That Conservative advert is ridiculous. I'm not a Khan fan (the beach body ready nonsense was pathetic puritanism) but winning an election is not 'seizing power'. Hyperbolic slurs exaggerating what could be legitimate criticisms are wretched.
A shift from nuance to absolutes and extremes is something we saw during the Peloponnesian War and see in the current US political arena. Mindless tribalism is not something I regard well in sport, and even less so in politics.
Good morning
The advert is shocking and I couldn't agree with you more
That Conservative advert is ridiculous. I'm not a Khan fan (the beach body ready nonsense was pathetic puritanism) but winning an election is not 'seizing power'. Hyperbolic slurs exaggerating what could be legitimate criticisms are wretched.
A shift from nuance to absolutes and extremes is something we saw during the Peloponnesian War and see in the current US political arena. Mindless tribalism is not something I regard well in sport, and even less so in politics.
Very few people are going to march enthusiastically to the polls to vote *for* Labour but many millions will go to them to vote extremely enthusiastically *against* the Tories. Welcome to the first past the post electoral system!
If I were Starmer and co and have won the GE, I’d prefer to go in on the back of low expectations - the Tories have set the bar so low, it will be hard to look as bad and to deliver as little. There are relatively quick wins available: basic competence, an end to relentless culture war, moving closer to the EU, a degree of backbench stability plus the prospects of a slowly improving economy and lower immigration. Then there will be the absolute carnage of a Tory leadership campaign fought largely on GBNews.
Of course, it can all go pear-shaped very quickly on the back of events and mistakes, but under-promise and over-deliver seems a decent starting strategy to me.
Your quick wins are all illusory I'm afraid. The Labour front bench isn't basically competent, it just seems so because it hasn't had any scrutiny. The culture war will be fought anyway, it's the price of living in a diverse society where everybody insists on their rights and fewer remember their duties (see America for where we're heading). Only the government's position will change. Moving closer to the EU won't be quick, even if it's possible. Labour backbenchers won't be stable. The economy won't be better under Labour. And lower immigration? From a party that gets a huge part of its votes from immigrants and other ethnic minorities and opened the door to millions in 2004? You're kidding.
Starmer has no vision and no charisma, unlike Blair who could hide under some illusory rapport with moderates and a growing economy. So I think the most likely scenario for the probable next government is a short honeymoon, then popularity in the toilet for the same reason as the current one - a diverse coalition with incompatible goals, combined with a poor economy.
I am confident that if Labour wins the general election, the first Starmer cabinet will be immeasurably more competent than the last Tory one. Not because there is an abundance of Labour talent, mind!
I've ordered my copy. I will also make a copy a prize for a future PB compeition.
Buy now, get Nicola Sturgeon’s memoir next year
Families of coronavirus victims have questioned how she could write the book yet fail to produce any pandemic diaries
For those who cannot wait to secure their copy, Nicola Sturgeon’s memoir is on sale more than a year before its official publication date.
The former first minister’s account of her political career, for which she is thought to have been paid £300,000, has been made available for pre-order.
Readers are being asked to pay up to £28 (the recommended retail price) for the book, due to be published in August next year, even though it has yet to be finished and there is no guarantee it will deal with the tumultuous months following her shock resignation as SNP leader in February last year.
The memoir is already being criticised by families of coronavirus victims, who are questioning how Sturgeon could write a book about the past three decades yet fail to produce any pandemic diaries for the UK Covid-19 Inquiry.
The Scottish Covid Bereaved group has written to Humza Yousaf, her successor as first minister, asking for an explanation.
I would have thought the 50p was too expensive let alone £28.00
I don't want to read a single word of what that ghastly woman has to say. It will be all over the media anyway so why give the duplicitous former First Minister a penny....
Concocted indignation. This sort of thing is quite normal on Amazon - they have a guarantee of no price increase and a reduction if in fact it is cheaper on the day, plus you can cancel.
Concocted indignation on PB? Surely not.
Obvs aimed at people who have never bought a book online in their lives. AKA many elderly voters and Times readers.
That Conservative advert is ridiculous. I'm not a Khan fan (the beach body ready nonsense was pathetic puritanism) but winning an election is not 'seizing power'. Hyperbolic slurs exaggerating what could be legitimate criticisms are wretched.
A shift from nuance to absolutes and extremes is something we saw during the Peloponnesian War and see in the current US political arena. Mindless tribalism is not something I regard well in sport, and even less so in politics.
Nice to see someone managing to combine the Tebbit-Sillars test and Thucydides in one short paragraph - and done well.
Very few people are going to march enthusiastically to the polls to vote *for* Labour but many millions will go to them to vote extremely enthusiastically *against* the Tories. Welcome to the first past the post electoral system!
If I were Starmer and co and have won the GE, I’d prefer to go in on the back of low expectations - the Tories have set the bar so low, it will be hard to look as bad and to deliver as little. There are relatively quick wins available: basic competence, an end to relentless culture war, moving closer to the EU, a degree of backbench stability plus the prospects of a slowly improving economy and lower immigration. Then there will be the absolute carnage of a Tory leadership campaign fought largely on GBNews.
Of course, it can all go pear-shaped very quickly on the back of events and mistakes, but under-promise and over-deliver seems a decent starting strategy to me.
Your quick wins are all illusory I'm afraid. The Labour front bench isn't basically competent, it just seems so because it hasn't had any scrutiny. The culture war will be fought anyway, it's the price of living in a diverse society where everybody insists on their rights and fewer remember their duties (see America for where we're heading). Only the government's position will change. Moving closer to the EU won't be quick, even if it's possible. Labour backbenchers won't be stable. The economy won't be better under Labour. And lower immigration? From a party that gets a huge part of its votes from immigrants and other ethnic minorities and opened the door to millions in 2004? You're kidding.
Starmer has no vision and no charisma, unlike Blair who could hide under some illusory rapport with moderates and a growing economy. So I think the most likely scenario for the probable next government is a short honeymoon, then popularity in the toilet for the same reason as the current one - a diverse coalition with incompatible goals, combined with a poor economy.
I think most of us would settle for one just less malevolent. No more Patels or Suellas. No more boasting about what they want to do to asylum seekers. Perhaps a more inclusive one which values the ties we have with our fellow Europeans.......
I've ordered my copy. I will also make a copy a prize for a future PB compeition.
Buy now, get Nicola Sturgeon’s memoir next year
Families of coronavirus victims have questioned how she could write the book yet fail to produce any pandemic diaries
For those who cannot wait to secure their copy, Nicola Sturgeon’s memoir is on sale more than a year before its official publication date.
The former first minister’s account of her political career, for which she is thought to have been paid £300,000, has been made available for pre-order.
Readers are being asked to pay up to £28 (the recommended retail price) for the book, due to be published in August next year, even though it has yet to be finished and there is no guarantee it will deal with the tumultuous months following her shock resignation as SNP leader in February last year.
The memoir is already being criticised by families of coronavirus victims, who are questioning how Sturgeon could write a book about the past three decades yet fail to produce any pandemic diaries for the UK Covid-19 Inquiry.
The Scottish Covid Bereaved group has written to Humza Yousaf, her successor as first minister, asking for an explanation.
I would have thought the 50p was too expensive let alone £28.00
I don't want to read a single word of what that ghastly woman has to say. It will be all over the media anyway so why give the duplicitous former First Minister a penny....
Concocted indignation. This sort of thing is quite normal on Amazon - they have a guarantee of no price increase and a reduction if in fact it is cheaper on the day, plus you can cancel.
Concocted indignation on PB? Surely not.
Obvs aimed at people who have never bought a book online in their lives. AKA many elderly voters and Times readers.
I hesitate to add never read a book (bought online or otherwise) in their lives.
I think we can account for the low enthusiasm. There is a hunger for bold strategic national action in the electorate. At the same time Labour is forced in the short term tactics of electoral battle with the tories to not make a target of itself. So the strategy becomes: no manifesto till the last minute. Play dead on true intentions of an EU strategy. I think as soon as the Labour government come in and the short term.electoral threat is gone, Labour will pull out all the stops. They need to show a bold strategy that delivers.... but not at the cost of compromising victory.... so we will have to wait till they are actually in office. But I expect: a wide range of agreements with the eu perhaps even a CU. SM added to the manifesto as a term two goal.
