When the MP for Dover and Deal was presented to Sir Keir as interested in defection, it is not hard to see why he and the tight group of aides he discussed it with reckoned that this was an offer too salivating to refuse. “ I’m completely fine with it,” says one of the non-squeamish members of the shadow cabinet. “We’ve got an election to win. The name of the game is beating the Tories. When an opportunity like this comes along, you can’t pass it up.” What they did not anticipate was the scale and the intensity of the backlash.
This might have been foreseen because Ms Elphicke has landed in Labour with more baggage than a luggage carousel at Heathrow during the school summer holidays. As for her politics, she once attacked Marcus Rashford for campaigning for free school meals, one of many reasons to doubt whether she has any genuine affinity with her new party.
The broader reason for the unease rippling through Labour’s ranks is that it feeds into the anxiety that there is no compromise with their party’s values that the leadership might not make in pursuit of what it sees as potential electoral advantage. Voters may have a general preference for broad-church parties, but they also tend to like them to come with sturdy walls and some pillars of principle.
What’s not settled, as we approach the election, is a consensus view about Sir Keir. It is still up for argument both within his party and among voters whether he is a firmly anchored leader of genuine conviction, the case made by his allies. Or is he, as enemies to both right and left contend, a ruthless opportunist who will say or do anything to get power? The willingness to clasp hands with someone with the history of Natalie Elphicke is much easier for his foes to explain than it is for his friends.
The next time, if there’s a next time, a Conservative MP of her ilk offers to come over to Labour, Sir Keir might be better advised to say thanks, but no thanks.
Doesn’t Luke 15:11-32 kinda apply?
The parable of the Lost Son.
That shows the lost son a) Leaving home b) Regretting that and repenting. c) Returning in regret.
I don't see Natalie Elphicke as a "lost son of Labour who has repented her reckless, dissolute ways and returned home".
It’s not quite the same, but the parable tells us that it is good to celebrate the one who was lost and has now found their way, over those who piously criticise.
Yes, I'd agree with that. The question is over "found their way", and not being naive. There seems to be an issue around the lobbying of Robert Buckland, for example - it was clear that her former party would tip a bucket of doodoo over her, Bad 'Al style, but was Sit Keir properly aware what was coming? That should guide his actions.
I think what I have said on PB in the past is that the proof of the pudding on conversions can only be over time, since like Elisabeth 1 we can't make windows into men's and women's souls.
Perhaps Matthew 10:16 applies "Be as wise as serpents, and as gentle as doves."
In the case of the lost son, for example, it might not be wise to put him in charge of managing his father's wealth for a few years.
My take on Sir Keir is probably that he deems any potential damage is less for him than the benefits of keeping the Conservatives in confusion and doubt, and he has a stop-loss of NE standing down at the next election.
I think his calculation is quite Machiavellian / cold blooded. After all, he's a lawyer !
Good morning
Trevor Phillips interviewing Jonathan Ashworth on Sky this morning said that if the Elphicke story is true then Starmer would need to withdraw the whip and Ashworth response was Elphicke has denied it
Phillips then turned to his panel of three discussing the mornings political interviews, and Andrew Marr said if it was the word of Buckland v Elphicke then he would take Buckland's position as he is one of the few respected conservative mps left
Scanning through the application the biggest issue appears to be that Kent County Council Highways department are as useless and contradictory as they have always been - when writing things down put all your objections in the first one and don't contradict yourself.
And highways are the people who will kill an application, so at the moment the issue is not with Dover, until the highways objections are resolved the application isn't going to get approved...
Side note - 1 of the complaints notes that the responsible planning officer has changed multiple times - not surprising because I suspect no planning officer can live on the wages Dover council pays when the private sector will pay twice as much..
Actually it was not the planning controversy but her trying to influence the legal process over her husband's trial
I think there is an assumption that Labour will go to shit as soon as they are elected but I want to play devil’s advocate and suggest that the country will give them a very long honeymoon because of how much they want the Tories gone.
The Tories will have to change a lot to get back in, in one term. And based on Labour from 2010 onwards that does not seem likely.
It is to Labour's huge advantage that the Tories have set the bar so unbelievably low. All governments that have had several terms eventually get kicked out but they leave behind positives people remember. That does not apply to the current one, though.
When the MP for Dover and Deal was presented to Sir Keir as interested in defection, it is not hard to see why he and the tight group of aides he discussed it with reckoned that this was an offer too salivating to refuse. “ I’m completely fine with it,” says one of the non-squeamish members of the shadow cabinet. “We’ve got an election to win. The name of the game is beating the Tories. When an opportunity like this comes along, you can’t pass it up.” What they did not anticipate was the scale and the intensity of the backlash.
This might have been foreseen because Ms Elphicke has landed in Labour with more baggage than a luggage carousel at Heathrow during the school summer holidays. As for her politics, she once attacked Marcus Rashford for campaigning for free school meals, one of many reasons to doubt whether she has any genuine affinity with her new party.
The broader reason for the unease rippling through Labour’s ranks is that it feeds into the anxiety that there is no compromise with their party’s values that the leadership might not make in pursuit of what it sees as potential electoral advantage. Voters may have a general preference for broad-church parties, but they also tend to like them to come with sturdy walls and some pillars of principle.
What’s not settled, as we approach the election, is a consensus view about Sir Keir. It is still up for argument both within his party and among voters whether he is a firmly anchored leader of genuine conviction, the case made by his allies. Or is he, as enemies to both right and left contend, a ruthless opportunist who will say or do anything to get power? The willingness to clasp hands with someone with the history of Natalie Elphicke is much easier for his foes to explain than it is for his friends.
The next time, if there’s a next time, a Conservative MP of her ilk offers to come over to Labour, Sir Keir might be better advised to say thanks, but no thanks.
Doesn’t Luke 15:11-32 kinda apply?
The parable of the Lost Son.
That shows the lost son a) Leaving home b) Regretting that and repenting. c) Returning in regret.
I don't see Natalie Elphicke as a "lost son of Labour who has repented her reckless, dissolute ways and returned home".
It’s not quite the same, but the parable tells us that it is good to celebrate the one who was lost and has now found their way, over those who piously criticise.
Yes, I'd agree with that. The question is over "found their way", and not being naive. There seems to be an issue around the lobbying of Robert Buckland, for example - it was clear that her former party would tip a bucket of doodoo over her, Bad 'Al style, but was Sit Keir properly aware what was coming? That should guide his actions.
I think what I have said on PB in the past is that the proof of the pudding on conversions can only be over time, since like Elisabeth 1 we can't make windows into men's and women's souls.
Perhaps Matthew 10:16 applies "Be as wise as serpents, and as gentle as doves."
In the case of the lost son, for example, it might not be wise to put him in charge of managing his father's wealth for a few years.
My take on Sir Keir is probably that he deems any potential damage is less for him than the benefits of keeping the Conservatives in confusion and doubt, and he has a stop-loss of NE standing down at the next election.
I think his calculation is quite Machiavellian / cold blooded. After all, he's a lawyer !
I suspect you and @DavidL in his comment just above underestimate Starmer. Fundamentally he's a traditionalist and is motivated by his working class roots. He sees the Red Wall as his kind of people and thinks the Labour Party has abandoned them in recent years. Happily, and this is a very politician thing, he also thinks engaging them is how he's going to win the election.
If he believed university educated social liberals was the way forward would be still be as keen on the Red Wall? Because I think there's a danger in his, I believe deliberately and quite ruthlessly, rejecting liberalism.
Firstly almost his entire party is made up of such people. They will go along with Starmer if he wins them an election but after that?
Secondly graduates are a large and increasingly large demographic looking for a political home. Does he really want to repel them.
Thirdly Starmer is a traditionalist not a populist. The Elphicke defection muddies the distinction.
But I don't think Starmer is triangulating or just saying what people want to hear. If anything he's not triangulating enough
Starmer controls the Labour party to an extent that not even Blair managed. It may be unwise to underestimate someone who can achieve that in the space of four years.
I think this reflects how British political parties have weakened as independent organisations over the last three decades, more than the relative abilities of Blair and Starmer.
Labour majority is nailed on but the size of that majority is very much up for grabs and could well affect the election after the next one.
My view? Rather than a "tradeable bank" that Labour can dine off for 2 or 3 parliamentary terms, depending on how big the majority is, my view is that it's essentially irrelevant and that boot will go on the other foot as soon as he's in.
I am old enough to remember the 60s and70s when governments changed frequently, not least because we did not have a particularly clear idea of where we should be going. Since then it has taken some major cock ups or sheer exhaustion to remove a sitting government.
You may be right that we are heading into another period of uncertainty and increased volatility but the last 40 years have pointed in the other direction. If Labour get a majority over 150 it will be almost impossible for the Tories to remove them in a single swipe, just like Cameron failed to do in 2010, requiring the coalition.
Why?
Because the benefits of incumbency have increased and it takes a lot more than inertia to change that is probably the short answer.
Oof. That graph of 1992/1997/2024 makes it pretty clear that it's more late Major than early Major.
Except that in 1997, most pollsters weren't getting Shy Tory Adjustments right- hence the overshoot comparing the polls with reality. So being 20 points behind in the polls now is worse than being 20 points behind then, because it's more likely to be a real deficit.
And whilst good news for the government (Britain Is Booming, Flights to Rwanda) may have an effect, so may bad news (mortgages going up for another million, Boats unstopped, sudden explosive failure of a public service).
Maybe Rishi should just haul the lectern out Monday and get this over with.
Rishi should get it over with, but he's proved he's nothing if not a ditherer when it comes to matters like this. I think it was OKC who suggested it'd be a January election simply because Sunak will just coast his way to a legal dissolution.
May is now out, and so is most of June. But the polls are too bad to even entertain a June election yet. Best to wait and see. Then its July and we can't really do a July election due to school holidays and journalists not wanting their holiday upset. For the same reason, August is right out. September might be possible, but the 25 working day thing really hinders here, as it means an August campaign and once again no one wants their holiday wrecked. Maybe October, but Sunak's been told that Conferences should go ahead to give him a bounce, and the effect of the Autumn statement. So that's out. November is cold and dark - we don't want that. December is even worse and everyone thinks about Christmas. You'd be mad to go then if you didn't have to. And then suddenly Sunak turns up to work on 17th December to be told that Parliament is dissolved by operation of law, and the election is Tuesday 28th January 2025. Oh well.......
When the MP for Dover and Deal was presented to Sir Keir as interested in defection, it is not hard to see why he and the tight group of aides he discussed it with reckoned that this was an offer too salivating to refuse. “ I’m completely fine with it,” says one of the non-squeamish members of the shadow cabinet. “We’ve got an election to win. The name of the game is beating the Tories. When an opportunity like this comes along, you can’t pass it up.” What they did not anticipate was the scale and the intensity of the backlash.
This might have been foreseen because Ms Elphicke has landed in Labour with more baggage than a luggage carousel at Heathrow during the school summer holidays. As for her politics, she once attacked Marcus Rashford for campaigning for free school meals, one of many reasons to doubt whether she has any genuine affinity with her new party.
The broader reason for the unease rippling through Labour’s ranks is that it feeds into the anxiety that there is no compromise with their party’s values that the leadership might not make in pursuit of what it sees as potential electoral advantage. Voters may have a general preference for broad-church parties, but they also tend to like them to come with sturdy walls and some pillars of principle.
What’s not settled, as we approach the election, is a consensus view about Sir Keir. It is still up for argument both within his party and among voters whether he is a firmly anchored leader of genuine conviction, the case made by his allies. Or is he, as enemies to both right and left contend, a ruthless opportunist who will say or do anything to get power? The willingness to clasp hands with someone with the history of Natalie Elphicke is much easier for his foes to explain than it is for his friends.
The next time, if there’s a next time, a Conservative MP of her ilk offers to come over to Labour, Sir Keir might be better advised to say thanks, but no thanks.
Doesn’t Luke 15:11-32 kinda apply?
The parable of the Lost Son.
That shows the lost son a) Leaving home b) Regretting that and repenting. c) Returning in regret.
I don't see Natalie Elphicke as a "lost son of Labour who has repented her reckless, dissolute ways and returned home".
It’s not quite the same, but the parable tells us that it is good to celebrate the one who was lost and has now found their way, over those who piously criticise.
Yes, I'd agree with that. The question is over "found their way", and not being naive. There seems to be an issue around the lobbying of Robert Buckland, for example - it was clear that her former party would tip a bucket of doodoo over her, Bad 'Al style, but was Sit Keir properly aware what was coming? That should guide his actions.
I think what I have said on PB in the past is that the proof of the pudding on conversions can only be over time, since like Elisabeth 1 we can't make windows into men's and women's souls.
Perhaps Matthew 10:16 applies "Be as wise as serpents, and as gentle as doves."
In the case of the lost son, for example, it might not be wise to put him in charge of managing his father's wealth for a few years.
My take on Sir Keir is probably that he deems any potential damage is less for him than the benefits of keeping the Conservatives in confusion and doubt, and he has a stop-loss of NE standing down at the next election.
I think his calculation is quite Machiavellian / cold blooded. After all, he's a lawyer !
Good morning
Trevor Phillips interviewing Jonathan Ashworth on Sky this morning said that if the Elphicke story is true then Starmer would need to withdraw the whip and Ashworth response was Elphicke has denied it
Phillips then turned to his panel of three discussing the mornings political interviews, and Andrew Marr said if it was the word of Buckland v Elphicke then he would take Buckland's position as he is one of the few respected conservative mps left
Scanning through the application the biggest issue appears to be that Kent County Council Highways department are as useless and contradictory as they have always been - when writing things down put all your objections in the first one and don't contradict yourself.
And highways are the people who will kill an application, so at the moment the issue is not with Dover, until the highways objections are resolved the application isn't going to get approved...
Side note - 1 of the complaints notes that the responsible planning officer has changed multiple times - not surprising because I suspect no planning officer can live on the wages Dover council pays when the private sector will pay twice as much..
Actually it was not the planning controversy but her trying to influence the legal process over her husband's trial
They did not discuss this issue
Whatever she felt about her husband’s nefarious actions, just maybe she felt some marital loyalty. To my mind what she did was foolish rather than criminal.
When the MP for Dover and Deal was presented to Sir Keir as interested in defection, it is not hard to see why he and the tight group of aides he discussed it with reckoned that this was an offer too salivating to refuse. “ I’m completely fine with it,” says one of the non-squeamish members of the shadow cabinet. “We’ve got an election to win. The name of the game is beating the Tories. When an opportunity like this comes along, you can’t pass it up.” What they did not anticipate was the scale and the intensity of the backlash.
This might have been foreseen because Ms Elphicke has landed in Labour with more baggage than a luggage carousel at Heathrow during the school summer holidays. As for her politics, she once attacked Marcus Rashford for campaigning for free school meals, one of many reasons to doubt whether she has any genuine affinity with her new party.
The broader reason for the unease rippling through Labour’s ranks is that it feeds into the anxiety that there is no compromise with their party’s values that the leadership might not make in pursuit of what it sees as potential electoral advantage. Voters may have a general preference for broad-church parties, but they also tend to like them to come with sturdy walls and some pillars of principle.
What’s not settled, as we approach the election, is a consensus view about Sir Keir. It is still up for argument both within his party and among voters whether he is a firmly anchored leader of genuine conviction, the case made by his allies. Or is he, as enemies to both right and left contend, a ruthless opportunist who will say or do anything to get power? The willingness to clasp hands with someone with the history of Natalie Elphicke is much easier for his foes to explain than it is for his friends.
The next time, if there’s a next time, a Conservative MP of her ilk offers to come over to Labour, Sir Keir might be better advised to say thanks, but no thanks.
Doesn’t Luke 15:11-32 kinda apply?
The parable of the Lost Son.
That shows the lost son a) Leaving home b) Regretting that and repenting. c) Returning in regret.
I don't see Natalie Elphicke as a "lost son of Labour who has repented her reckless, dissolute ways and returned home".
It’s not quite the same, but the parable tells us that it is good to celebrate the one who was lost and has now found their way, over those who piously criticise.
Yes, I'd agree with that. The question is over "found their way", and not being naive. There seems to be an issue around the lobbying of Robert Buckland, for example - it was clear that her former party would tip a bucket of doodoo over her, Bad 'Al style, but was Sit Keir properly aware what was coming? That should guide his actions.
I think what I have said on PB in the past is that the proof of the pudding on conversions can only be over time, since like Elisabeth 1 we can't make windows into men's and women's souls.
Perhaps Matthew 10:16 applies "Be as wise as serpents, and as gentle as doves."
In the case of the lost son, for example, it might not be wise to put him in charge of managing his father's wealth for a few years.
My take on Sir Keir is probably that he deems any potential damage is less for him than the benefits of keeping the Conservatives in confusion and doubt, and he has a stop-loss of NE standing down at the next election.
I think his calculation is quite Machiavellian / cold blooded. After all, he's a lawyer !
Good morning
Trevor Phillips interviewing Jonathan Ashworth on Sky this morning said that if the Elphicke story is true then Starmer would need to withdraw the whip and Ashworth response was Elphicke has denied it
Phillips then turned to his panel of three discussing the mornings political interviews, and Andrew Marr said if it was the word of Buckland v Elphicke then he would take Buckland's position as he is one of the few respected conservative mps left
Scanning through the application the biggest issue appears to be that Kent County Council Highways department are as useless and contradictory as they have always been - when writing things down put all your objections in the first one and don't contradict yourself.
