That's brilliant. The BBC should pay a substantial signing on fee for her and then let her name her salary. It just reminds you what a sad bunch we have now they've hollowed out the BBC. The last one with bottle was Emily Maitliss
Dorries: Death is not the end based on everything I’ve seen Lammy: how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb Daily Telegraph: Covid jabs caused excess deaths Daily Star: our tits are getting bigger and bigger
So here’s an idea. Sunak offers to debate Farage 1:1 and defeats him. A good roll of the dice?
The problem for Sunak is that he would probably defeat Farage with all the voters who would never vote either Conservative or RefUK.
In Thanet South in 2015 it was Labour and LD voters tactically voting for Tory candidate Craig Mackinlay that beat UKIP and Farage
Do you have any evidence backing that up? Nationally there was a 0.5% swing from Con to Lab in GE15, in South Thanet it was 1.2% with Labour losing the Stephen Ladyman incumbency premium which might have added another 1%. Lib Dems did plummet from 15% to under 2% but they plummeted everywhere in GE15.
How about the next election, did any tactical vote unwind? Nationally there was a 2.0% swing from Con to Lab, In South Thanet it was 0.7% with Mackinley now getting the benefit of incumbency. It looks like Farage/UKIP took votes from Con, Lab and LD evenly with LD>Con and LD>Lab churn within that. I don't see any evidence of tactical voting within the data.
Yes. In 2015 the Labour vote was down 7.6% in Thanet South compared to up 1% nationally. The LD vote was down 13% in Thanet South too.
The Tories beat Farage and UKIP by just 5.7% in the seat, so yes it was Labour and LD tactical votes for the Tories that beat Farage in Thanet in 2015
I think you're making an unlikely conclusion out of the data available.
Yes the Labour vote was down because some GE10 Lab voters voted for Farage/UKIP. The Tory vote was also down because some GE10 Con voters voted for Farage.
If you assume that most Farage/UKIP voters were GE10 Tories and therefore the loss in support from GE10 Labour and LD voters must have switched to Con to compensate for that loss then we would see that unwind in GE17 with the absence of Farage and no need for tactical voting. Lib Dems were 15% in GE10, 2% in GE15 and 3% in GE17, where did those 13% go? It seems like it split, the LD voters that liked coalition with the Tories moved to become Tories (not a tactical vote, a genuine change of preference that was common throughout the South) and the LD voters who had voted LD as a left-wing alternative to Labour moved back to Labour.
Yes I do, the evidence is clear that had Labour and LD voters not tactically voted Tory in 2015 Farage would have won due to gains from 2010 Labour and 2010 UKIP Brexiteers.
2017 figures are irrelevant. Yes some LD voters who voted Tory in 2015 in Thanet went Labour in 2017 once fear of Farage had gone and he was not standing but without their support lent to Mackinley in 2015, Farage would have won in 2015
If you want to understand just how manufactured the transgender culture war is, less than 2 years ago Kemi Badenoch was celebrating the fact that it was becoming easier to apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate
If you want to understand just how manufactured the transgender culture war is, less than 2 years ago Kemi Badenoch was celebrating the fact that it was becoming easier to apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate
If you want to understand just how manufactured the transgender culture war is, less than 2 years ago Kemi Badenoch was celebrating the fact that it was becoming easier to apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate
Its the Telegraph and anecdotal so caveat emptor...cheaper and easier to run a business in France. Is that the state the UK has got into that productivity is higher in France, tax system is more straightforward and it even easier to set up a business !!!!
I won't shed any tears if the Tories get wiped out on 4th July.
That only happens if Farage wipes them out and realigns the right in his favour.
However Reform voters alone even then would not be enough to beat Labour, they would need some One Nation Tories too. If they went LD then Starmer could largely stay PM even if the economy went south by dividing the opposition between Farage and Reform on the right, the LDs and rump One Nation centrist Tories and the Greens to his left. In such a scenario FPTP would ironically be better for Starmer Labour than FPTP but PR now better for the Tories as well as ReformUK, the LDs and Greens
YouGov’s toss-up seats are something to behold: Sittingbourne, Broxbourne, Devon Central - Lab just a point behind Con in all three of those.
Sittingbourne was Labour in the Blair years
It's difficult to believe Broxbourne could ever be gained by Labour from Conservative.
