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Bet accordingly to this Robert Peston tweet – politicalbetting.com
Bet accordingly to this Robert Peston tweet – politicalbetting.com
Hopefully Robert Peston’s understanding of Rishi Sunak’s comments is better than his understanding of photographs.
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I momentarily forgot this was a betting site. Easy mistake to make. Now corrected.
What you've got there is cube root of Jack and Shit. And Jack's left town....
The Graun reckons that Sunak actually said "Good for your holiday" rather than "Book your holiday":
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/may/16/labour-keir-starmer-conservatives-rishi-sunak-uk-politics-sue-gray-covid-inquiry?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with:block-66460b8e8f086b5d4c8bfbda#block-66460b8e8f086b5d4c8bfbda
Although I still believe there are 36 weeks to the general election on Thursday, 23 January.
https://twitter.com/lmharpin/status/1791107579336089738
No idea who he is.
Personally am keeping ‘em crossed for July, but that’s a hope not a prediction. I don’t know when it will be, but my actual prediction is that the longer he waits the more the public will see him as either frit or a ditherer.
Maybe he wants to have the vote while they're on holiday.
It's Peston anyway, so I wouldn't read anything into it other than random noise.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/may/16/labour-keir-starmer-conservatives-rishi-sunak-uk-politics-sue-gray-covid-inquiry
Not if he loses his seat.
Basic logic fail.
CEO of Boots Seb James endorses Labour and Starmer
https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1791034921953210610
Now to Cohen's testimony to Congress about whether he ever requested a pardon:
False, says Cohen—I never asked for it. I spoke to my attorney about it because we had seen on TV Trump talking about pre-pardoning, so I asked my attorney if this was legit
https://twitter.com/TylerMcBrien/status/1791125264342163475
And so the question is whether he has just made a mistake through inexperience, or, contrary to almost everyone's assumption he actually wants to stay. I find it hard to believe.
BTW the use of the term "of course" by politicians has more or less never the same meaning it does when used by people speaking human in a non ironic context.
I just came out of a meeting of the local chamber of commerce devoted to Brexit.
Its worse than the Tories worst nightmares. Lifetime Tories cursing the Tory Party, absolute contempt for Brexit, Determination that change should be radical, including demands for PR.
I think for every month Sunak leaves it the Lib Dems will gain seats beyond their current forecast. Plenty want Farage´s head on a stick. It was actually quite sobering to see conservative and Conservative people so apoplectic.
But it's a safe seat. You wouldn't expect him to qualify the answer, which would make him sound really worried.
Three-quarters of Texans think ‘extreme conservative agenda’ has captured state, poll finds
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4667534-texas-poll-conservative-agenda/
Conservative Republicans’ attacks on gun control, abortion and climate-friendly investing practices are deeply unpopular — and costing Texas billions of dollars, according to a new poll.
The findings by progressive advocacy group Unlocking America’s Future (UAF) included a survey that found that nearly three-quarters of Texans said they believe their state has lost focus on pressing problems in favor of “an extreme conservative agenda.”
The survey shows that “Texans do not support leaders who ignore real issues to push an extreme agenda, and we’re seeing that trend nationally,” Kyle Herrig, a spokesperson for UAF, told The Hill.
An accompanying report argues that a conservative crackdown on policies such as climate-friendly investing is throwing the brakes on the state’s booming economy.
“Every time lawmakers pass an extreme right-wing law, they send the message to businesses and investors that Texas is closed for business. Take your millions elsewhere,” its authors wrote.
“Whatever your outlook on what once led to the ‘Texas Miracle’ – today, it is under threat.”
The idea of the Texas Miracle was born after the 2008 recession, when the financial crisis that left mass layoffs and deserted housing tracts across the Sun Belt broke against the energy boom and “the de facto industrial policy” of then-Gov. Rick Perry (R), as one journalist told The Texas Tribune.
That policy, for example, laid the groundwork for Texas’s nation-leading renewables industry, which was established under Republican rule.