And highways are the people who will kill an application, so at the moment the issue is not with Dover, until the highways objections are resolved the application isn't going to get approved...
Side note - 1 of the complaints notes that the responsible planning officer has changed multiple times - not surprising because I suspect no planning officer can live on the wages Dover council pays when the private sector will pay twice as much..
Actually it was not the planning controversy but her trying to influence the legal process over her husband's trial
They did not discuss this issue
If Elphicke did something wrong, wasn't it incumbent on the Lord Chancellor to have acted and not to have covered it up? It makes you wonder what else has happened over the last few years that the government is also hiding from us.
I think there is an assumption that Labour will go to shit as soon as they are elected but I want to play devil’s advocate and suggest that the country will give them a very long honeymoon because of how much they want the Tories gone.
The Tories will have to change a lot to get back in, in one term. And based on Labour from 2010 onwards that does not seem likely.
Yes. The Tories are going to get the blame for *everything* that goes wrong. And can’t really complain - Osborne was brilliant at doing the same. Remember “Labour didn’t fix the roof when the sun was shining” - we will hear something very similar against the Tories. For years. And people will accept it as truth. Regardless of whether it is truth or not.
When the MP for Dover and Deal was presented to Sir Keir as interested in defection, it is not hard to see why he and the tight group of aides he discussed it with reckoned that this was an offer too salivating to refuse. “ I’m completely fine with it,” says one of the non-squeamish members of the shadow cabinet. “We’ve got an election to win. The name of the game is beating the Tories. When an opportunity like this comes along, you can’t pass it up.” What they did not anticipate was the scale and the intensity of the backlash.
This might have been foreseen because Ms Elphicke has landed in Labour with more baggage than a luggage carousel at Heathrow during the school summer holidays. As for her politics, she once attacked Marcus Rashford for campaigning for free school meals, one of many reasons to doubt whether she has any genuine affinity with her new party.
The broader reason for the unease rippling through Labour’s ranks is that it feeds into the anxiety that there is no compromise with their party’s values that the leadership might not make in pursuit of what it sees as potential electoral advantage. Voters may have a general preference for broad-church parties, but they also tend to like them to come with sturdy walls and some pillars of principle.
What’s not settled, as we approach the election, is a consensus view about Sir Keir. It is still up for argument both within his party and among voters whether he is a firmly anchored leader of genuine conviction, the case made by his allies. Or is he, as enemies to both right and left contend, a ruthless opportunist who will say or do anything to get power? The willingness to clasp hands with someone with the history of Natalie Elphicke is much easier for his foes to explain than it is for his friends.
The next time, if there’s a next time, a Conservative MP of her ilk offers to come over to Labour, Sir Keir might be better advised to say thanks, but no thanks.
Doesn’t Luke 15:11-32 kinda apply?
The parable of the Lost Son.
That shows the lost son a) Leaving home b) Regretting that and repenting. c) Returning in regret.
I don't see Natalie Elphicke as a "lost son of Labour who has repented her reckless, dissolute ways and returned home".
It’s not quite the same, but the parable tells us that it is good to celebrate the one who was lost and has now found their way, over those who piously criticise.
Yes, I'd agree with that. The question is over "found their way", and not being naive. There seems to be an issue around the lobbying of Robert Buckland, for example - it was clear that her former party would tip a bucket of doodoo over her, Bad 'Al style, but was Sit Keir properly aware what was coming? That should guide his actions.
I think what I have said on PB in the past is that the proof of the pudding on conversions can only be over time, since like Elisabeth 1 we can't make windows into men's and women's souls.
Perhaps Matthew 10:16 applies "Be as wise as serpents, and as gentle as doves."
In the case of the lost son, for example, it might not be wise to put him in charge of managing his father's wealth for a few years.
My take on Sir Keir is probably that he deems any potential damage is less for him than the benefits of keeping the Conservatives in confusion and doubt, and he has a stop-loss of NE standing down at the next election.
I think his calculation is quite Machiavellian / cold blooded. After all, he's a lawyer !
Good morning
Trevor Phillips interviewing Jonathan Ashworth on Sky this morning said that if the Elphicke story is true then Starmer would need to withdraw the whip and Ashworth response was Elphicke has denied it
Phillips then turned to his panel of three discussing the mornings political interviews, and Andrew Marr said if it was the word of Buckland v Elphicke then he would take Buckland's position as he is one of the few respected conservative mps left
Scanning through the application the biggest issue appears to be that Kent County Council Highways department are as useless and contradictory as they have always been - when writing things down put all your objections in the first one and don't contradict yourself.
And highways are the people who will kill an application, so at the moment the issue is not with Dover, until the highways objections are resolved the application isn't going to get approved...
Side note - 1 of the complaints notes that the responsible planning officer has changed multiple times - not surprising because I suspect no planning officer can live on the wages Dover council pays when the private sector will pay twice as much..
Actually it was not the planning controversy but her trying to influence the legal process over her husband's trial
They did not discuss this issue
If Elphicke did something wrong, wasn't it incumbent on the Lord Chancellor to have acted and not to have covered it up? It makes you wonder what else has happened over the last few years that the government is also hiding from us.
This is typical of whats wrong with the party system.
Mr. Sandpit, I was wondering if anyone would notice that.
ID cards: these would be fucked up by trying to make it some mega project that allows half the public sector to see tons of information and be as watertight as a sieve.
When the MP for Dover and Deal was presented to Sir Keir as interested in defection, it is not hard to see why he and the tight group of aides he discussed it with reckoned that this was an offer too salivating to refuse. “ I’m completely fine with it,” says one of the non-squeamish members of the shadow cabinet. “We’ve got an election to win. The name of the game is beating the Tories. When an opportunity like this comes along, you can’t pass it up.” What they did not anticipate was the scale and the intensity of the backlash.
This might have been foreseen because Ms Elphicke has landed in Labour with more baggage than a luggage carousel at Heathrow during the school summer holidays. As for her politics, she once attacked Marcus Rashford for campaigning for free school meals, one of many reasons to doubt whether she has any genuine affinity with her new party.
The broader reason for the unease rippling through Labour’s ranks is that it feeds into the anxiety that there is no compromise with their party’s values that the leadership might not make in pursuit of what it sees as potential electoral advantage. Voters may have a general preference for broad-church parties, but they also tend to like them to come with sturdy walls and some pillars of principle.
What’s not settled, as we approach the election, is a consensus view about Sir Keir. It is still up for argument both within his party and among voters whether he is a firmly anchored leader of genuine conviction, the case made by his allies. Or is he, as enemies to both right and left contend, a ruthless opportunist who will say or do anything to get power? The willingness to clasp hands with someone with the history of Natalie Elphicke is much easier for his foes to explain than it is for his friends.
The next time, if there’s a next time, a Conservative MP of her ilk offers to come over to Labour, Sir Keir might be better advised to say thanks, but no thanks.
Doesn’t Luke 15:11-32 kinda apply?
The parable of the Lost Son.
That shows the lost son a) Leaving home b) Regretting that and repenting. c) Returning in regret.
I don't see Natalie Elphicke as a "lost son of Labour who has repented her reckless, dissolute ways and returned home".
It’s not quite the same, but the parable tells us that it is good to celebrate the one who was lost and has now found their way, over those who piously criticise.
Yes, I'd agree with that. The question is over "found their way", and not being naive. There seems to be an issue around the lobbying of Robert Buckland, for example - it was clear that her former party would tip a bucket of doodoo over her, Bad 'Al style, but was Sit Keir properly aware what was coming? That should guide his actions.
I think what I have said on PB in the past is that the proof of the pudding on conversions can only be over time, since like Elisabeth 1 we can't make windows into men's and women's souls.
Perhaps Matthew 10:16 applies "Be as wise as serpents, and as gentle as doves."
In the case of the lost son, for example, it might not be wise to put him in charge of managing his father's wealth for a few years.
My take on Sir Keir is probably that he deems any potential damage is less for him than the benefits of keeping the Conservatives in confusion and doubt, and he has a stop-loss of NE standing down at the next election.
I think his calculation is quite Machiavellian / cold blooded. After all, he's a lawyer !
Good morning
Trevor Phillips interviewing Jonathan Ashworth on Sky this morning said that if the Elphicke story is true then Starmer would need to withdraw the whip and Ashworth response was Elphicke has denied it
Phillips then turned to his panel of three discussing the mornings political interviews, and Andrew Marr said if it was the word of Buckland v Elphicke then he would take Buckland's position as he is one of the few respected conservative mps left
Scanning through the application the biggest issue appears to be that Kent County Council Highways department are as useless and contradictory as they have always been - when writing things down put all your objections in the first one and don't contradict yourself.
And highways are the people who will kill an application, so at the moment the issue is not with Dover, until the highways objections are resolved the application isn't going to get approved...
Side note - 1 of the complaints notes that the responsible planning officer has changed multiple times - not surprising because I suspect no planning officer can live on the wages Dover council pays when the private sector will pay twice as much..
Actually it was not the planning controversy but her trying to influence the legal process over her husband's trial
They did not discuss this issue
Whatever she felt about her husband’s nefarious actions, just maybe she felt some marital loyalty. To my mind what she did was foolish rather than criminal.
Yes, if my wife was in some sort of trouble, and I was in a position to get a meeting with someone who could in theory have done something to help her, then of course I would have requested it. I would also have respected the other guy saying at the meeting, that it would be an ethics violation on his part to discuss the case.
Oof. That graph of 1992/1997/2024 makes it pretty clear that it's more late Major than early Major.
Except that in 1997, most pollsters weren't getting Shy Tory Adjustments right- hence the overshoot comparing the polls with reality. So being 20 points behind in the polls now is worse than being 20 points behind then, because it's more likely to be a real deficit.
And whilst good news for the government (Britain Is Booming, Flights to Rwanda) may have an effect, so may bad news (mortgages going up for another million, Boats unstopped, sudden explosive failure of a public service).
Maybe Rishi should just haul the lectern out Monday and get this over with.
Rishi should get it over with, but he's proved he's nothing if not a ditherer when it comes to matters like this. I think it was OKC who suggested it'd be a January election simply because Sunak will just coast his way to a legal dissolution.
May is now out, and so is most of June. But the polls are too bad to even entertain a June election yet. Best to wait and see. Then its July and we can't really do a July election due to school holidays and journalists not wanting their holiday upset. For the same reason, August is right out. September might be possible, but the 25 working day thing really hinders here, as it means an August campaign and once again no one wants their holiday wrecked. Maybe October, but Sunak's been told that Conferences should go ahead to give him a bounce, and the effect of the Autumn statement. So that's out. November is cold and dark - we don't want that. December is even worse and everyone thinks about Christmas. You'd be mad to go then if you didn't have to. And then suddenly Sunak turns up to work on 17th December to be told that Parliament is dissolved by operation of law, and the election is Tuesday 28th January 2025. Oh well.......
The thing is, Sunak is just clever enough to think through all of that, and possibly decide that a January election is worse than a December one, and so call the election seven weeks before the statutory deadline.
So I think we only end up with a January election if Sunak thinks a Christmastide campaign is to his advantage, or if some event occurs to delay an election planned for December.
Labour majority is nailed on but the size of that majority is very much up for grabs and could well affect the election after the next one.
My view? Rather than a "tradeable bank" that Labour can dine off for 2 or 3 parliamentary terms, depending on how big the majority is, my view is that it's essentially irrelevant and that boot will go on the other foot as soon as he's in.
I am old enough to remember the 60s and70s when governments changed frequently, not least because we did not have a particularly clear idea of where we should be going. Since then it has taken some major cock ups or sheer exhaustion to remove a sitting government.
You may be right that we are heading into another period of uncertainty and increased volatility but the last 40 years have pointed in the other direction. If Labour get a majority over 150 it will be almost impossible for the Tories to remove them in a single swipe, just like Cameron failed to do in 2010, requiring the coalition.
Why?
Because there is no sign that the Tories will learn the lessons of defeat.
Could you have said the same about Jeremy Corbyn's Labour in 2019?
Labour majority is nailed on but the size of that majority is very much up for grabs and could well affect the election after the next one.
My view? Rather than a "tradeable bank" that Labour can dine off for 2 or 3 parliamentary terms, depending on how big the majority is, my view is that it's essentially irrelevant and that boot will go on the other foot as soon as he's in.
Like Blair, PM Starmer would benefit from an economy significantly on the up. However, all of those who have supported him getting to be PM will have their hand out. And he will have to disappoint most.
And Labour has no answer to the small boats. Expect it to become an armada of bigger boats. What then?
I suspect ID cards are going to make a reappearance in the next parliament.
Three requirements for the database:
1) Accessible to the public so they can check and challenge any inaccuracies in their records;
2) Full record of who has accessed it so we can check who is looking at our info and challenge anyone who has done so for an improper purpose.
3) Criminal prosecutions for any breach of 2.
And two for the ID card:
1) Supersedes all other forms of ID including driving licences, DBS clearances and NI numbers;
2) Does not have to be carried at all times.
If those five criteria are met we can be reasonably confident that our rights are protected and Satan is wondering what the fuck to do with his new ice rink.
A) rather than doing a stupid merge of databases to create the ids, do it passport style. Proper applications, evidence. Even the passport database is full of bogus entries.
C) any attempt to create a universal government database using the is will be met by shoving a chainsaw up the arse of the proposer. Then switching it on. In low gear
D) using the ID code as the unique key for other databases is fine, on the other hand. And should be encouraged.
E) it should be possible for *anyone* to verify a card. Scenario - you show card. Smart phone via rfid (or other) takes the person checking to a web portal showing just your photo and name.
When the MP for Dover and Deal was presented to Sir Keir as interested in defection, it is not hard to see why he and the tight group of aides he discussed it with reckoned that this was an offer too salivating to refuse. “ I’m completely fine with it,” says one of the non-squeamish members of the shadow cabinet. “We’ve got an election to win. The name of the game is beating the Tories. When an opportunity like this comes along, you can’t pass it up.” What they did not anticipate was the scale and the intensity of the backlash.
This might have been foreseen because Ms Elphicke has landed in Labour with more baggage than a luggage carousel at Heathrow during the school summer holidays. As for her politics, she once attacked Marcus Rashford for campaigning for free school meals, one of many reasons to doubt whether she has any genuine affinity with her new party.
The broader reason for the unease rippling through Labour’s ranks is that it feeds into the anxiety that there is no compromise with their party’s values that the leadership might not make in pursuit of what it sees as potential electoral advantage. Voters may have a general preference for broad-church parties, but they also tend to like them to come with sturdy walls and some pillars of principle.
What’s not settled, as we approach the election, is a consensus view about Sir Keir. It is still up for argument both within his party and among voters whether he is a firmly anchored leader of genuine conviction, the case made by his allies. Or is he, as enemies to both right and left contend, a ruthless opportunist who will say or do anything to get power? The willingness to clasp hands with someone with the history of Natalie Elphicke is much easier for his foes to explain than it is for his friends.
The next time, if there’s a next time, a Conservative MP of her ilk offers to come over to Labour, Sir Keir might be better advised to say thanks, but no thanks.
Doesn’t Luke 15:11-32 kinda apply?
The parable of the Lost Son.
That shows the lost son a) Leaving home b) Regretting that and repenting. c) Returning in regret.
I don't see Natalie Elphicke as a "lost son of Labour who has repented her reckless, dissolute ways and returned home".
It’s not quite the same, but the parable tells us that it is good to celebrate the one who was lost and has now found their way, over those who piously criticise.
Yes, I'd agree with that. The question is over "found their way", and not being naive. There seems to be an issue around the lobbying of Robert Buckland, for example - it was clear that her former party would tip a bucket of doodoo over her, Bad 'Al style, but was Sit Keir properly aware what was coming? That should guide his actions.
I think what I have said on PB in the past is that the proof of the pudding on conversions can only be over time, since like Elisabeth 1 we can't make windows into men's and women's souls.
Perhaps Matthew 10:16 applies "Be as wise as serpents, and as gentle as doves."
In the case of the lost son, for example, it might not be wise to put him in charge of managing his father's wealth for a few years.
My take on Sir Keir is probably that he deems any potential damage is less for him than the benefits of keeping the Conservatives in confusion and doubt, and he has a stop-loss of NE standing down at the next election.
I think his calculation is quite Machiavellian / cold blooded. After all, he's a lawyer !
Good morning
Trevor Phillips interviewing Jonathan Ashworth on Sky this morning said that if the Elphicke story is true then Starmer would need to withdraw the whip and Ashworth response was Elphicke has denied it
Phillips then turned to his panel of three discussing the mornings political interviews, and Andrew Marr said if it was the word of Buckland v Elphicke then he would take Buckland's position as he is one of the few respected conservative mps left
Scanning through the application the biggest issue appears to be that Kent County Council Highways department are as useless and contradictory as they have always been - when writing things down put all your objections in the first one and don't contradict yourself.
And highways are the people who will kill an application, so at the moment the issue is not with Dover, until the highways objections are resolved the application isn't going to get approved...
Side note - 1 of the complaints notes that the responsible planning officer has changed multiple times - not surprising because I suspect no planning officer can live on the wages Dover council pays when the private sector will pay twice as much..
Actually it was not the planning controversy but her trying to influence the legal process over her husband's trial
They did not discuss this issue
If Elphicke did something wrong, wasn't it incumbent on the Lord Chancellor to have acted and not to have covered it up? It makes you wonder what else has happened over the last few years that the government is also hiding from us.