Starmer doesnt do bold he does cautious.
I think his internal purge of the Trots, including withdrawing the whip from the former leader and former shadow Home Sec pretty bold.
Starmer looks to me the exact opposite of Sunak. Under-promise and over-deliver rather than over-promise and under-deliver.
Well we will see what Starmer actually does if he gets in to power. I;m ( unsurprisingly ) in the camp that says hes Continuity Sunak. That comes not just from the view of his character but from the hard reality that he inherits the same problems as RS and has the same limited space for manoeuvre.
A large contribution to Sunak being unable to do much is because of the team behind him. All the capable tories have had their time under Cameron, May and to a certain extent Johnson. Now that supply has run out. Those left running the government are with the possible exception of Hunt either treading water or are unsuitables who have a crazy idea that they too could be PM.
At the very least there will be a pool of competent Labour MPs for Starmer to choose from. And assuming he has a workable majority, he will also have strong support from his backbenchers for the 2024-2028 term.
The enthusiasm gap is another way of saying "you're all the same". In fact, simply avoiding booby traps like Rwanda and talking to the country and not themselves, plus the flurry of "first hundred days" policy changes will, I think, give Labour a delayed honeymoon.
That Conservative advert is ridiculous. I'm not a Khan fan (the beach body ready nonsense was pathetic puritanism) but winning an election is not 'seizing power'. Hyperbolic slurs exaggerating what could be legitimate criticisms are wretched.
A shift from nuance to absolutes and extremes is something we saw during the Peloponnesian War and see in the current US political arena. Mindless tribalism is not something I regard well in sport, and even less so in politics.
I tend to think the current era has more in common with Wars of Religion period Europe than classical antiquity. We have reverted to a very pre-Enlightenment mindset where we no longer embrace pluralistic values but essentially demand that people accept our beliefs or be eliminated as they imperil the souls of others. There’s not a lot of difference really between cancel culture for the practice of modern heresies and the immolation of Protestants or Catholics for the perception of prior heresies. It’s just a matter of degree.
I think we can account for the low enthusiasm. There is a hunger for bold strategic national action in the electorate. At the same time Labour is forced in the short term tactics of electoral battle with the tories to not make a target of itself. So the strategy becomes: no manifesto till the last minute. Play dead on true intentions of an EU strategy. I think as soon as the Labour government come in and the short term.electoral threat is gone, Labour will pull out all the stops. They need to show a bold strategy that delivers.... but not at the cost of compromising victory.... so we will have to wait till they are actually in office. But I expect: a wide range of agreements with the eu perhaps even a CU. SM added to the manifesto as a term two goal.
Starmer doesnt do bold he does cautious.
I think his internal purge of the Trots, including withdrawing the whip from the former leader and former shadow Home Sec pretty bold.
Starmer looks to me the exact opposite of Sunak. Under-promise and over-deliver rather than over-promise and under-deliver.
Well we will see what Starmer actually does if he gets in to power. I;m ( unsurprisingly ) in the camp that says hes Continuity Sunak. That comes not just from the view of his character but from the hard reality that he inherits the same problems as RS and has the same limited space for manoeuvre.
A large contribution to Sunak being unable to do much is because of the team behind him. All the capable tories have had their time under Cameron, May and to a certain extent Johnson. Now that supply has run out. Those left running the government are with the possible exception of Hunt either treading water or are unsuitables who have a crazy idea that they too could be PM.
At the very least there will be a pool of competent Labour MPs for Starmer to choose from. And assuming he has a workable majority, he will also have strong support from his backbenchers for the 2024-2028 term.
The enthusiasm gap is another way of saying "you're all the same". In fact, simply avoiding booby traps like Rwanda and talking to the country and not themselves, plus the flurry of "first hundred days" policy changes will, I think, give Labour a delayed honeymoon.
Maybe more that Tory voters have given up on their party but haven't admitted the logical consequences to themselves of the need to disbelieve their party's propaganda. If it is anything like the stuff about Mr Khan ...
The idiotic conspiracy theories have started about the Baltimore tragedy:
"Is it me, or does this look deliberate?" etc, etc.
It will not have been deliberate. Factors could vary through gross human error, machinery/technology failure, design/procedural failures, or even just dumb bad luck. But it will not have been deliberate.
(I assume a pilot would have been on board, as well as the normal crew.)
Even something like the Hythe Pier strike was not deliberate.
That Conservative advert is ridiculous. I'm not a Khan fan (the beach body ready nonsense was pathetic puritanism) but winning an election is not 'seizing power'. Hyperbolic slurs exaggerating what could be legitimate criticisms are wretched.
A shift from nuance to absolutes and extremes is something we saw during the Peloponnesian War and see in the current US political arena. Mindless tribalism is not something I regard well in sport, and even less so in politics.
I tend to think the current era has more in common with Wars of Religion period Europe than classical antiquity. We have reverted to a very pre-Enlightenment mindset where we no longer embrace pluralistic values but essentially demand that people accept our beliefs or be eliminated as they imperil the souls of others. There’s not a lot of difference really between cancel culture for the practice of modern heresies and the immolation of Protestants or Catholics for the perception of prior heresies. It’s just a matter of degree.
There are some parallels, certainly. Notably the influence of a new publishing medium spreading ideologies rapidly.
If Brexit was this island going through its reformation first, then god help the rest of the continent when they have theirs.
From my disorganised memory banks I recall that Francis Scott Key was the composer of the Star Spangled Banner, and that F. Scott Fitzgerald was named after him.
Indeed. The Baltimore bridge is built pretty well on the spot where he watched "the rockets' red glare".
"And the rocket's red glare, bunch of bombs in the air!... Gave proof through the night... that we still had our flag."
I think we can account for the low enthusiasm. There is a hunger for bold strategic national action in the electorate. At the same time Labour is forced in the short term tactics of electoral battle with the tories to not make a target of itself. So the strategy becomes: no manifesto till the last minute. Play dead on true intentions of an EU strategy. I think as soon as the Labour government come in and the short term.electoral threat is gone, Labour will pull out all the stops. They need to show a bold strategy that delivers.... but not at the cost of compromising victory.... so we will have to wait till they are actually in office. But I expect: a wide range of agreements with the eu perhaps even a CU. SM added to the manifesto as a term two goal.
Starmer doesnt do bold he does cautious.
I think his internal purge of the Trots, including withdrawing the whip from the former leader and former shadow Home Sec pretty bold.
Starmer looks to me the exact opposite of Sunak. Under-promise and over-deliver rather than over-promise and under-deliver.
Well we will see what Starmer actually does if he gets in to power. I;m ( unsurprisingly ) in the camp that says hes Continuity Sunak. That comes not just from the view of his character but from the hard reality that he inherits the same problems as RS and has the same limited space for manoeuvre.
A large contribution to Sunak being unable to do much is because of the team behind him. All the capable tories have had their time under Cameron, May and to a certain extent Johnson. Now that supply has run out. Those left running the government are with the possible exception of Hunt either treading water or are unsuitables who have a crazy idea that they too could be PM.
At the very least there will be a pool of competent Labour MPs for Starmer to choose from. And assuming he has a workable majority, he will also have strong support from his backbenchers for the 2024-2028 term.
The enthusiasm gap is another way of saying "you're all the same". In fact, simply avoiding booby traps like Rwanda and talking to the country and not themselves, plus the flurry of "first hundred days" policy changes will, I think, give Labour a delayed honeymoon.
I think there’s some protective self-care going on. If the voters see the Tories as the alcoholic parents then they’re likely to be wary of things improving when they move to their aunt’s.
I've ordered my copy. I will also make a copy a prize for a future PB compeition.
Buy now, get Nicola Sturgeon’s memoir next year
Families of coronavirus victims have questioned how she could write the book yet fail to produce any pandemic diaries
For those who cannot wait to secure their copy, Nicola Sturgeon’s memoir is on sale more than a year before its official publication date.