Over the past three years, however, Republican leaders including Perry’s successor, Gov. Greg Abbott, or Attorney General Ken Paxton, have told a different story of Texas’s economic success: that it relies on the unchecked ability of the fossil fuel and firearms industries to access capital...
https://x.com/jessicaelgot/status/1791063471875924183
He doesn't get a vote.
For Rwanda to be working boat crossings have to become less frequent. A drop in crossings is not of course a sufficient condition for deterrence to be working - it might just be bad weather causing a temporary fall - but it's sure as hell a necessary one.
Weather tends to be worst and crossings fewest in January... Bet accordingly. Signed. My book.
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/67txS/24/
My gut - and I realize I'm in California - is that voters have now reached that stage where they want a change. Sunak isn't right wing enough to stop defections to Reform. And he isn't centrist enough to avoid losing votes to the LibDems and Labour. He's also screwed by the fact that the Left is likely to vote highly tactically, while the Right will very definitely not.
There's no bogeyman, either. Who - other than @bigjohnowls and @isam - is going to march to the polling station and vote Conservative out of fear of Starmer? (And with Johnson gone, I think bjo will be going green.)
And I don't see an easy way out. There's no popular MP in the wings who can galvanize support and bring the disparate factions together.
It's time for the Conservative Party to accept that the electorate is going to give them a drubbing.
And, if it's any consolation, the problems with the UK economy will still be there in five years time. So you never know, the Conservatives may get another chance sooner rather than later.
The problem is even if flights are suddenly going off to Rwanda every day will people flock back? Voters don't do gratitude. They also don't always punish you for failure, which is nice, if they like you enough, but when they don't like you, success only helps a little. People expect you to succeed (which is rather unrealistic of them, admittedly).
Let's imagine that Rwanda flights start, boat crossings drop (who cares why the weather perhaps), net immigration comes down. Rishi will have shown that he can control our borders, arguably one of the most important functions of government.
Which then brings us to Lab. All SKS would be able to say is well done we'll do more of the same while the Cons will do all they can to suggest that Lab will open the floodgates again, let everyone in, and give them a personal GP on call 24hrs a day.
That might give pause to some, who knows perhaps those in the Red Wall, who might think well we are now going in the right direction and we have secured the UK from invaders so it's going to be a doddle to fix housing, the NHS, education, etc, and lo and behold the election result is not the total wipeout that it is currently forecast to be.
I’ve never said I’m ‘afraid’ of Sir Keir as PM, I just thought, when he was up against Boris, that he’d never get the chance to be one. I still think he’ll be a drag on the campaign, and that he is a dishonest creep, but it doesn’t bother me that much if Labour win.
This was at the core of Moonrabbit's argument for an April election: there may not actually be any significant drop at all this summer, especially if we get better weather than last year.
Maybe Sunak's best chance was sometime in 2023. The Trussterversary messes things a bit, but perhaps October 2023 would have given a bad but not fatal defeat.
As for Rwanda, it's vanishingly unlikely to work as a boat stopper. But the government have persuaded themselves that it will, which is the important thing.
People should be allowed to change their point of view over time - anything else and you just get entrenched fundamentalism on both sides. The question is, how do you demonstrate that your conversion is genuine and not cynical?
The discontent with the Tory Party goes far beyond that issue. While it is proper that it is considered (and I completely accept it is becoming more important to voters' minds) it is overemphasised by the Conservative Party and on here. People are not going to forgive the Tories on the economy and health, or forget that they've had 14/15 years to sort out immigration, if the flights to Rwanda are successful.
If you're prepared to cross the Channel on a small boat with a 1% chance of death by drowning, you're probably prepared to cross the Channel with a 1% chance of drowning, and a 0.5% chance of being sent to Rwanda.
Now, if all (or even most) arrivals were sent to Rwanda, or to an off-shore processing facility, then clearly the equation on behalf of the would be small boat crosser would be different. But that's not going to be the case. A better use of resources would simply be to ensure that people's claims were processed quickly, so that those denied asylum would be deported within weeks. (I believe the Dutch manage something like 90% within 12 weeks.)
Why should anyone trust them now they're suddenly getting religious on immigration levels?