Depends on whether she did something 'legally' 'parliamentarily' or 'morally' wrong. If the first two, yes. If the latter then no, and perfectly fair to use it now much as the defection was for party 'advantage'. If parties are expected to report every morally dubious act that comes to attention we'd hear of nothing else, ever.
Mr. Sandpit, I was wondering if anyone would notice that.
ID cards: these would be fucked up by trying to make it some mega project that allows half the public sector to see tons of information and be as watertight as a sieve.
And then there was that tweet a few days ago when the MoD database was hacked last week, that the civil service head of cyber security job paid £57k while the same role at a no-name finance company attracted £450k.
Might as well just cut out the middle man and hand everyone's details over to China.
When the MP for Dover and Deal was presented to Sir Keir as interested in defection, it is not hard to see why he and the tight group of aides he discussed it with reckoned that this was an offer too salivating to refuse. “ I’m completely fine with it,” says one of the non-squeamish members of the shadow cabinet. “We’ve got an election to win. The name of the game is beating the Tories. When an opportunity like this comes along, you can’t pass it up.” What they did not anticipate was the scale and the intensity of the backlash.
This might have been foreseen because Ms Elphicke has landed in Labour with more baggage than a luggage carousel at Heathrow during the school summer holidays. As for her politics, she once attacked Marcus Rashford for campaigning for free school meals, one of many reasons to doubt whether she has any genuine affinity with her new party.
The broader reason for the unease rippling through Labour’s ranks is that it feeds into the anxiety that there is no compromise with their party’s values that the leadership might not make in pursuit of what it sees as potential electoral advantage. Voters may have a general preference for broad-church parties, but they also tend to like them to come with sturdy walls and some pillars of principle.
What’s not settled, as we approach the election, is a consensus view about Sir Keir. It is still up for argument both within his party and among voters whether he is a firmly anchored leader of genuine conviction, the case made by his allies. Or is he, as enemies to both right and left contend, a ruthless opportunist who will say or do anything to get power? The willingness to clasp hands with someone with the history of Natalie Elphicke is much easier for his foes to explain than it is for his friends.
The next time, if there’s a next time, a Conservative MP of her ilk offers to come over to Labour, Sir Keir might be better advised to say thanks, but no thanks.
If another Conservative MP comes up to Labour, Sir Keir will roll out the red carpet. You can count on it.
Political leaders do not turn down defections.
Any defection.
Yeah, more defections will finish off Sunak in way that shit polls never could. Polls are just theoretical constructs but defections are the little shit's government bleeding out in real time. I reckon another three or four and he's gone.
I think there is an assumption that Labour will go to shit as soon as they are elected but I want to play devil’s advocate and suggest that the country will give them a very long honeymoon because of how much they want the Tories gone.
The Tories will have to change a lot to get back in, in one term. And based on Labour from 2010 onwards that does not seem likely.
It is to Labour's huge advantage that the Tories have set the bar so unbelievably low. All governments that have had several terms eventually get kicked out but they leave behind positives people remember. That does not apply to the current one, though.
Perhaps because people are becoming ever more self entitled and quickly take for granted the good things.
But they rapidly start being nostalgic when there are any changes for the worst.
And there's plenty that people now take for granted that could change for the worse.
Things such as affluent oldies, full employment, an expanding NHS workforce.
If any of those stop the government of the day will be blamed, irrespective of whether it is at fault.
I predict some serious complaining from the oldies next year when their pension only increases by about 2% and probably likewise from those on benefits and minimum wage.
That will not be the fault of Starmer and Reeves but they'll be blamed for it.
When the MP for Dover and Deal was presented to Sir Keir as interested in defection, it is not hard to see why he and the tight group of aides he discussed it with reckoned that this was an offer too salivating to refuse. “ I’m completely fine with it,” says one of the non-squeamish members of the shadow cabinet. “We’ve got an election to win. The name of the game is beating the Tories. When an opportunity like this comes along, you can’t pass it up.” What they did not anticipate was the scale and the intensity of the backlash.
This might have been foreseen because Ms Elphicke has landed in Labour with more baggage than a luggage carousel at Heathrow during the school summer holidays. As for her politics, she once attacked Marcus Rashford for campaigning for free school meals, one of many reasons to doubt whether she has any genuine affinity with her new party.
The broader reason for the unease rippling through Labour’s ranks is that it feeds into the anxiety that there is no compromise with their party’s values that the leadership might not make in pursuit of what it sees as potential electoral advantage. Voters may have a general preference for broad-church parties, but they also tend to like them to come with sturdy walls and some pillars of principle.
What’s not settled, as we approach the election, is a consensus view about Sir Keir. It is still up for argument both within his party and among voters whether he is a firmly anchored leader of genuine conviction, the case made by his allies. Or is he, as enemies to both right and left contend, a ruthless opportunist who will say or do anything to get power? The willingness to clasp hands with someone with the history of Natalie Elphicke is much easier for his foes to explain than it is for his friends.
The next time, if there’s a next time, a Conservative MP of her ilk offers to come over to Labour, Sir Keir might be better advised to say thanks, but no thanks.
If another Conservative MP comes up to Labour, Sir Keir will roll out the red carpet. You can count on it.
Political leaders do not turn down defections.
Any defection.
Yeah, more defections will finish off Sunak in way that shit polls never could. Polls are just theoretical constructs but defections are the little shit's government bleeding out in real time. I reckon another three or four and he's gone.
Another one and he'll cut and run to the electorate imo
Labour majority is nailed on but the size of that majority is very much up for grabs and could well affect the election after the next one.
My view? Rather than a "tradeable bank" that Labour can dine off for 2 or 3 parliamentary terms, depending on how big the majority is, my view is that it's essentially irrelevant and that boot will go on the other foot as soon as he's in.
I am old enough to remember the 60s and70s when governments changed frequently, not least because we did not have a particularly clear idea of where we should be going. Since then it has taken some major cock ups or sheer exhaustion to remove a sitting government.
You may be right that we are heading into another period of uncertainty and increased volatility but the last 40 years have pointed in the other direction. If Labour get a majority over 150 it will be almost impossible for the Tories to remove them in a single swipe, just like Cameron failed to do in 2010, requiring the coalition.
Despite specific differences, there was a level of general consensus in the UK that ran through from the late 1940s to the late 1970s that saw broad agreement on things such as welfare, education, health, immigration and foreign policy. I suspect that the broad consensus remains within the wider population but is no longer reflected by the major political parties. Labour's reaction to defeat in 2015 was to decide that the electorate was wrong. The Tories are giving every indication currently that their reaction will be similar if they lose the next GE.
It was a failed consensus which was built around the idea that the world owed us a living. I agree that view still carries a lot of weight. It's still a delusion, of course.
One factor I omitted to mention was the "Sunak resolutely and consistently digging his own political grave", which could impact the possibility of pro-Tory changes in the last fortnight.
He's a man with a hosepipe standing on a sandcastle, washing his shoes.
Labour majority is nailed on but the size of that majority is very much up for grabs and could well affect the election after the next one.
My view? Rather than a "tradeable bank" that Labour can dine off for 2 or 3 parliamentary terms, depending on how big the majority is, my view is that it's essentially irrelevant and that boot will go on the other foot as soon as he's in.
I am old enough to remember the 60s and70s when governments changed frequently, not least because we did not have a particularly clear idea of where we should be going. Since then it has taken some major cock ups or sheer exhaustion to remove a sitting government.
You may be right that we are heading into another period of uncertainty and increased volatility but the last 40 years have pointed in the other direction. If Labour get a majority over 150 it will be almost impossible for the Tories to remove them in a single swipe, just like Cameron failed to do in 2010, requiring the coalition.
Why?
Because the benefits of incumbency have increased and it takes a lot more than inertia to change that is probably the short answer.
I don't see the evidence for that.
Incumbency can provide a modest advantage in voteshare for the first term only, and then it's baked in.
Change has been the story of politics here over the last 5 years. And the Government took a seat off Labour in a by-election only 3 years ago.
Labour's support is a mile wide but an inch deep; far too many here assume because it's a mile wide it must also be a mile deep.
Israeli tanks have entered the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza city in the north of Gaza.
The Israeli military have also entered the Arroub refugee camp near Al-Khalil ("Hebron") on the West Bank.
Meanwhile 300000 Palestinians have been terrorised out of Rafah in the south of Gaza in the last week - many of whom had been displaced from elsewhere since October. They can't go south to Sinai in Egypt because the Israeli military have closed both gates in the perimeter fence. The only direction they can flee in is northwards.
Meanwhile it seems the USA has already built a pier in the central Netzarim corridor. That's a strip running east-west across Gaza and it's occupied by the Israeli military. The pier is NOT being used to bring in aid. Nor has any aid been brought in through any of the land routes (north or south) since Tuesday.
UNRWA are screaming "There is nowhere safe to go. There is nowhere safe to go. There is nowhere safe to go". (That is a direct quote.) You can't get much fucking clearer than that.
UNRWA is the UN agency that supplies aid to Palestinian refugees when it's allowed to. Its HQ in occupied Jerusalem was burnt down by armed fascist thugs last week. Since October, the Israelis have killed more than 100 of its staff in Gaza. This is an international humanitarian organisation.
It seems crystal clear that the Israeli plan is to murder a large percentage of the population in Gaza (it has already killed or wounded around 5% since October) and then let the US and its British helpers emergency-deport the survivors to Cyprus - which will probably take a few weeks, and during those weeks you can expect the holding areas to be under constant bombing and shelling.
Fuck whataboutery. This is by far the biggest ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in the world, a crime against humanity (not only in the obvious sense, but in the legal sense too) committed against a people whom the US and Britain don't even recognise as a people sufficiently to allow them to join the United Nations. (The other three veto powers do, as do the majority of countries in the world.)
I don’t know how to break the news to HYUFD and the remaining Tory voter, but there is not going to be a hung parliament…
That's a bleak assessment for Labour - another Tory government...
Six months of an improving economy, distance from Brexit and Covid, cricket, Wimbledon, Euros, Olympics...Come the election, people will still ask what do they want of a Government. Is it really what Starmer is offering? Whatever that might be. "Not the Tories" will get you only so far before you have to come up with an alternative. The harsh reality is that Starmer would have governed very much as Sunak has done. Wiggle room to do much else is non-existent.
Good morning everyne, even slugabeds, or people on holiday drinking wine for breakfast.
Marhaba!
Sod .
I'm sitting here looking at my solar panels that need a jet wash later, so I've got to sort out the 6m extendi-right-angle-device for the jetwasher so that my kind friend who has offered to go on next-door's carport roof to do it can be given the tool to do the job.
First time we’ve been away anywhere for months, just a local hotel with a good all-inclusive promotion now that we’re out of season. Place is busy though, with a combination of local staycationers and tourists, and the weather is still just about bearable outside, at least in the shade, 37ºC and 33% humidity at 13:00.
Buying (or renting) the right tool for the job always pays dividends in the end.
37C is tolerable? Eeek. I like heat but that’s pushing it
Did you see Janan Ganesh’s latest column in the FT? He reckons people that casually dismiss Dubai as boring are idiots. He says it is intrinsically interesting. And he’s right. It’s still not for me, but it is fascinating in a weird way, and also illustrative
It’s 24C here on the south coast of the Gargano, Puglia. Might peak around 26C with cloudless skies then cool to 15C late at night. This is it. This is my perfect weather. You can still easily walk in it - but you can also sunbathe and swim (in a heated pool).
In the evenings you can happily sit outside but maybe with a very light sweater or casual puffer gilet. In the night you don’t need aircon
And endless endless sunshine. All day maximum sunshine
I think there is an assumption that Labour will go to shit as soon as they are elected but I want to play devil’s advocate and suggest that the country will give them a very long honeymoon because of how much they want the Tories gone.
The Tories will have to change a lot to get back in, in one term. And based on Labour from 2010 onwards that does not seem likely.
It is to Labour's huge advantage that the Tories have set the bar so unbelievably low. All governments that have had several terms eventually get kicked out but they leave behind positives people remember. That does not apply to the current one, though.
Perhaps because people are becoming ever more self entitled and quickly take for granted the good things.
But they rapidly start being nostalgic when there are any changes for the worst.
And there's plenty that people now take for granted that could change for the worse.
Things such as affluent oldies, full employment, an expanding NHS workforce.
If any of those stop the government of the day will be blamed, irrespective of whether it is at fault.
I predict some serious complaining from the oldies next year when their pension only increases by about 2% and probably likewise from those on benefits and minimum wage.
That will not be the fault of Starmer and Reeves but they'll be blamed for it.
Which is why Starmer won’t go Open Borders, for example.
If he does and it coincides with the probable ending of the run of increasing pay for the bottom end.. doesn’t have to be connected. That would be a serious millstone to carry.
Per detailed results on Wiki - the top 3 in the public vote was very close. Switzerland (overall winner) was 5th.
Public vote:
Croatia - 337 Israel - 323 Ukraine - 307 France - 227 Switzerland - 226
However in the public vote, 15 countries gave Israel 12 points, whereas only 9 countries gave Croatia 12 points. But Croatia got more points in total suggesting its support was more consistent.
Labour majority is nailed on but the size of that majority is very much up for grabs and could well affect the election after the next one.
My view? Rather than a "tradeable bank" that Labour can dine off for 2 or 3 parliamentary terms, depending on how big the majority is, my view is that it's essentially irrelevant and that boot will go on the other foot as soon as he's in.
Like Blair, PM Starmer would benefit from an economy significantly on the up. However, all of those who have supported him getting to be PM will have their hand out. And he will have to disappoint most.
And Labour has no answer to the small boats. Expect it to become an armada of bigger boats. What then?
I suspect ID cards are going to make a reappearance in the next parliament.
Britain does not have spare billions of pounds for a bureaucrats hobbyhorse.
Labour majority is nailed on but the size of that majority is very much up for grabs and could well affect the election after the next one.
My view? Rather than a "tradeable bank" that Labour can dine off for 2 or 3 parliamentary terms, depending on how big the majority is, my view is that it's essentially irrelevant and that boot will go on the other foot as soon as he's in.
I am old enough to remember the 60s and70s when governments changed frequently, not least because we did not have a particularly clear idea of where we should be going. Since then it has taken some major cock ups or sheer exhaustion to remove a sitting government.
You may be right that we are heading into another period of uncertainty and increased volatility but the last 40 years have pointed in the other direction. If Labour get a majority over 150 it will be almost impossible for the Tories to remove them in a single swipe, just like Cameron failed to do in 2010, requiring the coalition.
Why?
Because there is no sign that the Tories will learn the lessons of defeat.
Could you have said the same about Jeremy Corbyn's Labour in 2019?
Yes, the signs were there that Corbynism was dead 2 years after its brief flourish.
What lessons do you think the Tories will learn from their coming defeat*? And who will they choose to lead the way back to power?
* for the sake of this debate assume a solid Labour majority.
Labour majority is nailed on but the size of that majority is very much up for grabs and could well affect the election after the next one.
My view? Rather than a "tradeable bank" that Labour can dine off for 2 or 3 parliamentary terms, depending on how big the majority is, my view is that it's essentially irrelevant and that boot will go on the other foot as soon as he's in.
Like Blair, PM Starmer would benefit from an economy significantly on the up. However, all of those who have supported him getting to be PM will have their hand out. And he will have to disappoint most.
And Labour has no answer to the small boats. Expect it to become an armada of bigger boats. What then?
I suspect ID cards are going to make a reappearance in the next parliament.
Three requirements for the database:
1) Accessible to the public so they can check and challenge any inaccuracies in their records;
2) Full record of who has accessed it so we can check who is looking at our info and challenge anyone who has done so for an improper purpose.
3) Criminal prosecutions for any breach of 2.
And two for the ID card:
1) Supersedes all other forms of ID including driving licences, DBS clearances and NI numbers;
2) Does not have to be carried at all times.
If those five criteria are met we can be reasonably confident that our rights are protected and Satan is wondering what the fuck to do with his new ice rink.
Subject to such conditions (or a very close equivalent), that would probably have the support if a significant majority of the electorate. Set up a simultaneous public consultation, and expert panel to look at best practice in other countries.
I don’t know how to break the news to HYUFD and the remaining Tory voter, but there is not going to be a hung parliament…
That's a bleak assessment for Labour - another Tory government...
Six months of an improving economy, distance from Brexit and Covid, cricket, Wimbledon, Euros, Olympics...Come the election, people will still ask what do they want of a Government. Is it really what Starmer is offering? Whatever that might be. "Not the Tories" will get you only so far before you have to come up with an alternative. The harsh reality is that Starmer would have governed very much as Sunak has done. Wiggle room to do much else is non-existent.
I don’t expect wonders from Labour. But we know that we get the opposite of wonders from the Tories. People have utterly and totally had enough and want them gone. The only question is how badly they lose.
Labour majority is nailed on but the size of that majority is very much up for grabs and could well affect the election after the next one.
My view? Rather than a "tradeable bank" that Labour can dine off for 2 or 3 parliamentary terms, depending on how big the majority is, my view is that it's essentially irrelevant and that boot will go on the other foot as soon as he's in.
Like Blair, PM Starmer would benefit from an economy significantly on the up. However, all of those who have supported him getting to be PM will have their hand out. And he will have to disappoint most.
And Labour has no answer to the small boats. Expect it to become an armada of bigger boats. What then?
I suspect ID cards are going to make a reappearance in the next parliament.
No problems with ID cards - but it needs to be better sold and the ID card used to just verify the person is who they claim to be and nothing more...
Nope, never.
Do we really want to give the police more powers to harass people because they do not have their papers on them?
