Sunak’s hypocrisy laid bare – politicalbetting.com

Casino_Royale said:

How depressing that the editorial line of this site is now to constantly attack the PM.

By someone who's a self-professed Tory.

Still a lot of bitterness over what happened to the Lib-Dems in 2015, not to mention Brexit and political demise of Cameron and Osborne! 😂

rcs1000 said:

mwadams said:

WillG said:

Leon said:

WillG said:

nico679 said:

Leon said:

OMFG this is terrible what can we do (cont pages 994-978)


“Trump now has a commanding lead. Beating Biden with Hispanics, scoring very well with Blacks and young voters x.com/patrickruffini…”

https://x.com/macaesbruno/status/1763927741483663674?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

No one cares anymore . The US is a failed state. The sooner the rest of the world realizes this the better .

Yet somehow has higher median income than virtually all of Europe.

Large chunks of urban America are a crime ridden drug addled toilet, tho

In a way we don’t really comprehend in Europe

Now, most of America doesn’t live there. They live in generally nice suburbs. But enough of them encounter it, or pay for it with their taxes, for it to make an electoral difference

And Biden’s abject inability to control the border is not helping

It is true that the US has urban ghettos that are significantly worse than Europe. But this isn't even a majority of urban areas.

Over the last year I have been to the city centres of New York City, Atlanta, Chicago, Charlotte, Miami, Virginia Beach and San Francisco. All seemed nice places, sometimes a bit dirty but no worse than the grimmer areas of central London. Of course, worse areas exist, but most Americans don't encounter them because most people don't travel to ghettos.

What they do have is a constant inundation of images of the ghettos on social media and cable news, due to a highly effective right wing media network. That is why people think it is worse now than during the 1980s of sunny Reaganism, despite crime and poverty at the time being substantially worse.

You found the city centre of San Francisco quite nice? My experience is that the streets are covered in human excrement , drug casualties, middle class people desperately trying to ignore what is going on around them by staring into their phones and coffee shops full of unemployed tech people desperately interviewing for jobs over zoom.

It used to be one of my favourite places in America.

I've been to San Francisco on and off since the late 1990s, and it's always been an absolute shithole, with hollow eyed homeless drug addicts with schizophrenia wandering from SoMa up into Union Square and beyond.

Of course, there are some very nice parts. But the center and SoMa are - and have always been - utterly horrendous.

Central Seattle, which I haven't visited for twenty years was the same: an urban hell hole filled with ragged clothed people with few teeth begging for money for whatever the drug de jour for the mentally ill is.

Los Angeles is a little different, because there's a lot more "temporary" homelessness of people living in RVs, having jobs, but not being able to afford the local housing market.

But we also - of course - have the crystal meth-heads wandering around.

They seem to have bussed a lot of the Seattle homeless out of the centre, last time I was there (just before lockdown 1).

I lived in a (niceish) suburb of Baltimore and the route out up old main street made The Wire look like a glow up.

rcs1000 said:

mwadams said:

WillG said:

Leon said:

WillG said:

nico679 said:

Leon said:

OMFG this is terrible what can we do (cont pages 994-978)


“Trump now has a commanding lead. Beating Biden with Hispanics, scoring very well with Blacks and young voters x.com/patrickruffini…”

https://x.com/macaesbruno/status/1763927741483663674?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

No one cares anymore . The US is a failed state. The sooner the rest of the world realizes this the better .

Yet somehow has higher median income than virtually all of Europe.

Large chunks of urban America are a crime ridden drug addled toilet, tho

In a way we don’t really comprehend in Europe

Now, most of America doesn’t live there. They live in generally nice suburbs. But enough of them encounter it, or pay for it with their taxes, for it to make an electoral difference

And Biden’s abject inability to control the border is not helping

It is true that the US has urban ghettos that are significantly worse than Europe. But this isn't even a majority of urban areas.

Over the last year I have been to the city centres of New York City, Atlanta, Chicago, Charlotte, Miami, Virginia Beach and San Francisco. All seemed nice places, sometimes a bit dirty but no worse than the grimmer areas of central London. Of course, worse areas exist, but most Americans don't encounter them because most people don't travel to ghettos.

What they do have is a constant inundation of images of the ghettos on social media and cable news, due to a highly effective right wing media network. That is why people think it is worse now than during the 1980s of sunny Reaganism, despite crime and poverty at the time being substantially worse.

You found the city centre of San Francisco quite nice? My experience is that the streets are covered in human excrement , drug casualties, middle class people desperately trying to ignore what is going on around them by staring into their phones and coffee shops full of unemployed tech people desperately interviewing for jobs over zoom.

It used to be one of my favourite places in America.

I've been to San Francisco on and off since the late 1990s, and it's always been an absolute shithole, with hollow eyed homeless drug addicts with schizophrenia wandering from SoMa up into Union Square and beyond.

Of course, there are some very nice parts. But the center and SoMa are - and have always been - utterly horrendous.

Central Seattle, which I haven't visited for twenty years was the same: an urban hell hole filled with ragged clothed people with few teeth begging for money for whatever the drug de jour for the mentally ill is.

Los Angeles is a little different, because there's a lot more "temporary" homelessness of people living in RVs, having jobs, but not being able to afford the local housing market.

But we also - of course - have the crystal meth-heads wandering around.

My first time in San Francisco waaay back in 1972 was same re: downtown & rest of skid row. Rest of where I went had its ups and downs sociologically AND topographically.

Was actually visiting a friend who lived with his family just beyond the Berkeley Hills in Contra Costa County, which was affluent suburban. Also semi-desert in stark contrast to the other side of the Hills which is quasi-rain forest.

Didn't go to downtown Oakland, which did NOT enjoy a good reputation to put it mildly. Downtown Berkeley was pretty crummy, but for me the bookstores more than made up for it.

As for downtown Seattle, was down their just this week. Not much different from what you describe, which was what I saw thirty years ago. Ravages of COVID, fentanyl and ever-higher rents have added a new layer.

My own impression, is that things are getting somewhat better, at least IF you don't own commercial property downtown. Even found a new hat store, a quasi-popup sponsored by downtown chamber of commerce program to revitalize the central business district.

The hatter makes custom hats - should I ask for a Galloway?

Naw, to much risk of having to eat my 'at some damn day!

Klopp comforting his unused sub 👊



https://twitter.com/O1Paul/status/1763972661879751148/photo/1

TheScreamingEagles said:

Klopp comforting his unused sub 👊



https://twitter.com/O1Paul/status/1763972661879751148/photo/1

Looks a bit weird tbh.

AbandonedHope said:

MoonRabbit said:

algarkirk said:

londonpubman said:

Time for Rishi to call the GE

GE = 2 May 👍

If he does it has to be called in just over three weeks from now. (I don't think he will).

