The annual St John PB Christmas crossword – politicalbetting.com

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  • BlancheLivermore
    BlancheLivermore Posts: 6,502
    9A GLASNOST

    GLAS(gow)
    No way = NO ST(reet)
  • stjohn
    stjohn Posts: 1,910
    BlancheLivermore said:

    BlancheLivermore said:

    2D ISAIAH

    "is a" =ISA
    Leader of industry = I
    Understood = AH
    Yes.

    The definition is the philosopher Isaiah Berlin.
  • stjohn
    stjohn Posts: 1,910
    Carnyx said:

    Christmas Morning all ...

    19 return of One Direction is an aim of some Greeks

    Enosis 'union' - in this context of Cyprus and Greece

    Yes.

    ENOSIS - ENO (Return of ONE) + S (South - a direction) + IS.

    Enosis is the aim of the unification of Greece and Cyprus held by some Greeks.
  • isam
    isam Posts: 42,205
    Merry Christmas everyone
  • SandraMc
    SandraMc Posts: 763
    Is 1 down piglet?
  • BlancheLivermore
    BlancheLivermore Posts: 6,502
    SandraMc said:

    Is 1 down piglet?

    Works for Napoleon issue, but I don't get the Cameron Boris bit
  • stjohn
    stjohn Posts: 1,910
    SandraMc said:

    Is 1 down piglet?

    Yes.

    PIGLET - dual cryptic definitions. David Cameron’s name for Boris Johnson was the ‘greased piglet'. So he partly called Boris piglet. Napoleon in Animal Farm is a pig so his offspring (issue) would be a piglet.
  • Carnyx
    Carnyx Posts: 44,654
    edited December 2023
    BlancheLivermore said:

    SandraMc said:

    Is 1 down piglet?

    Works for Napoleon issue, but I don't get the Cameron Boris bit
    Mr C called Mr J a greased piglet ... wiki quote is "The thing about the greased piglet is that he manages to slip through other people's hands where mere mortals fail"
  • Gadfly
    Gadfly Posts: 1,205
    edited December 2023
    9A Glasnost

    Glas(gow) no St
  • Barnesian
    Barnesian Posts: 9,221
    edited December 2023
    9 Across

    GLAS most of UK city
    NO ST no street
    GLASNOST opening up

    EDIT snap
  • stjohn
    stjohn Posts: 1,910
    Gadfly said:

    9A Glasnost

    Glas(gow) no St

    Yes.

    Glasnost was the Soviet policy of opening up that occurred during Mikhail Gorbachev’s Presidency of the Soviet Union.
  • stjohn
    stjohn Posts: 1,910
    Just 3 left to solve.

    23 across. 27 across. 20 down.
  • Gadfly
    Gadfly Posts: 1,205
    23A Dinah?
    20D Cheney?
    27A then possibly ends in elsky?
  • Barnesian
    Barnesian Posts: 9,221
    27 across

    Legendas Brazilian broadcaster?

    Leyen, Sad,

    Nope - can't explain!
  • BlancheLivermore
    BlancheLivermore Posts: 6,502
    Gadfly said:

    23A Dinah?
    20D Cheney?
    27A then possibly ends in elsky?

    Zelensky

    Zen with el inside and sky
  • stjohn
    stjohn Posts: 1,910
    Gadfly said:

    23A Dinah?
    20D Cheney?
    27A then possibly ends in elsky?

    Yes

    DINAH - sounds like diner, a place to eat.

    Dinah Washington, the singer.


    CHENEY. CHE (Revolutionary Che Guevara) + NEY (French soldier. Marshal Key).

    Dick Cheney. A Republican who was George W Bush’s Vice President

    27 across. You are on the right lines.
  • Gadfly
    Gadfly Posts: 1,205
    edited December 2023
    BlancheLivermore said:

    Gadfly said:

    23A Dinah?
    20D Cheney?
    27A then possibly ends in elsky?

    Zelensky

    Zen with el inside and sky
    Damn - put my Spanish the in the wrong place :-)
  • Barnesian
    Barnesian Posts: 9,221
    23 Across

    Dinah Washington
  • OldKingCole
    OldKingCole Posts: 35,273
    stjohn said:

    Carnyx said:

    Christmas Morning all ...

    19 return of One Direction is an aim of some Greeks

    Enosis 'union' - in this context of Cyprus and Greece

    Yes.

    ENOSIS - ENO (Return of ONE) + S (South - a direction) + IS.

    Enosis is the aim of the unification of Greece and Cyprus held by some Greeks.
    Is that still a thing? Friends of mine spent their National Service trying to ‘discourage’ that, back in the 50’s.
  • Nigelb
    Nigelb Posts: 79,354
    Happy Christmas all !

    I see my legendary puzzle solving abilities are not needed.

  • SandraMc
    SandraMc Posts: 763
    Thank you, St. John. It's a real Christmas tradition.
  • OldKingCole
    OldKingCole Posts: 35,273
    JosiasJessop said:

    I'd just like to mention those who are having a slightly less festive Christmas because they are working today: not just the nurses and doctors staffing our hospitals, or the police keeping us safe, but the myriad other jobs going on behind the scenes, including keeping the Christmas lights on and providing gas to cook the Christmas turkey.

    There are lots of people on shift work today, keeping the country running.

    Because of my ‘problems’ I have carers twice a day and they’re rostered as usual. The morning lady came as usual, has a couple more calls and is then heading home where, she said, her husband will have the Christmas dinner almost ready.
  • MattW
    MattW Posts: 28,304
    edited December 2023
    Happy Christmas all.

    And thanks for the crossword, Mr St John.

    (Especially when I remember how to change my Avatar).

    I'm I'm also thinking about BHers having a tough time.

    I'm taking an impromptu Christmas Box on a long stick round for a friend this who is self-isolating with Covid today, and like me lives on his own, having caught it at his own gym's Christmas Party.

    A couple of home cooked dishes for later in the weak, a loaf of bread that is currently baking in the machine, mince pies and so on.

    And my sister is in hospital from a few days ago until perhaps early Jan, having a condition stabilised that they have not identified yet. Unlikely to be diabetes, fortunately, as that would have been detected immediately I think.

    Look after yourselves and everyone around you as you are able.

    I'll be raising my glass to everyone hoping for a better 2024.
  • dixiedean
    dixiedean Posts: 30,316
    Christ. The only one I got was enosis. Then I'd never heard of it as a word. So I gave up.
  • ydoethur
    ydoethur Posts: 74,263
    malcolmg said:

    ydoethur said:

    malcolmg said:

    Merry Christmas to everyone

    And to you. I hope your turnips bring you festive cheer.
    Cheers Ydoethur and long may your organ throb
    I had eight foot horns going off everywhere on that Stanford.

    Hope that counts :smile:
  • BlancheLivermore
    BlancheLivermore Posts: 6,502
    BlancheLivermore said:

    I just did a quick tally of the solutions

    I think Sandra and I solved ten clues each

    A rather high score draw!

    I think Sandra's also from Southampton

    So that's Southampton 20 Rest of the World 8
  • IanB2
    IanB2 Posts: 52,310
    edited December 2023
    OldKingCole said:

    JosiasJessop said:

    I'd just like to mention those who are having a slightly less festive Christmas because they are working today: not just the nurses and doctors staffing our hospitals, or the police keeping us safe, but the myriad other jobs going on behind the scenes, including keeping the Christmas lights on and providing gas to cook the Christmas turkey.

    There are lots of people on shift work today, keeping the country running.

    Because of my ‘problems’ I have carers twice a day and they’re rostered as usual…
    Seems a bit mean, expecting them to stay sober on Xmas Day?
  • OldKingCole
    OldKingCole Posts: 35,273
    IanB2 said:

    OldKingCole said:

    JosiasJessop said:

    I'd just like to mention those who are having a slightly less festive Christmas because they are working today: not just the nurses and doctors staffing our hospitals, or the police keeping us safe, but the myriad other jobs going on behind the scenes, including keeping the Christmas lights on and providing gas to cook the Christmas turkey.

    There are lots of people on shift work today, keeping the country running.

    Because of my ‘problems’ I have carers twice a day and they’re rostered as usual…
    Seems a bit mean, expecting them to stay sober on Xmas Day?
    A bit mean, maybe, having to stay sober and cheerful while coping with me! I can have my off days!
  • DecrepiterJohnL
    DecrepiterJohnL Posts: 31,766
    Mrs Kirkham's: Cheeses recalled over Christmas E. coli fears
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67819074

    Just in case.
  • SandraMc
    SandraMc Posts: 763
    BlancheLivermore said:

    BlancheLivermore said:

    I just did a quick tally of the solutions

    I think Sandra and I solved ten clues each

    A rather high score draw!