Per detailed results on Wiki - the top 3 in the public vote was very close. Switzerland (overall winner) was 5th.
Public vote:
Croatia - 337 Israel - 323 Ukraine - 307 France - 227 Switzerland - 226
However in the public vote, 15 countries gave Israel 12 points, whereas only 9 countries gave Croatia 12 points. But Croatia got more points in total suggesting its support was more consistent.
It has also emerged that Ms Elphicke is seeking planning permission to convert a garage she owns in Dover into a two-storey house, and needs the support of the Labour-run local council to overrule objections from neighbours.
I think that's more likely Tory spin that any kind if motivation for a defection. It's not as though she's endeared herself to Labour by defecting, is it ?
Labour majority is nailed on but the size of that majority is very much up for grabs and could well affect the election after the next one.
My view? Rather than a "tradeable bank" that Labour can dine off for 2 or 3 parliamentary terms, depending on how big the majority is, my view is that it's essentially irrelevant and that boot will go on the other foot as soon as he's in.
I am old enough to remember the 60s and70s when governments changed frequently, not least because we did not have a particularly clear idea of where we should be going. Since then it has taken some major cock ups or sheer exhaustion to remove a sitting government.
You may be right that we are heading into another period of uncertainty and increased volatility but the last 40 years have pointed in the other direction. If Labour get a majority over 150 it will be almost impossible for the Tories to remove them in a single swipe, just like Cameron failed to do in 2010, requiring the coalition.
Why?
Because there is no sign that the Tories will learn the lessons of defeat.
Could you have said the same about Jeremy Corbyn's Labour in 2019?
Yes, the signs were there that Corbynism was dead 2 years after its brief flourish.
What lessons do you think the Tories will learn from their coming defeat*? And who will they choose to lead the way back to power?
* for the sake of this debate assume a solid Labour majority.
A lot will depend on how SKS goes in government. If The Starmer Project goes to shit within 6 months then the tories won't, with some justification, think there is any need for reflective introspection. They will go beyond GB News and then beyond that. However, in the unlikely event that the new Labour government is a model of probity and competence with an economic tailwind then the tories will have to move back to the centre to get anywhere.
You couldn't really get Rishi's squirrel dick between them on policy so it's all about the vibe.
Labour majority is nailed on but the size of that majority is very much up for grabs and could well affect the election after the next one.
My view? Rather than a "tradeable bank" that Labour can dine off for 2 or 3 parliamentary terms, depending on how big the majority is, my view is that it's essentially irrelevant and that boot will go on the other foot as soon as he's in.
I am old enough to remember the 60s and70s when governments changed frequently, not least because we did not have a particularly clear idea of where we should be going. Since then it has taken some major cock ups or sheer exhaustion to remove a sitting government.
You may be right that we are heading into another period of uncertainty and increased volatility but the last 40 years have pointed in the other direction. If Labour get a majority over 150 it will be almost impossible for the Tories to remove them in a single swipe, just like Cameron failed to do in 2010, requiring the coalition.
Why?
Because there is no sign that the Tories will learn the lessons of defeat.
Could you have said the same about Jeremy Corbyn's Labour in 2019?
Yes, the signs were there that Corbynism was dead 2 years after its brief flourish.
What lessons do you think the Tories will learn from their coming defeat*? And who will they choose to lead the way back to power?
* for the sake of this debate assume a solid Labour majority.
Good points. The Johnson purge in 2019 removed, AIUI, more than just the Remainers. It discouraged people who might have been motivated to follow them. At least Corbyn and his acolytes didn’t run purges. If the Tories lose badly at the next GE I can see them being, for a while anyway, as rudderless as the LibDems have been.
When the MP for Dover and Deal was presented to Sir Keir as interested in defection, it is not hard to see why he and the tight group of aides he discussed it with reckoned that this was an offer too salivating to refuse. “ I’m completely fine with it,” says one of the non-squeamish members of the shadow cabinet. “We’ve got an election to win. The name of the game is beating the Tories. When an opportunity like this comes along, you can’t pass it up.” What they did not anticipate was the scale and the intensity of the backlash.
This might have been foreseen because Ms Elphicke has landed in Labour with more baggage than a luggage carousel at Heathrow during the school summer holidays. As for her politics, she once attacked Marcus Rashford for campaigning for free school meals, one of many reasons to doubt whether she has any genuine affinity with her new party.
The broader reason for the unease rippling through Labour’s ranks is that it feeds into the anxiety that there is no compromise with their party’s values that the leadership might not make in pursuit of what it sees as potential electoral advantage. Voters may have a general preference for broad-church parties, but they also tend to like them to come with sturdy walls and some pillars of principle.
What’s not settled, as we approach the election, is a consensus view about Sir Keir. It is still up for argument both within his party and among voters whether he is a firmly anchored leader of genuine conviction, the case made by his allies. Or is he, as enemies to both right and left contend, a ruthless opportunist who will say or do anything to get power? The willingness to clasp hands with someone with the history of Natalie Elphicke is much easier for his foes to explain than it is for his friends.
The next time, if there’s a next time, a Conservative MP of her ilk offers to come over to Labour, Sir Keir might be better advised to say thanks, but no thanks.
Doesn’t Luke 15:11-32 kinda apply?
The parable of the Lost Son.
That shows the lost son a) Leaving home b) Regretting that and repenting. c) Returning in regret.
I don't see Natalie Elphicke as a "lost son of Labour who has repented her reckless, dissolute ways and returned home".
It’s not quite the same, but the parable tells us that it is good to celebrate the one who was lost and has now found their way, over those who piously criticise.
Yes, I'd agree with that. The question is over "found their way", and not being naive. There seems to be an issue around the lobbying of Robert Buckland, for example - it was clear that her former party would tip a bucket of doodoo over her, Bad 'Al style, but was Sit Keir properly aware what was coming? That should guide his actions.
I think what I have said on PB in the past is that the proof of the pudding on conversions can only be over time, since like Elisabeth 1 we can't make windows into men's and women's souls.
Perhaps Matthew 10:16 applies "Be as wise as serpents, and as gentle as doves."
In the case of the lost son, for example, it might not be wise to put him in charge of managing his father's wealth for a few years.
My take on Sir Keir is probably that he deems any potential damage is less for him than the benefits of keeping the Conservatives in confusion and doubt, and he has a stop-loss of NE standing down at the next election.
I think his calculation is quite Machiavellian / cold blooded. After all, he's a lawyer !
I suspect you and @DavidL in his comment just above underestimate Starmer. Fundamentally he's a traditionalist and is motivated by his working class roots. He sees the Red Wall as his kind of people and thinks the Labour Party has abandoned them in recent years. Happily, and this is a very politician thing, he also thinks engaging them is how he's going to win the election.
If he believed university educated social liberals was the way forward would be still be as keen on the Red Wall? Because I think there's a danger in his, I believe deliberately and quite ruthlessly, rejecting liberalism.
Firstly almost his entire party is made up of such people. They will go along with Starmer if he wins them an election but after that?
Secondly graduates are a large and increasingly large demographic looking for a political home. Does he really want to repel them.
Thirdly Starmer is a traditionalist not a populist. The Elphicke defection muddies the distinction.
But I don't think Starmer is triangulating or just saying what people want to hear. If anything he's not triangulating enough
This is a really interesting take and chimes with the Morgan McSweeney profile on Unherd - https://unherd.com/2024/05/the-mcsweeney-project/ (well worth reading, even though Unherd is not a regular destination for me at least)
Certainly Starmer seems more “Labourist” than socialist, progressive, or social democrat, if we’re throwing broad terms around. And there’s a long heritage for that - Hardie and Macdonald were both expressly Labourist rather than socialist.
I kind of think the only long term solution to this is to recognise that Labour’s internal coalition will not hold and that the centre left needs to re-form around two or more parties (which in turn requires PR). But there is absolutely no appetite for that within Labour, and right now the guiding narrative is for people to stick fingers in their ears and hope Starmer will lead them to the promised land. Spoiler: he won’t.
Israeli tanks have entered the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza city in the north of Gaza.
The Israeli military have also entered the Arroub refugee camp near Al-Khalil ("Hebron") on the West Bank.
Meanwhile 300000 Palestinians have been terrorised out of Rafah in the south of Gaza in the last week - many of whom had been displaced from elsewhere since October. They can't go south to Sinai in Egypt because the Israeli military have closed both gates in the perimeter fence. The only direction they can flee in is northwards.
Meanwhile it seems the USA has already built a pier in the central Netzarim corridor. That's a strip running east-west across Gaza and it's occupied by the Israeli military. The pier is NOT being used to bring in aid. Nor has any aid been brought in through any of the land routes (north or south) since Tuesday.
UNRWA are screaming "There is nowhere safe to go. There is nowhere safe to go. There is nowhere safe to go". (That is a direct quote.) You can't get much fucking clearer than that.
UNRWA is the UN agency that supplies aid to Palestinian refugees when it's allowed to. Its HQ in occupied Jerusalem was burnt down by armed fascist thugs last week. Since October, the Israelis have killed more than 100 of its staff in Gaza. This is an international humanitarian organisation.
It seems crystal clear that the Israeli plan is to murder a large percentage of the population in Gaza (it has already killed or wounded around 5% since October) and then let the US and its British helpers emergency-deport the survivors to Cyprus - which will probably take a few weeks, and during those weeks you can expect the holding areas to be under constant bombing and shelling.
Fuck whataboutery. This is by far the biggest ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in the world, a crime against humanity (not only in the obvious sense, but in the legal sense too) committed against a people whom the US and Britain don't even recognise as a people sufficiently to allow them to join the United Nations. (The other three veto powers do, as do the majority of countries in the world.)
Per detailed results on Wiki - the top 3 in the public vote was very close. Switzerland (overall winner) was 5th.
Public vote:
Croatia - 337 Israel - 323 Ukraine - 307 France - 227 Switzerland - 226
However in the public vote, 15 countries gave Israel 12 points, whereas only 9 countries gave Croatia 12 points. But Croatia got more points in total suggesting its support was more consistent.
Intriguing paper in this week's Science: a new, much cheaper approach for MRI scanning
It's an MRI scanner that uses a 0.05 Tesla magnet (vs. the current 1.5 - 3 T) and operates at a fraction of the cost (~$22,000 for the hardware), time (<10 minutes), and noise of a current MRI scanner
Unlike current MRIs, the prototype scanner plugs into a standard wall socket, and doesn't need specialist shielding equipment
It uses a deep learning (AI) strategy to improve the low signal-noise ratio that's inherent to lower field strength MRIs
"A Catholic priest has been reprimanded after telling his stunned worshippers that Jesus Christ had an erection when he died on the cross.
Father Thomas McHale, the priest at Our Blessed Lady Immaculate in Blackhill, Consett, County Durham, took to the pulpit as normal on Good Friday.
However, the 53-year-old, who is from America, is understood to have told the congregation, roughly 100 Catholic residents, that blood would have rushed to the lower body of Jesus as a result of the violent execution method of crucifixion."
Good morning everyne, even slugabeds, or people on holiday drinking wine for breakfast.
Marhaba!
Sod .
I'm sitting here looking at my solar panels that need a jet wash later, so I've got to sort out the 6m extendi-right-angle-device for the jetwasher so that my kind friend who has offered to go on next-door's carport roof to do it can be given the tool to do the job.
First time we’ve been away anywhere for months, just a local hotel with a good all-inclusive promotion now that we’re out of season. Place is busy though, with a combination of local staycationers and tourists, and the weather is still just about bearable outside, at least in the shade, 37ºC and 33% humidity at 13:00.
Buying (or renting) the right tool for the job always pays dividends in the end.
37C is tolerable? Eeek. I like heat but that’s pushing it
Did you see Janan Ganesh’s latest column in the FT? He reckons people that casually dismiss Dubai as boring are idiots. He says it is intrinsically interesting. And he’s right. It’s still not for me, but it is fascinating in a weird way, and also illustrative
It’s 24C here on the south coast of the Gargano, Puglia. Might peak around 26C with cloudless skies then cool to 15C late at night. This is it. This is my perfect weather. You can still easily walk in it - but you can also sunbathe and swim (in a heated pool).
In the evenings you can happily sit outside but maybe with a very light sweater or casual puffer gilet. In the night you don’t need aircon
And endless endless sunshine. All day maximum sunshine
By July it will be insufferably hot here
I haven't been to Dubai but also don't get the appeal sufficiently to want to go.
Per detailed results on Wiki - the top 3 in the public vote was very close. Switzerland (overall winner) was 5th.
Public vote:
Croatia - 337 Israel - 323 Ukraine - 307 France - 227 Switzerland - 226
However in the public vote, 15 countries gave Israel 12 points, whereas only 9 countries gave Croatia 12 points. But Croatia got more points in total suggesting its support was more consistent.
"A Catholic priest has been reprimanded after telling his stunned worshippers that Jesus Christ had an erection when he died on the cross.
Father Thomas McHale, the priest at Our Blessed Lady Immaculate in Blackhill, Consett, County Durham, took to the pulpit as normal on Good Friday.
However, the 53-year-old, who is from America, is understood to have told the congregation, roughly 100 Catholic residents, that blood would have rushed to the lower body of Jesus as a result of the violent execution method of crucifixion."
Per detailed results on Wiki - the top 3 in the public vote was very close. Switzerland (overall winner) was 5th.
Public vote:
Croatia - 337 Israel - 323 Ukraine - 307 France - 227 Switzerland - 226
However in the public vote, 15 countries gave Israel 12 points, whereas only 9 countries gave Croatia 12 points. But Croatia got more points in total suggesting its support was more consistent.
As I far as I can tell virtually everyone in the Jewish diaspora with a TV voted for Israel last night, and repeatedly.
My friend did so multiple times.
By implying that virtually all Jews who live outside of Palestine in places where they can vote in Eurovision feel such an immensely strong loyalty to Israel, which even motivates them to commit collective vote fraud, you make the accusation of dual loyalty seem mild.
Labour majority is nailed on but the size of that majority is very much up for grabs and could well affect the election after the next one.
My view? Rather than a "tradeable bank" that Labour can dine off for 2 or 3 parliamentary terms, depending on how big the majority is, my view is that it's essentially irrelevant and that boot will go on the other foot as soon as he's in.
I am old enough to remember the 60s and70s when governments changed frequently, not least because we did not have a particularly clear idea of where we should be going. Since then it has taken some major cock ups or sheer exhaustion to remove a sitting government.
You may be right that we are heading into another period of uncertainty and increased volatility but the last 40 years have pointed in the other direction. If Labour get a majority over 150 it will be almost impossible for the Tories to remove them in a single swipe, just like Cameron failed to do in 2010, requiring the coalition.
Why?
Because there is no sign that the Tories will learn the lessons of defeat.
Could you have said the same about Jeremy Corbyn's Labour in 2019?
Yes, the signs were there that Corbynism was dead 2 years after its brief flourish.
What lessons do you think the Tories will learn from their coming defeat*? And who will they choose to lead the way back to power?
* for the sake of this debate assume a solid Labour majority.
Good points. The Johnson purge in 2019 removed, AIUI, more than just the Remainers. It discouraged people who might have been motivated to follow them. At least Corbyn and his acolytes didn’t run purges. If the Tories lose badly at the next GE I can see them being, for a while anyway, as rudderless as the LibDems have been.
I do not agree with you there, Mr Cole. You seem to have fallen for the Tory-Labour spin that the Lib Dems are rudderless and pointless. That is far from the truth, as all Tory-Labour spin is.
Round my way, the Lib Dems have taken the lead in criticising the Government's helpfulness towards Israel, their continued support for the water companies' incompetent handling of the sewage crisis, their run down of the NHS, their lack of concern for homelessness, their corruption and cronyism.....
And the ultimate objective continues to be to create/restore/salvage a society that is both liberal and democratic.
Neither Labour nor the Conservatives will do that.
The new Ukrainian CinC needs to get a grip while he can still blame Zaluzhny for everything. There are brigade level formations who are in business for themselves and don't particularly care what the General Staff thinks. Units will 'defect' from one brigade to another based on bribery and patronage and you've got battalion and smaller units who are negotiating directly with the Russians.
Israeli tanks have entered the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza city in the north of Gaza.
The Israeli military have also entered the Arroub refugee camp near Al-Khalil ("Hebron") on the West Bank.
Meanwhile 300000 Palestinians have been terrorised out of Rafah in the south of Gaza in the last week - many of whom had been displaced from elsewhere since October. They can't go south to Sinai in Egypt because the Israeli military have closed both gates in the perimeter fence. The only direction they can flee in is northwards.
Meanwhile it seems the USA has already built a pier in the central Netzarim corridor. That's a strip running east-west across Gaza and it's occupied by the Israeli military. The pier is NOT being used to bring in aid. Nor has any aid been brought in through any of the land routes (north or south) since Tuesday.
UNRWA are screaming "There is nowhere safe to go. There is nowhere safe to go. There is nowhere safe to go". (That is a direct quote.) You can't get much fucking clearer than that.
UNRWA is the UN agency that supplies aid to Palestinian refugees when it's allowed to. Its HQ in occupied Jerusalem was burnt down by armed fascist thugs last week. Since October, the Israelis have killed more than 100 of its staff in Gaza. This is an international humanitarian organisation.
It seems crystal clear that the Israeli plan is to murder a large percentage of the population in Gaza (it has already killed or wounded around 5% since October) and then let the US and its British helpers emergency-deport the survivors to Cyprus - which will probably take a few weeks, and during those weeks you can expect the holding areas to be under constant bombing and shelling.