Sunak is announcing it in 9 days time, Monday week, sometime between 1035 and 1150

If only it were true. Unfortunately, it’s the Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey at 3pm and I can’t see Sunak being allowed to announce the election against that backdrop.

More likely the next day and go to the Palace after PMQs.

That fits with the constitutional convention that the lectern is used in the afternoon.

If Lord Farquaad doesn't call the election in May he is going to get the Gordon Brown treatment...

Casino_Royale said:

How depressing that the editorial line of this site is now to constantly attack the PM.

By someone who's a self-professed Tory.

I agree with you up to a point. Having had a Tory PM who was completely dishonest followed by another who was totally bonkers, Rishi Sunak is merely incompetent in comparison, and not delinquent like the other two.

rcs1000 said:

mwadams said:

WillG said:

Leon said:

WillG said:

nico679 said:

Leon said:

OMFG this is terrible what can we do (cont pages 994-978)


“Trump now has a commanding lead. Beating Biden with Hispanics, scoring very well with Blacks and young voters x.com/patrickruffini…”

https://x.com/macaesbruno/status/1763927741483663674?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

No one cares anymore . The US is a failed state. The sooner the rest of the world realizes this the better .

Yet somehow has higher median income than virtually all of Europe.

Large chunks of urban America are a crime ridden drug addled toilet, tho

In a way we don’t really comprehend in Europe

Now, most of America doesn’t live there. They live in generally nice suburbs. But enough of them encounter it, or pay for it with their taxes, for it to make an electoral difference

And Biden’s abject inability to control the border is not helping

It is true that the US has urban ghettos that are significantly worse than Europe. But this isn't even a majority of urban areas.

Over the last year I have been to the city centres of New York City, Atlanta, Chicago, Charlotte, Miami, Virginia Beach and San Francisco. All seemed nice places, sometimes a bit dirty but no worse than the grimmer areas of central London. Of course, worse areas exist, but most Americans don't encounter them because most people don't travel to ghettos.

What they do have is a constant inundation of images of the ghettos on social media and cable news, due to a highly effective right wing media network. That is why people think it is worse now than during the 1980s of sunny Reaganism, despite crime and poverty at the time being substantially worse.

You found the city centre of San Francisco quite nice? My experience is that the streets are covered in human excrement , drug casualties, middle class people desperately trying to ignore what is going on around them by staring into their phones and coffee shops full of unemployed tech people desperately interviewing for jobs over zoom.

It used to be one of my favourite places in America.

I've been to San Francisco on and off since the late 1990s, and it's always been an absolute shithole, with hollow eyed homeless drug addicts with schizophrenia wandering from SoMa up into Union Square and beyond.

Of course, there are some very nice parts. But the center and SoMa are - and have always been - utterly horrendous.

Central Seattle, which I haven't visited for twenty years was the same: an urban hell hole filled with ragged clothed people with few teeth begging for money for whatever the drug de jour for the mentally ill is.

Los Angeles is a little different, because there's a lot more "temporary" homelessness of people living in RVs, having jobs, but not being able to afford the local housing market.

But we also - of course - have the crystal meth-heads wandering around.

The degree of on-street deprivation in American cities depends entirely on the effort each one puts into displacing the problem elsewhere. The ones that don't end up as the dumping ground for those that do. No-one is tackling the root cause.

Starmer doesn't have ReformUK breating down his neck like Sunak so he can't afford Anderson to defect to Reform.

Albeit if Galloway's party picks up traction after his by election win last week he might regret removing the whip from Corbyn given Galloway is a friend of Jezza. Indeed 'George Galloway tells me that he expects to be introduced to the Commons on Monday by Jeremy Corbyn and David Davis '
https://x.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1763431244677668967?s=20

Scott_xP said:

If Lord Farquaad doesn't call the election in May he is going to get the Gordon Brown treatment...

Meanwhile the argument against May is the same argument that has applied against calling an election since the Trusstaphrophe.

If the Conservatives call an election now, they will lose horribly.

(There's also the neat feedback that the worse things are, the less they have to lose by holding on in case Something Turns Up.)

People are very bad at cutting their losses by walking away, even when it's the rational thing to do.

OnlyLivingBoy said:

rcs1000 said:

mwadams said:

WillG said:

Leon said:

WillG said:

nico679 said:

Leon said:

OMFG this is terrible what can we do (cont pages 994-978)


“Trump now has a commanding lead. Beating Biden with Hispanics, scoring very well with Blacks and young voters x.com/patrickruffini…”

https://x.com/macaesbruno/status/1763927741483663674?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

No one cares anymore . The US is a failed state. The sooner the rest of the world realizes this the better .

Yet somehow has higher median income than virtually all of Europe.

Large chunks of urban America are a crime ridden drug addled toilet, tho

In a way we don’t really comprehend in Europe

Now, most of America doesn’t live there. They live in generally nice suburbs. But enough of them encounter it, or pay for it with their taxes, for it to make an electoral difference

And Biden’s abject inability to control the border is not helping

It is true that the US has urban ghettos that are significantly worse than Europe. But this isn't even a majority of urban areas.

Over the last year I have been to the city centres of New York City, Atlanta, Chicago, Charlotte, Miami, Virginia Beach and San Francisco. All seemed nice places, sometimes a bit dirty but no worse than the grimmer areas of central London. Of course, worse areas exist, but most Americans don't encounter them because most people don't travel to ghettos.

What they do have is a constant inundation of images of the ghettos on social media and cable news, due to a highly effective right wing media network. That is why people think it is worse now than during the 1980s of sunny Reaganism, despite crime and poverty at the time being substantially worse.

You found the city centre of San Francisco quite nice? My experience is that the streets are covered in human excrement , drug casualties, middle class people desperately trying to ignore what is going on around them by staring into their phones and coffee shops full of unemployed tech people desperately interviewing for jobs over zoom.

It used to be one of my favourite places in America.

I've been to San Francisco on and off since the late 1990s, and it's always been an absolute shithole, with hollow eyed homeless drug addicts with schizophrenia wandering from SoMa up into Union Square and beyond.

Of course, there are some very nice parts. But the center and SoMa are - and have always been - utterly horrendous.

Central Seattle, which I haven't visited for twenty years was the same: an urban hell hole filled with ragged clothed people with few teeth begging for money for whatever the drug de jour for the mentally ill is.

Los Angeles is a little different, because there's a lot more "temporary" homelessness of people living in RVs, having jobs, but not being able to afford the local housing market.

But we also - of course - have the crystal meth-heads wandering around.

I visited San Francisco in 2007 and it seemed quite nice. I don't think I've been to any US city that didn't have a substantial population of street homeless, addicts and the mentally ill, but at that time it didn't seem any worse than the others. From what I've heard it's now a lot worse, but I've not seen it first hand. The US is an incredible country but not a good one to be unlucky in.

Those weighing in probably spend rather more time reading about it on social media than on the streets of San Francisco.