    I think Sandra's also from Southampton

    So that's Southampton 20 Rest of the World 8
    Ahem. The nearest big city to me is a traditional football rival to Southampton - not that I am interested in football. We do have the South Coast in common.
  • Fishing
    Fishing Posts: 5,711
    IanB2 said:

    As a break from the crossword, some sage words from Hardman:

    Starmer won the Labour leadership in part because he didn’t give too strong a sense of what he was against or for. When I spoke to many MPs who ended up backing him during that contest in 2020, even they repeatedly said “he hasn’t said that much about what he believes yet”.

    [Labour] has a team at its HQ working on readiness for government that is known by superstitious staff as the “team with no name” because they fear cursing their chances by seeming too presumptive about a victory.

    Starmer needs his party to know what it is facing so it will support him through major reforms early on. He needs the public to be well aware of that so it buys into what will have to be a long-term project.

    One of the reasons the Tories are so out of love with being in power is that it is hard, relentless and wearing. It is also easy to fail to deliver on all of your priorities, which is something Sunak is having to contemplate given that he and his predecessors don’t have much evidence of Tory achievements other than on education reform. If and when Labour gets into government on a “time for change” ticket, it won’t have any time to work out what it wants to do, or to change course because the reforms would be too unpopular with certain special interest groups. It barely has much time…

    That creates a stick or twist dilemma for Starmer in an election year. Sticking with the current cautious approach will probably be enough to get Labour over the line this time, so woeful is the state of the Tories. But it risks leaving the party bereft of the big ideas and momentum that will propel it to start the business of change. Starmer rightly admires Thatcher for being clear about how she would transform Britain, and even more so for the fact she managed it. It’s his turn to harness that for his own purpose.

    Not sure I agree with any of that:

    - Starmer told everybody what he believed in in the Labour leadership election, running on a Corbynite platform after spending years working for his "friend" Jeremy. He just chucked it all down the toilet a few months he got elected and didn't need the Party membership's support any more.
    - Starmer doesn't have any "long-term projects" as far as I can see, at least none he won't ditch at the first whiff of unpopularity, except possibly house-building, which has beaten many better men than him, and whose benefits won't show up for many years anyway. Other than that, what is there? They're abandoning the £28 billion/year green growth crap. Closer ties with the EU won't do much if anything and the EU shows no interest in the wholesale rewriting of our relationship that would be needed. And there's nothing else that I can see.
    - power is certainly wearing at a time when crises come one after the other and living standards are falling if you don't have any solutions - in other words if you aren't up to the job. Mrs Thatcher thrived on that, but she was an exception - she seemed to tolerate, or even relish, being unpopular as long as she knew she was right. But years in opposition is just as wearing, perhaps more so.
    - there's a reason Starmer isn't clear about how he intends to transform Britain - he hasn't the foggiest idea how to do it. Anything he wants to do will have to be paid for, and there's no money. And he doesn't have either the instincts (like Mrs Thatcher) or the knowledge (like Nigel Lawson) of how to create wealth. And his party and its policies would strangle wealth generation even more than the current government have done.
  • JosiasJessop
    JosiasJessop Posts: 46,251
    "Tory MP Mike Freer's office hit by suspected arson attack"

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67819075
  • Barnesian
    Barnesian Posts: 9,221
    edited December 2023
    Fishing said:

    IanB2 said:

    As a break from the crossword, some sage words from Hardman:

    Starmer won the Labour leadership in part because he didn’t give too strong a sense of what he was against or for. When I spoke to many MPs who ended up backing him during that contest in 2020, even they repeatedly said “he hasn’t said that much about what he believes yet”.

    [Labour] has a team at its HQ working on readiness for government that is known by superstitious staff as the “team with no name” because they fear cursing their chances by seeming too presumptive about a victory.

    Starmer needs his party to know what it is facing so it will support him through major reforms early on. He needs the public to be well aware of that so it buys into what will have to be a long-term project.

    One of the reasons the Tories are so out of love with being in power is that it is hard, relentless and wearing. It is also easy to fail to deliver on all of your priorities, which is something Sunak is having to contemplate given that he and his predecessors don’t have much evidence of Tory achievements other than on education reform. If and when Labour gets into government on a “time for change” ticket, it won’t have any time to work out what it wants to do, or to change course because the reforms would be too unpopular with certain special interest groups. It barely has much time…

    That creates a stick or twist dilemma for Starmer in an election year. Sticking with the current cautious approach will probably be enough to get Labour over the line this time, so woeful is the state of the Tories. But it risks leaving the party bereft of the big ideas and momentum that will propel it to start the business of change. Starmer rightly admires Thatcher for being clear about how she would transform Britain, and even more so for the fact she managed it. It’s his turn to harness that for his own purpose.

    Not sure I agree with any of that:

    - Starmer told everybody what he believed in in the Labour leadership election, running on a Corbynite platform after spending years working for his "friend" Jeremy. He just chucked it all down the toilet a few months he got elected and didn't need the Party membership's support any more.
    - Starmer doesn't have any "long-term projects" as far as I can see, at least none he won't ditch at the first whiff of unpopularity, except possibly house-building, which has beaten many better men than him, and whose benefits won't show up for many years anyway. Other than that, what is there? They're abandoning the £28 billion/year green growth crap. Closer ties with the EU won't do much if anything and the EU shows no interest in the wholesale rewriting of our relationship that would be needed. And there's nothing else that I can see.
    - power is certainly wearing at a time when crises come one after the other and living standards are falling if you don't have any solutions - in other words if you aren't up to the job. Mrs Thatcher thrived on that, but she was an exception - she seemed to tolerate, or even relish, being unpopular as long as she knew she was right. But years in opposition is just as wearing, perhaps more so.
    - there's a reason Starmer isn't clear about how he intends to transform Britain - he hasn't the foggiest idea how to do it. Anything he wants to do will have to be paid for, and there's no money. And he doesn't have either the instincts (like Mrs Thatcher) or the knowledge (like Nigel Lawson) of how to create wealth. And his party and its policies would strangle wealth generation even more than the current government have done.
    O tidings of comfort and joy
    Comfort and joy
    O tidings of comfort and joy

    And now I'm off to my younger daughter's and grandchildren for Xmas lunch, booze, games, possibly telly and zzzz.
  • RochdalePioneers
    RochdalePioneers Posts: 30,611
    Fishing said:

    IanB2 said:

    As a break from the crossword, some sage words from Hardman:

    Starmer won the Labour leadership in part because he didn’t give too strong a sense of what he was against or for. When I spoke to many MPs who ended up backing him during that contest in 2020, even they repeatedly said “he hasn’t said that much about what he believes yet”.

    [Labour] has a team at its HQ working on readiness for government that is known by superstitious staff as the “team with no name” because they fear cursing their chances by seeming too presumptive about a victory.

    Starmer needs his party to know what it is facing so it will support him through major reforms early on. He needs the public to be well aware of that so it buys into what will have to be a long-term project.

    One of the reasons the Tories are so out of love with being in power is that it is hard, relentless and wearing. It is also easy to fail to deliver on all of your priorities, which is something Sunak is having to contemplate given that he and his predecessors don’t have much evidence of Tory achievements other than on education reform. If and when Labour gets into government on a “time for change” ticket, it won’t have any time to work out what it wants to do, or to change course because the reforms would be too unpopular with certain special interest groups. It barely has much time…

    That creates a stick or twist dilemma for Starmer in an election year. Sticking with the current cautious approach will probably be enough to get Labour over the line this time, so woeful is the state of the Tories. But it risks leaving the party bereft of the big ideas and momentum that will propel it to start the business of change. Starmer rightly admires Thatcher for being clear about how she would transform Britain, and even more so for the fact she managed it. It’s his turn to harness that for his own purpose.

    Not sure I agree with any of that:

    - Starmer told everybody what he believed in in the Labour leadership election, running on a Corbynite platform after spending years working for his "friend" Jeremy. He just chucked it all down the toilet a few months he got elected and didn't need the Party membership's support any more.
    - Starmer doesn't have any "long-term projects" as far as I can see, at least none he won't ditch at the first whiff of unpopularity, except possibly house-building, which has beaten many better men than him, and whose benefits won't show up for many years anyway. Other than that, what is there? They're abandoning the £28 billion/year green growth crap. Closer ties with the EU won't do much if anything and the EU shows no interest in the wholesale rewriting of our relationship that would be needed. And there's nothing else that I can see.
    - power is certainly wearing at a time when crises come one after the other and living standards are falling if you don't have any solutions - in other words if you aren't up to the job. Mrs Thatcher thrived on that, but she was an exception - she seemed to tolerate, or even relish, being unpopular as long as she knew she was right. But years in opposition is just as wearing, perhaps more so.
    - there's a reason Starmer isn't clear about how he intends to transform Britain - he hasn't the foggiest idea how to do it. Anything he wants to do will have to be paid for, and there's no money. And he doesn't have either the instincts (like Mrs Thatcher) or the knowledge (like Nigel Lawson) of how to create wealth. And his party and its policies would strangle wealth generation even more than the current government have done.
    Merry Christmas all!