I’d never rule it out, but given in the council area that forms the bulk of the seat the Tories still managed more than 50% of the vote in the recent local elections I’d be surprised if they were in that tight a fight.
I see Sunak was campaigning in Henley on the same day as the LD deputy leader was there, sign of the times...
I am not sure they are sending Sunak to places to actually campaign, seems more they send him to places that minimises the chances of running into hostile members of the public.
I'm wondering if RFM have lined up some Conservative PPC defections 30 minutes before polls close. Would allow them to run with no Conservative opposition...
I see Sunak was campaigning in Henley on the same day as the LD deputy leader was there, sign of the times...
I am not sure they are sending Sunak to places to actually campaign, seems more they send him to places that minimises the chances of running into hostile members of the public.
In which case they're doing a sterling job at research given the LD leader was taking a boat trip to film a video (which she spotted him while on and went away for reinforcements).
YouGov’s toss-up seats are something to behold: Sittingbourne, Broxbourne, Devon Central - Lab just a point behind Con in all three of those.
Sittingbourne was Labour in the Blair years
It's difficult to believe Broxbourne could ever be gained by Labour from Conservative.
I’d never rule it out, but given in the council area that forms the bulk of the seat the Tories still managed more than 50% of the vote in the recent local elections I’d be surprised if they were in that tight a fight.
I agree, but that means the MRP studies aren't right.
Hacked documents show that the Managing Editor of the pro-Russia, pro-China, pro-Iran outlet @TheGrayzoneNews, Wyatt Reed is on the payroll of PressTV, the propaganda machine of the Islamic regime in Iran.
Is interesting when you start to follow the breadcrumbs of who these people a) side with (its not just Iran), b) side against and c) seem to associate with.
Wyatt Reed is not the only Grayzone author to have worked for Russian outlets. Grayzone contributor and London journalist Mohamed Elmaazi wrote full-time for Sputnik between 2019 and 2021, he says on his LinkedIn profile. Regular Grayzone freelancer Jeremy Loffredo was full-time at RT in the same years, according to his LinkedIn. Neither responded to requests for comment. All these people helped both Russia and Iran to spread disinformation in America.
Have got to think that all the hostages are dead now, bar the few human shields around the boss man. Both from the time in captivity, but also they aren't serving any real purpose for Hamas now, as the deals being proposed are now just talking about return of bodies on the same level as any that might be alive.
BBC slipping up calling Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda and the Taliban terrorists without the quote marks. It should of course be "groups that some countries define as terrorists".
President Joe Biden is expected to announce an executive order as early as Tuesday that would effectively shut down the US-Mexico border to asylum-seekers crossing illegally when a daily threshold of crossings is exceeded – a sweeping and controversial proposal that is likely to receive fierce pushback from progressives and immigration advocates.
The executive action, described to CNN by multiple people briefed on the order, would mark a significant attempt by Biden to address head on one of his biggest political vulnerabilities, just weeks before the first presidential debate with former President Donald Trump. Trump has made hard-line immigration policies a cornerstone of his campaign.
The executive order uses an authority known as “212(f)” – a regulation used under the Trump administration and widely denounced at the time by Democrats.
President Joe Biden is expected to announce an executive order as early as Tuesday that would effectively shut down the US-Mexico border to asylum-seekers crossing illegally when a daily threshold of crossings is exceeded – a sweeping and controversial proposal that is likely to receive fierce pushback from progressives and immigration advocates.
The executive action, described to CNN by multiple people briefed on the order, would mark a significant attempt by Biden to address head on one of his biggest political vulnerabilities, just weeks before the first presidential debate with former President Donald Trump. Trump has made hard-line immigration policies a cornerstone of his campaign.
The executive order uses an authority known as “212(f)” – a regulation used under the Trump administration and widely denounced at the time by Democrats.
I think it will be a bit like the Tories here. Its no good doing this after 4 years of doing nothing. The claims he couldn't do anything because of the houses blocking things, then with a few months to go to an election, they pull out Trumps executive order (which I presume every well known Democrat called racist at the time).
So here’s an idea. Sunak offers to debate Farage 1:1 and defeats him. A good roll of the dice?
So, let's go against a debate opponent who is more experienced, more skilled and has been talking about this particular topic as his specialist subject. What's the chances of rolling a 15 on 2d6?
BBC slipping up calling Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda and the Taliban terrorists without the quote marks. It should of course be "groups that some countries define as terrorists".