The former first minister’s account of her political career, for which she is thought to have been paid £300,000, has been made available for pre-order.
Readers are being asked to pay up to £28 (the recommended retail price) for the book, due to be published in August next year, even though it has yet to be finished and there is no guarantee it will deal with the tumultuous months following her shock resignation as SNP leader in February last year.
The memoir is already being criticised by families of coronavirus victims, who are questioning how Sturgeon could write a book about the past three decades yet fail to produce any pandemic diaries for the UK Covid-19 Inquiry.
The Scottish Covid Bereaved group has written to Humza Yousaf, her successor as first minister, asking for an explanation.
I would have thought the 50p was too expensive let alone £28.00
I don't want to read a single word of what that ghastly woman has to say. It will be all over the media anyway so why give the duplicitous former First Minister a penny....
Concocted indignation. This sort of thing is quite normal on Amazon - they have a guarantee of no price increase and a reduction if in fact it is cheaper on the day, plus you can cancel.
Concocted indignation on PB? Surely not.
Obvs aimed at people who have never bought a book online in their lives. AKA many elderly voters and Times readers.
I hesitate to add never read a book (bought online or otherwise) in their lives.
I suppose the very idea of ordering a book would be unusual in our generation and for some years thereafter - plenty of real live bookshops and even if one ordered, a very long time to wait all too often. You'd perhaps be slightly odd to want a specific book that much ...
That is so bizarre, it's like a mental American political advert. 'Since the Labour Mayor seized power' What the fuck!
It is going to take an extraordinary leader to rescue the Tories from the hole they are digging for themselves. They look across the Atlantic and see Trump and MAGA and their hearts soar. But they forget that the UK is much less polarised, much less religious, much more European. The Tories used to get England, if not Scotland or Wales. They now give every impression of having lost touch completely.
Anyone whose heart soars looking at MAGA has little place in UK politics. I hope.
So do I. But countless prominent Tories are very clear they support Trump. It just shows how cut-off they have become from mainstream opinion on this side of the Atlantic.
There is a lot of MAGA money floating around. $$$$$ and a guaranteed audience quite appealing to a certain type of politician regardless of what lines they have to parrot.
From my disorganised memory banks I recall that Francis Scott Key was the composer of the Star Spangled Banner, and that F. Scott Fitzgerald was named after him.
Indeed. The Baltimore bridge is built pretty well on the spot where he watched "the rockets' red glare".
"And the rocket's red glare, bunch of bombs in the air!... Gave proof through the night... that we still had our flag."
At least they didn't tell them about Ehud; they may have liked that.
Whilst catching out those who are poorly informed is good for a cheap laugh, the problem is that the opponents of the Evangelical Right in the US make the same mistake as the Evangelical Right which is to cherry pick the scriptures for their own purposes. The truth alas is more complicated and requires more thought than either side is willing to admit.
From my disorganised memory banks I recall that Francis Scott Key was the composer of the Star Spangled Banner, and that F. Scott Fitzgerald was named after him.
Indeed. The Baltimore bridge is built pretty well on the spot where he watched "the rockets' red glare".
"And the rocket's red glare, bunch of bombs in the air!... Gave proof through the night... that we still had our flag."
It's also comically untrue. Murders are falling, gun crime is falling, and London has one of the lowest rates of antisocial behaviour in the country. Lies are all the Tories have left.
The point he'd "seized" power was really troubling to me. He won two elections fair and square.
The extent to which the Tories are just punting out watered down attack lines borrowed from the GOP is deeply disappointing.
Time was, American leaders recycled speeches from British politicians.
I think we can account for the low enthusiasm. There is a hunger for bold strategic national action in the electorate. At the same time Labour is forced in the short term tactics of electoral battle with the tories to not make a target of itself. So the strategy becomes: no manifesto till the last minute. Play dead on true intentions of an EU strategy. I think as soon as the Labour government come in and the short term.electoral threat is gone, Labour will pull out all the stops. They need to show a bold strategy that delivers.... but not at the cost of compromising victory.... so we will have to wait till they are actually in office. But I expect: a wide range of agreements with the eu perhaps even a CU. SM added to the manifesto as a term two goal.
I think the Manifesto Strategy becomes a small, obvious core with a lot of statements that can be exmanded and intrepeted on the fly later.
We've resisted the constant pleadings of our energy supplier to get a smart meter. So far, at least...
Yes, I got fed up with my supplier's incessant attempts to get me to have one, as well.
As it happens, I met the guy who instals them on the island, while he was doing some other electrical works, and he had some horror stories to share, including people cut off from supply altogether when the meter's comms failed to connect. He said he currently has as many jobs on hand to remove installed smart meters as he does to instal new ones.
I had a sustained fight (spreadsheets and models were deployed) with my provider when I switched to a smart meter at my old place. They pissed about with the estimates when it didn't send the correct data across for a few months.
I have refused to get one installed in my current flat on that basis.
I have smart meters. The electric one saves me a lot of money as I can use great Octopus tariffs that need a smart meter. The gas one is too far away from the hub that communicates with the company, so is in effect a dumb meter. This is annoying and I'm on a list to fix it, but all it means is that I have to read it and submit the readings once a month.
My exact circumstances, except I am now on the Octopus 12-month Fix from last October, and the 15p/unit export tariff for solar.
We've resisted the constant pleadings of our energy supplier to get a smart meter. So far, at least...
Same here. We will hold out as long as we can.
I suspect 'not operating in Smart mode' means failing to connect back to the supplier; not that the meter will give a faulty reading. Poor mobile coverage + extensive foil insulation + Ofgen's resistance to allowing meters to use the consumer's wi-fi will be the usual cause, I'd guess.
I see quite a few people with 'smart meter' issues at Citizens Advice. So far everyone has turned out to the client's mistake (usually not appreciating how much energy prices have gone up).
My smart meter has allowed me to take advantage of Octopus's variable rate charging - saving us £40 pm atm - you luddites are welcome to give that benefit a miss.
The idiotic conspiracy theories have started about the Baltimore tragedy:
"Is it me, or does this look deliberate?" etc, etc.
It will not have been deliberate. Factors could vary through gross human error, machinery/technology failure, design/procedural failures, or even just dumb bad luck. But it will not have been deliberate.
(I assume a pilot would have been on board, as well as the normal crew.)
Even something like the Hythe Pier strike was not deliberate.
Bridge design mainly copes with the vertical forces; i.e. keeping the thing up. It is less concerned with horizontal forces, except for things like wind loading. Having a pier hit by a 95,000 - 116,000 tonne vessel is hard to design against; you can only put in structures for the vessel to hit first. And that's irrelevant if it's a height issue, and the vessel hits the bridge itself, not a pier.
(Apparently the accident happened at 2.54 am local time, and there were up to 20 construction workers on the bridge. The ship also had two pilots on board. My semi-educated guess would be mechanical failure leading to drifting / loss of control.)
It's also comically untrue. Murders are falling, gun crime is falling, and London has one of the lowest rates of antisocial behaviour in the country. Lies are all the Tories have left.
The point he'd "seized" power was really troubling to me. He won two elections fair and square.
Not sure there was much of theological significance in that statement per se other than the suggestion not to quote religious scriptures selectively for partisan purposes. However it is usually good advice not to selectively quote any material out of context in support of particular points of view, the same applies to cropping images or clipping sound or videos to such ends.
The Singapore Govt have borrowed a lobotomised AI-bot from the Tory party.
It's also comically untrue. Murders are falling, gun crime is falling, and London has one of the lowest rates of antisocial behaviour in the country. Lies are all the Tories have left.
The point he'd "seized" power was really troubling to me. He won two elections fair and square.
The extent to which the Tories are just punting out watered down attack lines borrowed from the GOP is deeply disappointing.
Time was, American leaders recycled speeches from British politicians.
Yes, we'll look back on Biden with affectionate nostalgia once he's gone.
Bonkers. The voiceover sounds American to me (but I don't have Prof Higgins level accent detection) and the style certainly is.