    The line I have highlighted is the Tories final attack line. We're utterly shit, but you have to vote for us because we think the alternative is worse.

    My instinct is that if they can find a way to weaponise this, there are still enough receptive ears to belay a rout and deliver only a solid defeat. But they would need something specific and resonant. They can't attack Labour tax plans because they've just put taxes up to the record level in peacetime. They can't talk about Labour waste as they're wasting vast billions. They can't talk about Law and Order as they're telling judges to let rapists off as there's no prison spaces to put them in. Etc etc etc.

    The truth is the opposite of Fishing's line. Nobody can trash this country harder than the current government. Nobody. And when the remaining PB Tories turn out the lights at night I suspect they know it too.

    What do they have in reserve they can throw at Starmer? The Torygraph is picking at his time as DPP - perhaps a black swan pulled out of a closet somewhere?
  • viewcode
    viewcode Posts: 25,202
    Merry Xmas to one and all. I hope you all wake up tomorrow rich as f*** and with good hair. Meanwhile, good luck with getting thru the day without wanting to kill your relatives... 😃
  • Sunil_Prasannan
    Sunil_Prasannan Posts: 55,076
    edited December 2023
    Merry Christmas to one and all!

    I'm crap at "cryptic" puzzles, far prefer the "easy" version of crosswords!
  • DecrepiterJohnL
    DecrepiterJohnL Posts: 31,766
    JosiasJessop said:

    "Tory MP Mike Freer's office hit by suspected arson attack"

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67819075

    An arson attack on a shed outside the MP's office. Sounds odd as well as sinister.
  • DecrepiterJohnL
    DecrepiterJohnL Posts: 31,766
    Nothing much on Christmas telly so I shall now watch my Christmas DVD of Kenneth Branagh playing Boris Johnson in This England (which wealthy PBers will have seen on Sky when it came out).
  • RochdalePioneers
    RochdalePioneers Posts: 30,611
    DecrepiterJohnL said:

    Nothing much on Christmas telly so I shall now watch my Christmas DVD of Kenneth Branagh playing Boris Johnson in This England (which wealthy PBers will have seen on Sky when it came out).

    Doctor Who is on at teatime with a great baby-eating song (genuinely)
  • Sunil_Prasannan
    Sunil_Prasannan Posts: 55,076
    ydoethur said:

    Casino_Royale said:

    JosiasJessop said:

    And in other Christmas news of merry cheer, it looks as though the Russians lost an SU-30 and SU-34 yesterday, making five high-end planes lost in a few days.

    Yet again, making it clear that the Ukrainians make good use of the gifts we give them.

    "Dear Santa, may I have a new Patriot battery? I've been a good boy this year. Signed, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. P.s.: I don't want to be a sneak, but my neighbour Putin's been an absolute stinker this year. They don't call him 'Vlad the Bad' for nothing."

    I hope there is no fighting today and peace, even for the Russians.
    Russian Christmas isn't for several more days.

    And neither the Israelis nor Palestinians celebrate it.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-middle-east-67813844
  • Carnyx
    Carnyx Posts: 44,654
    edited December 2023
    OldKingCole said:

    stjohn said:

    Carnyx said:

    Christmas Morning all ...

    19 return of One Direction is an aim of some Greeks

    Enosis 'union' - in this context of Cyprus and Greece

    Yes.

    ENOSIS - ENO (Return of ONE) + S (South - a direction) + IS.

    Enosis is the aim of the unification of Greece and Cyprus held by some Greeks.
    Is that still a thing? Friends of mine spent their National Service trying to ‘discourage’ that, back in the 50’s.
    Most certainly - bog-standard Greek word, 'union'. For instance -

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enosis_(disambiguation)

    PS And this too (the H being marked not by a letter but a sort of accent-type mark on the E)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henosis

    Interesting how it's got the only one meaning in English outside theology/philosophy, though.
  • Luckyguy1983
    Luckyguy1983 Posts: 32,089
    RochdalePioneers said:

    Fishing said:

    IanB2 said:

    As a break from the crossword, some sage words from Hardman:

    Starmer won the Labour leadership in part because he didn’t give too strong a sense of what he was against or for. When I spoke to many MPs who ended up backing him during that contest in 2020, even they repeatedly said “he hasn’t said that much about what he believes yet”.

    [Labour] has a team at its HQ working on readiness for government that is known by superstitious staff as the “team with no name” because they fear cursing their chances by seeming too presumptive about a victory.

    Starmer needs his party to know what it is facing so it will support him through major reforms early on. He needs the public to be well aware of that so it buys into what will have to be a long-term project.

    One of the reasons the Tories are so out of love with being in power is that it is hard, relentless and wearing. It is also easy to fail to deliver on all of your priorities, which is something Sunak is having to contemplate given that he and his predecessors don’t have much evidence of Tory achievements other than on education reform. If and when Labour gets into government on a “time for change” ticket, it won’t have any time to work out what it wants to do, or to change course because the reforms would be too unpopular with certain special interest groups. It barely has much time…

    That creates a stick or twist dilemma for Starmer in an election year. Sticking with the current cautious approach will probably be enough to get Labour over the line this time, so woeful is the state of the Tories. But it risks leaving the party bereft of the big ideas and momentum that will propel it to start the business of change. Starmer rightly admires Thatcher for being clear about how she would transform Britain, and even more so for the fact she managed it. It’s his turn to harness that for his own purpose.

    Not sure I agree with any of that:

    - Starmer told everybody what he believed in in the Labour leadership election, running on a Corbynite platform after spending years working for his "friend" Jeremy. He just chucked it all down the toilet a few months he got elected and didn't need the Party membership's support any more.
    - Starmer doesn't have any "long-term projects" as far as I can see, at least none he won't ditch at the first whiff of unpopularity, except possibly house-building, which has beaten many better men than him, and whose benefits won't show up for many years anyway. Other than that, what is there? They're abandoning the £28 billion/year green growth crap. Closer ties with the EU won't do much if anything and the EU shows no interest in the wholesale rewriting of our relationship that would be needed. And there's nothing else that I can see.
    - power is certainly wearing at a time when crises come one after the other and living standards are falling if you don't have any solutions - in other words if you aren't up to the job. Mrs Thatcher thrived on that, but she was an exception - she seemed to tolerate, or even relish, being unpopular as long as she knew she was right. But years in opposition is just as wearing, perhaps more so.
    - there's a reason Starmer isn't clear about how he intends to transform Britain - he hasn't the foggiest idea how to do it. Anything he wants to do will have to be paid for, and there's no money. And he doesn't have either the instincts (like Mrs Thatcher) or the knowledge (like Nigel Lawson) of how to create wealth. And his party and its policies would strangle wealth generation even more than the current government have done.
    Merry Christmas all!

    The line I have highlighted is the Tories final attack line. We're utterly shit, but you have to vote for us because we think the alternative is worse.

    My instinct is that if they can find a way to weaponise this, there are still enough receptive ears to belay a rout and deliver only a solid defeat. But they would need something specific and resonant. They can't attack Labour tax plans because they've just put taxes up to the record level in peacetime. They can't talk about Labour waste as they're wasting vast billions. They can't talk about Law and Order as they're telling judges to let rapists off as there's no prison spaces to put them in. Etc etc etc.

    The truth is the opposite of Fishing's line. Nobody can trash this country harder than the current government. Nobody. And when the remaining PB Tories turn out the lights at night I suspect they know it too.

    What do they have in reserve they can throw at Starmer? The Torygraph is picking at his time as DPP - perhaps a black swan pulled out of a closet somewhere?
    One of the biggest challenges that the UK faces is a metastasising but completely useless and unproductive state. The civil service is becoming less effective, yet increasingly political, and ever more voracious when it comes to taxpayers' money. The NHS, the Bank of England, the OBR, the Home Office - have we seen a quango or department that isn't a total shitshow in recent years? You could say the Tories have done nothing about it, and you'd be right, but the indications are that Starmer would hand greater power to organisations like the OBR, making the task of elected politicians to turn the country around even harder.
  • Luckyguy1983
    Luckyguy1983 Posts: 32,089
    Happy Christmas everyone. Here's to peace on earth and good will toward men and women.
  • ohnotnow
    ohnotnow Posts: 5,088
    Happy Christmas everyone! Hope you all have a good day despite what the weather is throwing at some of us!
  • SandyRentool
    SandyRentool Posts: 23,156
    Sunil_Prasannan said:

    Merry Christmas to one and all!

    I'm crap at "cryptic" puzzles, far prefer the "easy" version of crosswords!

    I see that you have made posts 47798 and 47799 on this thread. By coincidence, the numbers of the two former Royal Train Class 47s!
  • SandyRentool
    SandyRentool Posts: 23,156
    Getting ready to set off to attend the Christmas get together with assorted in-laws.