Andy Verity will be sent for re-education.
Do these banks have some special department available for terrorists only ? Because they're an absolute pain in the arse with to deal with as an SME business (Personal banking is by and large better)
BBC slipping up calling Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda and the Taliban terrorists without the quote marks. It should of course be "groups that some countries define as terrorists".
Andy Verity will be sent for re-education.
Do these banks have some special department available for terrorists only ? Because they're an absolute pain in the arse with to deal with as an SME business (Personal banking is by and large better)
I would imagine terrorists probably have a bit more financial clout?
BBC slipping up calling Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda and the Taliban terrorists without the quote marks. It should of course be "groups that some countries define as terrorists".
Andy Verity will be sent for re-education.
Do these banks have some special department available for terrorists only ? Because they're an absolute pain in the arse with to deal with as an SME business (Personal banking is by and large better)
It is quite incredible, when they aren't busy debanking people for spurious reasons they are pain in the arse if you are a legit business, but if you are a criminal or a terrorist, seems like you get VVIP treatment.
BBC slipping up calling Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda and the Taliban terrorists without the quote marks. It should of course be "groups that some countries define as terrorists".
Andy Verity will be sent for re-education.
Do these banks have some special department available for terrorists only ? Because they're an absolute pain in the arse with to deal with as an SME business (Personal banking is by and large better)
I would imagine terrorists probably have a bit more financial clout?
Reports are Hamas stolen $100m from banks in Gaza over the past couple of months. That will buy some nice villas in Turkey.
Hopefully my last "antisocial hours" elec until July 4/5!
Thanks
DC
If exit polls are to be believed, Mr Modi and the BJP will be coasting to a historic third term.
An average of a dozen polls predicts the BJP-led NDA winning 365 of 543 seats.
The most optimistic polls give the NDA 400 seats, matching Mr Modi's target, while the lowest estimate is 316 seats, still well above the 272 needed to form a government.
"Convicted paedophiles could soon be ordered to undergo surgical castration in Louisiana Judges in the US state can already order someone convicted of child sex crimes to undergo chemical castration - but the surgical method is a much more invasive procedure"
I won't shed any tears if the Tories get wiped out on 4th July.
That only happens if Farage wipes them out and realigns the right in his favour.
However Reform voters alone even then would not be enough to beat Labour, they would need some One Nation Tories too. If they went LD then Starmer could largely stay PM even if the economy went south by dividing the opposition between Farage and Reform on the right, the LDs and rump One Nation centrist Tories and the Greens to his left. In such a scenario FPTP would ironically be better for Starmer Labour than FPTP but PR now better for the Tories as well as ReformUK, the LDs and Greens
On the other hand PR would probably make the break up of the right wing into separate parties a permanent state of affairs.
He said the "growing range of pressures on the next education secretary's to-do list" also included school building repair backlogs and the rising number of children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send).
The number of children with the highest levels of Send has increased by more than 60% since 2015 - driving a £3.5bn increase in the high-needs budget, the report says. That has used up nearly half of the £7.6bn increase in school spending in the same time period.
I passionately hate Sunak and so does everyone I know. My Surrey tory friend thinks he’s horrible, and stabbed her beloved Boris in the back, and another sometime tory voter I know thinks he’s nasty and can’t stand him and described Sunak to me yesterday as ‘evil’.
I hate Sunak. He’s a nasty little shit who has attacked vulnerable groups and people in his evil culture wars. He’s highly privileged, out of touch with ordinary people, and his policies are ruthlessly uncaring.
Out of interest who would you put as the most influential figures/protagonists in British politics in the 2010-25 era?
For me it's Farage, followed by Johnson. Cameron, Salmond, Corbyn, Sturgeon hon. mentions.
Without the first two the past decade and a half would have been very different - despite never being elected Farage has set the agenda that led to the (likely) almost elimination of the Tories. Meanwhile Johnson has been the posterboy from Cameroonite Conservatism, through to Brexit, then chaos.
Dominic Cummings?
Boris not for Brexit, which would have happened eventually and probably with a better deal, but for purging his opponents from the PCP and leaving behind a bunch of incompetent ideologues, with whom, ironically, he shared no political philosophy.
Its the Telegraph and anecdotal so caveat emptor...cheaper and easier to run a business in France. Is that the state the UK has got into that productivity is higher in France, tax system is more straightforward and it even easier to set up a business !!!!