By the way, FPT - you asked if https://www.ukgamesexpo.co.uk/ will have traditional hex games like Drang Nach Osten. Sadly no - lots of quite complex games, but nothing that's a serious simulation of anything.
It's also comically untrue. Murders are falling, gun crime is falling, and London has one of the lowest rates of antisocial behaviour in the country. Lies are all the Tories have left.
The point he'd "seized" power was really troubling to me. He won two elections fair and square.
The extent to which the Tories are just punting out watered down attack lines borrowed from the GOP is deeply disappointing.
Time was, American leaders recycled speeches from British politicians.
Yes, we'll look back on Biden with affectionate nostalgia once he's gone.
IMO Obama was all image with no substance. Biden is substance with no image. Combine the two and you'd have a decent president.
It's also comically untrue. Murders are falling, gun crime is falling, and London has one of the lowest rates of antisocial behaviour in the country. Lies are all the Tories have left.
The point he'd "seized" power was really troubling to me. He won two elections fair and square.
The extent to which the Tories are just punting out watered down attack lines borrowed from the GOP is deeply disappointing.
Time was, American leaders recycled speeches from British politicians.
Yes, we'll look back on Biden with affectionate nostalgia once he's gone.
Can you even imagine that being a scandal today? I'd KILL for that to be a scandal today! At least with plagiarism, you know the guy can read.
Watching that Conservatives ad it struck me that the no doubt intentionally shady picture of Sadiq Khan looks the spit of Ben Shapiro. I'm sure it would mortify both.
At least they didn't tell them about Ehud; they may have liked that.
Whilst catching out those who are poorly informed is good for a cheap laugh, the problem is that the opponents of the Evangelical Right in the US make the same mistake as the Evangelical Right which is to cherry pick the scriptures for their own purposes. The truth alas is more complicated and requires more thought than either side is willing to admit.
It's quite funny as political ridicule, which is one plank in present campaigns to break off non-MAGA people from the Trump-Republicans.
It wouldn't work over here - I know of *very* few Evangelical circles where eg the Lot narrative wouldn't cause a debate about the nature of negative / counter-narratives in the bible.
Some of the most interesting Evangelical material in those lines that I have seen was amongst early leaders of the UCCF (association of University CUs) as they worked out their stance on the tensions around a conservative view of the bible vs how to think about the nature of the material.
On topic - the swathe of seats which look as though they might turn Labour for the first time is seeing a lot of enthusiasm among Labour voters. In Didcot and Wantage, where I'm now CLP chair and Labour is extremely active, it feels like Broxtowe in 1997 in the small towns and villages where the party was rarely seen in the past. Labour voters felt beleagured and often voted for other parties (this is a reason why apparent LibDem strength in the Blue Wall is sometimes deceptive - a lot of it was tactical). In inner cities, I suspect voters are much more blase and sceptical.
Watching that Conservatives ad it struck me that the no doubt intentionally shady picture of Sadiq Khan looks the spit of Ben Shapiro. I'm sure it would mortify both.
It's a bit like the Time magazines editing of the OJ Simpson photo
Not sure there was much of theological significance in that statement per se other than the suggestion not to quote religious scriptures selectively for partisan purposes. However it is usually good advice not to selectively quote any material out of context in support of particular points of view, the same applies to cropping images or clipping sound or videos to such ends.
Theologians would at least know whether it's true and or whether it's being willfully misinterpreted. The Singaporian minister doesn't answer those questions.
Not sure there was much of theological significance in that statement per se other than the suggestion not to quote religious scriptures selectively for partisan purposes. However it is usually good advice not to selectively quote any material out of context in support of particular points of view, the same applies to cropping images or clipping sound or videos to such ends.
Theologians would at least know whether it's true and or whether it's being willfully misinterpreted. The Singaporian minister doesn't answer those questions.
Is that a good thing? I'd argue yes (I'm obviuosly biased though) - if we do win a large majority, it'll be good to have it seasoned with people who have actually been in Government before.
That Khan advert. Park for a moment that it was even worst in the first iteration where some staffer prannock didn't realise the video was shot in America.
The Tory party looked at the Demon Eyes PPB pulled by Major and said "what a great idea". Khan - the criminal who seized power and has gangs of thugs roaming the capital. Khan - waging a "war on motorists". Khan - evil personified.
The Reform party sound more cogent than the Tories. No wonder cross-over is in process.
On topic - the swathe of seats which look as though they might turn Labour for the first time is seeing a lot of enthusiasm among Labour voters. In Didcot and Wantage, where I'm now CLP chair and Labour is extremely active, it feels like Broxtowe in 1997 in the small towns and villages where the party was rarely seen in the past. Labour voters felt beleagured and often voted for other parties (this is a reason why apparent LibDem strength in the Blue Wall is sometimes deceptive - a lot of it was tactical). In inner cities, I suspect voters are much more blase and sceptical.
Well I’m a Lib Dem based in the inner city and I can tell you I feel beleaguered too. Still vote Lib Dem though.
That Khan advert. Park for a moment that it was even worst in the first iteration where some staffer prannock didn't realise the video was shot in America.
The Tory party looked at the Demon Eyes PPB pulled by Major and said "what a great idea". Khan - the criminal who seized power and has gangs of thugs roaming the capital. Khan - waging a "war on motorists". Khan - evil personified.
The Reform party sound more cogent than the Tories. No wonder cross-over is in process.
I think it’s clever, in a dog whistle sort of way. It’s not aimed at Londoners voting for the mayor. It’s aimed at pensioners in Lincolnshire whose image of London chimes nicely with the ad.
Is that a good thing? I'd argue yes (I'm obviuosly biased though) - if we do win a large majority, it'll be good to have it seasoned with people who have actually been in Government before.
Looks like most if not all of these will be back even if the LAB majority is relatively small.
That Khan advert. Park for a moment that it was even worst in the first iteration where some staffer prannock didn't realise the video was shot in America.
The Tory party looked at the Demon Eyes PPB pulled by Major and said "what a great idea". Khan - the criminal who seized power and has gangs of thugs roaming the capital. Khan - waging a "war on motorists". Khan - evil personified.
The Reform party sound more cogent than the Tories. No wonder cross-over is in process.
It's quite fortunate for the Tories that devolution has provided two good case studies of Labour actually holding office. Using that is a good idea - this just sounds like a shit campaign. I'm not watching it - I hate cringey things.
On topic - the swathe of seats which look as though they might turn Labour for the first time is seeing a lot of enthusiasm among Labour voters. In Didcot and Wantage, where I'm now CLP chair and Labour is extremely active, it feels like Broxtowe in 1997 in the small towns and villages where the party was rarely seen in the past. Labour voters felt beleagured and often voted for other parties (this is a reason why apparent LibDem strength in the Blue Wall is sometimes deceptive - a lot of it was tactical). In inner cities, I suspect voters are much more blase and sceptical.
I live in inner London - it's a slightly odd atmosphere as there's no real opposition to Labour in most areas - pockets of Green and LD activity but these are restricted to individual wards where they happen to have a few activists. The Tories are not visible at all, I can think of only one active Tory in the whole of my borough.
Is that a good thing? I'd argue yes (I'm obviuosly biased though) - if we do win a large majority, it'll be good to have it seasoned with people who have actually been in Government before.
Good luck to all of them. Four or five of the well known ones could well walk into reasonable ministerial jobs. I always liked the two Alexanders.
Morning all. My word what a spectacular Tory Ad thing for London. And by spectacular I mean weird, dim-witted and sinister in equal measure. Morons. They're somebody that I used to know. Not sure if anyone posted but Savanta put out their Blackpool South projection from Autumn's MRP at Lab 55 Con 29 Ref 8 LD 4 others 4. Would imagine by now given Reforms rise and the main 2s slight decline in overall voteshare avg and BSouths low turnout/ disengagement issues that would drag us towards 50 25 15 type scenario with Reform fighting to flip 2nd/3rd. My feeling is 8% in this sort of constituency would be very poor for RefUK given the very short term nature of this appointment, absolute free hit protest. I suspect Galloway might take advantage of that and grab 4th here on a deposit save/towards double figures if they stand.