    I still have lingering symptoms from last Monday's viral attack, so will be staying off the booze. However, my meat-free diet will be taking a day off.
  • Sunil_Prasannan
    Sunil_Prasannan Posts: 55,076
    OldKingCole said:

    stjohn said:

    Carnyx said:

    Christmas Morning all ...

    19 return of One Direction is an aim of some Greeks

    Enosis 'union' - in this context of Cyprus and Greece

    Yes.

    ENOSIS - ENO (Return of ONE) + S (South - a direction) + IS.

    Enosis is the aim of the unification of Greece and Cyprus held by some Greeks.
    Is that still a thing? Friends of mine spent their National Service trying to ‘discourage’ that, back in the 50’s.
    A kind of "enosis" did occur, just between Turkey and NORTHERN Cyprus...
  • Sunil_Prasannan
    Sunil_Prasannan Posts: 55,076
    edited December 2023
    SandyRentool said:

    Getting ready to set off to attend the Christmas get together with assorted in-laws.

    I still have lingering symptoms from last Monday's viral attack, so will be staying off the booze. However, my meat-free diet will be taking a day off.

    Mum and I are staying with my brother, sister-in-law and 3-year-old nephew. I made the mistake of buying the little guy a "Spidey and Friends" Lego set, so we're stuck with watching the eponymous cartoon all afternoon! :lol:
  • Luckyguy1983
    Luckyguy1983 Posts: 32,089
    Sunil_Prasannan said:

    Merry Christmas to one and all!

    I'm crap at "cryptic" puzzles, far prefer the "easy" version of crosswords!

    Me too, though I'd quite like to learn.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cVWdbO6FFfw - watch to the end...
  • sarissa
    sarissa Posts: 2,190
    edited December 2023
    Alanbrooke said:

    A merry Christmas to all PBers and hope you all have a relaxing break.

    Essential ingredients


    Oh, and a merry Christmas to all!
  • sarissa
    sarissa Posts: 2,190
    Luckyguy1983 said:

    RochdalePioneers said:

    Fishing said:

    IanB2 said:

    As a break from the crossword, some sage words from Hardman:

    Starmer won the Labour leadership in part because he didn’t give too strong a sense of what he was against or for. When I spoke to many MPs who ended up backing him during that contest in 2020, even they repeatedly said “he hasn’t said that much about what he believes yet”.

    [Labour] has a team at its HQ working on readiness for government that is known by superstitious staff as the “team with no name” because they fear cursing their chances by seeming too presumptive about a victory.

    Starmer needs his party to know what it is facing so it will support him through major reforms early on. He needs the public to be well aware of that so it buys into what will have to be a long-term project.

    One of the reasons the Tories are so out of love with being in power is that it is hard, relentless and wearing. It is also easy to fail to deliver on all of your priorities, which is something Sunak is having to contemplate given that he and his predecessors don’t have much evidence of Tory achievements other than on education reform. If and when Labour gets into government on a “time for change” ticket, it won’t have any time to work out what it wants to do, or to change course because the reforms would be too unpopular with certain special interest groups. It barely has much time…

    That creates a stick or twist dilemma for Starmer in an election year. Sticking with the current cautious approach will probably be enough to get Labour over the line this time, so woeful is the state of the Tories. But it risks leaving the party bereft of the big ideas and momentum that will propel it to start the business of change. Starmer rightly admires Thatcher for being clear about how she would transform Britain, and even more so for the fact she managed it. It’s his turn to harness that for his own purpose.

    Not sure I agree with any of that:

    - Starmer told everybody what he believed in in the Labour leadership election, running on a Corbynite platform after spending years working for his "friend" Jeremy. He just chucked it all down the toilet a few months he got elected and didn't need the Party membership's support any more.
    - Starmer doesn't have any "long-term projects" as far as I can see, at least none he won't ditch at the first whiff of unpopularity, except possibly house-building, which has beaten many better men than him, and whose benefits won't show up for many years anyway. Other than that, what is there? They're abandoning the £28 billion/year green growth crap. Closer ties with the EU won't do much if anything and the EU shows no interest in the wholesale rewriting of our relationship that would be needed. And there's nothing else that I can see.
    - power is certainly wearing at a time when crises come one after the other and living standards are falling if you don't have any solutions - in other words if you aren't up to the job. Mrs Thatcher thrived on that, but she was an exception - she seemed to tolerate, or even relish, being unpopular as long as she knew she was right. But years in opposition is just as wearing, perhaps more so.
    - there's a reason Starmer isn't clear about how he intends to transform Britain - he hasn't the foggiest idea how to do it. Anything he wants to do will have to be paid for, and there's no money. And he doesn't have either the instincts (like Mrs Thatcher) or the knowledge (like Nigel Lawson) of how to create wealth. And his party and its policies would strangle wealth generation even more than the current government have done.
    Merry Christmas all!

    The line I have highlighted is the Tories final attack line. We're utterly shit, but you have to vote for us because we think the alternative is worse.

    My instinct is that if they can find a way to weaponise this, there are still enough receptive ears to belay a rout and deliver only a solid defeat. But they would need something specific and resonant. They can't attack Labour tax plans because they've just put taxes up to the record level in peacetime. They can't talk about Labour waste as they're wasting vast billions. They can't talk about Law and Order as they're telling judges to let rapists off as there's no prison spaces to put them in. Etc etc etc.

    The truth is the opposite of Fishing's line. Nobody can trash this country harder than the current government. Nobody. And when the remaining PB Tories turn out the lights at night I suspect they know it too.

    What do they have in reserve they can throw at Starmer? The Torygraph is picking at his time as DPP - perhaps a black swan pulled out of a closet somewhere?
    One of the biggest challenges that the UK faces is a metastasising but completely useless and unproductive state. The civil service is becoming less effective, yet increasingly political, and ever more voracious when it comes to taxpayers' money. The NHS, the Bank of England, the OBR, the Home Office - have we seen a quango or department that isn't a total shitshow in recent years? You could say the Tories have done nothing about it, and you'd be right, but the indications are that Starmer would hand greater power to organisations like the OBR, making the task of elected politicians to turn the country around even harder.
    Robin McAlpine of Common Weal, has a few ideas, applicable not just for Scotland.
  • TOPPING
    TOPPING Posts: 44,060
    edited December 2023
    SandyRentool said:

    Getting ready to set off to attend the Christmas get together with assorted in-laws.

    I still have lingering symptoms from last Monday's viral attack, so will be staying off the booze. However, my meat-free diet will be taking a day off.

    So all that criticism of Boris telling people to go out and kill their grannies has mellowed somewhat.
  • Daveyboy1961
    Daveyboy1961 Posts: 4,726
    DecrepiterJohnL said:

    Nothing much on Christmas telly so I shall now watch my Christmas DVD of Kenneth Branagh playing Boris Johnson in This England (which wealthy PBers will have seen on Sky when it came out).

    you still have a dvd player?
  • Barnesian
    Barnesian Posts: 9,221
    edited December 2023
    Watching my grandkids competing on Fortnite before we attack the turkey with knives. Fortnite is a foreign world. I suddenly feel old but I'm enjoying the champagne
  • HYUFD
    HYUFD Posts: 128,924
    The connection between Islam, Christianity and Judaism as the great Abrahamic religions. The recognition that for some Christmas is more about family and friendship than Christianity. The need for community activism and to protect our environment and deal with the challenge of climate change.

    Very much a King's speech written in preparedness for a likely Starmer government next year I would say. Much less about Jesus and Christianity than his mother had too
  • DecrepiterJohnL
    DecrepiterJohnL Posts: 31,766
    Daveyboy1961 said:

    DecrepiterJohnL said:

    Nothing much on Christmas telly so I shall now watch my Christmas DVD of Kenneth Branagh playing Boris Johnson in This England (which wealthy PBers will have seen on Sky when it came out).

    you still have a dvd player?
    PC. I fear my dvd collection will shortly become a large set of shiny drinks coasters.
  • StillWaters
    StillWaters Posts: 10,370
    TimS said:

    JosiasJessop said:

    And in other Christmas news of merry cheer, it looks as though the Russians lost an SU-30 and SU-34 yesterday, making five high-end planes lost in a few days.

    Yet again, making it clear that the Ukrainians make good use of the gifts we give them.

    "Dear Santa, may I have a new Patriot battery? I've been a good boy this year. Signed, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. P.s.: I don't want to be a sneak, but my neighbour Putin's been an absolute stinker this year. They don't call him 'Vlad the Bad' for nothing."