Its the Telegraph and anecdotal so caveat emptor...cheaper and easier to run a business in France. Is that the state the UK has got into that productivity is higher in France, tax system is more straightforward and it even easier to set up a business !!!!
The couple in the article would have zero chance of being able to make that move now. Post Brexit you need to jump through so many hoops and the income requirements more than doubled . The DT having been strongly Leave now has the cheek to print that article .
I won't shed any tears if the Tories get wiped out on 4th July.
That only happens if Farage wipes them out and realigns the right in his favour.
However Reform voters alone even then would not be enough to beat Labour, they would need some One Nation Tories too. If they went LD then Starmer could largely stay PM even if the economy went south by dividing the opposition between Farage and Reform on the right, the LDs and rump One Nation centrist Tories and the Greens to his left. In such a scenario FPTP would ironically be better for Starmer Labour than FPTP but PR now better for the Tories as well as ReformUK, the LDs and Greens
On the other hand PR would probably make the break up of the right wing into separate parties a permanent state of affairs.
Do you think Starmer might really do it?
He'd have the opportunity. Blair had it, and passed.
It would render a massive improvement to our political system a single costless stroke.
I think he might but you can never be sure. Politicians, eh?
Its the Telegraph and anecdotal so caveat emptor...cheaper and easier to run a business in France. Is that the state the UK has got into that productivity is higher in France, tax system is more straightforward and it even easier to set up a business !!!!
The couple in the article would have zero chance of being able to make that move now. Post Brexit you need to jump through so many hoops and the income requirements more than doubled . The DT having been strongly Leave now has the cheek to print that article .
I doubt it has much to do with Brexit.
As I understand it, the two main reason business costs in this country are so high are poor infrastructure and training.
Brexit may have been a dumb idea but difficult to blame it for either of those.
BBC slipping up calling Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda and the Taliban terrorists without the quote marks. It should of course be "groups that some countries define as terrorists".
Andy Verity will be sent for re-education.
Do these banks have some special department available for terrorists only ? Because they're an absolute pain in the arse with to deal with as an SME business (Personal banking is by and large better)
I would imagine terrorists probably have a bit more financial clout?
Reports are Hamas stolen $100m from banks in Gaza over the past couple of months. That will buy some nice villas in Turkey.
Banks have worked tirelessly over the years to establish a set of strict money laundering regulations which will prevent you from making even fairly modest investments from lawfully acquired funds. Terrorist organisations can of course circumvent these with ease, but that's not the point.
The point is to appear to be doing something whilst making the banks lots of money from the pretence.
Its the Telegraph and anecdotal so caveat emptor...cheaper and easier to run a business in France. Is that the state the UK has got into that productivity is higher in France, tax system is more straightforward and it even easier to set up a business !!!!
The couple in the article would have zero chance of being able to make that move now. Post Brexit you need to jump through so many hoops and the income requirements more than doubled . The DT having been strongly Leave now has the cheek to print that article .
I doubt it has much to do with Brexit.
As I understand it, the two main reason business costs in this country are so high are poor infrastructure and training.
Brexit may have been a dumb idea but difficult to blame it for either of those.
I was talking about the move to France . The business issues in the UK are of course another matter .
Hopefully my last "antisocial hours" elec until July 4/5!
Thanks
DC
If exit polls are to be believed, Mr Modi and the BJP will be coasting to a historic third term.
An average of a dozen polls predicts the BJP-led NDA winning 365 of 543 seats.
The most optimistic polls give the NDA 400 seats, matching Mr Modi's target, while the lowest estimate is 316 seats, still well above the 272 needed to form a government.
Looking like a much slimmer majority for the NDA than expected, based on current counting.
Donald Trump has raised $200 million since the former president was found guilty of 34 felonies last Thursday,
Trump has found a nice little racket. Why should he give the suckers an even break?
As a matter of interest, where do such claims come from? Are the figures true? In which case, why would we trust the word of a campaign led by a felon who lies, and lies, and lies?
Also, are they actual money in the bank, or just pledges?
(I have no idea how the US campaign system works...)
I see Sunak was campaigning in Henley on the same day as the LD deputy leader was there, sign of the times...
I am not sure they are sending Sunak to places to actually campaign, seems more they send him to places that minimises the chances of running into hostile members of the public.
It would be nice to think they were that smart, FU, but the evidence suggests otherwise.