Fuck whataboutery. This is by far the biggest ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in the world, a crime against humanity (not only in the obvious sense, but in the legal sense too) committed against a people whom the US and Britain don't even recognise as a people sufficiently to allow them to join the United Nations. (The other three veto powers do, as do the majority of countries in the world.)
2017 stands out in another way. Along with 1983, it's the only election where the Tories did worse in the election than the polls said two weeks from polling day.
My lesson from 2017 is not about possible polling error, but for the potential for the election campaign to change minds. It is not hard for me to see Starmer having a poor campaign, and for negative online adverts to rally some reluctant Tory voters.
I wonder whether the 15/2 available for no overall majority is now value?
It lies in the gap between 41 Tory losses and 123 Labour gains. That feels like a large landing zone to me.
It's not value. Labour will win big.
But, a hung parliament is a very real possibility next time.
I think its unlikely but as much as voters disapproved of the Blair Brown era they were not prepared to give The Tories a majority. Another Lib lab pact in 2025 might completely destroy the Lib Dems.. what's not to like 🤣🤣
2017 stands out in another way. Along with 1983, it's the only election where the Tories did worse in the election than the polls said two weeks from polling day.
My lesson from 2017 is not about possible polling error, but for the potential for the election campaign to change minds. It is not hard for me to see Starmer having a poor campaign, and for negative online adverts to rally some reluctant Tory voters.
I wonder whether the 15/2 available for no overall majority is now value?
It lies in the gap between 41 Tory losses and 123 Labour gains. That feels like a large landing zone to me.
It's not value. Labour will win big.
But, a hung parliament is a very real possibility next time.
I think its unlikely but as much as voters disapproved of the Blair Brown era they were not prepared to give The Tories a majority. Another Lib lab pact in 2025 might completely destroy the Lib Dems.. what's not to like 🤣🤣
Find a slow burner scandal to put Davey in charge of
Israeli tanks have entered the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza city in the north of Gaza.
The Israeli military have also entered the Arroub refugee camp near Al-Khalil ("Hebron") on the West Bank.
Meanwhile 300000 Palestinians have been terrorised out of Rafah in the south of Gaza in the last week - many of whom had been displaced from elsewhere since October. They can't go south to Sinai in Egypt because the Israeli military have closed both gates in the perimeter fence. The only direction they can flee in is northwards.
Meanwhile it seems the USA has already built a pier in the central Netzarim corridor. That's a strip running east-west across Gaza and it's occupied by the Israeli military. The pier is NOT being used to bring in aid. Nor has any aid been brought in through any of the land routes (north or south) since Tuesday.
UNRWA are screaming "There is nowhere safe to go. There is nowhere safe to go. There is nowhere safe to go". (That is a direct quote.) You can't get much fucking clearer than that.
UNRWA is the UN agency that supplies aid to Palestinian refugees when it's allowed to. Its HQ in occupied Jerusalem was burnt down by armed fascist thugs last week. Since October, the Israelis have killed more than 100 of its staff in Gaza. This is an international humanitarian organisation.
It seems crystal clear that the Israeli plan is to murder a large percentage of the population in Gaza (it has already killed or wounded around 5% since October) and then let the US and its British helpers emergency-deport the survivors to Cyprus - which will probably take a few weeks, and during those weeks you can expect the holding areas to be under constant bombing and shelling.
Fuck whataboutery. This is by far the biggest ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in the world, a crime against humanity (not only in the obvious sense, but in the legal sense too) committed against a people whom the US and Britain don't even recognise as a people sufficiently to allow them to join the United Nations. (The other three veto powers do, as do the majority of countries in the world.)
Labour majority is nailed on but the size of that majority is very much up for grabs and could well affect the election after the next one.
My view? Rather than a "tradeable bank" that Labour can dine off for 2 or 3 parliamentary terms, depending on how big the majority is, my view is that it's essentially irrelevant and that boot will go on the other foot as soon as he's in.
Like Blair, PM Starmer would benefit from an economy significantly on the up. However, all of those who have supported him getting to be PM will have their hand out. And he will have to disappoint most.
And Labour has no answer to the small boats. Expect it to become an armada of bigger boats. What then?
The fate of a few thousand randoms turning up in leaky dinghies is quite low down the list of voter concerns.
I'm told it generates the greatest amount of correspondence to MPs.
Good morning everyne, even slugabeds, or people on holiday drinking wine for breakfast.
Marhaba!
Sod .
I'm sitting here looking at my solar panels that need a jet wash later, so I've got to sort out the 6m extendi-right-angle-device for the jetwasher so that my kind friend who has offered to go on next-door's carport roof to do it can be given the tool to do the job.
First time we’ve been away anywhere for months, just a local hotel with a good all-inclusive promotion now that we’re out of season. Place is busy though, with a combination of local staycationers and tourists, and the weather is still just about bearable outside, at least in the shade, 37ºC and 33% humidity at 13:00.
Buying (or renting) the right tool for the job always pays dividends in the end.
37C is tolerable? Eeek. I like heat but that’s pushing it
Did you see Janan Ganesh’s latest column in the FT? He reckons people that casually dismiss Dubai as boring are idiots. He says it is intrinsically interesting. And he’s right. It’s still not for me, but it is fascinating in a weird way, and also illustrative
It’s 24C here on the south coast of the Gargano, Puglia. Might peak around 26C with cloudless skies then cool to 15C late at night. This is it. This is my perfect weather. You can still easily walk in it - but you can also sunbathe and swim (in a heated pool).
In the evenings you can happily sit outside but maybe with a very light sweater or casual puffer gilet. In the night you don’t need aircon
And endless endless sunshine. All day maximum sunshine
By July it will be insufferably hot here
I haven't been to Dubai but also don't get the appeal sufficiently to want to go.
It’s a nice place to find winter sun from the UK. Robert @rcs1000 had a holiday here once and raved about it, but he stayed in a very fancy hotel that had just opened, and now goes for a grand a night.
Good morning everyne, even slugabeds, or people on holiday drinking wine for breakfast.
Marhaba!
Sod .
I'm sitting here looking at my solar panels that need a jet wash later, so I've got to sort out the 6m extendi-right-angle-device for the jetwasher so that my kind friend who has offered to go on next-door's carport roof to do it can be given the tool to do the job.
First time we’ve been away anywhere for months, just a local hotel with a good all-inclusive promotion now that we’re out of season. Place is busy though, with a combination of local staycationers and tourists, and the weather is still just about bearable outside, at least in the shade, 37ºC and 33% humidity at 13:00.
Buying (or renting) the right tool for the job always pays dividends in the end.
37C is tolerable? Eeek. I like heat but that’s pushing it
Did you see Janan Ganesh’s latest column in the FT? He reckons people that casually dismiss Dubai as boring are idiots. He says it is intrinsically interesting. And he’s right. It’s still not for me, but it is fascinating in a weird way, and also illustrative
It’s 24C here on the south coast of the Gargano, Puglia. Might peak around 26C with cloudless skies then cool to 15C late at night. This is it. This is my perfect weather. You can still easily walk in it - but you can also sunbathe and swim (in a heated pool).
In the evenings you can happily sit outside but maybe with a very light sweater or casual puffer gilet. In the night you don’t need aircon
And endless endless sunshine. All day maximum sunshine
By July it will be insufferably hot here
I haven't been to Dubai but also don't get the appeal sufficiently to want to go.
It’s a nice place to find winter sun from the UK. Robert @rcs1000 had a holiday here once and raved about it, but he stayed in a very fancy hotel that had just opened, and now goes for a grand a night.
Labour majority is nailed on but the size of that majority is very much up for grabs and could well affect the election after the next one.
My view? Rather than a "tradeable bank" that Labour can dine off for 2 or 3 parliamentary terms, depending on how big the majority is, my view is that it's essentially irrelevant and that boot will go on the other foot as soon as he's in.
I am old enough to remember the 60s and70s when governments changed frequently, not least because we did not have a particularly clear idea of where we should be going. Since then it has taken some major cock ups or sheer exhaustion to remove a sitting government.
You may be right that we are heading into another period of uncertainty and increased volatility but the last 40 years have pointed in the other direction. If Labour get a majority over 150 it will be almost impossible for the Tories to remove them in a single swipe, just like Cameron failed to do in 2010, requiring the coalition.
Why?
Because there is no sign that the Tories will learn the lessons of defeat.
Could you have said the same about Jeremy Corbyn's Labour in 2019?
Yes, the signs were there that Corbynism was dead 2 years after its brief flourish.
What lessons do you think the Tories will learn from their coming defeat*? And who will they choose to lead the way back to power?
* for the sake of this debate assume a solid Labour majority.
Good points. The Johnson purge in 2019 removed, AIUI, more than just the Remainers. It discouraged people who might have been motivated to follow them. At least Corbyn and his acolytes didn’t run purges. If the Tories lose badly at the next GE I can see them being, for a while anyway, as rudderless as the LibDems have been.
I do not agree with you there, Mr Cole. You seem to have fallen for the Tory-Labour spin that the Lib Dems are rudderless and pointless. That is far from the truth, as all Tory-Labour spin is.
Round my way, the Lib Dems have taken the lead in criticising the Government's helpfulness towards Israel, their continued support for the water companies' incompetent handling of the sewage crisis, their run down of the NHS, their lack of concern for homelessness, their corruption and cronyism.....
And the ultimate objective continues to be to create/restore/salvage a society that is both liberal and democratic.
Neither Labour nor the Conservatives will do that.
Neither will the LibDems. Because they will never have national power to implement it.
The best they can hope for is coincidentally some of their goals get met - then blatantly lie and take credit for it.
The new Ukrainian CinC needs to get a grip while he can still blame Zaluzhny for everything. There are brigade level formations who are in business for themselves and don't particularly care what the General Staff thinks. Units will 'defect' from one brigade to another based on bribery and patronage and you've got battalion and smaller units who are negotiating directly with the Russians.
Yes comrade, whatever you say.
I daresay you got this 'insight' from licking the fetid dribblings coming off Russian Telegram?
Good morning everyne, even slugabeds, or people on holiday drinking wine for breakfast.
Marhaba!
Sod .
I'm sitting here looking at my solar panels that need a jet wash later, so I've got to sort out the 6m extendi-right-angle-device for the jetwasher so that my kind friend who has offered to go on next-door's carport roof to do it can be given the tool to do the job.
First time we’ve been away anywhere for months, just a local hotel with a good all-inclusive promotion now that we’re out of season. Place is busy though, with a combination of local staycationers and tourists, and the weather is still just about bearable outside, at least in the shade, 37ºC and 33% humidity at 13:00.
Buying (or renting) the right tool for the job always pays dividends in the end.
37C is tolerable? Eeek. I like heat but that’s pushing it
Did you see Janan Ganesh’s latest column in the FT? He reckons people that casually dismiss Dubai as boring are idiots. He says it is intrinsically interesting. And he’s right. It’s still not for me, but it is fascinating in a weird way, and also illustrative
It’s 24C here on the south coast of the Gargano, Puglia. Might peak around 26C with cloudless skies then cool to 15C late at night. This is it. This is my perfect weather. You can still easily walk in it - but you can also sunbathe and swim (in a heated pool).
In the evenings you can happily sit outside but maybe with a very light sweater or casual puffer gilet. In the night you don’t need aircon
And endless endless sunshine. All day maximum sunshine
By July it will be insufferably hot here
I haven't been to Dubai but also don't get the appeal sufficiently to want to go.
It’s a nice place to find winter sun from the UK. Robert @rcs1000 had a holiday here once and raved about it, but he stayed in a very fancy hotel that had just opened, and now goes for a grand a night.
They put people to death for being gay.
Err, no they don’t. You’re at best confusing the UAE with Saudi Arabia or Qatar, very different places.
These things are all relative, but UAE and Israel are the most liberal places in the Middle East. I was sitting in a a beach bar with a drink at 11am today, watching women in bikinis walk past…
Labour majority is nailed on but the size of that majority is very much up for grabs and could well affect the election after the next one.
My view? Rather than a "tradeable bank" that Labour can dine off for 2 or 3 parliamentary terms, depending on how big the majority is, my view is that it's essentially irrelevant and that boot will go on the other foot as soon as he's in.
I am old enough to remember the 60s and70s when governments changed frequently, not least because we did not have a particularly clear idea of where we should be going. Since then it has taken some major cock ups or sheer exhaustion to remove a sitting government.
You may be right that we are heading into another period of uncertainty and increased volatility but the last 40 years have pointed in the other direction. If Labour get a majority over 150 it will be almost impossible for the Tories to remove them in a single swipe, just like Cameron failed to do in 2010, requiring the coalition.
Why?
Because there is no sign that the Tories will learn the lessons of defeat.
Could you have said the same about Jeremy Corbyn's Labour in 2019?
This is a fair point, though I think the distance from power at that point - and, crucially, two electoral failures - showed that a change was necessary and Corbynism had failed to persuade beyond its echo chamber. Thankfully the centrist dad bloc had not just given up in the face of the Owen Jones brigade and bided their time.
I suspect the Conservatives will also seek comfort in the their safe places, replacing Rishi’s weaksauce with more muscular, if ideologically confused and likely incompetent, rightism, leaning hard into culture wars. My guess would be that it’ll take an electoral failure for them to shift back into the vote-winning centre ground.
Things that may increase house values, home improvements, good schools....
I mean isn't it obvious that houses that the general public are willing to pay more for or worth more so end up in a higher council tax band...
Just a shame it's a revaluation and not a complete redesign of the whole tax system around housing but that could only be done by the UK Government...
Using council tax as a method to increase taxes on housing wealth seems obvious to me. At a UK/E&W level, Labour can spin it as giving councils more revenue raising powers while cutting both the grant to councils and NICs for earners.
Sure it will be popular, with those working who actually pay it.
Good morning everyne, even slugabeds, or people on holiday drinking wine for breakfast.
Marhaba!
Sod .
I'm sitting here looking at my solar panels that need a jet wash later, so I've got to sort out the 6m extendi-right-angle-device for the jetwasher so that my kind friend who has offered to go on next-door's carport roof to do it can be given the tool to do the job.
First time we’ve been away anywhere for months, just a local hotel with a good all-inclusive promotion now that we’re out of season. Place is busy though, with a combination of local staycationers and tourists, and the weather is still just about bearable outside, at least in the shade, 37ºC and 33% humidity at 13:00.
Buying (or renting) the right tool for the job always pays dividends in the end.
37C is tolerable? Eeek. I like heat but that’s pushing it
Did you see Janan Ganesh’s latest column in the FT? He reckons people that casually dismiss Dubai as boring are idiots. He says it is intrinsically interesting. And he’s right. It’s still not for me, but it is fascinating in a weird way, and also illustrative
It’s 24C here on the south coast of the Gargano, Puglia. Might peak around 26C with cloudless skies then cool to 15C late at night. This is it. This is my perfect weather. You can still easily walk in it - but you can also sunbathe and swim (in a heated pool).
In the evenings you can happily sit outside but maybe with a very light sweater or casual puffer gilet. In the night you don’t need aircon
And endless endless sunshine. All day maximum sunshine
By July it will be insufferably hot here
I haven't been to Dubai but also don't get the appeal sufficiently to want to go.
I could never live there. Climate, culture, general tedium, and the endless desert. Yawn.
But Ganesh is right - it is certainly interesting, even compelling - a version of the future, for some. And it makes a nice if overpriced place to go in winter. Certainly preferable to the UK in late January
Per detailed results on Wiki - the top 3 in the public vote was very close. Switzerland (overall winner) was 5th.
Public vote:
Croatia - 337 Israel - 323 Ukraine - 307 France - 227 Switzerland - 226
However in the public vote, 15 countries gave Israel 12 points, whereas only 9 countries gave Croatia 12 points. But Croatia got more points in total suggesting its support was more consistent.
As I far as I can tell virtually everyone in the Jewish diaspora with a TV voted for Israel last night, and repeatedly.
My friend did so multiple times.
By implying that virtually all Jews who live outside of Palestine in places where they can vote in Eurovision feel such an immensely strong loyalty to Israel, which even motivates them to commit collective vote fraud, you make the accusation of dual loyalty seem mild.
Hmmm. He's arguing that the Republican Party is controlled by the Joos.
Labour majority is nailed on but the size of that majority is very much up for grabs and could well affect the election after the next one.
My view? Rather than a "tradeable bank" that Labour can dine off for 2 or 3 parliamentary terms, depending on how big the majority is, my view is that it's essentially irrelevant and that boot will go on the other foot as soon as he's in.
I am old enough to remember the 60s and70s when governments changed frequently, not least because we did not have a particularly clear idea of where we should be going. Since then it has taken some major cock ups or sheer exhaustion to remove a sitting government.
You may be right that we are heading into another period of uncertainty and increased volatility but the last 40 years have pointed in the other direction. If Labour get a majority over 150 it will be almost impossible for the Tories to remove them in a single swipe, just like Cameron failed to do in 2010, requiring the coalition.
Why?
Because there is no sign that the Tories will learn the lessons of defeat.
Could you have said the same about Jeremy Corbyn's Labour in 2019?
Yes, the signs were there that Corbynism was dead 2 years after its brief flourish.
What lessons do you think the Tories will learn from their coming defeat*? And who will they choose to lead the way back to power?
* for the sake of this debate assume a solid Labour majority.
Good points. The Johnson purge in 2019 removed, AIUI, more than just the Remainers. It discouraged people who might have been motivated to follow them. At least Corbyn and his acolytes didn’t run purges. If the Tories lose badly at the next GE I can see them being, for a while anyway, as rudderless as the LibDems have been.