FF43 said:

rcs1000 said:

mwadams said:

WillG said:

Leon said:

WillG said:

nico679 said:

Leon said:

OMFG this is terrible what can we do (cont pages 994-978)


“Trump now has a commanding lead. Beating Biden with Hispanics, scoring very well with Blacks and young voters x.com/patrickruffini…”

https://x.com/macaesbruno/status/1763927741483663674?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

No one cares anymore . The US is a failed state. The sooner the rest of the world realizes this the better .

Yet somehow has higher median income than virtually all of Europe.

Large chunks of urban America are a crime ridden drug addled toilet, tho

In a way we don’t really comprehend in Europe

Now, most of America doesn’t live there. They live in generally nice suburbs. But enough of them encounter it, or pay for it with their taxes, for it to make an electoral difference

And Biden’s abject inability to control the border is not helping

It is true that the US has urban ghettos that are significantly worse than Europe. But this isn't even a majority of urban areas.

Over the last year I have been to the city centres of New York City, Atlanta, Chicago, Charlotte, Miami, Virginia Beach and San Francisco. All seemed nice places, sometimes a bit dirty but no worse than the grimmer areas of central London. Of course, worse areas exist, but most Americans don't encounter them because most people don't travel to ghettos.

What they do have is a constant inundation of images of the ghettos on social media and cable news, due to a highly effective right wing media network. That is why people think it is worse now than during the 1980s of sunny Reaganism, despite crime and poverty at the time being substantially worse.

You found the city centre of San Francisco quite nice? My experience is that the streets are covered in human excrement , drug casualties, middle class people desperately trying to ignore what is going on around them by staring into their phones and coffee shops full of unemployed tech people desperately interviewing for jobs over zoom.

It used to be one of my favourite places in America.

I've been to San Francisco on and off since the late 1990s, and it's always been an absolute shithole, with hollow eyed homeless drug addicts with schizophrenia wandering from SoMa up into Union Square and beyond.

Of course, there are some very nice parts. But the center and SoMa are - and have always been - utterly horrendous.

Central Seattle, which I haven't visited for twenty years was the same: an urban hell hole filled with ragged clothed people with few teeth begging for money for whatever the drug de jour for the mentally ill is.

Los Angeles is a little different, because there's a lot more "temporary" homelessness of people living in RVs, having jobs, but not being able to afford the local housing market.

But we also - of course - have the crystal meth-heads wandering around.

The degree of on-street deprivation in American cities depends entirely on the effort each one puts into displacing the problem elsewhere. The ones that don't end up as the dumping ground for those that do. No-one is tackling the root cause.

"seventy-one percent of those surveyed reported living in San Francisco, 24% in other California counties and 4% outside California."

https://sfstandard.com/2023/05/22/san-francisco-homeless-people-from-the-city/

GIN1138 said:

Casino_Royale said:

How depressing that the editorial line of this site is now to constantly attack the PM.

By someone who's a self-professed Tory.

Still a lot of bitterness over what happened to the Lib-Dems in 2015, not to mention Brexit and political demise of Cameron and Osborne! 😂

Lot of ad homs regarding the header tonight.

williamglenn said:

(NY Times/Siena poll) do you plan on voting for Biden/Trump?

Overall: 43/48
Men: 40/49
Women: 46/46
18-29 yr olds: 53/41
White: 40/53
Black: 66/23
Hispanic: 40/46
Other: 43/45
White w/ college: 55/40
White w/o: 29/62
Midwest: 39/55
Suburb: 46/44
Biden 2020: 83/10

https://x.com/ryangirdusky/status/1763914762880958888

48% for Trump is little different to the 47% he got in 2020, it is Biden who has collapsed from 51% to 43%. Where the 10% DK go will be key and much will depend on the results of Trump's criminal trials starting from next month, if he is acquitted he likely wins, if he is convicted and even more if he is jailed independents will swing back to Biden again

Nigelb said:

GIN1138 said:

Casino_Royale said:

How depressing that the editorial line of this site is now to constantly attack the PM.

By someone who's a self-professed Tory.

Still a lot of bitterness over what happened to the Lib-Dems in 2015, not to mention Brexit and political demise of Cameron and Osborne! 😂

Lot of ad homs regarding the header tonight.

I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.

HYUFD said:

MoonRabbit said:

AverageNinja said:

MoonRabbit said:

algarkirk said:

londonpubman said:

Time for Rishi to call the GE

GE = 2 May 👍

If he does it has to be called in just over three weeks from now. (I don't think he will).

Sunak is announcing it in 9 days time, Monday week, sometime between 1035 and 1150

What is the hypothesis here?

Yesterday, HY posted this to explain why the election is the other end of the summer: “Sunak would rather be PM for as long as possible than go a bit early even if it saves a few Tory MPs seats. Unless he gets a Major 1992 shock victory he will be off to corporate boards in Silicon Valley or some IMF or WTO job as soon as possible after losing a general election anyway and his main priority is ensuring he has a reasonable period as PM on that CV he will be taking to those jobs”

A sentiment a lot of PBers keep posting. The absolute mistake HY has made is presumption the summer and autumn passes off as serenely as Spring is doing for the Conservatives, that they don’t sail into difficult waters leading to a peculiarly bad moment to go to the country leading to a peculiar result in number of seats.

The Home Office modelling predicts a surge in channel crossing from July, at which point all hell breaks loose in Conservative Party discipline and in their battle with Reform for voters. Add to that an interim report from Covid Enquiry. A million switchers to higher mortgage payments. Inflation moving back upwards before end of the year, as well as virtually no economic growth this year (except what will be bequeathed to us by Taylor Swift).

“main priority is ensuring he has a reasonable period as PM on that CV he will be taking to those jobs”

Sunak is the Manager of the Conservative Party and the Manager of the Government - those months from July onwards can leave both those institutions resembling The Raft of the Medusa. Now that really would standout on Sunak’s CV, letting future employers know exactly what he is capable of.

By late autumn tighter immigration rules will have kicked in and inflation may be down further. Sunak also would rather stay PM for an extra 6 months than call an early election he still likely loses heavily to save a handful of Tory MPs

Inflation will be at the bottom in Spring and then will go up later in the year

This is why interest rates are not coming down anytime soon

TheScreamingEagles said:

AverageNinja said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Nigelb said:

GIN1138 said:

Casino_Royale said:

How depressing that the editorial line of this site is now to constantly attack the PM.

By someone who's a self-professed Tory.

Still a lot of bitterness over what happened to the Lib-Dems in 2015, not to mention Brexit and political demise of Cameron and Osborne! 😂

Lot of ad homs regarding the header tonight.

I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.

- Mrs Thatcher

Our greatest Prime Minister.

Apart from Liz Truss...

TheScreamingEagles said:

AverageNinja said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Nigelb said:

GIN1138 said:

Casino_Royale said:

How depressing that the editorial line of this site is now to constantly attack the PM.