Are they running a worse campaign than May's? I think so. The Henly fiasco may have appeared trivial, but you have to ask why nobody checked the backdrop and spotted the possibility of embarrassing photobombers.
Its the Telegraph and anecdotal so caveat emptor...cheaper and easier to run a business in France. Is that the state the UK has got into that productivity is higher in France, tax system is more straightforward and it even easier to set up a business !!!!
The couple in the article would have zero chance of being able to make that move now. Post Brexit you need to jump through so many hoops and the income requirements more than doubled . The DT having been strongly Leave now has the cheek to print that article .
I doubt it has much to do with Brexit.
As I understand it, the two main reason business costs in this country are so high are poor infrastructure and training.
Brexit may have been a dumb idea but difficult to blame it for either of those.
That wasn't my point. Rather that Brexit was supposed to make all this better - and as I've regularly noted, all it has done is provide a decade long distraction from addressing any of our real problems.
Still, now Farage is running, Brexiteers get the opportunity to vote for fantasy Brexit all over again. So the distraction continues.
I won't shed any tears if the Tories get wiped out on 4th July.
Really, Andy?
May I remind you of your prediction in Benpointer's Excellent Competition? NOM and Labour 290 seats you said. How are you going to cope with the humiliation?
If I were you I'd get out there now and start canvassing for Sunak.
Donald Trump has raised $200 million since the former president was found guilty of 34 felonies last Thursday,
Trump has found a nice little racket. Why should he give the suckers an even break?
As a matter of interest, where do such claims come from? Are the figures true? In which case, why would we trust the word of a campaign led by a felon who lies, and lies, and lies?
Also, are they actual money in the bank, or just pledges?
(I have no idea how the US campaign system works...)
I doubt anybody but him really knows how his finances work.
He ought to be bust by now, but he plainly has massive support. All thiose MAGA mugs? Putin?
Its the Telegraph and anecdotal so caveat emptor...cheaper and easier to run a business in France. Is that the state the UK has got into that productivity is higher in France, tax system is more straightforward and it even easier to set up a business !!!!
The couple in the article would have zero chance of being able to make that move now. Post Brexit you need to jump through so many hoops and the income requirements more than doubled . The DT having been strongly Leave now has the cheek to print that article .
I doubt it has much to do with Brexit.
As I understand it, the two main reason business costs in this country are so high are poor infrastructure and training.
Brexit may have been a dumb idea but difficult to blame it for either of those.
I was talking about the move to France . The business issues in the UK are of course another matter .
Sorry Nico. I only comment on other people's posts. I don't actually read them.
I passionately hate Sunak and so does everyone I know. My Surrey tory friend thinks he’s horrible, and stabbed her beloved Boris in the back, and another sometime tory voter I know thinks he’s nasty and can’t stand him and described Sunak to me yesterday as ‘evil’.
I hate Sunak. He’s a nasty little shit who has attacked vulnerable groups and people in his evil culture wars. He’s highly privileged, out of touch with ordinary people, and his policies are ruthlessly uncaring.
Its the Telegraph and anecdotal so caveat emptor...cheaper and easier to run a business in France. Is that the state the UK has got into that productivity is higher in France, tax system is more straightforward and it even easier to set up a business !!!!
The couple in the article would have zero chance of being able to make that move now. Post Brexit you need to jump through so many hoops and the income requirements more than doubled . The DT having been strongly Leave now has the cheek to print that article .
I doubt it has much to do with Brexit.
As I understand it, the two main reason business costs in this country are so high are poor infrastructure and training.
Brexit may have been a dumb idea but difficult to blame it for either of those.
That wasn't my point. Rather that Brexit was supposed to make all this better - and as I've regularly noted, all it has done is provide a decade long distraction from addressing any of our real problems.
Still, now Farage is running, Brexiteers get the opportunity to vote for fantasy Brexit all over again. So the distraction continues.
He could be the man of the moment.
As the EU heads to the hard right he'll be the Man. Starmer no mates will have no-one talk to.
@HYUFD made an interesting point earlier, slightly marred by then heading off on a tangent.
It’s what kind of % the hard right really represent electorally in this country. He suggested 30%.
I think that’s generous but let’s assume it’s correct.
The point is very simple. The hard right cannot, and will never, win power in the UK. This isn’t the US. We are very very different and it ain’t going to happen.