I do not agree with you there, Mr Cole. You seem to have fallen for the Tory-Labour spin that the Lib Dems are rudderless and pointless. That is far from the truth, as all Tory-Labour spin is.
Round my way, the Lib Dems have taken the lead in criticising the Government's helpfulness towards Israel, their continued support for the water companies' incompetent handling of the sewage crisis, their run down of the NHS, their lack of concern for homelessness, their corruption and cronyism.....
And the ultimate objective continues to be to create/restore/salvage a society that is both liberal and democratic.
Neither Labour nor the Conservatives will do that.
As a once-upon-a-time Liberal activist, who still sometimes votes LibDem, I’m very glad to read that. I suspect part of my negativity towards Davey and his colleagues is due to lack of activity hereabouts, where they’ve been supplanted as third party by the Greens, and a failure by the media in general to pay them any attention whatsoever. Whatever Davey’s merits, he’s no Jo Grimond, David Steel or Paddy Ashdown when it comes to getting media attention. Or, until everything went very severely pear-shaped, Jeremy Thorpe! Of course 2015 hit the party very hard.
Good morning everyne, even slugabeds, or people on holiday drinking wine for breakfast.
Marhaba!
Sod .
I'm sitting here looking at my solar panels that need a jet wash later, so I've got to sort out the 6m extendi-right-angle-device for the jetwasher so that my kind friend who has offered to go on next-door's carport roof to do it can be given the tool to do the job.
First time we’ve been away anywhere for months, just a local hotel with a good all-inclusive promotion now that we’re out of season. Place is busy though, with a combination of local staycationers and tourists, and the weather is still just about bearable outside, at least in the shade, 37ºC and 33% humidity at 13:00.
Buying (or renting) the right tool for the job always pays dividends in the end.
37C is tolerable? Eeek. I like heat but that’s pushing it
Did you see Janan Ganesh’s latest column in the FT? He reckons people that casually dismiss Dubai as boring are idiots. He says it is intrinsically interesting. And he’s right. It’s still not for me, but it is fascinating in a weird way, and also illustrative
It’s 24C here on the south coast of the Gargano, Puglia. Might peak around 26C with cloudless skies then cool to 15C late at night. This is it. This is my perfect weather. You can still easily walk in it - but you can also sunbathe and swim (in a heated pool).
In the evenings you can happily sit outside but maybe with a very light sweater or casual puffer gilet. In the night you don’t need aircon
And endless endless sunshine. All day maximum sunshine
By July it will be insufferably hot here
I haven't been to Dubai but also don't get the appeal sufficiently to want to go.
It’s a nice place to find winter sun from the UK. Robert @rcs1000 had a holiday here once and raved about it, but he stayed in a very fancy hotel that had just opened, and now goes for a grand a night.
They put people to death for being gay.
Err, no they don’t. You’re at best confusing the UAE with Saudi Arabia or Qatar, very different places.
These things are all relative, but UAE and Israel are the most liberal places in the Middle East. I was sitting in a a beach bar with a drink at 11am today, watching women in bikinis walk past…
I think there is an assumption that Labour will go to shit as soon as they are elected but I want to play devil’s advocate and suggest that the country will give them a very long honeymoon because of how much they want the Tories gone.
The Tories will have to change a lot to get back in, in one term. And based on Labour from 2010 onwards that does not seem likely.
honeymoon will be very short for sure, if they don't improve significantly on current position they will be toast quickly. Given the apparent lack of talent on show , I would not bet on them lasting more than 1 term
The new Ukrainian CinC needs to get a grip while he can still blame Zaluzhny for everything. There are brigade level formations who are in business for themselves and don't particularly care what the General Staff thinks. Units will 'defect' from one brigade to another based on bribery and patronage and you've got battalion and smaller units who are negotiating directly with the Russians.
Yes comrade, whatever you say.
I daresay you got this 'insight' from licking the fetid dribblings coming off Russian Telegram?
Why do you have this pathological fear of hearing possibly accurate or insightful information about Ukraine. What's the Panglossian equivalent for a country at war.
Good morning everyne, even slugabeds, or people on holiday drinking wine for breakfast.
Marhaba!
Sod .
I'm sitting here looking at my solar panels that need a jet wash later, so I've got to sort out the 6m extendi-right-angle-device for the jetwasher so that my kind friend who has offered to go on next-door's carport roof to do it can be given the tool to do the job.
First time we’ve been away anywhere for months, just a local hotel with a good all-inclusive promotion now that we’re out of season. Place is busy though, with a combination of local staycationers and tourists, and the weather is still just about bearable outside, at least in the shade, 37ºC and 33% humidity at 13:00.
Buying (or renting) the right tool for the job always pays dividends in the end.
37C is tolerable? Eeek. I like heat but that’s pushing it
Did you see Janan Ganesh’s latest column in the FT? He reckons people that casually dismiss Dubai as boring are idiots. He says it is intrinsically interesting. And he’s right. It’s still not for me, but it is fascinating in a weird way, and also illustrative
It’s 24C here on the south coast of the Gargano, Puglia. Might peak around 26C with cloudless skies then cool to 15C late at night. This is it. This is my perfect weather. You can still easily walk in it - but you can also sunbathe and swim (in a heated pool).
In the evenings you can happily sit outside but maybe with a very light sweater or casual puffer gilet. In the night you don’t need aircon
And endless endless sunshine. All day maximum sunshine
By July it will be insufferably hot here
I haven't been to Dubai but also don't get the appeal sufficiently to want to go.
It’s a nice place to find winter sun from the UK. Robert @rcs1000 had a holiday here once and raved about it, but he stayed in a very fancy hotel that had just opened, and now goes for a grand a night.
They put people to death for being gay.
Err, no they don’t. You’re at best confusing the UAE with Saudi Arabia or Qatar, very different places.
These things are all relative, but UAE and Israel are the most liberal places in the Middle East. I was sitting in a a beach bar with a drink at 11am today, watching women in bikinis walk past…
Dubai yes, but wander over to Sharjah and they will be less comfortable.
I have been to UAE a couple of times when my brother was there. Pleasant winter weather and the desert is beautiful, but I won't bother going again. Suits some people though with guaranteed sun and sterile blingy hotels. Just not my cup of tea.
Israeli tanks have entered the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza city in the north of Gaza.
The Israeli military have also entered the Arroub refugee camp near Al-Khalil ("Hebron") on the West Bank.
Meanwhile 300000 Palestinians have been terrorised out of Rafah in the south of Gaza in the last week - many of whom had been displaced from elsewhere since October. They can't go south to Sinai in Egypt because the Israeli military have closed both gates in the perimeter fence. The only direction they can flee in is northwards.
Meanwhile it seems the USA has already built a pier in the central Netzarim corridor. That's a strip running east-west across Gaza and it's occupied by the Israeli military. The pier is NOT being used to bring in aid. Nor has any aid been brought in through any of the land routes (north or south) since Tuesday.
UNRWA are screaming "There is nowhere safe to go. There is nowhere safe to go. There is nowhere safe to go". (That is a direct quote.) You can't get much fucking clearer than that.
UNRWA is the UN agency that supplies aid to Palestinian refugees when it's allowed to. Its HQ in occupied Jerusalem was burnt down by armed fascist thugs last week. Since October, the Israelis have killed more than 100 of its staff in Gaza. This is an international humanitarian organisation.
It seems crystal clear that the Israeli plan is to murder a large percentage of the population in Gaza (it has already killed or wounded around 5% since October) and then let the US and its British helpers emergency-deport the survivors to Cyprus - which will probably take a few weeks, and during those weeks you can expect the holding areas to be under constant bombing and shelling.
Fuck whataboutery. This is by far the biggest ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in the world, a crime against humanity (not only in the obvious sense, but in the legal sense too) committed against a people whom the US and Britain don't even recognise as a people sufficiently to allow them to join the United Nations. (The other three veto powers do, as do the majority of countries in the world.)
This party political broadcast was on behalf of Hamas.
Israeli tanks have entered the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza city in the north of Gaza.
The Israeli military have also entered the Arroub refugee camp near Al-Khalil ("Hebron") on the West Bank.
Meanwhile 300000 Palestinians have been terrorised out of Rafah in the south of Gaza in the last week - many of whom had been displaced from elsewhere since October. They can't go south to Sinai in Egypt because the Israeli military have closed both gates in the perimeter fence. The only direction they can flee in is northwards.
Meanwhile it seems the USA has already built a pier in the central Netzarim corridor. That's a strip running east-west across Gaza and it's occupied by the Israeli military. The pier is NOT being used to bring in aid. Nor has any aid been brought in through any of the land routes (north or south) since Tuesday.
UNRWA are screaming "There is nowhere safe to go. There is nowhere safe to go. There is nowhere safe to go". (That is a direct quote.) You can't get much fucking clearer than that.
UNRWA is the UN agency that supplies aid to Palestinian refugees when it's allowed to. Its HQ in occupied Jerusalem was burnt down by armed fascist thugs last week. Since October, the Israelis have killed more than 100 of its staff in Gaza. This is an international humanitarian organisation.
It seems crystal clear that the Israeli plan is to murder a large percentage of the population in Gaza (it has already killed or wounded around 5% since October) and then let the US and its British helpers emergency-deport the survivors to Cyprus - which will probably take a few weeks, and during those weeks you can expect the holding areas to be under constant bombing and shelling.
Fuck whataboutery. This is by far the biggest ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in the world, a crime against humanity (not only in the obvious sense, but in the legal sense too) committed against a people whom the US and Britain don't even recognise as a people sufficiently to allow them to join the United Nations. (The other three veto powers do, as do the majority of countries in the world.)
And?
Something must be done.
I suppose we could ensure that Jewish people are marked out from the rest of the population everywhere so people know who to target. Then I guess we can put them all in once place, you know to keep them safe from those who are targeting them. Though you know, that's really expensive so if a few million of them die in these "camps" then it will make things a lot easier for the rest.
Israel must rid Gaza of Hamas. If the people of Gaza don't hand them over and continue to protect them then this is the result. Instead of blaming Israel how about making the people of Gaza get rid of Hamas. Oh right, they support Hamas and want Israel destroyed and Jews eradicated, maybe in those camps.
Good morning everyne, even slugabeds, or people on holiday drinking wine for breakfast.
Marhaba!
Sod .
I'm sitting here looking at my solar panels that need a jet wash later, so I've got to sort out the 6m extendi-right-angle-device for the jetwasher so that my kind friend who has offered to go on next-door's carport roof to do it can be given the tool to do the job.
First time we’ve been away anywhere for months, just a local hotel with a good all-inclusive promotion now that we’re out of season. Place is busy though, with a combination of local staycationers and tourists, and the weather is still just about bearable outside, at least in the shade, 37ºC and 33% humidity at 13:00.
Buying (or renting) the right tool for the job always pays dividends in the end.
37C is tolerable? Eeek. I like heat but that’s pushing it
Did you see Janan Ganesh’s latest column in the FT? He reckons people that casually dismiss Dubai as boring are idiots. He says it is intrinsically interesting. And he’s right. It’s still not for me, but it is fascinating in a weird way, and also illustrative
It’s 24C here on the south coast of the Gargano, Puglia. Might peak around 26C with cloudless skies then cool to 15C late at night. This is it. This is my perfect weather. You can still easily walk in it - but you can also sunbathe and swim (in a heated pool).
In the evenings you can happily sit outside but maybe with a very light sweater or casual puffer gilet. In the night you don’t need aircon
And endless endless sunshine. All day maximum sunshine
By July it will be insufferably hot here
I haven't been to Dubai but also don't get the appeal sufficiently to want to go.
It’s a nice place to find winter sun from the UK. Robert @rcs1000 had a holiday here once and raved about it, but he stayed in a very fancy hotel that had just opened, and now goes for a grand a night.
They put people to death for being gay.
Err, no they don’t. You’re at best confusing the UAE with Saudi Arabia or Qatar, very different places.
These things are all relative, but UAE and Israel are the most liberal places in the Middle East. I was sitting in a a beach bar with a drink at 11am today, watching women in bikinis walk past…
Have you just doxxed yourself as Leon.
No, Leon would have sent a picture. With both the drink and the woman in it.
Labour majority is nailed on but the size of that majority is very much up for grabs and could well affect the election after the next one.
My view? Rather than a "tradeable bank" that Labour can dine off for 2 or 3 parliamentary terms, depending on how big the majority is, my view is that it's essentially irrelevant and that boot will go on the other foot as soon as he's in.
I am old enough to remember the 60s and70s when governments changed frequently, not least because we did not have a particularly clear idea of where we should be going. Since then it has taken some major cock ups or sheer exhaustion to remove a sitting government.
You may be right that we are heading into another period of uncertainty and increased volatility but the last 40 years have pointed in the other direction. If Labour get a majority over 150 it will be almost impossible for the Tories to remove them in a single swipe, just like Cameron failed to do in 2010, requiring the coalition.
Why?
Indeed. You could have made this argument almost word for word after 2019.
Good morning everyne, even slugabeds, or people on holiday drinking wine for breakfast.
Marhaba!
Sod .
I'm sitting here looking at my solar panels that need a jet wash later, so I've got to sort out the 6m extendi-right-angle-device for the jetwasher so that my kind friend who has offered to go on next-door's carport roof to do it can be given the tool to do the job.
First time we’ve been away anywhere for months, just a local hotel with a good all-inclusive promotion now that we’re out of season. Place is busy though, with a combination of local staycationers and tourists, and the weather is still just about bearable outside, at least in the shade, 37ºC and 33% humidity at 13:00.
Buying (or renting) the right tool for the job always pays dividends in the end.
37C is tolerable? Eeek. I like heat but that’s pushing it
Did you see Janan Ganesh’s latest column in the FT? He reckons people that casually dismiss Dubai as boring are idiots. He says it is intrinsically interesting. And he’s right. It’s still not for me, but it is fascinating in a weird way, and also illustrative
It’s 24C here on the south coast of the Gargano, Puglia. Might peak around 26C with cloudless skies then cool to 15C late at night. This is it. This is my perfect weather. You can still easily walk in it - but you can also sunbathe and swim (in a heated pool).
In the evenings you can happily sit outside but maybe with a very light sweater or casual puffer gilet. In the night you don’t need aircon
And endless endless sunshine. All day maximum sunshine
By July it will be insufferably hot here
I haven't been to Dubai but also don't get the appeal sufficiently to want to go.
I could never live there. Climate, culture, general tedium, and the endless desert. Yawn.
But Ganesh is right - it is certainly interesting, even compelling - a version of the future, for some. And it makes a nice if overpriced place to go in winter. Certainly preferable to the UK in late January
Worth seeing - once
Be bottom of my list of places to visit, overpriced desert filled with arseholes.
Good morning everyne, even slugabeds, or people on holiday drinking wine for breakfast.
Marhaba!
Sod .
I'm sitting here looking at my solar panels that need a jet wash later, so I've got to sort out the 6m extendi-right-angle-device for the jetwasher so that my kind friend who has offered to go on next-door's carport roof to do it can be given the tool to do the job.
First time we’ve been away anywhere for months, just a local hotel with a good all-inclusive promotion now that we’re out of season. Place is busy though, with a combination of local staycationers and tourists, and the weather is still just about bearable outside, at least in the shade, 37ºC and 33% humidity at 13:00.
Buying (or renting) the right tool for the job always pays dividends in the end.
37C is tolerable? Eeek. I like heat but that’s pushing it
Did you see Janan Ganesh’s latest column in the FT? He reckons people that casually dismiss Dubai as boring are idiots. He says it is intrinsically interesting. And he’s right. It’s still not for me, but it is fascinating in a weird way, and also illustrative
It’s 24C here on the south coast of the Gargano, Puglia. Might peak around 26C with cloudless skies then cool to 15C late at night. This is it. This is my perfect weather. You can still easily walk in it - but you can also sunbathe and swim (in a heated pool).
In the evenings you can happily sit outside but maybe with a very light sweater or casual puffer gilet. In the night you don’t need aircon
And endless endless sunshine. All day maximum sunshine
By July it will be insufferably hot here
Stayed at an upmarket gastropub near Leominster on the way back from a week in NW Wales. Lovely place, glorious sunshine, 20 degrees during the day. They had four beautifully equipped "lodges" in the grounds. However, planning had insisted they each had a black roof. So they had installed black bitumen tiles. These things suck in heat. As a result, even in early May, they were still unbearably hot to sleep in at four in the morning.
We had exactly the same issue and had to install air-con.
(BTW, travelled on a B-road between Machynlleth out through Forge and on to LLanidloes. It might be the single most scenic road I have travelled in Britain. Outstanding scenery. At least, on a clear day when you can see it..)
Err, no they don’t. You’re at best confusing the UAE with Saudi Arabia or Qatar, very different places.
These things are all relative, but UAE and Israel are the most liberal places in the Middle East. I was sitting in a a beach bar with a drink at 11am today, watching women in bikinis walk past…
Homosexuality is illegal in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and under the federal criminal provisions, consensual same-sex sexual activity is punishable by imprisonment; extra-marital sexual activity between persons of different sexes is also illegal.
While there have been no known arrests or prosecutions for same-sex sexual activity in the UAE since at least 2015 (as of 2022), with no upper limit to penalties codified, capital punishment is a theoretical outcome for (married) participants.
If you trust their numbers - I don't - nobody has been prosecuted since 2015 which is an improvement, I guess.