By someone who's a self-professed Tory.

Still a lot of bitterness over what happened to the Lib-Dems in 2015, not to mention Brexit and political demise of Cameron and Osborne! 😂

Lot of ad homs regarding the header tonight.

I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.

- Mrs Thatcher

Our greatest Prime Minister.

"People are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture."

https://twitter.com/realmrsthatcher/status/1724687444044640486

rottenborough said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

AbandonedHope said:

MoonRabbit said:

algarkirk said:

londonpubman said:

Time for Rishi to call the GE

GE = 2 May 👍

If he does it has to be called in just over three weeks from now. (I don't think he will).

Sunak is announcing it in 9 days time, Monday week, sometime between 1035 and 1150

If only it were true. Unfortunately, it’s the Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey at 3pm and I can’t see Sunak being allowed to announce the election against that backdrop.

More likely the next day and go to the Palace after PMQs.

That fits with the constitutional convention that the lectern is used in the afternoon.

Chris Curtis
@chriscurtis94
I am as cynical as everyone else, but the Tories current spending on online ads only makes sense if we are heading for a May election.

https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1763640410511925505

Or if the local elections were being held in May, which they are.

AlsoLei said:

FF43 said:

rcs1000 said:

mwadams said:

WillG said:

Leon said:

WillG said:

nico679 said:

Leon said:

OMFG this is terrible what can we do (cont pages 994-978)


“Trump now has a commanding lead. Beating Biden with Hispanics, scoring very well with Blacks and young voters x.com/patrickruffini…”

https://x.com/macaesbruno/status/1763927741483663674?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

No one cares anymore . The US is a failed state. The sooner the rest of the world realizes this the better .

Yet somehow has higher median income than virtually all of Europe.

Large chunks of urban America are a crime ridden drug addled toilet, tho

In a way we don’t really comprehend in Europe

Now, most of America doesn’t live there. They live in generally nice suburbs. But enough of them encounter it, or pay for it with their taxes, for it to make an electoral difference

And Biden’s abject inability to control the border is not helping

It is true that the US has urban ghettos that are significantly worse than Europe. But this isn't even a majority of urban areas.

Over the last year I have been to the city centres of New York City, Atlanta, Chicago, Charlotte, Miami, Virginia Beach and San Francisco. All seemed nice places, sometimes a bit dirty but no worse than the grimmer areas of central London. Of course, worse areas exist, but most Americans don't encounter them because most people don't travel to ghettos.

What they do have is a constant inundation of images of the ghettos on social media and cable news, due to a highly effective right wing media network. That is why people think it is worse now than during the 1980s of sunny Reaganism, despite crime and poverty at the time being substantially worse.

You found the city centre of San Francisco quite nice? My experience is that the streets are covered in human excrement , drug casualties, middle class people desperately trying to ignore what is going on around them by staring into their phones and coffee shops full of unemployed tech people desperately interviewing for jobs over zoom.

It used to be one of my favourite places in America.

I've been to San Francisco on and off since the late 1990s, and it's always been an absolute shithole, with hollow eyed homeless drug addicts with schizophrenia wandering from SoMa up into Union Square and beyond.

Of course, there are some very nice parts. But the center and SoMa are - and have always been - utterly horrendous.

Central Seattle, which I haven't visited for twenty years was the same: an urban hell hole filled with ragged clothed people with few teeth begging for money for whatever the drug de jour for the mentally ill is.

Los Angeles is a little different, because there's a lot more "temporary" homelessness of people living in RVs, having jobs, but not being able to afford the local housing market.

But we also - of course - have the crystal meth-heads wandering around.

The degree of on-street deprivation in American cities depends entirely on the effort each one puts into displacing the problem elsewhere. The ones that don't end up as the dumping ground for those that do. No-one is tackling the root cause.

Although we're starting to go down that road too - see Braverman's plan to ban tents, which was simply a confused version of things that cities like SF and Austin have been trying.

The blind spot re root causes extends across the political spectrum, btw. I have thoroughly left-wing activist-type friends in the Bay Area who've been getting excited about a project that provides buckets and adult diapers for street homeless people. The idea of providing sanitation facilities beyond that is simply too difficult to contemplate...

I had lunch last weekend with an American friend who lives in SF. A firmly anti Trump Liberal, but her stories of SF were full of despair. It is now a sithole full of drug addled homeless as described. She blames the opioid epidemic and the effective decriminalisation of shoplifting under $1000. Its only her elderly parents that keep her there at all, but mostly she works as a digital nomad in Europe.

I have lived in America for 5 years in the Seventies, and many cities were appalling then, but it seems at least as bad now.

I have no desire to visit America again any time soon.

No_Offence_Alan said:

rkrkrk said:

US are now airdropping aid into Gaza because their 'ally' Israel refuses to let trucks in... really weird situation.

The USA will not be dropping Hamas fighters in, you cannot be sure the aid trucks aren't.

The Israelis search the aid trucks when they do let them in.

williamglenn said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

AverageNinja said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Nigelb said:

GIN1138 said:

Casino_Royale said:

How depressing that the editorial line of this site is now to constantly attack the PM.

By someone who's a self-professed Tory.

Still a lot of bitterness over what happened to the Lib-Dems in 2015, not to mention Brexit and political demise of Cameron and Osborne! 😂

Lot of ad homs regarding the header tonight.

I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.

- Mrs Thatcher

Our greatest Prime Minister.

"People are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture."

https://twitter.com/realmrsthatcher/status/1724687444044640486

This country is already swamped by people with a different culture. Tories.

OnlyLivingBoy said:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/02/profiteering-off-children-care-firms-in-england-accused-of-squeezing-cash-from-councils

A reminder of one of the reasons we have no money - government getting rinsed by extractive private equity groups. Neoliberalism sucks.

The Tories are content for private equity hyaenas to feed off the moribund welfare state. They see it as private sector efficiency, and I think Starmers Labour is in their thrall too.

eek said:

Scott_xP said:

If Lord Farquaad doesn't call the election in May he is going to get the Gordon Brown treatment...

If he goes for May he is going to get the Gordon Brown treatment, any longer and a fate similar to the Canadian Progressive Conservative party is very possible...

Agreed. If the ge is postponed till autumn the tories are at risk of ceasing to exist as a parliamentary party. They are being curtailed at both ends by labour and reform.Tell you what: April-June is trending up in smarkets. Let's see what happens.

On May:


Torsten Bell
@TorstenBell

Really don't think a 2nd May election is happening. It's July or the Autumn. Why (beyond Labour's 20% lead)? Because
@RishiSunak's whole campaign is based on the economy turning the corner. The biggest proof point of that (data showing inflation down to 2%) comes... in mid-May

https://twitter.com/TorstenBell/status/1763835051488210993

Foxy said:

AlsoLei said:

FF43 said:

rcs1000 said:

mwadams said:

WillG said:

Leon said:

WillG said:

nico679 said:

Leon said:

OMFG this is terrible what can we do (cont pages 994-978)


“Trump now has a commanding lead. Beating Biden with Hispanics, scoring very well with Blacks and young voters x.com/patrickruffini…”

https://x.com/macaesbruno/status/1763927741483663674?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

No one cares anymore . The US is a failed state. The sooner the rest of the world realizes this the better .