So quite what will transpire for centre-right politics I don’t know. Someone’s suggestion that Labour now occupy the centre-right is amusing but untrue. Starmer is a pragmatist, yes, but he’s fairly left of centre. His Labour Party may attract some One Nation tories, but I think that’s not going to be a widespread move.
So what the hell happens to the centre-right here after the election? Will the Conservative Party survive? And if so what will they do about the hard right Faragists? Will that fault line which we’ve all known about for 20+ years now become an unbridgeable canyon? Did Brexit finally break the tories?
One corollary of all this is that Sunak’s lurch to the right is now utterly doomed. He is, as Peston put it, Reform Lite. His appeal to the dog whistle anti-woke culture wars is now undone. And he’s lost the One Nation tories in the process.
We could possibly see a poll with the Conservative share in mid-teens, perhaps as low as 15%.
Sunak’s basic problem is that most people hate him. But, he’s really carrying the can for the incompetence of May, Johnson, and Truss.
Do most (real world) people hate him? Really? PB is not the real world.
When something went really badly wrong at work today someone quipped "that was a bit of a Sunak". It got a lot of knowing smiles.
Yes, people in the real world seem to genuinely dislike Sunak. To a much more universal extent that seemed to be the case with Boris or Truss. Of course, that might just be his misfortune to be a fag-end PM. Possibly anyone in his situation would be regarded the same. But I don't recall the same level of opprobrium towards Major. Possibly towards Brown. Like Brown, Sunak unfortunately just ooozes insincerity.
Few people wanted Major to carry on being PM in 1997, but there was still a sense of him being a decent guy doing his best. So I do think that there was an element of pity snog before dumping him. A bit different with Brown- he wasn't liked and had to go, but there was some respect for a man of substance.
(Doesn't matter how true either impression was, both Major and Brown were old pros who knew how to play the game, if not how to win it.)
Sunak isn't liked or respected, and I suspect that the public haven't fully taken on board how ghastly he presents as. Because he is rubbish at basic politics. Hence a worse result than 1997 is incoming.
For the Tories on here who miss having an effective and likeable leader:
Sunak’s basic problem is that most people hate him. But, he’s really carrying the can for the incompetence of May, Johnson, and Truss.
Do most (real world) people hate him? Really? PB is not the real world.
When something went really badly wrong at work today someone quipped "that was a bit of a Sunak". It got a lot of knowing smiles.
Yes, people in the real world seem to genuinely dislike Sunak. To a much more universal extent that seemed to be the case with Boris or Truss. Of course, that might just be his misfortune to be a fag-end PM. Possibly anyone in his situation would be regarded the same. But I don't recall the same level of opprobrium towards Major. Possibly towards Brown. Like Brown, Sunak unfortunately just ooozes insincerity.
When Major lost to Blair and drove to the Palace to resign as PM there was a sea of middle fingers from the public waving him goodbye down The Mall.
His reputation improved after his defeat, but not during. And he was considered to be weak at the time.
Sunak’s basic problem is that most people hate him. But, he’s really carrying the can for the incompetence of May, Johnson, and Truss.
Do most (real world) people hate him? Really? PB is not the real world.
When something went really badly wrong at work today someone quipped "that was a bit of a Sunak". It got a lot of knowing smiles.
Yes, people in the real world seem to genuinely dislike Sunak. To a much more universal extent that seemed to be the case with Boris or Truss. Of course, that might just be his misfortune to be a fag-end PM. Possibly anyone in his situation would be regarded the same. But I don't recall the same level of opprobrium towards Major. Possibly towards Brown. Like Brown, Sunak unfortunately just ooozes insincerity.
Unfair but yes. Sunak is neither as dishonest as Johnson nor as deluded as Truss but isn't appreciated for it.
I think there is some substance to the public's dislike of Sunak. A billionaire with a very right wing ideology, thinks government should be "small" ie favour rich people liked himself, has clearly no interest in people and how they live. This doesn't sit well.
Sunak is a nice guy, who loves his family, works hard and is a logical and competent administrator of government.
The trouble is he shit political instincts and a tin ear for connecting with people. That's why he's in the trouble he's in.
Well at least the election is now going to be interesting. Farage is incredibly marmite. You’d think he was the second coming of either Christ or Hitler depending on your politics according to to social media.
The Tories really are screwed. Sunak is just bland. A charisma bypass.