I don't visit or support countries that don't allow people to live freely, including at the moment the US.
Good morning everyne, even slugabeds, or people on holiday drinking wine for breakfast.
Marhaba!
Sod .
I'm sitting here looking at my solar panels that need a jet wash later, so I've got to sort out the 6m extendi-right-angle-device for the jetwasher so that my kind friend who has offered to go on next-door's carport roof to do it can be given the tool to do the job.
First time we’ve been away anywhere for months, just a local hotel with a good all-inclusive promotion now that we’re out of season. Place is busy though, with a combination of local staycationers and tourists, and the weather is still just about bearable outside, at least in the shade, 37ºC and 33% humidity at 13:00.
Buying (or renting) the right tool for the job always pays dividends in the end.
37C is tolerable? Eeek. I like heat but that’s pushing it
Did you see Janan Ganesh’s latest column in the FT? He reckons people that casually dismiss Dubai as boring are idiots. He says it is intrinsically interesting. And he’s right. It’s still not for me, but it is fascinating in a weird way, and also illustrative
It’s 24C here on the south coast of the Gargano, Puglia. Might peak around 26C with cloudless skies then cool to 15C late at night. This is it. This is my perfect weather. You can still easily walk in it - but you can also sunbathe and swim (in a heated pool).
In the evenings you can happily sit outside but maybe with a very light sweater or casual puffer gilet. In the night you don’t need aircon
And endless endless sunshine. All day maximum sunshine
By July it will be insufferably hot here
22 degreed in South Manchester atm, rising to 24 later. Pretty darned pleasant. Just been for an enjoyable little bike ride through the Mersey Valley, which looks like it hasn't seen rain for weeks.
Thunderstorma due later, mind (to coincide with my daughter's football.cup final, lamentably.)
This is a fair point, though I think the distance from power at that point - and, crucially, two electoral failures - showed that a change was necessary and Corbynism had failed to persuade beyond its echo chamber. Thankfully the centrist dad bloc had not just given up in the face of the Owen Jones brigade and bided their time.
I suspect the Conservatives will also seek comfort in the their safe places, replacing Rishi’s weaksauce with more muscular, if ideologically confused and likely incompetent, rightism, leaning hard into culture wars. My guess would be that it’ll take an electoral failure for them to shift back into the vote-winning centre ground.
Labour lost in 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019 before they "changed". So based on the noises coming out of the Tories (i.e. they want to do a Corbyn but for the right), being out of office for two terms seems likely. Of course those terms might be a few years long or they might be a decade.
I do think Labour will have few PMs if they stay in office.
Good morning everyne, even slugabeds, or people on holiday drinking wine for breakfast.
Marhaba!
Sod .
I'm sitting here looking at my solar panels that need a jet wash later, so I've got to sort out the 6m extendi-right-angle-device for the jetwasher so that my kind friend who has offered to go on next-door's carport roof to do it can be given the tool to do the job.
First time we’ve been away anywhere for months, just a local hotel with a good all-inclusive promotion now that we’re out of season. Place is busy though, with a combination of local staycationers and tourists, and the weather is still just about bearable outside, at least in the shade, 37ºC and 33% humidity at 13:00.
Buying (or renting) the right tool for the job always pays dividends in the end.
37C is tolerable? Eeek. I like heat but that’s pushing it
Did you see Janan Ganesh’s latest column in the FT? He reckons people that casually dismiss Dubai as boring are idiots. He says it is intrinsically interesting. And he’s right. It’s still not for me, but it is fascinating in a weird way, and also illustrative
It’s 24C here on the south coast of the Gargano, Puglia. Might peak around 26C with cloudless skies then cool to 15C late at night. This is it. This is my perfect weather. You can still easily walk in it - but you can also sunbathe and swim (in a heated pool).
In the evenings you can happily sit outside but maybe with a very light sweater or casual puffer gilet. In the night you don’t need aircon
And endless endless sunshine. All day maximum sunshine
By July it will be insufferably hot here
Stayed at an upmarket gastropub near Leominster on the way back from a week in NW Wales. Lovely place, glorious sunshine, 20 degrees during the day. They had four beautifully equipped "lodges" in the grounds. However, planning had insisted they each had a black roof. So they had installed black bitumen tiles. These things suck in heat. As a result, even in early May, they were still unbearably hot to sleep in at four in the morning.
We had exactly the same issue and had to install air-con.
(BTW, travelled on a B-road between Machynlleth out through Forge and on to LLanidloes. It might be the single most scenic road I have travelled in Britain. Outstanding scenery. At least, on a clear day when you can see it..)
The lodges would have better equipped with solar panels.
The new Ukrainian CinC needs to get a grip while he can still blame Zaluzhny for everything. There are brigade level formations who are in business for themselves and don't particularly care what the General Staff thinks. Units will 'defect' from one brigade to another based on bribery and patronage and you've got battalion and smaller units who are negotiating directly with the Russians.
Yes comrade, whatever you say.
I daresay you got this 'insight' from licking the fetid dribblings coming off Russian Telegram?
It was (mainly) David Axe in Forbes and on his substack.
Good morning everyne, even slugabeds, or people on holiday drinking wine for breakfast.
Marhaba!
Sod .
I'm sitting here looking at my solar panels that need a jet wash later, so I've got to sort out the 6m extendi-right-angle-device for the jetwasher so that my kind friend who has offered to go on next-door's carport roof to do it can be given the tool to do the job.
First time we’ve been away anywhere for months, just a local hotel with a good all-inclusive promotion now that we’re out of season. Place is busy though, with a combination of local staycationers and tourists, and the weather is still just about bearable outside, at least in the shade, 37ºC and 33% humidity at 13:00.
Buying (or renting) the right tool for the job always pays dividends in the end.
37C is tolerable? Eeek. I like heat but that’s pushing it
Did you see Janan Ganesh’s latest column in the FT? He reckons people that casually dismiss Dubai as boring are idiots. He says it is intrinsically interesting. And he’s right. It’s still not for me, but it is fascinating in a weird way, and also illustrative
It’s 24C here on the south coast of the Gargano, Puglia. Might peak around 26C with cloudless skies then cool to 15C late at night. This is it. This is my perfect weather. You can still easily walk in it - but you can also sunbathe and swim (in a heated pool).
In the evenings you can happily sit outside but maybe with a very light sweater or casual puffer gilet. In the night you don’t need aircon
And endless endless sunshine. All day maximum sunshine
By July it will be insufferably hot here
I haven't been to Dubai but also don't get the appeal sufficiently to want to go.
It’s a nice place to find winter sun from the UK. Robert @rcs1000 had a holiday here once and raved about it, but he stayed in a very fancy hotel that had just opened, and now goes for a grand a night.
They put people to death for being gay.
Err, no they don’t. You’re at best confusing the UAE with Saudi Arabia or Qatar, very different places.
These things are all relative, but UAE and Israel are the most liberal places in the Middle East. I was sitting in a a beach bar with a drink at 11am today, watching women in bikinis walk past…
Dubai yes, but wander over to Sharjah and they will be less comfortable.
I have been to UAE a couple of times when my brother was there. Pleasant winter weather and the desert is beautiful, but I won't bother going again. Suits some people though with guaranteed sun and sterile blingy hotels. Just not my cup of tea.
I would like to see more of Oman though.
Once went to Ras al Khaimah a day after they had a monumental downpour. Streets were like Venice.
However, the desert had greened up dramatically on the drive back to Dubai.
Long time since I've been though. When I first went (late 80's?) they were still loading dhows by hand on the Creek.
Good morning everyne, even slugabeds, or people on holiday drinking wine for breakfast.
Marhaba!
Sod .
I'm sitting here looking at my solar panels that need a jet wash later, so I've got to sort out the 6m extendi-right-angle-device for the jetwasher so that my kind friend who has offered to go on next-door's carport roof to do it can be given the tool to do the job.
First time we’ve been away anywhere for months, just a local hotel with a good all-inclusive promotion now that we’re out of season. Place is busy though, with a combination of local staycationers and tourists, and the weather is still just about bearable outside, at least in the shade, 37ºC and 33% humidity at 13:00.
Buying (or renting) the right tool for the job always pays dividends in the end.
37C is tolerable? Eeek. I like heat but that’s pushing it
Did you see Janan Ganesh’s latest column in the FT? He reckons people that casually dismiss Dubai as boring are idiots. He says it is intrinsically interesting. And he’s right. It’s still not for me, but it is fascinating in a weird way, and also illustrative
It’s 24C here on the south coast of the Gargano, Puglia. Might peak around 26C with cloudless skies then cool to 15C late at night. This is it. This is my perfect weather. You can still easily walk in it - but you can also sunbathe and swim (in a heated pool).
In the evenings you can happily sit outside but maybe with a very light sweater or casual puffer gilet. In the night you don’t need aircon
And endless endless sunshine. All day maximum sunshine
By July it will be insufferably hot here
Stayed at an upmarket gastropub near Leominster on the way back from a week in NW Wales. Lovely place, glorious sunshine, 20 degrees during the day. They had four beautifully equipped "lodges" in the grounds. However, planning had insisted they each had a black roof. So they had installed black bitumen tiles. These things suck in heat. As a result, even in early May, they were still unbearably hot to sleep in at four in the morning.
We had exactly the same issue and had to install air-con.
(BTW, travelled on a B-road between Machynlleth out through Forge and on to LLanidloes. It might be the single most scenic road I have travelled in Britain. Outstanding scenery. At least, on a clear day when you can see it..)
The lodges would have better equipped with solar panels.
Yes, but would have needed non-standard narrow triangular ones. Do they make them?
Good morning everyne, even slugabeds, or people on holiday drinking wine for breakfast.
Marhaba!
Sod .
I'm sitting here looking at my solar panels that need a jet wash later, so I've got to sort out the 6m extendi-right-angle-device for the jetwasher so that my kind friend who has offered to go on next-door's carport roof to do it can be given the tool to do the job.
First time we’ve been away anywhere for months, just a local hotel with a good all-inclusive promotion now that we’re out of season. Place is busy though, with a combination of local staycationers and tourists, and the weather is still just about bearable outside, at least in the shade, 37ºC and 33% humidity at 13:00.
Buying (or renting) the right tool for the job always pays dividends in the end.
37C is tolerable? Eeek. I like heat but that’s pushing it
Did you see Janan Ganesh’s latest column in the FT? He reckons people that casually dismiss Dubai as boring are idiots. He says it is intrinsically interesting. And he’s right. It’s still not for me, but it is fascinating in a weird way, and also illustrative
It’s 24C here on the south coast of the Gargano, Puglia. Might peak around 26C with cloudless skies then cool to 15C late at night. This is it. This is my perfect weather. You can still easily walk in it - but you can also sunbathe and swim (in a heated pool).
In the evenings you can happily sit outside but maybe with a very light sweater or casual puffer gilet. In the night you don’t need aircon
And endless endless sunshine. All day maximum sunshine
By July it will be insufferably hot here
I haven't been to Dubai but also don't get the appeal sufficiently to want to go.
It’s a nice place to find winter sun from the UK. Robert @rcs1000 had a holiday here once and raved about it, but he stayed in a very fancy hotel that had just opened, and now goes for a grand a night.
They put people to death for being gay.
Err, no they don’t. You’re at best confusing the UAE with Saudi Arabia or Qatar, very different places.
These things are all relative, but UAE and Israel are the most liberal places in the Middle East. I was sitting in a a beach bar with a drink at 11am today, watching women in bikinis walk past…
Dubai yes, but wander over to Sharjah and they will be less comfortable.
I have been to UAE a couple of times when my brother was there. Pleasant winter weather and the desert is beautiful, but I won't bother going again. Suits some people though with guaranteed sun and sterile blingy hotels. Just not my cup of tea.
I would like to see more of Oman though.
Dubai strikes me as someone airdropping the Trafford Centre into the Arabian desert. Everything is ersatz.
Agree on Oman, which strikes me as a fascinating place.
Good morning everyne, even slugabeds, or people on holiday drinking wine for breakfast.
Marhaba!
Sod .
I'm sitting here looking at my solar panels that need a jet wash later, so I've got to sort out the 6m extendi-right-angle-device for the jetwasher so that my kind friend who has offered to go on next-door's carport roof to do it can be given the tool to do the job.
First time we’ve been away anywhere for months, just a local hotel with a good all-inclusive promotion now that we’re out of season. Place is busy though, with a combination of local staycationers and tourists, and the weather is still just about bearable outside, at least in the shade, 37ºC and 33% humidity at 13:00.
Buying (or renting) the right tool for the job always pays dividends in the end.
37C is tolerable? Eeek. I like heat but that’s pushing it
Did you see Janan Ganesh’s latest column in the FT? He reckons people that casually dismiss Dubai as boring are idiots. He says it is intrinsically interesting. And he’s right. It’s still not for me, but it is fascinating in a weird way, and also illustrative
It’s 24C here on the south coast of the Gargano, Puglia. Might peak around 26C with cloudless skies then cool to 15C late at night. This is it. This is my perfect weather. You can still easily walk in it - but you can also sunbathe and swim (in a heated pool).
In the evenings you can happily sit outside but maybe with a very light sweater or casual puffer gilet. In the night you don’t need aircon
And endless endless sunshine. All day maximum sunshine
By July it will be insufferably hot here
Stayed at an upmarket gastropub near Leominster on the way back from a week in NW Wales. Lovely place, glorious sunshine, 20 degrees during the day. They had four beautifully equipped "lodges" in the grounds. However, planning had insisted they each had a black roof. So they had installed black bitumen tiles. These things suck in heat. As a result, even in early May, they were still unbearably hot to sleep in at four in the morning.
We had exactly the same issue and had to install air-con.
(BTW, travelled on a B-road between Machynlleth out through Forge and on to LLanidloes. It might be the single most scenic road I have travelled in Britain. Outstanding scenery. At least, on a clear day when you can see it..)
Beautiful road. Part of Lon Las Cymru, the Welsh national cycle route - the downhill into Mach is one of those must-do rides. Unfortunately the Star Inn at Dylife looks to have closed permanently.
Israeli tanks have entered the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza city in the north of Gaza.
The Israeli military have also entered the Arroub refugee camp near Al-Khalil ("Hebron") on the West Bank.
Meanwhile 300000 Palestinians have been terrorised out of Rafah in the south of Gaza in the last week - many of whom had been displaced from elsewhere since October. They can't go south to Sinai in Egypt because the Israeli military have closed both gates in the perimeter fence. The only direction they can flee in is northwards.
Meanwhile it seems the USA has already built a pier in the central Netzarim corridor. That's a strip running east-west across Gaza and it's occupied by the Israeli military. The pier is NOT being used to bring in aid. Nor has any aid been brought in through any of the land routes (north or south) since Tuesday.
UNRWA are screaming "There is nowhere safe to go. There is nowhere safe to go. There is nowhere safe to go". (That is a direct quote.) You can't get much fucking clearer than that.
UNRWA is the UN agency that supplies aid to Palestinian refugees when it's allowed to. Its HQ in occupied Jerusalem was burnt down by armed fascist thugs last week. Since October, the Israelis have killed more than 100 of its staff in Gaza. This is an international humanitarian organisation.
It seems crystal clear that the Israeli plan is to murder a large percentage of the population in Gaza (it has already killed or wounded around 5% since October) and then let the US and its British helpers emergency-deport the survivors to Cyprus - which will probably take a few weeks, and during those weeks you can expect the holding areas to be under constant bombing and shelling.
Fuck whataboutery. This is by far the biggest ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in the world, a crime against humanity (not only in the obvious sense, but in the legal sense too) committed against a people whom the US and Britain don't even recognise as a people sufficiently to allow them to join the United Nations. (The other three veto powers do, as do the majority of countries in the world.)
And?
Something must be done.
I suppose we could ensure that Jewish people are marked out from the rest of the population everywhere so people know who to target. Then I guess we can put them all in once place, you know to keep them safe from those who are targeting them. Though you know, that's really expensive so if a few million of them die in these "camps" then it will make things a lot easier for the rest.
Israel must rid Gaza of Hamas. If the people of Gaza don't hand them over and continue to protect them then this is the result. Instead of blaming Israel how about making the people of Gaza get rid of Hamas. Oh right, they support Hamas and want Israel destroyed and Jews eradicated, maybe in those camps.
I don't think you can get rid of Hamas (although you could try). But there is alternative thinking described in the following thread, which explains a possible alternative or perhaps realistic strategy.
Labour majority is nailed on but the size of that majority is very much up for grabs and could well affect the election after the next one.
My view? Rather than a "tradeable bank" that Labour can dine off for 2 or 3 parliamentary terms, depending on how big the majority is, my view is that it's essentially irrelevant and that boot will go on the other foot as soon as he's in.
I am old enough to remember the 60s and70s when governments changed frequently, not least because we did not have a particularly clear idea of where we should be going. Since then it has taken some major cock ups or sheer exhaustion to remove a sitting government.
You may be right that we are heading into another period of uncertainty and increased volatility but the last 40 years have pointed in the other direction. If Labour get a majority over 150 it will be almost impossible for the Tories to remove them in a single swipe, just like Cameron failed to do in 2010, requiring the coalition.
Why?
Indeed. You could have made this argument almost word for word after 2019.
The words of Jim Callaghan still resonate down the decades:
"There are times, perhaps once every thirty years, when there is a sea-change in politics. It then does not matter what you say or what you do. There is a shift in what the public wants and what it approves of. I suspect there is now such a sea-change and it is for Mrs. Thatcher."
