prizenko, and were tied to a #Russian disinformation network.
The operation was exploited by a network called Doppelgänger "RRN" (Reliable Recent News) on twitter and Facebook, which largely distributed and covered the graffitis. The network was already exposed as a Russian disinformation operation, including in an official statement by the French Foreign Ministry in June. In conjunction, the Doppelgänger network also published articles emphasizing the rise of antisemitism in France since the Hamas attacks, accusing French authorities of doing nothing to protect its citizens.
Prizenko is a pro-Russian Moldovan businessman, who was a former candidate for the Europsceptic and pro-Moscow Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova."
There was also an accusation about aa fortnight ago that the bedbug panic was caused by russian trolls who had infiltrated one of the regional papers and set the story off.
(In a parallel universe, Sunak was promoted to something like Education in 2020/1, clearing up Williamson's mess. He'd have got better at politics and be well placed to rebuild after 2024.)
Brown and Sunak both knew what they wanted Britain to be- Central Belt Scotland and Sunbelt America respectively. But neither of them had a priority list of steps to get there. Which is pretty fundamental.
‘There’s no enthusiasm for SKS’ line.
Also:
‘Nothing will change under Labour. They don’t stand for anything. There’s so little room for manoeuvre.’
And even:
‘All the great achievements in post-war Britain came from Margaret Thatcher.’
It’s kind bemusing to me to hear these sort of tropes trotted out once more. They are the sort of last breaths of the embittered dying beast.
It’s true that SKS doesn’t engender huge enthusiasm but I don’t think that’s terribly surprising given what a shit time it has been over the past 4-5 years. People are generally very jaded.
It was easy to be elated by Tony Blair in the run-up to 1997. Things were good. The economy was in great shape. People had fun mocking the tory sleaze.
Circumstances this time are radically worse. The tory party has managed to outdo itself in stuffing everything up: staggeringly so. On top of which they have been hit by a series of external events that have knocked them, the country, and even the world sideways.
So against the ‘no enthusiasm for SKS’ meme I set the ‘things are far more shit now’ corrective.
One thing my tory friend and I did agree on: negativity is a FAR more powerful voting motivator than enthusiasm. Yes people warmed to Tony’s charm but it’s raw anger that will propel people into the ballot box this time.
The tories are in for a drubbing.
I am not a trolling type. A Labour sympathiser, yes, but that’s not the same thing. Just because my left-of-centre perspective doesn’t match yours from the right, should not mean you need to resort to a very childish remark. I think you can do better. I think you know you can.
For the record, for the benefit of others, my scepticism about Labour will come out when they are in power. I am not the type to bang a one-party drum. I regularly vote Green or LibDem when I feel it’s appropriate. Labour are in good shape but I don’t love everything about them and there will be plenty to criticise about their Government.
Try to take a pace back from that bridge and have another look. You may find that the troll you see below is in fact a reflection in the water.
your morning posts are always the same try some variety.
Out of curiosity do you have any friends who arent Tories ?
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley told entrepreneur and fellow Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to keep her daughter “out of your voice” during a contentious moment on the debate stage in Miami on Wednesday night.
Ramaswamy was asked how he could ban TikTok — the popular Chinese-owned social media app that has drawn scrutiny across the U.S. government — if he is an active user himself.
Before explaining that the social media platform is important to reach younger generations of Americans, Ramaswamy said he wanted to “laugh at why Nikki Haley didn’t answer your question, which is about looking at families in the eye.”
“In the last debate she made fun of me for actually joining TikTok while her own daughter was actually using the app for a long time,” he said. “So you might want to take care of your family first.”
As the crowd loudly booed Ramaswamy, a visibly angry Haley told Ramaswamy to leave her daughter, who is in her 20s, out of it.
“Leave my daughter out of your voice,” she said. “You’re just scum.”
Ramaswamy and Haley have clashed repeatedly throughout the three debates this campaign cycle. This, however, was the first time Ramaswamy targeted a member of Haley’s family — drawing clear condemnation from the crowd.
The U.S. government and nearly 40 states have banned the use of TikTok on government-owned devices.
The app is massively popular worldwide, particularly among younger internet users. While TikTok offers one of the most potent online megaphones for politicians to reach millennial and Gen Z voters, it is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, raising a host of national security concerns as politicians become increasingly wary of the competitive threat posed by China.
That didn’t stop Ramaswamy from joining the app earlier this year, where he has been courting young voters on the app, including by posting videos that show “a day in the life” on the campaign trail and dancing with internet provocateur Jake Paul. . . .
SSI - Hard to argue with the lady!
No perspective.