Not sure there was much of theological significance in that statement per se other than the suggestion not to quote religious scriptures selectively for partisan purposes. However it is usually good advice not to selectively quote any material out of context in support of particular points of view, the same applies to cropping images or clipping sound or videos to such ends.
Theologians would at least know whether it's true and or whether it's being willfully misinterpreted. The Singaporian minister doesn't answer those questions.
It’s plausible the statement was factual, but factual statements without correct context do not make truthful statements.
Voters are tired of a Tory government and will put Labour in but there is no enthusiasm for Starmer as there was for Blair
There was ample enthusiasm for Labour in 1945, if not necessarily for Attlee personally. He was however pretty generally respected for his effective performance managing the Home Front in the war.
Not sure there was much of theological significance in that statement per se other than the suggestion not to quote religious scriptures selectively for partisan purposes. However it is usually good advice not to selectively quote any material out of context in support of particular points of view, the same applies to cropping images or clipping sound or videos to such ends.
Theologians would at least know whether it's true and or whether it's being willfully misinterpreted. The Singaporian minister doesn't answer those questions.
I wonder if the courts will show him the same leniency New York did for the Orange One?
Your regular reminder that if he had been extradited to Sweden to be questioned over the rape allegations, even if he had been convicted, he would have been out of prison by now.
Instead, he's not only spent ten years locked up anyway but now seems set to spend life behind bars in the US.
Is that a good thing? I'd argue yes (I'm obviuosly biased though) - if we do win a large majority, it'll be good to have it seasoned with people who have actually been in Government before.
Most of them will win. Great Grimsby might be interesting, it's on my Reform UK watch list, I think it might be an error for her to stand there having been recently rejected. There's been some More in Common focus group stuff there and it's very 'hate them all', it's ripe for plague on both your houses, RefUK through the middle. Hartlepoolesque vibe (by which I mean no returning appetite for Labour despite the Tories being gash)
Voters are tired of a Tory government and will put Labour in but there is no enthusiasm for Starmer as there was for Blair
Probably closer to 1945 than 1966! CON got 200 in 1945 and would probably take that now.
And of course they were back in 1951
They'd bite your hand off for 200, I think they'd probably bank 150. They'd offer a PPE contract for 230
What about 100? It'd be really interesting to find out (off the record) what activists and MPs would consider the "just about got away with it" number.
BBC Braces for the end of the license fee. Let us all hope the end of the License fee, an iniquitious tax which disproportionately hammers the poorest, most frail and vulnerable, in society, is not replaced by taxpayer funds via some other means the BBC is forced to raise what revenue it wants for the stuff it puts out in the free market.
Voters are tired of a Tory government and will put Labour in but there is no enthusiasm for Starmer as there was for Blair
Probably closer to 1945 than 1966! CON got 200 in 1945 and would probably take that now.
And of course they were back in 1951
They'd bite your hand off for 200, I think they'd probably bank 150. They'd offer a PPE contract for 230
What about 100? It'd be really interesting to find out (off the record) what activists and MPs would consider the "just about got away with it" number.
Fag packet suggests 120 is absolutely minimum they can survive long term, below that and you start crumbling to (current) LD levels very quickly as it's a swarming and where the hell do you try and put in your firebreak?
Aside from the management and ideological issues, the cash statistics really stand out. This is perhaps a case where extra investment would actually pay for itself ?
...Joshua Titcombe died in 2008. Since then, we have had nearly two decades of dead women, dead children, disabled children, traumatised and physically injured mothers. Thousands of avoidable catastrophes. Each of them a specific horror, but the contours of these stories are the same. Understaffed maternity units with doctors and midwives run ragged. Experienced midwives quitting the profession, because they can’t take it any more. NHS trusts preoccupied with reputation management over patient safety. Whistleblowers forced out. A culture of promoting normal births at all costs.
Nearly two-thirds – 67% – of England’s maternity services are not safe enough, according to CQC figures. The NHS paid out £1.1bn in 2022/23 on maternity-related negligence claims. In 2021, a parliamentary committee urged the government to invest an extra £200m-£350m annually to safely staff England’s maternity units. It invested £186m. The outgoing NHS ombudsman recently warned that NHS leaders sometimes lie and conceal evidence when it comes to maternity care. Meanwhile, women are dying: maternal deaths are up 53% in the period 2020-2022 compared to 2017-19.
From Cumbria to Hampshire, Kent to Shropshire, the issues are universal. Any woman, in any hospital, having any baby, could be at risk.
“The truth is,” says Titcombe, “the majority of England’s maternity services are unsafe. If you got Ockenden in, and scrutinised everything, stuff would come out. There’s this fallacy that we’ve had a few scandals. It’s nonsense. The problems are everywhere.”..
BBC Braces for the end of the license fee. Let us all hope the end of the License fee, an iniquitious tax which disproportionately hammers the poorest, most frail and vulnerable, in society, is not replaced by taxpayer funds via some other means the BBC is forced to raise what revenue it wants for the stuff it puts out in the free market.
BBC Braces for the end of the license fee. Let us all hope the end of the License fee, an iniquitious tax which disproportionately hammers the poorest, most frail and vulnerable, in society, is not replaced by taxpayer funds via some other means the BBC is forced to raise what revenue it wants for the stuff it puts out in the free market.
BBC Braces for the end of the license fee. Let us all hope the end of the License fee, an iniquitious tax which disproportionately hammers the poorest, most frail and vulnerable, in society, is not replaced by taxpayer funds via some other means the BBC is forced to raise what revenue it wants for the stuff it puts out in the free market.
The "darkness has taken over London - don't let it spread" Tory advert is exactly the sort of thing I predicted. They're playing the London card nationally.
It's highly intelligent, highly effective stuff, practically impossible for Labour to counter in the minds of those it's aimed at.
Ironic of course that the voiceover is read in a foreign accent, but that's a sharp decision that capitalises on prior conditioning by films (or is it "movies"?) and is just a smartarse point. It works better than having it read in a West Country or Borders accent or by a woman.
They're going full on Gates of Vienna.
They're capitalising on the widespread association of the idea of "London" with the idea of "territory that's been lost to knife-wielding dark-skinned invaders" that is so strong in the minds of most of the British white working class.
Bollocks the spirit has gone out of the Tory party, they're resigned to losing, etc. They're fighting to win.
What can Labour do?
1. Call it out. (Seriously?) 2. Say the same thing. (They haven't got the positioning.) 3. Ignore it and go on about the NHS. (Good luck with that. The NHS is already a big theme in the minds of racists.) 4. Try to appeal to people's intellects. 5. Try to appeal to people's human decency. (This is similar to 1.)
Remember that 52% voted Powellite a mere 8 years ago with a 72% turnout. Have they got they wanted? Or should the question not be asked in those terms because acktchooahly I am talking complete rubbish because the 52% included 0.36128% who voted for Brexit not because of xenophobia but because they cared so much about ecology, or because they thought it was best for race relations, or by mistake, or because their PhDs in economics or history gave them certain perspectives?
Originally I thought the GE would be on 2 May because this would let the Tories play the London card most effectively. Now I reckon it will be soon after, probably in May or June, so that they can build on the idea that Khan's second victory shows even more starkly that London is a different country under invader control.
The general election will be all about London. The NHS will hardly get a look-in.
BBC Braces for the end of the license fee. Let us all hope the end of the License fee, an iniquitious tax which disproportionately hammers the poorest, most frail and vulnerable, in society, is not replaced by taxpayer funds via some other means the BBC is forced to raise what revenue it wants for the stuff it puts out in the free market.
Unless Starmer has the same plans, the license fee won't end any time soon
"The existing fee agreement expires at the end of 2027 - and the Conservative government has pledged to replace it with a new funding model, which could spell the end of the licence fee altogether."
BBC Braces for the end of the license fee. Let us all hope the end of the License fee, an iniquitious tax which disproportionately hammers the poorest, most frail and vulnerable, in society, is not replaced by taxpayer funds via some other means the BBC is forced to raise what revenue it wants for the stuff it puts out in the free market.