    And as soon as they get a run of unfortunate events like this, Russia decide to pull back the bombers. As Kasparov notes on Twitter, Russia deescalates when it’s getting its arse kicked, and escalates
    when others show weakness.
    Classic bully behaviour
  • StillWaters
    StillWaters Posts: 10,370
    Foxy said:

    BlancheLivermore said:

    stjohn said:

    BlancheLivermore said:

    stjohn said:

    TimS said:

    Good morning and merry Christmas all. I’m crap at crosswords so don’t expect any meaningful contribution from me.

    A chilly but clear morning here in Southern Burgundy. Children still asleep.

    Pig from Southern Burgundy? (5)
    Hog victory in the south east (5)
    Blanche. As a postie you must know this one.

    Overworked postman.
    (Groan) how many letters?

    To be Frank, we need to stamp out talk of work!
    To be frank, you should letter us off puns for one day
  • StillWaters
    StillWaters Posts: 10,370
    Fishing said:

    IanB2 said:

    As a break from the crossword, some sage words from Hardman:

    Starmer won the Labour leadership in part because he didn’t give too strong a sense of what he was against or for. When I spoke to many MPs who ended up backing him during that contest in 2020, even they repeatedly said “he hasn’t said that much about what he believes yet”.

    [Labour] has a team at its HQ working on readiness for government that is known by superstitious staff as the “team with no name” because they fear cursing their chances by seeming too presumptive about a victory.

    Starmer needs his party to know what it is facing so it will support him through major reforms early on. He needs the public to be well aware of that so it buys into what will have to be a long-term project.

    One of the reasons the Tories are so out of love with being in power is that it is hard, relentless and wearing. It is also easy to fail to deliver on all of your priorities, which is something Sunak is having to contemplate given that he and his predecessors don’t have much evidence of Tory achievements other than on education reform. If and when Labour gets into government on a “time for change” ticket, it won’t have any time to work out what it wants to do, or to change course because the reforms would be too unpopular with certain special interest groups. It barely has much time…

    That creates a stick or twist dilemma for Starmer in an election year. Sticking with the current cautious approach will probably be enough to get Labour over the line this time, so woeful is the state of the Tories. But it risks leaving the party bereft of the big ideas and momentum that will propel it to start the business of change. Starmer rightly admires Thatcher for being clear about how she would transform Britain, and even more so for the fact she managed it. It’s his turn to harness that for his own purpose.

    Not sure I agree with any of that:

    - Starmer told everybody what he believed in in the Labour leadership election, running on a Corbynite platform after spending years working for his "friend" Jeremy. He just chucked it all down the toilet a few months he got elected and didn't need the Party membership's support any more.
    - Starmer doesn't have any "long-term projects" as far as I can see, at least none he won't ditch at the first whiff of unpopularity, except possibly house-building, which has beaten many better men than him, and whose benefits won't show up for many years anyway. Other than that, what is there? They're abandoning the £28 billion/year green growth crap. Closer ties with the EU won't do much if anything and the EU shows no interest in the wholesale rewriting of our relationship that would be needed. And there's nothing else that I can see.
    - power is certainly wearing at a time when crises come one after the other and living standards are falling if you don't have any solutions - in other words if you aren't up to the job. Mrs Thatcher thrived on that, but she was an exception - she seemed to tolerate, or even relish, being unpopular as long as she knew she was right. But years in opposition is just as wearing, perhaps more so.
    - there's a reason Starmer isn't clear about how he intends to transform Britain - he hasn't the foggiest idea how to do it. Anything he wants to do will have to be paid for, and there's no money. And he doesn't have either the instincts (like Mrs Thatcher) or the knowledge (like Nigel Lawson) of how to create wealth. And his party and its policies would strangle wealth generation even more than the current government have done.
    Well aren’t you a ray of sunshine 😀

    Merry Christmas from the left coast one and all
  • Luckyguy1983
    Luckyguy1983 Posts: 32,089
    HYUFD said:

    The connection between Islam, Christianity and Judaism as the great Abrahamic religions. The recognition that for some Christmas is more about family and friendship than Christianity. The need for community activism and to protect our environment and deal with the challenge of climate change.

    Very much a King's speech written in preparedness for a likely Starmer government next year I would say. Much less about Jesus and Christianity than his mother had too

    I'm skipping a Monarch.
  • Sean_F
    Sean_F Posts: 39,132
    HYUFD said:

    The connection between Islam, Christianity and Judaism as the great Abrahamic religions. The recognition that for some Christmas is more about family and friendship than Christianity. The need for community activism and to protect our environment and deal with the challenge of climate change.

    Very much a King's speech written in preparedness for a likely Starmer government next year I would say. Much less about Jesus and Christianity than his mother had too

    If Charles were a private citizen, I expect I would have very little in common with him, politically. I’m not sure he’d even be a supporter of the monarchy.
  • londonpubman
    londonpubman Posts: 3,665
    Any polls later? 😈
  • Sean_F
    Sean_F Posts: 39,132
    sarissa said:

    Luckyguy1983 said:

    RochdalePioneers said:

    Fishing said:

    IanB2 said:

    As a break from the crossword, some sage words from Hardman:

    Starmer won the Labour leadership in part because he didn’t give too strong a sense of what he was against or for. When I spoke to many MPs who ended up backing him during that contest in 2020, even they repeatedly said “he hasn’t said that much about what he believes yet”.

    [Labour] has a team at its HQ working on readiness for government that is known by superstitious staff as the “team with no name” because they fear cursing their chances by seeming too presumptive about a victory.

    Starmer needs his party to know what it is facing so it will support him through major reforms early on. He needs the public to be well aware of that so it buys into what will have to be a long-term project.

    One of the reasons the Tories are so out of love with being in power is that it is hard, relentless and wearing. It is also easy to fail to deliver on all of your priorities, which is something Sunak is having to contemplate given that he and his predecessors don’t have much evidence of Tory achievements other than on education reform. If and when Labour gets into government on a “time for change” ticket, it won’t have any time to work out what it wants to do, or to change course because the reforms would be too unpopular with certain special interest groups. It barely has much time…

    That creates a stick or twist dilemma for Starmer in an election year. Sticking with the current cautious approach will probably be enough to get Labour over the line this time, so woeful is the state of the Tories. But it risks leaving the party bereft of the big ideas and momentum that will propel it to start the business of change. Starmer rightly admires Thatcher for being clear about how she would transform Britain, and even more so for the fact she managed it. It’s his turn to harness that for his own purpose.

    Not sure I agree with any of that:

    - Starmer told everybody what he believed in in the Labour leadership election, running on a Corbynite platform after spending years working for his "friend" Jeremy. He just chucked it all down the toilet a few months he got elected and didn't need the Party membership's support any more.
    - Starmer doesn't have any "long-term projects" as far as I can see, at least none he won't ditch at the first whiff of unpopularity, except possibly house-building, which has beaten many better men than him, and whose benefits won't show up for many years anyway. Other than that, what is there? They're abandoning the £28 billion/year green growth crap. Closer ties with the EU won't do much if anything and the EU shows no interest in the wholesale rewriting of our relationship that would be needed. And there's nothing else that I can see.
    - power is certainly wearing at a time when crises come one after the other and living standards are falling if you don't have any solutions - in other words if you aren't up to the job. Mrs Thatcher thrived on that, but she was an exception - she seemed to tolerate, or even relish, being unpopular as long as she knew she was right. But years in opposition is just as wearing, perhaps more so.
    - there's a reason Starmer isn't clear about how he intends to transform Britain - he hasn't the foggiest idea how to do it. Anything he wants to do will have to be paid for, and there's no money. And he doesn't have either the instincts (like Mrs Thatcher) or the knowledge (like Nigel Lawson) of how to create wealth. And his party and its policies would strangle wealth generation even more than the current government have done.
    Merry Christmas all!

    The line I have highlighted is the Tories final attack line. We're utterly shit, but you have to vote for us because we think the alternative is worse.

    My instinct is that if they can find a way to weaponise this, there are still enough receptive ears to belay a rout and deliver only a solid defeat. But they would need something specific and resonant. They can't attack Labour tax plans because they've just put taxes up to the record level in peacetime. They can't talk about Labour waste as they're wasting vast billions. They can't talk about Law and Order as they're telling judges to let rapists off as there's no prison spaces to put them in. Etc etc etc.

    The truth is the opposite of Fishing's line. Nobody can trash this country harder than the current government. Nobody. And when the remaining PB Tories turn out the lights at night I suspect they know it too.