Out of interest who would you put as the most influential figures/protagonists in British politics in the 2010-25 era?
For me it's Farage, followed by Johnson. Cameron, Salmond, Corbyn, Sturgeon hon. mentions.
Without the first two the past decade and a half would have been very different - despite never being elected Farage has set the agenda that led to the (likely) almost elimination of the Tories. Meanwhile Johnson has been the posterboy from Cameroonite Conservatism, through to Brexit, then chaos.
Gove. And probably also Corbyn since his lack of campaigning may have tipped the 2016 referendum and secured the 2017 and 2019GE wins for the Conservatives.
p.s. lovely to see my friend Mishal Husain eviscerate Kemi Badenoch yesterday. About time someone took down the opportunistic little shit and that person probably needed to be a) woman and b) someone of colour.
Mishal is very bright, unlike her interviewee yesterday.
I won't shed any tears if the Tories get wiped out on 4th July.
That only happens if Farage wipes them out and realigns the right in his favour.
However Reform voters alone even then would not be enough to beat Labour, they would need some One Nation Tories too. If they went LD then Starmer could largely stay PM even if the economy went south by dividing the opposition between Farage and Reform on the right, the LDs and rump One Nation centrist Tories and the Greens to his left. In such a scenario FPTP would ironically be better for Starmer Labour than FPTP but PR now better for the Tories as well as ReformUK, the LDs and Greens
On the other hand PR would probably make the break up of the right wing into separate parties a permanent state of affairs.
I won't shed any tears if the Tories get wiped out on 4th July.
That only happens if Farage wipes them out and realigns the right in his favour.
However Reform voters alone even then would not be enough to beat Labour, they would need some One Nation Tories too. If they went LD then Starmer could largely stay PM even if the economy went south by dividing the opposition between Farage and Reform on the right, the LDs and rump One Nation centrist Tories and the Greens to his left. In such a scenario FPTP would ironically be better for Starmer Labour than FPTP but PR now better for the Tories as well as ReformUK, the LDs and Greens
On the other hand PR would probably make the break up of the right wing into separate parties a permanent state of affairs.
That would not matter, because they could always come together afterwards to form a government, if they wanted to, and if they had enough votes (ie support from the general public).
I passionately hate Sunak and so does everyone I know. My Surrey tory friend thinks he’s horrible, and stabbed her beloved Boris in the back, and another sometime tory voter I know thinks he’s nasty and can’t stand him and described Sunak to me yesterday as ‘evil’.
I hate Sunak. He’s a nasty little shit who has attacked vulnerable groups and people in his evil culture wars. He’s highly privileged, out of touch with ordinary people, and his policies are ruthlessly uncaring.
I hate Sunak. Loathe him.
"We'll put you down as a 'don't know'."
Funny thing is that I’ve twice voted Conservative in General Elections.
There’s a lot of people like me who cannot stand what the current tories have done and where they’ve gone.
I passionately hate Sunak and so does everyone I know. My Surrey tory friend thinks he’s horrible, and stabbed her beloved Boris in the back, and another sometime tory voter I know thinks he’s nasty and can’t stand him and described Sunak to me yesterday as ‘evil’.
I hate Sunak. He’s a nasty little shit who has attacked vulnerable groups and people in his evil culture wars. He’s highly privileged, out of touch with ordinary people, and his policies are ruthlessly uncaring.
I hate Sunak. Loathe him.
Posts like this just to confirm to everyone your youth and immaturity.
So here’s an idea. Sunak offers to debate Farage 1:1 and defeats him. A good roll of the dice?
So, let's go against a debate opponent who is more experienced, more skilled and has been talking about this particular topic as his specialist subject. What's the chances of rolling a 15 on 2d6?
Dungeon Master Andy?
Interesting if so - @Morris_Dancer and I are both DMs; would be good to know if the PBDM sub-community is larger than we thought.
Sunak’s basic problem is that most people hate him. But, he’s really carrying the can for the incompetence of May, Johnson, and Truss.
Do most (real world) people hate him? Really? PB is not the real world.
When something went really badly wrong at work today someone quipped "that was a bit of a Sunak". It got a lot of knowing smiles.
Yes, people in the real world seem to genuinely dislike Sunak. To a much more universal extent that seemed to be the case with Boris or Truss. Of course, that might just be his misfortune to be a fag-end PM. Possibly anyone in his situation would be regarded the same. But I don't recall the same level of opprobrium towards Major. Possibly towards Brown. Like Brown, Sunak unfortunately just ooozes insincerity.