Yet somehow has higher median income than virtually all of Europe.

Large chunks of urban America are a crime ridden drug addled toilet, tho

In a way we don’t really comprehend in Europe

Now, most of America doesn’t live there. They live in generally nice suburbs. But enough of them encounter it, or pay for it with their taxes, for it to make an electoral difference

And Biden’s abject inability to control the border is not helping

It is true that the US has urban ghettos that are significantly worse than Europe. But this isn't even a majority of urban areas.

Over the last year I have been to the city centres of New York City, Atlanta, Chicago, Charlotte, Miami, Virginia Beach and San Francisco. All seemed nice places, sometimes a bit dirty but no worse than the grimmer areas of central London. Of course, worse areas exist, but most Americans don't encounter them because most people don't travel to ghettos.

What they do have is a constant inundation of images of the ghettos on social media and cable news, due to a highly effective right wing media network. That is why people think it is worse now than during the 1980s of sunny Reaganism, despite crime and poverty at the time being substantially worse.

You found the city centre of San Francisco quite nice? My experience is that the streets are covered in human excrement , drug casualties, middle class people desperately trying to ignore what is going on around them by staring into their phones and coffee shops full of unemployed tech people desperately interviewing for jobs over zoom.

It used to be one of my favourite places in America.

I've been to San Francisco on and off since the late 1990s, and it's always been an absolute shithole, with hollow eyed homeless drug addicts with schizophrenia wandering from SoMa up into Union Square and beyond.

Of course, there are some very nice parts. But the center and SoMa are - and have always been - utterly horrendous.

Central Seattle, which I haven't visited for twenty years was the same: an urban hell hole filled with ragged clothed people with few teeth begging for money for whatever the drug de jour for the mentally ill is.

Los Angeles is a little different, because there's a lot more "temporary" homelessness of people living in RVs, having jobs, but not being able to afford the local housing market.

But we also - of course - have the crystal meth-heads wandering around.

The degree of on-street deprivation in American cities depends entirely on the effort each one puts into displacing the problem elsewhere. The ones that don't end up as the dumping ground for those that do. No-one is tackling the root cause.

Although we're starting to go down that road too - see Braverman's plan to ban tents, which was simply a confused version of things that cities like SF and Austin have been trying.

The blind spot re root causes extends across the political spectrum, btw. I have thoroughly left-wing activist-type friends in the Bay Area who've been getting excited about a project that provides buckets and adult diapers for street homeless people. The idea of providing sanitation facilities beyond that is simply too difficult to contemplate...

I had lunch last weekend with an American friend who lives in SF. A firmly anti Trump Liberal, but her stories of SF were full of despair. It is now a sithole full of drug addled homeless as described. She blames the opioid epidemic and the effective decriminalisation of shoplifting under $1000. Its only her elderly parents that keep her there at all, but mostly she works as a digital nomad in Europe.

I have lived in America for 5 years in the Seventies, and many cities were appalling then, but it seems at least as bad now.

I have no desire to visit America again any time soon.

The shoplifting thing is interesting - an unindented consequence of the "three strikes and you're out"-type policies from the late 90s / early 2000s. The political system is so gridlocked that it's almost impossible to unwind even clear failures like those.

My experiences of SF and Oakland since the pandemic haven't actually been quite as grim as American colleagues had led me to expect - but what really surprised me is how bad things have become in Silicon Valley. It's barely visible on the main streets, but if you try to follow just about any creek, off-road trail, or cycle path you'll suddenly find yourself in a tent city that didn't exist even five years ago.

This will please some PBers and infuriate others:

"According to a banner advert on the home page of the Swanage Railway website they are going cashless from 25th March 2024."

Benpointer said:

70 Tory MPs asking for more spending on Special Needs Education:

70 Tory MPs from across the party asking the Chancellor for more funding for special needs support. Won't happen, obviously, but shows how bad things are getting.

https://x.com/Samfr/status/1763888279781274105?s=20

Edit: Seeing the list of signatories I wonder if half of them think Hunt can cut taxes and use that money for more spending on special needs education.

One of the best things about the sector is it is truly comprehensive. Some extremely well clued up, educated and influential parents to do the badgering.

Cleitophon said:

Foxy said:

AlsoLei said:

FF43 said:

rcs1000 said:

mwadams said:

WillG said:

Leon said:

WillG said:

nico679 said:

Leon said:

OMFG this is terrible what can we do (cont pages 994-978)


“Trump now has a commanding lead. Beating Biden with Hispanics, scoring very well with Blacks and young voters x.com/patrickruffini…”

https://x.com/macaesbruno/status/1763927741483663674?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

No one cares anymore . The US is a failed state. The sooner the rest of the world realizes this the better .

Yet somehow has higher median income than virtually all of Europe.

Large chunks of urban America are a crime ridden drug addled toilet, tho

In a way we don’t really comprehend in Europe

Now, most of America doesn’t live there. They live in generally nice suburbs. But enough of them encounter it, or pay for it with their taxes, for it to make an electoral difference

And Biden’s abject inability to control the border is not helping

It is true that the US has urban ghettos that are significantly worse than Europe. But this isn't even a majority of urban areas.

Over the last year I have been to the city centres of New York City, Atlanta, Chicago, Charlotte, Miami, Virginia Beach and San Francisco. All seemed nice places, sometimes a bit dirty but no worse than the grimmer areas of central London. Of course, worse areas exist, but most Americans don't encounter them because most people don't travel to ghettos.

What they do have is a constant inundation of images of the ghettos on social media and cable news, due to a highly effective right wing media network. That is why people think it is worse now than during the 1980s of sunny Reaganism, despite crime and poverty at the time being substantially worse.

You found the city centre of San Francisco quite nice? My experience is that the streets are covered in human excrement , drug casualties, middle class people desperately trying to ignore what is going on around them by staring into their phones and coffee shops full of unemployed tech people desperately interviewing for jobs over zoom.

It used to be one of my favourite places in America.

I've been to San Francisco on and off since the late 1990s, and it's always been an absolute shithole, with hollow eyed homeless drug addicts with schizophrenia wandering from SoMa up into Union Square and beyond.

Of course, there are some very nice parts. But the center and SoMa are - and have always been - utterly horrendous.

Central Seattle, which I haven't visited for twenty years was the same: an urban hell hole filled with ragged clothed people with few teeth begging for money for whatever the drug de jour for the mentally ill is.