    What do they have in reserve they can throw at Starmer? The Torygraph is picking at his time as DPP - perhaps a black swan pulled out of a closet somewhere?
    One of the biggest challenges that the UK faces is a metastasising but completely useless and unproductive state. The civil service is becoming less effective, yet increasingly political, and ever more voracious when it comes to taxpayers' money. The NHS, the Bank of England, the OBR, the Home Office - have we seen a quango or department that isn't a total shitshow in recent years? You could say the Tories have done nothing about it, and you'd be right, but the indications are that Starmer would hand greater power to organisations like the OBR, making the task of elected politicians to turn the country around even harder.
    Robin McAlpine of Common Weal, has a few ideas, applicable not just for Scotland.
    My advice to Starmer, FWIW, would be to focus on three big things, and concentrate on fixing them. Accept that you won’t fix everything, and accept that some things are insoluble.
  • viewcode
    viewcode Posts: 25,202
    londonpubman said:

    Any polls later? 😈

    Technically, yes 👿
  • londonpubman
    londonpubman Posts: 3,665
    viewcode said:

    londonpubman said:

    Any polls later? 😈

    Technically, yes 👿
    I bet LAB will be ahead in the next poll but...DYOR
  • JosiasJessop
    JosiasJessop Posts: 46,251
    Has Zelenskyy been a really good boy this year, and got a special present from Santa? A few hunting Falcons, perhaps?

    https://twitter.com/SythUK/status/1739253169031434291

    That seems a little CGI, but some Russians are apparently claiming that the SU-34 shot down yesterday was shot down by an F16...
  • HYUFD
    HYUFD Posts: 128,924
    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    The connection between Islam, Christianity and Judaism as the great Abrahamic religions. The recognition that for some Christmas is more about family and friendship than Christianity. The need for community activism and to protect our environment and deal with the challenge of climate change.

    Very much a King's speech written in preparedness for a likely Starmer government next year I would say. Much less about Jesus and Christianity than his mother had too

    If Charles were a private citizen, I expect I would have very little in common with him, politically. I’m not sure he’d even be a supporter of the monarchy.
    If Charles were a private citizen he would probably be a LD or Green or even Starmer Labour. He would probably still support the monarchy but a monarchy more in the reformed direction he is trying to move it in
  • SeaShantyIrish2
    SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    Holy Johnny! Thank you! AND a hearty "Bah Humbug!!" to you & yours!!!

    Question - is 3 down "Poland" like I opined?
  • LostPassword
    LostPassword Posts: 19,679
    Sean_F said:

    sarissa said:

    Luckyguy1983 said:

    RochdalePioneers said:

    Fishing said:

    IanB2 said:

    As a break from the crossword, some sage words from Hardman:

    Starmer won the Labour leadership in part because he didn’t give too strong a sense of what he was against or for. When I spoke to many MPs who ended up backing him during that contest in 2020, even they repeatedly said “he hasn’t said that much about what he believes yet”.

    [Labour] has a team at its HQ working on readiness for government that is known by superstitious staff as the “team with no name” because they fear cursing their chances by seeming too presumptive about a victory.

    Starmer needs his party to know what it is facing so it will support him through major reforms early on. He needs the public to be well aware of that so it buys into what will have to be a long-term project.

    One of the reasons the Tories are so out of love with being in power is that it is hard, relentless and wearing. It is also easy to fail to deliver on all of your priorities, which is something Sunak is having to contemplate given that he and his predecessors don’t have much evidence of Tory achievements other than on education reform. If and when Labour gets into government on a “time for change” ticket, it won’t have any time to work out what it wants to do, or to change course because the reforms would be too unpopular with certain special interest groups. It barely has much time…

    That creates a stick or twist dilemma for Starmer in an election year. Sticking with the current cautious approach will probably be enough to get Labour over the line this time, so woeful is the state of the Tories. But it risks leaving the party bereft of the big ideas and momentum that will propel it to start the business of change. Starmer rightly admires Thatcher for being clear about how she would transform Britain, and even more so for the fact she managed it. It’s his turn to harness that for his own purpose.

    Not sure I agree with any of that:

    - Starmer told everybody what he believed in in the Labour leadership election, running on a Corbynite platform after spending years working for his "friend" Jeremy. He just chucked it all down the toilet a few months he got elected and didn't need the Party membership's support any more.
    - Starmer doesn't have any "long-term projects" as far as I can see, at least none he won't ditch at the first whiff of unpopularity, except possibly house-building, which has beaten many better men than him, and whose benefits won't show up for many years anyway. Other than that, what is there? They're abandoning the £28 billion/year green growth crap. Closer ties with the EU won't do much if anything and the EU shows no interest in the wholesale rewriting of our relationship that would be needed. And there's nothing else that I can see.
    - power is certainly wearing at a time when crises come one after the other and living standards are falling if you don't have any solutions - in other words if you aren't up to the job. Mrs Thatcher thrived on that, but she was an exception - she seemed to tolerate, or even relish, being unpopular as long as she knew she was right. But years in opposition is just as wearing, perhaps more so.
    - there's a reason Starmer isn't clear about how he intends to transform Britain - he hasn't the foggiest idea how to do it. Anything he wants to do will have to be paid for, and there's no money. And he doesn't have either the instincts (like Mrs Thatcher) or the knowledge (like Nigel Lawson) of how to create wealth. And his party and its policies would strangle wealth generation even more than the current government have done.
    Merry Christmas all!

    The line I have highlighted is the Tories final attack line. We're utterly shit, but you have to vote for us because we think the alternative is worse.

    My instinct is that if they can find a way to weaponise this, there are still enough receptive ears to belay a rout and deliver only a solid defeat. But they would need something specific and resonant. They can't attack Labour tax plans because they've just put taxes up to the record level in peacetime. They can't talk about Labour waste as they're wasting vast billions. They can't talk about Law and Order as they're telling judges to let rapists off as there's no prison spaces to put them in. Etc etc etc.

    The truth is the opposite of Fishing's line. Nobody can trash this country harder than the current government. Nobody. And when the remaining PB Tories turn out the lights at night I suspect they know it too.

    What do they have in reserve they can throw at Starmer? The Torygraph is picking at his time as DPP - perhaps a black swan pulled out of a closet somewhere?
    One of the biggest challenges that the UK faces is a metastasising but completely useless and unproductive state. The civil service is becoming less effective, yet increasingly political, and ever more voracious when it comes to taxpayers' money. The NHS, the Bank of England, the OBR, the Home Office - have we seen a quango or department that isn't a total shitshow in recent years? You could say the Tories have done nothing about it, and you'd be right, but the indications are that Starmer would hand greater power to organisations like the OBR, making the task of elected politicians to turn the country around even harder.
    Robin McAlpine of Common Weal, has a few ideas, applicable not just for Scotland.
    My advice to Starmer, FWIW, would be to focus on three big things, and concentrate on fixing them. Accept that you won’t fix everything, and accept that some things are insoluble.
    Housing, Healthcare and...Industry?

    I would have the State commission housebuilding to try and drive up volumes. I would increase medical training places so that they exceed the long term requirements of the NHS, and I would do whatever it took to attract investment in future industries to Britain.
  • DecrepiterJohnL
    DecrepiterJohnL Posts: 31,766
    SeaShantyIrish2 said:

    Holy Johnny! Thank you! AND a hearty "Bah Humbug!!" to you & yours!!!

    Question - is 3 down "Poland" like I opined?

    10 Country with a European President (6) WALESA.
  • DecrepiterJohnL
    DecrepiterJohnL Posts: 31,766
    'That's my £60 turkey in the bin' More families say their festive plans are in ruins after waking up on Christmas morning to discover their Asda, Sainsbury's and Tesco turkeys are 'mouldy' and 'rancid'
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12898993/turkeys-rotten-families-blast-supermarkets.html

    Turkeygate would never happen under a Starmer-led government.
  • TimS
    TimS Posts: 15,712
    DecrepiterJohnL said:

    'That's my £60 turkey in the bin' More families say their festive plans are in ruins after waking up on Christmas morning to discover their Asda, Sainsbury's and Tesco turkeys are 'mouldy' and 'rancid'
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12898993/turkeys-rotten-families-blast-supermarkets.html

    Turkeygate would never happen under a Starmer-led government.

    Under Starmer we’ll all have proper birds


  • SandyRentool
    SandyRentool Posts: 23,156
    TOPPING said:

    SandyRentool said:

    Getting ready to set off to attend the Christmas get together with assorted in-laws.

    I still have lingering symptoms from last Monday's viral attack, so will be staying off the booze. However, my meat-free diet will be taking a day off.

    So all that criticism of Boris telling people to go out and kill their grannies has mellowed somewhat.
    A) Sadly none of the older generation are still with us.

    B) I ain't still infectious.

  • SeaShantyIrish2
    SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    DecrepiterJohnL said:

    SeaShantyIrish2 said:

    Holy Johnny! Thank you! AND a hearty "Bah Humbug!!" to you & yours!!!

    Question - is 3 down "Poland" like I opined?

    10 Country with a European President (6) WALESA.
    Really? Lech Wałęsa was indeed President of Poland, which is an European country alright.

    But Lech himself is NOT a country.
  • williamglenn
    williamglenn Posts: 56,289
    SeaShantyIrish2 said:

    DecrepiterJohnL said:

    SeaShantyIrish2 said:

    Holy Johnny! Thank you! AND a hearty "Bah Humbug!!" to you & yours!!!