Mate of mine was in Oman. At 40c. He was quite active there ie not a beach holiday (does Oman have a beach?). Said you had to drink warm water when you were hot or thirsty because if you drank cold water you would get some kind of reaction and try to drink uncontrollably. Or something.
Doesn't sound like my idea of fun. 30c for me is perfectly fine.
Israeli tanks have entered the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza city in the north of Gaza.
The Israeli military have also entered the Arroub refugee camp near Al-Khalil ("Hebron") on the West Bank.
Meanwhile 300000 Palestinians have been terrorised out of Rafah in the south of Gaza in the last week - many of whom had been displaced from elsewhere since October. They can't go south to Sinai in Egypt because the Israeli military have closed both gates in the perimeter fence. The only direction they can flee in is northwards.
Meanwhile it seems the USA has already built a pier in the central Netzarim corridor. That's a strip running east-west across Gaza and it's occupied by the Israeli military. The pier is NOT being used to bring in aid. Nor has any aid been brought in through any of the land routes (north or south) since Tuesday.
UNRWA are screaming "There is nowhere safe to go. There is nowhere safe to go. There is nowhere safe to go". (That is a direct quote.) You can't get much fucking clearer than that.
UNRWA is the UN agency that supplies aid to Palestinian refugees when it's allowed to. Its HQ in occupied Jerusalem was burnt down by armed fascist thugs last week. Since October, the Israelis have killed more than 100 of its staff in Gaza. This is an international humanitarian organisation.
It seems crystal clear that the Israeli plan is to murder a large percentage of the population in Gaza (it has already killed or wounded around 5% since October) and then let the US and its British helpers emergency-deport the survivors to Cyprus - which will probably take a few weeks, and during those weeks you can expect the holding areas to be under constant bombing and shelling.
Fuck whataboutery. This is by far the biggest ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in the world, a crime against humanity (not only in the obvious sense, but in the legal sense too) committed against a people whom the US and Britain don't even recognise as a people sufficiently to allow them to join the United Nations. (The other three veto powers do, as do the majority of countries in the world.)
And?
Something must be done.
I suppose we could ensure that Jewish people are marked out from the rest of the population everywhere so people know who to target. Then I guess we can put them all in once place, you know to keep them safe from those who are targeting them. Though you know, that's really expensive so if a few million of them die in these "camps" then it will make things a lot easier for the rest.
Israel must rid Gaza of Hamas. If the people of Gaza don't hand them over and continue to protect them then this is the result. Instead of blaming Israel how about making the people of Gaza get rid of Hamas. Oh right, they support Hamas and want Israel destroyed and Jews eradicated, maybe in those camps.
Interesting piece in the Observer this morning from a Tel Aviv based analyst and pollster. There seems to be increasing war weariness in Israel.
Labour majority is nailed on but the size of that majority is very much up for grabs and could well affect the election after the next one.
Id agree there. 50 seat majority and imo theyll get mauled in 2029, 150 seat majority and its a 10 year reich minimum Edit - my own projected range at the moment is 50 to 150 weighted slightly to the lower figure
I don't think so. There has only been one parliament since the war the government didn't win two elections, and the pattern is often a big majority second time. Cameron, Blair, Thatcher, basically all the "seachange" elections.
PB Tories comfort themselves with the idea that they will soon be back, but it is a fantasy based on delusion and arrogance.
It's possible for Labour to screw up in an election-losing way, maybe it's likely. But the other term in the equation is "will the Conservatives look like a government in waiting in 2028?" With hindsight, Labour's class of 2019 had a reasonable selection of MPs hiding in plain sight. The Conservatives... Who have they got?
I am not seeing much in the way of talent in the shadow cabinet. Rayner is a feisty speaker but can you really see her running anything? Reeves is one of the major risks to a large Labour majority. Her excess of caution has already driven most of Labour's ideas from policies to vague aspirations. Except new taxes of course. Yvette Cooper and Ed Miliband both failed as ministers before but do add some intelligence and experience.
And then there is Starmer himself. A man of few convictions (which is a plus of a sort, I suppose), who changes with the wind and doesn't seem to understand the word "no" , preferring what his immediate audience wants to hear.
I am not saying the Tories are any better, they aren't. But I am really struggling to remember a weaker shadow cabinet. Blair and Cameron both had far more firepower at their disposal.
The nature of the shadow cabinet is a result of the unusual pattern of the past couple of parliaments.
Rather than a slow climb to power, Labour lost seats at the last election. And candidate selection was in the hands of the Corbynites from late 2015 on - so the number of cabinet-worthy members is even lower than the raw number of MPs might suggest.
Such a severe bottleneck effect means that the current shadow cabinet is both drawn from a smaller pool and is more homogenous than we're used to - to the extent that they can all seem a bit indistinguishable (see Moonrabbit's commentary on the "Labour Fringes"!)
The big question is whether this will change after the election. The 1997 cohort was famously passed over for preferment, but I suspect the opposite will be true this time round.
Lab now having to use up value bandwidth defending their new MP for Dover.
What an utterly stupid decision that was to accept her last week.
Rawnsley in Observer agrees.
Due diligence failure. Might delay or cancel any other 'pipeline' defections (if they actually exist) However for it to turn into a catastrophe it would require a defection/resignation out of Labour or a shadow front bench resignation over it.
Comments
They did not discuss this issue
May is now out, and so is most of June. But the polls are too bad to even entertain a June election yet. Best to wait and see.
Then its July and we can't really do a July election due to school holidays and journalists not wanting their holiday upset.
For the same reason, August is right out.
September might be possible, but the 25 working day thing really hinders here, as it means an August campaign and once again no one wants their holiday wrecked.
Maybe October, but Sunak's been told that Conferences should go ahead to give him a bounce, and the effect of the Autumn statement. So that's out.
November is cold and dark - we don't want that.
December is even worse and everyone thinks about Christmas. You'd be mad to go then if you didn't have to.
And then suddenly Sunak turns up to work on 17th December to be told that Parliament is dissolved by operation of law, and the election is Tuesday 28th January 2025.
Oh well.......
ID cards: these would be fucked up by trying to make it some mega project that allows half the public sector to see tons of information and be as watertight as a sieve.
So I think we only end up with a January election if Sunak thinks a Christmastide campaign is to his advantage, or if some event occurs to delay an election planned for December.
B}an intelligent identifying number/code - checksums etc
C) any attempt to create a universal government database using the is will be met by shoving a chainsaw up the arse of the proposer. Then switching it on. In low gear
D) using the ID code as the unique key for other databases is fine, on the other hand. And should be encouraged.
E) it should be possible for *anyone* to verify a card. Scenario - you show card. Smart phone via rfid (or other) takes the person checking to a web portal showing just your photo and name.
If the first two, yes. If the latter then no, and perfectly fair to use it now much as the defection was for party 'advantage'. If parties are expected to report every morally dubious act that comes to attention we'd hear of nothing else, ever.
Might as well just cut out the middle man and hand everyone's details over to China.
But they rapidly start being nostalgic when there are any changes for the worst.
And there's plenty that people now take for granted that could change for the worse.
Things such as affluent oldies, full employment, an expanding NHS workforce.
If any of those stop the government of the day will be blamed, irrespective of whether it is at fault.
I predict some serious complaining from the oldies next year when their pension only increases by about 2% and probably likewise from those on benefits and minimum wage.
That will not be the fault of Starmer and Reeves but they'll be blamed for it.
One factor I omitted to mention was the "Sunak resolutely and consistently digging his own political grave", which could impact the possibility of pro-Tory changes in the last fortnight.
He's a man with a hosepipe standing on a sandcastle, washing his shoes.
Incumbency can provide a modest advantage in voteshare for the first term only, and then it's baked in.
Change has been the story of politics here over the last 5 years. And the Government took a seat off Labour in a by-election only 3 years ago.
Labour's support is a mile wide but an inch deep; far too many here assume because it's a mile wide it must also be a mile deep.
The Israeli military have also entered the Arroub refugee camp near Al-Khalil ("Hebron") on the West Bank.
Meanwhile 300000 Palestinians have been terrorised out of Rafah in the south of Gaza in the last week - many of whom had been displaced from elsewhere since October. They can't go south to Sinai in Egypt because the Israeli military have closed both gates in the perimeter fence. The only direction they can flee in is northwards.
Meanwhile it seems the USA has already built a pier in the central Netzarim corridor. That's a strip running east-west across Gaza and it's occupied by the Israeli military. The pier is NOT being used to bring in aid. Nor has any aid been brought in through any of the land routes (north or south) since Tuesday.
UNRWA are screaming "There is nowhere safe to go. There is nowhere safe to go. There is nowhere safe to go". (That is a direct quote.) You can't get much fucking clearer than that.
UNRWA is the UN agency that supplies aid to Palestinian refugees when it's allowed to. Its HQ in occupied Jerusalem was burnt down by armed fascist thugs last week. Since October, the Israelis have killed more than 100 of its staff in Gaza. This is an international humanitarian organisation.
It seems crystal clear that the Israeli plan is to murder a large percentage of the population in Gaza (it has already killed or wounded around 5% since October) and then let the US and its British helpers emergency-deport the survivors to Cyprus - which will probably take a few weeks, and during those weeks you can expect the holding areas to be under constant bombing and shelling.
Fuck whataboutery. This is by far the biggest ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in the world, a crime against humanity (not only in the obvious sense, but in the legal sense too) committed against a people whom the US and Britain don't even recognise as a people sufficiently to allow them to join the United Nations. (The other three veto powers do, as do the majority of countries in the world.)
Six months of an improving economy, distance from Brexit and Covid, cricket, Wimbledon, Euros, Olympics...Come the election, people will still ask what do they want of a Government. Is it really what Starmer is offering? Whatever that might be. "Not the Tories" will get you only so far before you have to come up with an alternative. The harsh reality is that Starmer would have governed very much as Sunak has done. Wiggle room to do much else is non-existent.
Did you see Janan Ganesh’s latest column in the FT? He reckons people that casually dismiss Dubai as boring are idiots. He says it is intrinsically interesting. And he’s right. It’s still not for me, but it is fascinating in a weird way, and also illustrative
It’s 24C here on the south coast of the Gargano, Puglia. Might peak around 26C with cloudless skies then cool to 15C late at night. This is it. This is my perfect weather. You can still easily walk in it - but you can also sunbathe and swim (in a heated pool).
In the evenings you can happily sit outside but maybe with a very light sweater or casual puffer gilet. In the night you don’t need aircon
And endless endless sunshine. All day maximum sunshine
By July it will be insufferably hot here
If he does and it coincides with the probable ending of the run of increasing pay for the bottom end.. doesn’t have to be connected. That would be a serious millstone to carry.
What lessons do you think the Tories will learn from their coming defeat*? And who will they choose to lead the way back to power?
* for the sake of this debate assume a solid Labour majority.
Israel does not represent the Jews. Please try to get that through your head.
Spring View in Peterboough. 74 flats. Zero carbon sold in 2016. Fair proportion of affordable, shared etc.
The example interviewee has seen his service charge go from £900 in 2016 to £4300 now.
The building manager say they have spent £1m on new fire protection requirements for a building with 74 flats, which is £15,000 on average per flat.
Contrasting example of a development where the leaseholders set up a company and asserted Right to Manage.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-68904124
You couldn't really get Rishi's squirrel dick between them on policy so it's all about the vibe.
If the Tories lose badly at the next GE I can see them being, for a while anyway, as rudderless as the LibDems have been.
Certainly Starmer seems more “Labourist” than socialist, progressive, or social democrat, if we’re throwing broad terms around. And there’s a long heritage for that - Hardie and Macdonald were both expressly Labourist rather than socialist.
I kind of think the only long term solution to this is to recognise that Labour’s internal coalition will not hold and that the centre left needs to re-form around two or more parties (which in turn requires PR). But there is absolutely no appetite for that within Labour, and right now the guiding narrative is for people to stick fingers in their ears and hope Starmer will lead them to the promised land. Spoiler: he won’t.
It's an MRI scanner that uses a 0.05 Tesla magnet (vs. the current 1.5 - 3 T) and operates at a fraction of the cost (~$22,000 for the hardware), time (<10 minutes), and noise of a current MRI scanner
Unlike current MRIs, the prototype scanner plugs into a standard wall socket, and doesn't need specialist shielding equipment
It uses a deep learning (AI) strategy to improve the low signal-noise ratio that's inherent to lower field strength MRIs
Although the images from the 0.05 T approach aren't as good as from 3 T MRI, they don't seem to be far off</i>
https://twitter.com/SamuelBHume/status/1788852595802411058
Is it possible that medtech will dig governments out of the healthcare inflation hold they're in ?
Father Thomas McHale, the priest at Our Blessed Lady Immaculate in Blackhill, Consett, County Durham, took to the pulpit as normal on Good Friday.
However, the 53-year-old, who is from America, is understood to have told the congregation, roughly 100 Catholic residents, that blood would have rushed to the lower body of Jesus as a result of the violent execution method of crucifixion."
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13407635/Catholic-priest-stuns-worshippers-telling-Christ-erection-died-cross.html
Three potential goals of Russian advance:
1) making the AFU divide our small recourses (mostly from Donetsk oblast);
2) cutting logistics for Кupiansk direction (E40);
3) creating a buffer zone.
This is how I see it..
https://twitter.com/OSINTua/status/1789571410999878139
UK foreign secretary says major Rafah offensive would be wrong ‘without a plan to protect people’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/may/12/israel-gaza-war-live-protests-netanyahu-hostages-rafah-latest
Round my way, the Lib Dems have taken the lead in criticising the Government's helpfulness towards Israel, their continued support for the water companies' incompetent handling of the sewage crisis, their run down of the NHS, their lack of concern for homelessness, their corruption and cronyism.....
And the ultimate objective continues to be to create/restore/salvage a society that is both liberal and democratic.
Neither Labour nor the Conservatives will do that.
Another Lib lab pact in 2025 might completely destroy the Lib Dems.. what's not to like 🤣🤣
The best they can hope for is coincidentally some of their goals get met - then blatantly lie and take credit for it.
I daresay you got this 'insight' from licking the fetid dribblings coming off Russian Telegram?
These things are all relative, but UAE and Israel are the most liberal places in the Middle East. I was sitting in a a beach bar with a drink at 11am today, watching women in bikinis walk past…
I suspect the Conservatives will also seek comfort in the their safe places, replacing Rishi’s weaksauce with more muscular, if ideologically confused and likely incompetent, rightism, leaning hard into culture wars. My guess would be that it’ll take an electoral failure for them to shift back into the vote-winning centre ground.
Perhaps they could be called TV detectors?
But Ganesh is right - it is certainly interesting, even compelling - a version of the future, for some. And it makes a nice if overpriced place to go in winter. Certainly preferable to the UK in late January
Worth seeing - once
Of course 2015 hit the party very hard.
Given the apparent lack of talent on show , I would not bet on them lasting more than 1 term
I have been to UAE a couple of times when my brother was there. Pleasant winter weather and the desert is beautiful, but I won't bother going again. Suits some people though with guaranteed sun and sterile blingy hotels. Just not my cup of tea.
I would like to see more of Oman though.
Israel must rid Gaza of Hamas. If the people of Gaza don't hand them over and continue to protect them then this is the result. Instead of blaming Israel how about making the people of Gaza get rid of Hamas. Oh right, they support Hamas and want Israel destroyed and Jews eradicated, maybe in those camps.
We had exactly the same issue and had to install air-con.
(BTW, travelled on a B-road between Machynlleth out through Forge and on to LLanidloes. It might be the single most scenic road I have travelled in Britain. Outstanding scenery. At least, on a clear day when you can see it..)
I don't visit or support countries that don't allow people to live freely, including at the moment the US.
Thunderstorma due later, mind (to coincide with my daughter's football.cup final, lamentably.)
I do think Labour will have few PMs if they stay in office.
However, the desert had greened up dramatically on the drive back to Dubai.
Long time since I've been though. When I first went (late 80's?) they were still loading dhows by hand on the Creek.
"The liberal international order is slowly coming apart
Its collapse could be sudden and irreversible"
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/05/09/the-liberal-international-order-is-slowly-coming-apart
Agree on Oman, which strikes me as a fascinating place.
https://twitter.com/Mr_Andrew_Fox/status/1789362758024069399?t=Y4fGVwH_tBvBu9-wOOPACQ&s=19
"There are times, perhaps once every thirty years, when there is a sea-change in politics. It then does not matter what you say or what you do. There is a shift in what the public wants and what it approves of. I suspect there is now such a sea-change and it is for Mrs. Thatcher."
Doesn't sound like my idea of fun. 30c for me is perfectly fine.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/12/isolated-abroad-divided-at-home-now-rafah-poses-a-stark-choice-for-israel
What an utterly stupid decision that was to accept her last week.
Rawnsley in Observer agrees.
Rather than a slow climb to power, Labour lost seats at the last election. And candidate selection was in the hands of the Corbynites from late 2015 on - so the number of cabinet-worthy members is even lower than the raw number of MPs might suggest.
Such a severe bottleneck effect means that the current shadow cabinet is both drawn from a smaller pool and is more homogenous than we're used to - to the extent that they can all seem a bit indistinguishable (see Moonrabbit's commentary on the "Labour Fringes"!)
The big question is whether this will change after the election. The 1997 cohort was famously passed over for preferment, but I suspect the opposite will be true this time round.
However for it to turn into a catastrophe it would require a defection/resignation out of Labour or a shadow front bench resignation over it.