Los Angeles is a little different, because there's a lot more "temporary" homelessness of people living in RVs, having jobs, but not being able to afford the local housing market.

But we also - of course - have the crystal meth-heads wandering around.

The degree of on-street deprivation in American cities depends entirely on the effort each one puts into displacing the problem elsewhere. The ones that don't end up as the dumping ground for those that do. No-one is tackling the root cause.

Although we're starting to go down that road too - see Braverman's plan to ban tents, which was simply a confused version of things that cities like SF and Austin have been trying.

The blind spot re root causes extends across the political spectrum, btw. I have thoroughly left-wing activist-type friends in the Bay Area who've been getting excited about a project that provides buckets and adult diapers for street homeless people. The idea of providing sanitation facilities beyond that is simply too difficult to contemplate...

I had lunch last weekend with an American friend who lives in SF. A firmly anti Trump Liberal, but her stories of SF were full of despair. It is now a sithole full of drug addled homeless as described. She blames the opioid epidemic and the effective decriminalisation of shoplifting under $1000. Its only her elderly parents that keep her there at all, but mostly she works as a digital nomad in Europe.

I have lived in America for 5 years in the Seventies, and many cities were appalling then, but it seems at least as bad now.

I have no desire to visit America again any time soon.

The us is all about region and location. My inlaws live in huntsville, North Alabama. That is all red necks and cotton farms, right? Nope. It is the second biggest tech incubator in the US. You can barely throw a rock with out hitting somebody with an engineering PhD. Everything R&R aviation in the US is there. Lockheed, Boeing, Apache Helecopters, NASA, The Redstone arsenal. This is where they kept Werner von Braun and his team after WW2. Over the last 25 years everything has consolidated there: everything is new, sleek and shiny and growing very fast. They have an Apollo rocket stood there (right by space camp). It is just a crazy experience being there.

Coo! *checks* actually two - Apollo-Saturn I and Apollo-Saturn V.

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.711459,-86.6554159,2a,90y,193.01h,120.53t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sC8BJsGmVH1cAAAQ8sU_iKg!2e0!6shttps://streetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com/v1/thumbnail?panoid=C8BJsGmVH1cAAAQ8sU_iKg&cb_client=maps_sv.tactile.gps&w=203&h=100&yaw=343.3809&pitch=0&thumbfov=100!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu

DecrepiterJohnL said:

algarkirk said:

AverageNinja said:

Senior govt figures say OBR is ‘killing’ Tory plans; one suggests they are ‘group of left wing economists’ intent on ‘screwing’ Tories

https://x.com/steven_swinford/status/1763887319663149071

The conspiracy nuts are back I see.

Couldn't make it up. The Budget Responsibility Committee of the OBR is appointed by none other than the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

They have executive responsibility for carrying out the core functions of the OBR, including responsibility for the judgements reached in its forecasts.

Galloway, Corbyn and Burgon are not on it.

This is a Trussite complaint, the OBR being part of the deep state. The irony is the Conservatives set up the OBR to screw Labour.

Actually it was set up to ensure that UK budgets prepared us for the Euro. Which is why its mandate is now so irrelevant. As with much of Osborne and Cameron's legacy, it was EU stuff masquerading as Tory politicking. They were the Jeremy Clarkson of politics.

FF43 said:

Liz Truss seems to have decided her future lies in promoting crackpot conspiracy theories. She's giving the Conservative Party cause to expel her, and in more disciplined times I suspect they would have done. Or more probably she wouldn't have gone down this route anyway

How is inviting Lee Anderson to speak at an event a conspiracy theory?

eek said:

Scott_xP said:

If Lord Farquaad doesn't call the election in May he is going to get the Gordon Brown treatment...

If he goes for May he is going to get the Gordon Brown treatment, any longer and a fate similar to the Canadian Progressive Conservative party is very possible...

Why should Reform be anymore likely to overtake the Tories in the autumn than the spring?

SandyRentool said:

This will please some PBers and infuriate others:

"According to a banner advert on the home page of the Swanage Railway website they are going cashless from 25th March 2024."

That’s a disgrace 😉

So far as I can find 43.2% of votes in the Rochdale by election were cast by post. How does this compare to previous by elections? Or any general election for that matter. It would be good to see a breakdown of postal votes by candidate. One thing that will have increased postal voting is the demand for ID at polling stations. If there are concerns about electoral fraud it would have made far more sense to start with postal voting availability. Finally isn't it about time we got rid of this absurd anachronism where people from Commonwealth countries get automatic voting rights in the UK not afforded to those from anywhere else.

Cyclefree said:

@Leon - on some previous thread or other about Rochdale -

"How do we rescue these towns? I'm not sure you can

They were built for the industrial revolution, now that has gone and is never returning. AI will destroy the few jobs left

Probably the best thing that could happen is that they are all levelled, and returned to grass, and farms and woods. Depopulate the north, it's not worth saving"

According to him, AI will destroy the jobs of lawyers, accountants, bankers and the creative industries. Well, that's pretty much 90% of London's population.

I wonder what a depopulated London returned to grass, farm and woods will be like - a sort of gigantic Hampstead Heath but with sheep, I assume.

There are many Youtube videos exploring dying towns. For instance, this 5-minute look at Weston Super Mare went up today. Superficially neat housing and well-kept lawns, but with litter and fly-tipped furniture everywhere and boarded-up shops. It is unemployment, poverty, and drug-fuelled crime we need to tackle, not AI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eID4OQBeXrI

HYUFD said:

eek said:

Scott_xP said:

If Lord Farquaad doesn't call the election in May he is going to get the Gordon Brown treatment...

If he goes for May he is going to get the Gordon Brown treatment, any longer and a fate similar to the Canadian Progressive Conservative party is very possible...

Why should Reform be anymore likely to overtake the Tories in the autumn than the spring?

Boats. HY. Boats.

...

rcs1000 said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

algarkirk said:

AverageNinja said:

Senior govt figures say OBR is ‘killing’ Tory plans; one suggests they are ‘group of left wing economists’ intent on ‘screwing’ Tories

https://x.com/steven_swinford/status/1763887319663149071

The conspiracy nuts are back I see.

Couldn't make it up. The Budget Responsibility Committee of the OBR is appointed by none other than the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

They have executive responsibility for carrying out the core functions of the OBR, including responsibility for the judgements reached in its forecasts.

Galloway, Corbyn and Burgon are not on it.

This is a Trussite complaint, the OBR being part of the deep state. The irony is the Conservatives set up the OBR to screw Labour.

Actually it was set up to ensure that UK budgets prepared us for the Euro. Which is why its mandate is now so irrelevant. As with much of Osborne and Cameron's legacy, it was EU stuff masquerading as Tory politicking. They were the Jeremy Clarkson of politics.

So, in 2010 - when the Euro was already a disaster-zone, and the UK support for joining it had collapsed to near zero - the OBR was created to prepare the UK for joining the Euro?