    Question - is 3 down "Poland" like I opined?

    10 Country with a European President (6) WALESA.
    Really? Lech Wałęsa was indeed President of Poland, which is an European country alright.

    But Lech himself is NOT a country.
    Wales is.
  • Theuniondivvie
    Theuniondivvie Posts: 44,327
    edited December 2023
    TimS said:

    DecrepiterJohnL said:

    'That's my £60 turkey in the bin' More families say their festive plans are in ruins after waking up on Christmas morning to discover their Asda, Sainsbury's and Tesco turkeys are 'mouldy' and 'rancid'
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12898993/turkeys-rotten-families-blast-supermarkets.html

    Turkeygate would never happen under a Starmer-led government.

    Under Starmer we’ll all have proper birds


    Will we be encouraged to roast the free owls?

    Thanks btw for your Morrisons Nyetimber tip, about to try it out.
  • StillWaters
    StillWaters Posts: 10,370
    williamglenn said:

    SeaShantyIrish2 said:

    DecrepiterJohnL said:

    SeaShantyIrish2 said:

    Holy Johnny! Thank you! AND a hearty "Bah Humbug!!" to you & yours!!!

    Question - is 3 down "Poland" like I opined?

    10 Country with a European President (6) WALESA.
    Really? Lech Wałęsa was indeed President of Poland, which is an European country alright.

    But Lech himself is NOT a country.
    Wales is.
    Surely a Principality not a country

    (Lights touch paper and retires to safe distance)
  • Sean_F
    Sean_F Posts: 39,132
    LostPassword said:

    Sean_F said:

    sarissa said:

    Luckyguy1983 said:

    RochdalePioneers said:

    Fishing said:

    IanB2 said:

    As a break from the crossword, some sage words from Hardman:

    Starmer won the Labour leadership in part because he didn’t give too strong a sense of what he was against or for. When I spoke to many MPs who ended up backing him during that contest in 2020, even they repeatedly said “he hasn’t said that much about what he believes yet”.

    [Labour] has a team at its HQ working on readiness for government that is known by superstitious staff as the “team with no name” because they fear cursing their chances by seeming too presumptive about a victory.

    Starmer needs his party to know what it is facing so it will support him through major reforms early on. He needs the public to be well aware of that so it buys into what will have to be a long-term project.

    One of the reasons the Tories are so out of love with being in power is that it is hard, relentless and wearing. It is also easy to fail to deliver on all of your priorities, which is something Sunak is having to contemplate given that he and his predecessors don’t have much evidence of Tory achievements other than on education reform. If and when Labour gets into government on a “time for change” ticket, it won’t have any time to work out what it wants to do, or to change course because the reforms would be too unpopular with certain special interest groups. It barely has much time…

    That creates a stick or twist dilemma for Starmer in an election year. Sticking with the current cautious approach will probably be enough to get Labour over the line this time, so woeful is the state of the Tories. But it risks leaving the party bereft of the big ideas and momentum that will propel it to start the business of change. Starmer rightly admires Thatcher for being clear about how she would transform Britain, and even more so for the fact she managed it. It’s his turn to harness that for his own purpose.

    Not sure I agree with any of that:

    - Starmer told everybody what he believed in in the Labour leadership election, running on a Corbynite platform after spending years working for his "friend" Jeremy. He just chucked it all down the toilet a few months he got elected and didn't need the Party membership's support any more.
    - Starmer doesn't have any "long-term projects" as far as I can see, at least none he won't ditch at the first whiff of unpopularity, except possibly house-building, which has beaten many better men than him, and whose benefits won't show up for many years anyway. Other than that, what is there? They're abandoning the £28 billion/year green growth crap. Closer ties with the EU won't do much if anything and the EU shows no interest in the wholesale rewriting of our relationship that would be needed. And there's nothing else that I can see.
    - power is certainly wearing at a time when crises come one after the other and living standards are falling if you don't have any solutions - in other words if you aren't up to the job. Mrs Thatcher thrived on that, but she was an exception - she seemed to tolerate, or even relish, being unpopular as long as she knew she was right. But years in opposition is just as wearing, perhaps more so.
    - there's a reason Starmer isn't clear about how he intends to transform Britain - he hasn't the foggiest idea how to do it. Anything he wants to do will have to be paid for, and there's no money. And he doesn't have either the instincts (like Mrs Thatcher) or the knowledge (like Nigel Lawson) of how to create wealth. And his party and its policies would strangle wealth generation even more than the current government have done.
    Merry Christmas all!

    The line I have highlighted is the Tories final attack line. We're utterly shit, but you have to vote for us because we think the alternative is worse.

    My instinct is that if they can find a way to weaponise this, there are still enough receptive ears to belay a rout and deliver only a solid defeat. But they would need something specific and resonant. They can't attack Labour tax plans because they've just put taxes up to the record level in peacetime. They can't talk about Labour waste as they're wasting vast billions. They can't talk about Law and Order as they're telling judges to let rapists off as there's no prison spaces to put them in. Etc etc etc.

    The truth is the opposite of Fishing's line. Nobody can trash this country harder than the current government. Nobody. And when the remaining PB Tories turn out the lights at night I suspect they know it too.

    What do they have in reserve they can throw at Starmer? The Torygraph is picking at his time as DPP - perhaps a black swan pulled out of a closet somewhere?
    One of the biggest challenges that the UK faces is a metastasising but completely useless and unproductive state. The civil service is becoming less effective, yet increasingly political, and ever more voracious when it comes to taxpayers' money. The NHS, the Bank of England, the OBR, the Home Office - have we seen a quango or department that isn't a total shitshow in recent years? You could say the Tories have done nothing about it, and you'd be right, but the indications are that Starmer would hand greater power to organisations like the OBR, making the task of elected politicians to turn the country around even harder.
    Robin McAlpine of Common Weal, has a few ideas, applicable not just for Scotland.
    My advice to Starmer, FWIW, would be to focus on three big things, and concentrate on fixing them. Accept that you won’t fix everything, and accept that some things are insoluble.
    Housing, Healthcare and...Industry?

    I would have the State commission housebuilding to try and drive up volumes. I would increase medical training places so that they exceed the long term requirements of the NHS, and I would do whatever it took to attract investment in future industries to Britain.
    I’d probably go for housing, social care and justice.

    Healthcare is probably insoluble and the government has a lousy industrial record.
  • StillWaters
    StillWaters Posts: 10,370
    Sean_F said:

    LostPassword said:

    Sean_F said:

    sarissa said:

    Luckyguy1983 said:

    RochdalePioneers said:

    Fishing said:

    IanB2 said:

    As a break from the crossword, some sage words from Hardman:

    Starmer won the Labour leadership in part because he didn’t give too strong a sense of what he was against or for. When I spoke to many MPs who ended up backing him during that contest in 2020, even they repeatedly said “he hasn’t said that much about what he believes yet”.

    [Labour] has a team at its HQ working on readiness for government that is known by superstitious staff as the “team with no name” because they fear cursing their chances by seeming too presumptive about a victory.

    Starmer needs his party to know what it is facing so it will support him through major reforms early on. He needs the public to be well aware of that so it buys into what will have to be a long-term project.

    One of the reasons the Tories are so out of love with being in power is that it is hard, relentless and wearing. It is also easy to fail to deliver on all of your priorities, which is something Sunak is having to contemplate given that he and his predecessors don’t have much evidence of Tory achievements other than on education reform. If and when Labour gets into government on a “time for change” ticket, it won’t have any time to work out what it wants to do, or to change course because the reforms would be too unpopular with certain special interest groups. It barely has much time…

    That creates a stick or twist dilemma for Starmer in an election year. Sticking with the current cautious approach will probably be enough to get Labour over the line this time, so woeful is the state of the Tories. But it risks leaving the party bereft of the big ideas and momentum that will propel it to start the business of change. Starmer rightly admires Thatcher for being clear about how she would transform Britain, and even more so for the fact she managed it. It’s his turn to harness that for his own purpose.

    Not sure I agree with any of that:

    - Starmer told everybody what he believed in in the Labour leadership election, running on a Corbynite platform after spending years working for his "friend" Jeremy. He just chucked it all down the toilet a few months he got elected and didn't need the Party membership's support any more.
    - Starmer doesn't have any "long-term projects" as far as I can see, at least none he won't ditch at the first whiff of unpopularity, except possibly house-building, which has beaten many better men than him, and whose benefits won't show up for many years anyway. Other than that, what is there? They're abandoning the £28 billion/year green growth crap. Closer ties with the EU won't do much if anything and the EU shows no interest in the wholesale rewriting of our relationship that would be needed. And there's nothing else that I can see.
    - power is certainly wearing at a time when crises come one after the other and living standards are falling if you don't have any solutions - in other words if you aren't up to the job. Mrs Thatcher thrived on that, but she was an exception - she seemed to tolerate, or even relish, being unpopular as long as she knew she was right. But years in opposition is just as wearing, perhaps more so.
    - there's a reason Starmer isn't clear about how he intends to transform Britain - he hasn't the foggiest idea how to do it. Anything he wants to do will have to be paid for, and there's no money. And he doesn't have either the instincts (like Mrs Thatcher) or the knowledge (like Nigel Lawson) of how to create wealth. And his party and its policies would strangle wealth generation even more than the current government have done.
    Merry Christmas all!