The BBC is probably the best known and most trusted British institution in the world. The Tories have trashed the UK's international reputation - we need to hang on to those bits of it that remain.
Aside from the management and ideological issues, the cash statistics really stand out. This is perhaps a case where extra investment would actually pay for itself ?
...Joshua Titcombe died in 2008. Since then, we have had nearly two decades of dead women, dead children, disabled children, traumatised and physically injured mothers. Thousands of avoidable catastrophes. Each of them a specific horror, but the contours of these stories are the same. Understaffed maternity units with doctors and midwives run ragged. Experienced midwives quitting the profession, because they can’t take it any more. NHS trusts preoccupied with reputation management over patient safety. Whistleblowers forced out. A culture of promoting normal births at all costs.
Nearly two-thirds – 67% – of England’s maternity services are not safe enough, according to CQC figures. The NHS paid out £1.1bn in 2022/23 on maternity-related negligence claims. In 2021, a parliamentary committee urged the government to invest an extra £200m-£350m annually to safely staff England’s maternity units. It invested £186m. The outgoing NHS ombudsman recently warned that NHS leaders sometimes lie and conceal evidence when it comes to maternity care. Meanwhile, women are dying: maternal deaths are up 53% in the period 2020-2022 compared to 2017-19.
From Cumbria to Hampshire, Kent to Shropshire, the issues are universal. Any woman, in any hospital, having any baby, could be at risk.
“The truth is,” says Titcombe, “the majority of England’s maternity services are unsafe. If you got Ockenden in, and scrutinised everything, stuff would come out. There’s this fallacy that we’ve had a few scandals. It’s nonsense. The problems are everywhere.”..
It's mad. Paying more for bad health outcomes because we didn't staff the service properly.
Voters are tired of a Tory government and will put Labour in but there is no enthusiasm for Starmer as there was for Blair
There was ample enthusiasm for Labour in 1945, if not necessarily for Attlee personally. He was however pretty generally respected for his effective performance managing the Home Front in the war.
There was huge enthusiasm for Labour in 1945 - and voters then pissed on their own chips five years later because Mr Cube looked out from the sugar packets and told them to.
The "darkness has taken over London - don't let it spread" Tory advert is exactly the sort of thing I predicted. They're playing the London card nationally.
It's highly intelligent, highly effective stuff, practically impossible for Labour to counter in the minds of those it's aimed at.
Ironic of course that the voiceover is read in a foreign accent, but that's a sharp decision that capitalises on prior conditioning by films (or is it "movies"?) and is just a smartarse point. It works better than having it read in a West Country or Borders accent or by a woman.
They're going full on Gates of Vienna.
They're capitalising on the widespread association of the idea of "London" with the idea of "territory that's been lost to knife-wielding dark-skinned invaders" that is so strong in the minds of most of the British white working class.
Bollocks the spirit has gone out of the Tory party, they're resigned to losing, etc. They're fighting to win.
What can Labour do?
1. Call it out. (Seriously?) 2. Say the same thing. (They haven't got the positioning.) 3. Ignore it and go on about the NHS. (Good luck with that. The NHS is already a big theme in the minds of racists.) 4. Try to appeal to people's intellects. 5. Try to appeal to people's human decency. (This is similar to 1.)
Remember that 52% voted Powellite a mere 8 years ago with a 72% turnout. Have they got they wanted? Or should the question not be asked in those terms because acktchooahly I am talking complete rubbish because the 52% included 0.36128% who voted for Brexit not because of xenophobia but because they cared so much about ecology, or because they thought it was best for race relations, or by mistake, or because their PhDs in economics or history gave them certain perspectives?
Originally I thought the GE would be on 2 May because this would let the Tories play the London card most effectively. Now I reckon it will be soon after, probably in May or June, so that they can build on the idea that Khan's second victory shows even more starkly that London is a different country under invader control.
The general election will be all about London. The NHS will hardly get a look-in.
There’s absolutely going to be a ton of culture war bullshit spread, both officially & unofficially, in this election. It’s pretty much all the Conservatives have left &, given the reverse UKIP takeover of the party, it’s also their “safe space” where they feel most comfortable.
We've resisted the constant pleadings of our energy supplier to get a smart meter. So far, at least...
Likewise here, but eventually you get a letter saying your meter is coming to the end of its certified life and they need to replace. And it turns out certified life is indeed a 'thing'.
The idiotic conspiracy theories have started about the Baltimore tragedy:
"Is it me, or does this look deliberate?" etc, etc.
It will not have been deliberate. Factors could vary through gross human error, machinery/technology failure, design/procedural failures, or even just dumb bad luck. But it will not have been deliberate.
(I assume a pilot would have been on board, as well as the normal crew.)
Even something like the Hythe Pier strike was not deliberate.
Bridge design mainly copes with the vertical forces; i.e. keeping the thing up. It is less concerned with horizontal forces, except for things like wind loading. Having a pier hit by a 95,000 - 116,000 tonne vessel is hard to design against; you can only put in structures for the vessel to hit first. And that's irrelevant if it's a height issue, and the vessel hits the bridge itself, not a pier.
(Apparently the accident happened at 2.54 am local time, and there were up to 20 construction workers on the bridge. The ship also had two pilots on board. My semi-educated guess would be mechanical failure leading to drifting / loss of control.)
If you watch the video of the run-up, it seems that the vessel suffered a power failure during the approach to the bridge, restarted the diesel engines (you can see the cloud of black smoke) but then lost power for a second time.
Seems plausible that the power failures left the rudder in a turn position for much longer than intended & after power was restored there simply wasn’t time to change course.
Morning all. My word what a spectacular Tory Ad thing for London. And by spectacular I mean weird, dim-witted and sinister in equal measure. Morons. They're somebody that I used to know. Not sure if anyone posted but Savanta put out their Blackpool South projection from Autumn's MRP at Lab 55 Con 29 Ref 8 LD 4 others 4. Would imagine by now given Reforms rise and the main 2s slight decline in overall voteshare avg and BSouths low turnout/ disengagement issues that would drag us towards 50 25 15 type scenario with Reform fighting to flip 2nd/3rd. My feeling is 8% in this sort of constituency would be very poor for RefUK given the very short term nature of this appointment, absolute free hit protest. I suspect Galloway might take advantage of that and grab 4th here on a deposit save/towards double figures if they stand.
Hey up, you've been away for a while I think? Welcome back.
The "darkness has taken over London - don't let it spread" Tory advert is exactly the sort of thing I predicted. They're playing the London card nationally.
It's highly intelligent, highly effective stuff, practically impossible for Labour to counter in the minds of those it's aimed at.
Ironic of course that the voiceover is read in a foreign accent, but that's a sharp decision that capitalises on prior conditioning by films (or is it "movies"?) and is just a smartarse point. It works better than having it read in a West Country or Borders accent or by a woman.
They're going full on Gates of Vienna.
They're capitalising on the widespread association of the idea of "London" with the idea of "territory that's been lost to knife-wielding dark-skinned invaders" that is so strong in the minds of most of the British white working class.
Bollocks the spirit has gone out of the Tory party, they're resigned to losing, etc. They're fighting to win.
What can Labour do?
1. Call it out. (Seriously?) 2. Say the same thing. (They haven't got the positioning.) 3. Ignore it and go on about the NHS. (Good luck with that. The NHS is already a big theme in the minds of racists.) 4. Try to appeal to people's intellects. 5. Try to appeal to people's human decency. (This is similar to 1.)
Remember that 52% voted Powellite a mere 8 years ago with a 72% turnout. Have they got they wanted? Or should the question not be asked in those terms because acktchooahly I am talking complete rubbish because the 52% included 0.36128% who voted for Brexit not because of xenophobia but because they cared so much about ecology, or because they thought it was best for race relations, or by mistake, or because their PhDs in economics or history gave them certain perspectives?
Originally I thought the GE would be on 2 May because this would let the Tories play the London card most effectively. Now I reckon it will be soon after, probably in May or June, so that they can build on the idea that Khan's second victory shows even more starkly that London is a different country under invader control.