I find it bewildering, bizarre, but it’s the case. They ‘still’ love him. Both are female. The third, the one whom I was hiking with this past week, thinks that what Boris did ‘wasn’t really very bad.’
Boris was a cult figure.
FWIW I find @Heathener 's posts to be a cheerful reminder that I may be wrong and we might just see the back of your dreadful government after all.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2023/11/08/newcastle-ruben-neves-premier-league-clubs-vote-on-rule/
I don't see what Sunak can do about this, and things can easily get worse. Particularly with the farce of a further leadership contest, then an even worse leader like Braverman.
Tories are toast burnt to a cinder.
I found Corbynites very interesting but they aren’t really in play at the moment. They were great fun. Often challenging ingrained ideas, not always incorrectly as it happens.
A LibDem voting friend of mine bought her rather inward-looking nephew a subscription to Marxism Today. She thought it would do him good to read other perspectives.
I like that.
Get yourself on a public equiry where you can charge mega rates for reading Whats App messages.
It’s been a while (Chesham & Amersham) since I’ve really sat up on here at a tip.
I’d say >200 losses may be borderline but at 2.7 I’m in.
They have gone through too many reinventions in government already. Cameroonism through to May Brexit focus, through to Boris boosterism through to Truss insanity, through to Sunak’s…. err whatever Sunak is doing.
It’s exhausting seeing a single political party that is in government change itself so often.
FWIW I hated much of Jeremy’s Corbyn’s policies but on, for example, The Chagos islands I think he had a bloody excellent point. Reminds me a bit of Tam Dalyell on the sinking of the Belgrano or the West Lothian question.
To paraphrase an old joke, do you know the difference between God and a lawyer who works for a bank? God doesn't think he's a lawyer who works for a bank.
And you can see how this stuff really screwed with my fool mind!
Always wondered what our mailman thought about it? And assumed that I might just have an FBI file!
Though believe the sheer eclecticism of my responses from hither-and-yon may have persuaded them I was a harmless, as I (mostly) still am.
Minnesota Supreme Court permits Donald Trump to be on the state's Republican presidential primary ballot. A new petition could be filed challenging Trump's eligibility under the 14th Amendment for the general election ballot.
https://twitter.com/DemocracyDocket/status/1722372611395453062
Between 2014 and 2022, Ukraine held about 200 rounds of talks with Russia.
During this period, 20 cease-fire agreements were reached, all of which were quickly violated by Russia.
None of the 200 rounds of talks or the 20 ceasefires have prevented Putin from launching a brutal all-out invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, 2022.
Those who argue that Ukraine should negotiate with Russia now are either uninformed or misled, or they side with Russia and want Putin to take a pause before an even larger aggression.
We should not and will not fall into this trap.
https://twitter.com/DmytroKuleba/status/1722513404600950931
And good morning everybody.
It's jolly hard to deprogram someone after they have been in a cult. Alternatively, slightly less provocatively, it's very hard to persuade the victim of a confidence trick that they have been conned.
Boris conned pretty much all of us- I voted for him in London 2008/12, as did some of his other critics here. It's not until a specific something comes up that individuals conclude that he doesn't give a flying one for anyone else.
(Me? The Garden Bridge fiasco was probably the first sign, and the prorogation mess the moment to think He Must Be Stopped.)
Didn't he win (like Hamas or Taliban) on an anti-corruption ticket?
Or is it a pirogue?
We've all been there.
The origins of a Prime Minister’s ’s rise are often a cause of their fall. Sunak felt he needed Braverman’s support to become PM..She backed him …he became PM..He made her Home Sec..at which point he was trapped..unable to claim a break with the past and now facing two dark options ..either sacking or keeping Braverman means more trouble for him.
(Yes, there were plenty of my own profession disgracing themselves at the Post Office too, but I don’t spend all day saying that IT consultants are awesome, far from it.)
Even Liz Truss in the dying hours of her premiership managed to summon the courage to sack Suella Braverman
After the Hillsborough disaster and subsequent investigation, I thought nothing would ever shock me about cover ups, but the Post Office scandal has managed it.
Tom Winsor, former HM chief inspector of constabulary, is on @BBCr4today saying
@SuellaBraverman has broken the spirit and letter of the convention that Home Secretary should never question the operational integrity of the police.
@RishiSunak now facing huge pressure to sack her
"It's unusual, it's unprecedented, it's contrary to the spirit of the constitutional settlement with police."
Sir Tom Winsor, former chief inspector of constabulary, tells #R4Today Suella Braverman's accusation of Met Police bias 'crosses a line' over political interference.