    The line I have highlighted is the Tories final attack line. We're utterly shit, but you have to vote for us because we think the alternative is worse.

    My instinct is that if they can find a way to weaponise this, there are still enough receptive ears to belay a rout and deliver only a solid defeat. But they would need something specific and resonant. They can't attack Labour tax plans because they've just put taxes up to the record level in peacetime. They can't talk about Labour waste as they're wasting vast billions. They can't talk about Law and Order as they're telling judges to let rapists off as there's no prison spaces to put them in. Etc etc etc.

    The truth is the opposite of Fishing's line. Nobody can trash this country harder than the current government. Nobody. And when the remaining PB Tories turn out the lights at night I suspect they know it too.

    What do they have in reserve they can throw at Starmer? The Torygraph is picking at his time as DPP - perhaps a black swan pulled out of a closet somewhere?
    One of the biggest challenges that the UK faces is a metastasising but completely useless and unproductive state. The civil service is becoming less effective, yet increasingly political, and ever more voracious when it comes to taxpayers' money. The NHS, the Bank of England, the OBR, the Home Office - have we seen a quango or department that isn't a total shitshow in recent years? You could say the Tories have done nothing about it, and you'd be right, but the indications are that Starmer would hand greater power to organisations like the OBR, making the task of elected politicians to turn the country around even harder.
    Robin McAlpine of Common Weal, has a few ideas, applicable not just for Scotland.
    My advice to Starmer, FWIW, would be to focus on three big things, and concentrate on fixing them. Accept that you won’t fix everything, and accept that some things are insoluble.
    Housing, Healthcare and...Industry?

    I would have the State commission housebuilding to try and drive up volumes. I would increase medical training places so that they exceed the long term requirements of the NHS, and I would do whatever it took to attract investment in future industries to Britain.
    I’d probably go for housing, social care and justice.

    Healthcare is probably insoluble and the government has a lousy industrial record.
    And yet there are somethings that should be a relatively quick fix, easy to understand/explain to voters and can be presented as an obvious “win”

    Doctors training places are one. AIUI there are more qualified candidates than places. But expansion of places should be relatively achievable and is just a matter of money (but small amounts in the scheme of things).

    Sure it will take 5+ years before it comes through but I think you can sell to the voters anyway because it’s a simple concept (we are training more doctors).

    The post qualification experience system is I believe messed up and that’s probably a harder fix
  • TimS
    TimS Posts: 15,712
    Theuniondivvie said:

    TimS said:

    DecrepiterJohnL said:

    'That's my £60 turkey in the bin' More families say their festive plans are in ruins after waking up on Christmas morning to discover their Asda, Sainsbury's and Tesco turkeys are 'mouldy' and 'rancid'
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12898993/turkeys-rotten-families-blast-supermarkets.html

    Turkeygate would never happen under a Starmer-led government.

    Under Starmer we’ll all have proper birds


    Will we be encouraged to roast the free owls?

    Thanks btw for your Morrisons Nyetimber tip, about to try it out.
    Fingers crossed it lives up to the recommendation. Sugrue South Downs for our sparkling today.
  • SeaShantyIrish2
    SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    Re: moldy turkeys, thought that Brits appreciated aged, highly-flavored fowl?
  • Casino_Royale
    Casino_Royale Posts: 63,687
    I thought the King's Speech was ok.

    It was about reconciliation and goodwill to all, regardless of religion, which is what is sorely needed this year.
  • ydoethur
    ydoethur Posts: 74,263
    StillWaters said:

    williamglenn said:

    SeaShantyIrish2 said:

    DecrepiterJohnL said:

    SeaShantyIrish2 said:

    Holy Johnny! Thank you! AND a hearty "Bah Humbug!!" to you & yours!!!

    Question - is 3 down "Poland" like I opined?

    10 Country with a European President (6) WALESA.
    Really? Lech Wałęsa was indeed President of Poland, which is an European country alright.

    But Lech himself is NOT a country.
    Wales is.
    Surely a Principality not a country

    (Lights touch paper and retires to safe distance)
    It has the Principalities but not the Powers of a country.
  • Luckyguy1983
    Luckyguy1983 Posts: 32,089
    ...
    SeaShantyIrish2 said:

    Re: moldy turkeys, thought that Brits appreciated aged, highly-flavored fowl?

    Do you mind, that is our King you're talking about.
  • MattW
    MattW Posts: 28,304
    Theuniondivvie said:

    TimS said:

    DecrepiterJohnL said:

    'That's my £60 turkey in the bin' More families say their festive plans are in ruins after waking up on Christmas morning to discover their Asda, Sainsbury's and Tesco turkeys are 'mouldy' and 'rancid'
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12898993/turkeys-rotten-families-blast-supermarkets.html

    Turkeygate would never happen under a Starmer-led government.

    Under Starmer we’ll all have proper birds


    Will we be encouraged to roast the free owls?

    Thanks btw for your Morrisons Nyetimber tip, about to try it out.
    I still have 3 of those, too.
  • rcs1000
    rcs1000 Posts: 60,717
    edited December 2023
    Luckyguy1983 said:

    Happy Christmas everyone. Here's to peace on earth and good will toward men and women.

    Here's to peace on earth and good will to all things, no matter how they identify.

    Except Vladimir Putin, the leadership of Hamas and Bibi.
  • Theuniondivvie
    Theuniondivvie Posts: 44,327
    TimS said:

    Theuniondivvie said:

    TimS said:

    DecrepiterJohnL said:

    'That's my £60 turkey in the bin' More families say their festive plans are in ruins after waking up on Christmas morning to discover their Asda, Sainsbury's and Tesco turkeys are 'mouldy' and 'rancid'
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12898993/turkeys-rotten-families-blast-supermarkets.html

    Turkeygate would never happen under a Starmer-led government.

    Under Starmer we’ll all have proper birds


    Will we be encouraged to roast the free owls?

    Thanks btw for your Morrisons Nyetimber tip, about to try it out.
    Fingers crossed it lives up to the recommendation. Sugrue South Downs for our sparkling today.
    Very good, quite a bit of depth and dry enough to keep it interesting. My partner has commandeered the rest of the bottle.
  • Malmesbury
    Malmesbury Posts: 55,723
    rcs1000 said:

    Luckyguy1983 said:

    Happy Christmas everyone. Here's to peace on earth and good will toward men and women.

    Here's to peace on earth and good will to all things, no matter how they identify.

    Except Vladimir Putin, the leadership of Hamas and Bibi.
    There’s a moment in Violent Night where Santa can’t believe how many people are appearing on the Naughty List - as the bad guys reinforcements arrive.
  • ydoethur
    ydoethur Posts: 74,263
    rcs1000 said:

    Luckyguy1983 said:

    Happy Christmas everyone. Here's to peace on earth and good will toward men and women.

    Here's to peace on earth and good will to all things, no matter how they identify.

    Except Vladimir Putin, the leadership of Hamas and Bibi.
    Can we add Xi, Maduro, Modi, the ayatollahs of Iran and Amanda Spielman?
  • viewcode
    viewcode Posts: 25,202
    StillWaters said:

    williamglenn said:

    SeaShantyIrish2 said:

    DecrepiterJohnL said:

    SeaShantyIrish2 said:

    Holy Johnny! Thank you! AND a hearty "Bah Humbug!!" to you & yours!!!

    Question - is 3 down "Poland" like I opined?

    10 Country with a European President (6) WALESA.
    Really? Lech Wałęsa was indeed President of Poland, which is an European country alright.

    But Lech himself is NOT a country.
    Wales is.
    Surely a Principality not a country

    (Lights touch paper and retires to safe distance)
    The (historic) Principality of Wales and the (present) country of Wales don't have the same borders. It's like using "Ulster" for "Northern Ireland".
  • AverageNinja
    AverageNinja Posts: 1,169
    Netanyahu is a wanker.
  • Malmesbury
    Malmesbury Posts: 55,723
    rcs1000 said:

    Luckyguy1983 said:

    Happy Christmas everyone. Here's to peace on earth and good will toward men and women.

    Here's to peace on earth and good will to all things, no matter how they identify.

    Except Vladimir Putin, the leadership of Hamas and Bibi.
    And Hans Gruber. It’s not Christmas until Professor Snake has been thrown off Nakatomi Towers.

    #NakatomiTowersNeverForget
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