Really?

Since when have the EU and its supporters let lack of public enthusiasm get in their way?

AlsoLei said:

Foxy said:

AlsoLei said:

FF43 said:

rcs1000 said:

mwadams said:

WillG said:

Leon said:

WillG said:

nico679 said:

Leon said:

OMFG this is terrible what can we do (cont pages 994-978)


“Trump now has a commanding lead. Beating Biden with Hispanics, scoring very well with Blacks and young voters x.com/patrickruffini…”

https://x.com/macaesbruno/status/1763927741483663674?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

No one cares anymore . The US is a failed state. The sooner the rest of the world realizes this the better .

Yet somehow has higher median income than virtually all of Europe.

Large chunks of urban America are a crime ridden drug addled toilet, tho

In a way we don’t really comprehend in Europe

Now, most of America doesn’t live there. They live in generally nice suburbs. But enough of them encounter it, or pay for it with their taxes, for it to make an electoral difference

And Biden’s abject inability to control the border is not helping

It is true that the US has urban ghettos that are significantly worse than Europe. But this isn't even a majority of urban areas.

Over the last year I have been to the city centres of New York City, Atlanta, Chicago, Charlotte, Miami, Virginia Beach and San Francisco. All seemed nice places, sometimes a bit dirty but no worse than the grimmer areas of central London. Of course, worse areas exist, but most Americans don't encounter them because most people don't travel to ghettos.

What they do have is a constant inundation of images of the ghettos on social media and cable news, due to a highly effective right wing media network. That is why people think it is worse now than during the 1980s of sunny Reaganism, despite crime and poverty at the time being substantially worse.

You found the city centre of San Francisco quite nice? My experience is that the streets are covered in human excrement , drug casualties, middle class people desperately trying to ignore what is going on around them by staring into their phones and coffee shops full of unemployed tech people desperately interviewing for jobs over zoom.

It used to be one of my favourite places in America.

I've been to San Francisco on and off since the late 1990s, and it's always been an absolute shithole, with hollow eyed homeless drug addicts with schizophrenia wandering from SoMa up into Union Square and beyond.

Of course, there are some very nice parts. But the center and SoMa are - and have always been - utterly horrendous.

Central Seattle, which I haven't visited for twenty years was the same: an urban hell hole filled with ragged clothed people with few teeth begging for money for whatever the drug de jour for the mentally ill is.

Los Angeles is a little different, because there's a lot more "temporary" homelessness of people living in RVs, having jobs, but not being able to afford the local housing market.

But we also - of course - have the crystal meth-heads wandering around.

The degree of on-street deprivation in American cities depends entirely on the effort each one puts into displacing the problem elsewhere. The ones that don't end up as the dumping ground for those that do. No-one is tackling the root cause.

Although we're starting to go down that road too - see Braverman's plan to ban tents, which was simply a confused version of things that cities like SF and Austin have been trying.

The blind spot re root causes extends across the political spectrum, btw. I have thoroughly left-wing activist-type friends in the Bay Area who've been getting excited about a project that provides buckets and adult diapers for street homeless people. The idea of providing sanitation facilities beyond that is simply too difficult to contemplate...

I had lunch last weekend with an American friend who lives in SF. A firmly anti Trump Liberal, but her stories of SF were full of despair. It is now a sithole full of drug addled homeless as described. She blames the opioid epidemic and the effective decriminalisation of shoplifting under $1000. Its only her elderly parents that keep her there at all, but mostly she works as a digital nomad in Europe.

I have lived in America for 5 years in the Seventies, and many cities were appalling then, but it seems at least as bad now.

I have no desire to visit America again any time soon.

The shoplifting thing is interesting - an unindented consequence of the "three strikes and you're out"-type policies from the late 90s / early 2000s. The political system is so gridlocked that it's almost impossible to unwind even clear failures like those.

My experiences of SF and Oakland since the pandemic haven't actually been quite as grim as American colleagues had led me to expect - but what really surprised me is how bad things have become in Silicon Valley. It's barely visible on the main streets, but if you try to follow just about any creek, off-road trail, or cycle path you'll suddenly find yourself in a tent city that didn't exist even five years ago.

Back in the 1990s visited a friend who was then a quasi-fellow or some such at the Hoover Institution (conservative think tank NOT reactionary insane asylum) at Stanford Junior University.

Only place they could afford to rent in reasonable proximity was in East Palo Alto, which at least at time was the El Barrio of SV. A patch of unincorporated turf (also visa versa) providing lodging for the Standord elite (at least in their own heads),

williamglenn said:

(NY Times/Siena poll) do you plan on voting for Biden/Trump?

Overall: 43/48
Men: 40/49
Women: 46/46
18-29 yr olds: 53/41
White: 40/53
Black: 66/23
Hispanic: 40/46
Other: 43/45
White w/ college: 55/40
White w/o: 29/62
Midwest: 39/55
Suburb: 46/44
Biden 2020: 83/10

https://x.com/ryangirdusky/status/1763914762880958888

My Exponential Moving Average of Biden/Trump polls stands at 44.4/45.1 I think this Siena Poll is an outlier.

Sunil_Prasannan said:

ydoethur said:

Cyclefree said:

@Leon - on some previous thread or other about Rochdale -

"How do we rescue these towns? I'm not sure you can

They were built for the industrial revolution, now that has gone and is never returning. AI will destroy the few jobs left

Probably the best thing that could happen is that they are all levelled, and returned to grass, and farms and woods. Depopulate the north, it's not worth saving"

According to him, AI will destroy the jobs of lawyers, accountants, bankers and the creative industries. Well, that's pretty much 90% of London's population.

I wonder what a depopulated London returned to grass, farm and woods will be like - a sort of gigantic Hampstead Heath but with sheep, I assume.

Well, Westminster's halfway there. Ample numbers of sheep. And now Galloway's back there's a wolf there too.

"To protect the sheep you gotta catch the wolf, and it takes a wolf to catch a wolf."

'He followed his luminous footmarks, which he could see a long way before him. His trail curved so much that he made many short cuts across the winding line he had left. His weariness was now so intense that all feeling had departed. His feet, his limbs, his arms, and hands were numbed. The subtle poison of the emanations from the earth had begun to deaden his nerves. It seemed a full hour or more to him till he reached the spot where the skeletons were drawn in white upon the ground.

He passed a few yards to one side of them, and stumbled over a heap of something which he did not observe, as it was black like the level ground. It emitted a metallic sound, and looking he saw that he had kicked his foot against a great heap of money. The coins were black as ink; he picked up a handful and went on. Hitherto Felix had accepted all that he saw as something so strange as to be unaccountable. During his advance into this region in the canoe he had in fact become slowly stupefied by the poisonous vapour he had inhaled. His mind was partly in abeyance; it acted, but only after some time had elapsed. He now at last began to realize his position; the finding of the heap of blackened money touched a chord of memory. These skeletons were the miserable relics of men who had ventured, in search of ancient treasures, into the deadly marshes over the site of the mightiest city of former days. The deserted and utterly extinct city of London was under his feet.