The general election will be all about London. The NHS will hardly get a look-in.
There’s absolutely going to be a ton of culture war bullshit spread, both officially & unofficially, in this election. It’s pretty much all the Conservatives have left &, given the reverse UKIP takeover of the party, it’s also their “safe space” where they feel most comfortable.
I really, really hope it doesn’t work.
I don't believe the idea that 52% of people voted Powellite. Maybe 20% did. Maybe. The rest have been vociferous in protesting that they weren't voting a racist ticket. And being presented with an attack line worthy of the NF is as likely to get them to sit on their hands at home as not.
We've resisted the constant pleadings of our energy supplier to get a smart meter. So far, at least...
Likewise here, but eventually you get a letter saying your meter is coming to the end of its certified life and they need to replace. And it turns out certified life is indeed a 'thing'.
We installed a smart meter back in January. Our energy provider has been unable to bill us for electricity ever since.
Which is weird, because a) they can bill us for gas & the gas meter communicates with the system via the electricity meter and b) they’re receiving all our electrical usage because we can track our half-hourly usage on their website!
Presumably there’s some back-end plumbing that’s missing, but given these news reports it sounds like the whole thing is a clusterf*ck of epic proportions that was farmed out to the lowest bidder whilst simultaneously being run by an Ofgem committee that meets once every six months, if they can be bothered.
That Conservative advert is ridiculous. I'm not a Khan fan (the beach body ready nonsense was pathetic puritanism) but winning an election is not 'seizing power'. Hyperbolic slurs exaggerating what could be legitimate criticisms are wretched.
A shift from nuance to absolutes and extremes is something we saw during the Peloponnesian War and see in the current US political arena. Mindless tribalism is not something I regard well in sport, and even less so in politics.
I tend to think the current era has more in common with Wars of Religion period Europe than classical antiquity. We have reverted to a very pre-Enlightenment mindset where we no longer embrace pluralistic values but essentially demand that people accept our beliefs or be eliminated as they imperil the souls of others. There’s not a lot of difference really between cancel culture for the practice of modern heresies and the immolation of Protestants or Catholics for the perception of prior heresies. It’s just a matter of degree.
"Trans cult" is accurate and justified usage.
But for a fuller appreciation of the era, look at the current role of the notion of what's called the red heifer in Judaism (and in strands of apocalypticist Protestantism) and the yellow cow in Islam (sura 2 of the Koran).
Right now, in March 2024, this is very much in people's consciousness across the entire Arab Muslim world and in Israel.
Morning all. My word what a spectacular Tory Ad thing for London. And by spectacular I mean weird, dim-witted and sinister in equal measure. Morons. They're somebody that I used to know. Not sure if anyone posted but Savanta put out their Blackpool South projection from Autumn's MRP at Lab 55 Con 29 Ref 8 LD 4 others 4. Would imagine by now given Reforms rise and the main 2s slight decline in overall voteshare avg and BSouths low turnout/ disengagement issues that would drag us towards 50 25 15 type scenario with Reform fighting to flip 2nd/3rd. My feeling is 8% in this sort of constituency would be very poor for RefUK given the very short term nature of this appointment, absolute free hit protest. I suspect Galloway might take advantage of that and grab 4th here on a deposit save/towards double figures if they stand.
Hey up, you've been away for a while I think? Welcome back.
Thanks! Yeah been away for a couple of years with some health issues. Still ongoing tbf so not sure how involved I'll get again but feeling a bit more like dipping in again for a while, trying to look at the upcoming GE from an entirely 'interested in the facts and stats but utterly disengaged from the result' perspective!
Morning all. My word what a spectacular Tory Ad thing for London. And by spectacular I mean weird, dim-witted and sinister in equal measure. Morons. They're somebody that I used to know.
You need to put aside your assessment of it as weird and sinister and THEN consider whether it's dimwitted.
It's certainly sinister. Not sure what you mean by "weird". It's the kind of thing I expected. I don't think it's dimwitted at all. It's on the ball and it's kickarse.
Voters are tired of a Tory government and will put Labour in but there is no enthusiasm for Starmer as there was for Blair
There was ample enthusiasm for Labour in 1945, if not necessarily for Attlee personally. He was however pretty generally respected for his effective performance managing the Home Front in the war.
Maybe yet in 1950 the Tories slashed Labour's majority and by the 1951 election were back in government
That Khan advert. Park for a moment that it was even worst in the first iteration where some staffer prannock didn't realise the video was shot in America.
The Tory party looked at the Demon Eyes PPB pulled by Major and said "what a great idea". Khan - the criminal who seized power and has gangs of thugs roaming the capital. Khan - waging a "war on motorists". Khan - evil personified.
The Reform party sound more cogent than the Tories. No wonder cross-over is in process.
I think it’s clever, in a dog whistle sort of way. It’s not aimed at Londoners voting for the mayor. It’s aimed at pensioners in Lincolnshire whose image of London chimes nicely with the ad.
It's poundshop Goebbels. Aiming for a laugh while intending people to think there's something in this. And ending up looking very silly and more than a little sinister.
BBC Braces for the end of the license fee. Let us all hope the end of the License fee, an iniquitious tax which disproportionately hammers the poorest, most frail and vulnerable, in society, is not replaced by taxpayer funds via some other means the BBC is forced to raise what revenue it wants for the stuff it puts out in the free market.
Given that the access method to BBC iPlayer is, currently, to have a license (softly enforced), the whole system of courts, demands, threats etc should vanish.
BBC Braces for the end of the license fee. Let us all hope the end of the License fee, an iniquitious tax which disproportionately hammers the poorest, most frail and vulnerable, in society, is not replaced by taxpayer funds via some other means the BBC is forced to raise what revenue it wants for the stuff it puts out in the free market.
Given that the access method to BBC iPlayer is, currently, to have a license (softly enforced), the whole system of courts, demands, threats etc should vanish.
Do people not get this? For many of us, broadcast TV *has already ended*
Morning all. My word what a spectacular Tory Ad thing for London. And by spectacular I mean weird, dim-witted and sinister in equal measure. Morons. They're somebody that I used to know.
You need to put aside your assessment of it as weird and sinister and THEN consider whether it's dimwitted.
Good point. Dim witted in terms of how it 'appeals' to me and how it makes me view them and their strategy. I don't see it working for them as some sort of wider strategy in which case, Dim witted. Or I'm wrong. It's been known.
Comments
The advert is shocking and I couldn't agree with you more
Anything else would be a bonus
MAGA Morons being told what's in the Bible, then demanding that it be banned.
https://youtu.be/stJMYycQuRE?t=33
The problem of unthinking religion.
At least they didn't tell them about Ehud; they may have liked that.
If Brexit was this island going through its reformation first, then god help the rest of the continent when they have theirs.
bunch of bombs in the air!...
Gave proof through the night...
that we still had our flag."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oh-D7XF918
Sounds pretty bad. I suppose the one saving grace is had it been at rush hour it would have been a thousand times worse.
Time was, American leaders recycled speeches from British politicians.
eg "We will consider reform of property tax."
Bridge design mainly copes with the vertical forces; i.e. keeping the thing up. It is less concerned with horizontal forces, except for things like wind loading. Having a pier hit by a 95,000 - 116,000 tonne vessel is hard to design against; you can only put in structures for the vessel to hit first. And that's irrelevant if it's a height issue, and the vessel hits the bridge itself, not a pier.
(Apparently the accident happened at 2.54 am local time, and there were up to 20 construction workers on the bridge. The ship also had two pilots on board. My semi-educated guess would be mechanical failure leading to drifting / loss of control.)
https://www.vesselfinder.com/vessels/details/9697428
Although only half to a third the size of the latest biggies.
By the way, FPT - you asked if https://www.ukgamesexpo.co.uk/ will have traditional hex games like Drang Nach Osten. Sadly no - lots of quite complex games, but nothing that's a serious simulation of anything.
But either is better than Trump...
It wouldn't work over here - I know of *very* few Evangelical circles where eg the Lot narrative wouldn't cause a debate about the nature of negative / counter-narratives in the bible.