It's not a punishment, no one has to donate to a party and they surely are not doing so seeking a reward. So it just ensures there's not even a hint that the honour was bought.
If someone would rather focus on getting an honour then they can just not donate, and if they want to influence and support a party they can do that instead.
You still get internal influence, but nothing external.
Lesley Sewell former Chief Information Officer of the PO, that is.
He names names in the key chapter, including some high in the Democratic Party. (If any have sued him, I missed that news.)
https://www.amazon.com/Apocalypse-Never-Environmental-Alarmism-Hurts/dp/0063001691
In this case, I think he was trying to show Cohen had asked for a pardon - but without knowing the facts. Blanche just isn't great at cross.
It's partly inevitable, there's not much time and little money to actually achieve anything before the election. But it's pretty pathological now.
The obsession with words over actions, and fighting the internal enemy rather than the external opposition... They're normally characteristics of parties who are out of government.
Conveniently, that's where the Conservatives seem to be headed, but I'd have preferred for them to be out of office before having their crack-up.
Denial is a wonderful thing.
And that's certainly Sunak's gamble. But it's a little bit like an errant husband, who has repeatedly failed his partner, who hopes that by suddenly returning home sober for a few weeks will be forgiven for previous failings.
Yes, it'll sometimes do the trick. But after 15 years, most people are pretty cynical that any change in behaviour is temporary and only driven by the immediate fear of being kicked out the house.
Although I suppose the whole inquiry has been characterised by PO heads of this and that who knew nothing that was happening in their departments.
Inquiries can be a rare chance to demonstrate the ordinariness of so many top people, and puncture the idea they deserve the remunerations they often get, as they scramble to show they are incompetent not malicious.
Of course, know the right people and you can usually just move on to a directorship somewhere else. Companies and organisations just look at the last job you has, and apparently don't care how you actually did.
Most of the 17 million was "shut that door".
You can't reconcile those. But until we do, there's a political problem.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-43317229
(Sinn Fein bring in just over £1m a year, the other parties get half that or less)
Further, and I don't want to stereotype here but as an employment lawyer I have not generally had Heads of IT at the top of my wish list as Tribunal witnesses, however good they are at fixing my PC.
So as long as the certified checks are being cut on regular basis, they do what they are told . . . NOT what they might think best from legal perspective. Or even sensible PR perspective.
PLUS of course fact that really good lawyers simply refuse to work for Trump. Or so it appears - and makes sense.
ADDENDUM - Thus the Trump legal team does NOT achieve the same high standards achieved by the average, run-of-the-mill Sovereign Citizen.
Despite their client being Sovereign Citizen in Chief!
Recall FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried who spent hundreds of millions on an image of a humble genius saving the world and running everything, defending himself at trial by saying he knew nothing about anything.
That being said... it is worth remembering that the sum total of nuclear plants built in the world without government subsidy is ... counts ... zero.
South Carolina Electric & Gas did start in the commissioning process for two new nuclear plants, but they got cancelled in 2017 because the economics simply did not stack up.
December 12th as suggested by the BBC this morning is the first date that makes sense to me.
5th anniversary of the last one. Get memories stirring. Wheel out Boris. It’s neat.
A USA bloke who can barely see over his rhetorical pelvis talking Usonian to a Medieval something something something with a Scottish accent surgically extracted from Sean Connery.
I prefer Dwayne.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCAhJzYpfjk
5. I have a bachelor's degree in Applied Computing from Newcastle Polytechnic and an MBA from Newcastle University. I started my career at Newcastle Polytechnic within its Computing department as a trainee Computer Operator. I left in 1985 to join Northern Rock as a trainee programmer. I worked at Northern Rock until 2010. During my 25 years at Northern Rock, I held numerous IT roles and led many major IT programmes. When I left Northern Rock I held the position of Managing Director of IT.
https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/evidence/witn00840100-lesley-sewell-witness-statement
It absolute could cover a role such as Head of IT, if in an organisation where complex software is essential to things, or where it is central to the matter being Inquired about as here.