He had penetrated into the midst of that dreadful place, of which he had heard many a tradition: how the earth was poison, the water poison, the air poison, the very light of heaven, falling through such an atmosphere, poison. There were said to be places where the earth was on fire and belched forth sulphurous fumes, supposed to be from the combustion of the enormous stores of strange and unknown chemicals collected by the wonderful people of those times. Upon the surface of the water there was a greenish-yellow oil, to touch which was death to any creature; it was the very essence of corruption. Sometimes it floated before the wind, and fragments became attached to reeds or flags far from the place itself. If a moorhen or duck chanced to rub the reed, and but one drop stuck to its feathers, it forthwith died.'

@Cyclefree, please skip past this post, it is in the best interests of your health.

‘Pay me £1m or I quit’: staff tell of Post Office boss’s wrath

Chief executive Nick Read was fixated with his salary when he should have been focused on help for wronged postmasters, insiders say

• Post Office boss Nick Read threatened to resign multiple times and demanded a pay package of more than £1 million
  
• Read told colleagues he was “prepared to make a drama” and submit a formal grievance or claim constructive dismissal
  
• Senior MPs warn the Post Office chief will have to quit if he is shown to have misled parliament after declaring he never tried to resign
  
• Post Office now faces a bullying investigation and an unfair dismissal claim from its former HR director
  

Even before he started as chairman of the Post Office, Henry Staunton was lobbying to get its chief executive more money.

On November 11, 2022, almost three weeks before he was due to take up the role, he wrote to the then business secretary, Grant Shapps, warning him of “the urgent requirement for Post Office to take action to retain Nick Read”.

Staunton said that Read, who was paid £816,000 in 2021-22 and £573,000 in 2022-23, was “a prime target for other prospective roles not constrained by … public-sector influence”. The chairman designate suggested boosting the chief executive’s maximum pay package to more than £1.1 million – which he said would still put Read close to the “lower quartile” of private-sector peers.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/pay-me-1m-or-i-quit-staff-tell-of-post-office-bosss-wrath-09v37fs3c

Ratters said:

What is the latest date a 2 May election can be called?

I think it'll be later but interested to know by what point I'll be proven right or wrong.

About 25 March for dissolution; with an announcement shortly before. A GE is 25 working days after dissolution.

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Cyclefree said:

@Leon - on some previous thread or other about Rochdale -

"How do we rescue these towns? I'm not sure you can

They were built for the industrial revolution, now that has gone and is never returning. AI will destroy the few jobs left

Probably the best thing that could happen is that they are all levelled, and returned to grass, and farms and woods. Depopulate the north, it's not worth saving"

According to him, AI will destroy the jobs of lawyers, accountants, bankers and the creative industries. Well, that's pretty much 90% of London's population.

I wonder what a depopulated London returned to grass, farm and woods will be like - a sort of gigantic Hampstead Heath but with sheep, I assume.

There are many Youtube videos exploring dying towns. For instance, this 5-minute look at Weston Super Mare went up today. Superficially neat housing and well-kept lawns, but with litter and fly-tipped furniture everywhere and boarded-up shops. It is unemployment, poverty, and drug-fuelled crime we need to tackle, not AI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eID4OQBeXrI

See also https://www.youtube.com/@Turdtowns

TheScreamingEagles said:

@Cyclefree, please skip past this post, it is in the best interests of your health.

‘Pay me £1m or I quit’: staff tell of Post Office boss’s wrath

Chief executive Nick Read was fixated with his salary when he should have been focused on help for wronged postmasters, insiders say

• Post Office boss Nick Read threatened to resign multiple times and demanded a pay package of more than £1 million
  
• Read told colleagues he was “prepared to make a drama” and submit a formal grievance or claim constructive dismissal
  
• Senior MPs warn the Post Office chief will have to quit if he is shown to have misled parliament after declaring he never tried to resign
  
• Post Office now faces a bullying investigation and an unfair dismissal claim from its former HR director
  

Even before he started as chairman of the Post Office, Henry Staunton was lobbying to get its chief executive more money.

On November 11, 2022, almost three weeks before he was due to take up the role, he wrote to the then business secretary, Grant Shapps, warning him of “the urgent requirement for Post Office to take action to retain Nick Read”.

Staunton said that Read, who was paid £816,000 in 2021-22 and £573,000 in 2022-23, was “a prime target for other prospective roles not constrained by … public-sector influence”. The chairman designate suggested boosting the chief executive’s maximum pay package to more than £1.1 million – which he said would still put Read close to the “lower quartile” of private-sector peers.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/pay-me-1m-or-i-quit-staff-tell-of-post-office-bosss-wrath-09v37fs3c

Nailed on to replace O'Shea at British Gas.

Barnesian said:

williamglenn said:

(NY Times/Siena poll) do you plan on voting for Biden/Trump?

Overall: 43/48
Men: 40/49
Women: 46/46
18-29 yr olds: 53/41
White: 40/53
Black: 66/23
Hispanic: 40/46
Other: 43/45
White w/ college: 55/40
White w/o: 29/62
Midwest: 39/55
Suburb: 46/44
Biden 2020: 83/10

https://x.com/ryangirdusky/status/1763914762880958888

My Exponential Moving Average of Biden/Trump polls stands at 44.4/45.1 I think this Siena Poll is an outlier.

The election rests entirely on the swing votes in about 6 states. Trump is ahead in them. The other figures matter little as their results are already in the bag.

Ratters said:

rottenborough said:

On May:


Torsten Bell
@TorstenBell

Really don't think a 2nd May election is happening. It's July or the Autumn. Why (beyond Labour's 20% lead)? Because
@RishiSunak's whole campaign is based on the economy turning the corner. The biggest proof point of that (data showing inflation down to 2%) comes... in mid-May

https://twitter.com/TorstenBell/status/1763835051488210993

Yes by the Autumn you have:
- CPI back down at or below 2% pa
- The BoE starting to cut base rates
- Growth potentially back in the positives
- ... but potentially bad news on small boats.

I'd argue that more votes are won on economic sentiment than data on channel crossings, but we'll see.

I can see you can get 5.2 on Betfair for a May election so there's betting opportunities for those who are convinced as such.

I think Tuesday will be crucial. A May election would need an economic springboard just in case "vote for me to stop extremism and unite the country" doesn't have the traction the Mail thinks it does (imagine their response if Starmer had used the same words).

Tax cuts? More glamorous than NI cuts but I suspect the latter will be on offer. The best Sunak/Hunt can probably offer is no jam now, jam in September then an election. Even with the addition of most of the Reform vote (if you support such a hypothesis), the Conservatives are 32-34% at best and still on the wrong side of a defeat.