Some of the most interesting Evangelical material in those lines that I have seen was amongst early leaders of the UCCF (association of University CUs) as they worked out their stance on the tensions around a conservative view of the bible vs how to think about the nature of the material.
I expect a safe labour win here with LD and Green nowhere.
Could Reform beat the Tories ?
Voters are tired of a Tory government and will put Labour in but there is no enthusiasm for Starmer as there was for Blair
https://labourlist.org/2024/03/former-labour-mps-candidate-selection-general-election/?source=email-labour-list&link_id=19&can_id=b64611f4630a0fb4878f4059d69caa69&email_referrer=email_2256172___subject_2782361&email_subject=by-election-stations-and-a-vote-green-controversy
Is that a good thing? I'd argue yes (I'm obviuosly biased though) - if we do win a large majority, it'll be good to have it seasoned with people who have actually been in Government before.
And of course they were back in 1951
The Tory party looked at the Demon Eyes PPB pulled by Major and said "what a great idea". Khan - the criminal who seized power and has gangs of thugs roaming the capital. Khan - waging a "war on motorists". Khan - evil personified.
The Reform party sound more cogent than the Tories. No wonder cross-over is in process.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68663844
Shame there's no word for that. And a shame for those losing their jobs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_Skyway_Bridge#1980_collapse
Not sure if anyone posted but Savanta put out their Blackpool South projection from Autumn's MRP at Lab 55 Con 29 Ref 8 LD 4 others 4. Would imagine by now given Reforms rise and the main 2s slight decline in overall voteshare avg and BSouths low turnout/ disengagement issues that would drag us towards 50 25 15 type scenario with Reform fighting to flip 2nd/3rd.
My feeling is 8% in this sort of constituency would be very poor for RefUK given the very short term nature of this appointment, absolute free hit protest. I suspect Galloway might take advantage of that and grab 4th here on a deposit save/towards double figures if they stand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=062ts1yDvME
Interesting stuff (and the occasional nod to his father, Thatcher-era MP and City slicker Peter Walker).
The whole series is recommended. There's one with Mark Drakeford too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYf46QoU8eY
I wonder if the courts will show him the same leniency New York did for the Orange One?
Your regular reminder that if he had been extradited to Sweden to be questioned over the rape allegations, even if he had been convicted, he would have been out of prison by now.
Instead, he's not only spent ten years locked up anyway but now seems set to spend life behind bars in the US.
BBC Braces for the end of the license fee. Let us all hope the end of the License fee, an iniquitious tax which disproportionately hammers the poorest, most frail and vulnerable, in society, is not replaced by taxpayer funds via some other means the BBC is forced to raise what revenue it wants for the stuff it puts out in the free market.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/bbc-braces-for-end-of-licence-fee-with-tim-davie-to-set-out-plan-to-radically-transform-broadcaster/ar-BB1kv5CG?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=b77c1f85b450462993c5619201e9e813&ei=66
This is perhaps a case where extra investment would actually pay for itself ?
...Joshua Titcombe died in 2008. Since then, we have had nearly two decades of dead women, dead children, disabled children, traumatised and physically injured mothers. Thousands of avoidable catastrophes. Each of them a specific horror, but the contours of these stories are the same. Understaffed maternity units with doctors and midwives run ragged. Experienced midwives quitting the profession, because they can’t take it any more. NHS trusts preoccupied with reputation management over patient safety. Whistleblowers forced out. A culture of promoting normal births at all costs.
Nearly two-thirds – 67% – of England’s maternity services are not safe enough, according to CQC figures. The NHS paid out £1.1bn in 2022/23 on maternity-related negligence claims. In 2021, a parliamentary committee urged the government to invest an extra £200m-£350m annually to safely staff England’s maternity units. It invested £186m. The outgoing NHS ombudsman recently warned that NHS leaders sometimes lie and conceal evidence when it comes to maternity care. Meanwhile, women are dying: maternal deaths are up 53% in the period 2020-2022 compared to 2017-19.
From Cumbria to Hampshire, Kent to Shropshire, the issues are universal. Any woman, in any hospital, having any baby, could be at risk.
“The truth is,” says Titcombe, “the majority of England’s maternity services are unsafe. If you got Ockenden in, and scrutinised everything, stuff would come out. There’s this fallacy that we’ve had a few scandals. It’s nonsense. The problems are everywhere.”..
https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/bbc-commissioned-half-of-all-uk-tv-scripted-shows-last-year-ampere-research-finds/ar-BB1kubuD
Be careful what you wish for.
It's a national broadcaster, and should be payed for from general taxation.
But the license fee ought indeed to have gone some time ago.
It's highly intelligent, highly effective stuff, practically impossible for Labour to counter in the minds of those it's aimed at.
Ironic of course that the voiceover is read in a foreign accent, but that's a sharp decision that capitalises on prior conditioning by films (or is it "movies"?) and is just a smartarse point. It works better than having it read in a West Country or Borders accent or by a woman.
They're going full on Gates of Vienna.
They're capitalising on the widespread association of the idea of "London" with the idea of "territory that's been lost to knife-wielding dark-skinned invaders" that is so strong in the minds of most of the British white working class.
Bollocks the spirit has gone out of the Tory party, they're resigned to losing, etc. They're fighting to win.
What can Labour do?
1. Call it out. (Seriously?)
2. Say the same thing. (They haven't got the positioning.)
3. Ignore it and go on about the NHS. (Good luck with that. The NHS is already a big theme in the minds of racists.)
4. Try to appeal to people's intellects.
5. Try to appeal to people's human decency. (This is similar to 1.)
Remember that 52% voted Powellite a mere 8 years ago with a 72% turnout. Have they got they wanted? Or should the question not be asked in those terms because acktchooahly I am talking complete rubbish because the 52% included 0.36128% who voted for Brexit not because of xenophobia but because they cared so much about ecology, or because they thought it was best for race relations, or by mistake, or because their PhDs in economics or history gave them certain perspectives?
Originally I thought the GE would be on 2 May because this would let the Tories play the London card most effectively. Now I reckon it will be soon after, probably in May or June, so that they can build on the idea that Khan's second victory shows even more starkly that London is a different country under invader control.
The general election will be all about London. The NHS will hardly get a look-in.
"The existing fee agreement expires at the end of 2027 - and the Conservative government has pledged to replace it with a new funding model, which could spell the end of the licence fee altogether."
My son just mixed up Jerry Adams and Brian Adams which led to a very confusing conversation
https://x.com/jessphillips/status/1772382772738359760?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
I really, really hope it doesn’t work.
ETA: Ah, no,my bad: she meant the molecular biologist and the wrestler, I guess
Seems plausible that the power failures left the rudder in a turn position for much longer than intended & after power was restored there simply wasn’t time to change course.
In my NCT group, there were 2 mums desperate not to have a c section despite being told they were very high risk (one through previous surgery).
Welcome back.
Which is weird, because a) they can bill us for gas & the gas meter communicates with the system via the electricity meter and b) they’re receiving all our electrical usage because we can track our half-hourly usage on their website!
Presumably there’s some back-end plumbing that’s missing, but given these news reports it sounds like the whole thing is a clusterf*ck of epic proportions that was farmed out to the lowest bidder whilst simultaneously being run by an Ofgem committee that meets once every six months, if they can be bothered.
But for a fuller appreciation of the era, look at the current role of the notion of what's called the red heifer in Judaism (and in strands of apocalypticist Protestantism) and the yellow cow in Islam (sura 2 of the Koran).
Right now, in March 2024, this is very much in people's consciousness across the entire Arab Muslim world and in Israel.
It's certainly sinister. Not sure what you mean by "weird". It's the kind of thing I expected. I don't think it's dimwitted at all. It's on the ball and it's kickarse.
Everything will move to online streaming.
Given that the access method to BBC iPlayer is, currently, to have a license (softly enforced), the whole system of courts, demands, threats etc should vanish.
I don't see it working for them as some sort of wider strategy in which case, Dim witted. Or I'm wrong. It's been known.
Quite a few farmers and some fisherfolk though.