Unfair but yes. Sunak is neither as dishonest as Johnson nor as deluded as Truss but isn't appreciated for it.
I think there is some substance to the public's dislike of Sunak. A billionaire with a very right wing ideology, thinks government should be "small" ie favour rich people liked himself, has clearly no interest in people and how they live. This doesn't sit well.
Sunak is a nice guy,.
No he isn’t.
No one who deliberately inflames culture wars, promotes sending boat people to a corrupt dangerous African country, attacks people with disabilities including mental ill-health, attacks LGBGTQ minorities, attacks young people on their smart phones and wants to march them off to war, flies everywhere in a helicopter to block out the appalling public service decline over which he has presided … can be described as a ‘nice guy.’
I’d love it if he lost his seat. He’s a thoroughly nasty piece of work.
Only a tory campaigner a long, long, way down their rabbit hole could think otherwise.
So here’s an idea. Sunak offers to debate Farage 1:1 and defeats him. A good roll of the dice?
So, let's go against a debate opponent who is more experienced, more skilled and has been talking about this particular topic as his specialist subject. What's the chances of rolling a 15 on 2d6?
Dungeon Master Andy?
Mostly yes. Normally I ran the table when we played D&D but I did share the behind the screen duties with another Andy (it being an invariable rule of gaming groups that at least two people must share the same name). I had a penchant for wearing Depeche Mode tour t-shirts at the time and the other Andy tended to wear Black Sabbath ones so I became "DM Andy" and the other Andy became "Black Sabbath"
@HYUFD I will return to the South Thanet GE15 result but probably won't have time until the weekend.
I won't shed any tears if the Tories get wiped out on 4th July.
That only happens if Farage wipes them out and realigns the right in his favour.
However Reform voters alone even then would not be enough to beat Labour, they would need some One Nation Tories too. If they went LD then Starmer could largely stay PM even if the economy went south by dividing the opposition between Farage and Reform on the right, the LDs and rump One Nation centrist Tories and the Greens to his left. In such a scenario FPTP would ironically be better for Starmer Labour than FPTP but PR now better for the Tories as well as ReformUK, the LDs and Greens
On the other hand PR would probably make the break up of the right wing into separate parties a permanent state of affairs.
Do you think Starmer might really do it?
He'd have the opportunity. Blair had it, and passed.
It would render a massive improvement to our political system a single costless stroke.
I think he might but you can never be sure. Politicians, eh?
In any world where Labour has 380+ seats, PR is going to be pretty unattractive to Starmer (and doubly so his MPs).
I passionately hate Sunak and so does everyone I know. My Surrey tory friend thinks he’s horrible, and stabbed her beloved Boris in the back, and another sometime tory voter I know thinks he’s nasty and can’t stand him and described Sunak to me yesterday as ‘evil’.
I hate Sunak. He’s a nasty little shit who has attacked vulnerable groups and people in his evil culture wars. He’s highly privileged, out of touch with ordinary people, and his policies are ruthlessly uncaring.
I hate Sunak. Loathe him.
Posts like this just to confirm to everyone your youth and immaturity.
You love the ‘everyone thinks x, y, or z about you’ idea.
It says a lot about your own insecurities. As well as your innate nastiness. You and the current Conservative Party are well suited and your defeat thoroughly deserved.
I Denmark the social democrats were able to end a decade long term in opposition by emulating hard right Danish People's party policies on migration and culture. Not pleasant at all, but it worked. It utterly decimated the right. I wonder if that is what we will be looking at in Britain.... that would be heart breaking to me. If there are any labour party lurkers reading along: you have my support on the gamble that we begin a process back to the European union and preferably apply for SM in a second term. That is it. I am not voting labour to get rose branded UKIP.
I won't shed any tears if the Tories get wiped out on 4th July.
Really, Andy?
May I remind you of your prediction in Benpointer's Excellent Competition? NOM and Labour 290 seats you said. How are you going to cope with the humiliation?
If I were you I'd get out there now and start canvassing for Sunak.
I went for NOM too.
I didn't think the Conservatives would be this useless nor Labour so well drilled.
@HYUFD made an interesting point earlier, slightly marred by then heading off on a tangent.
It’s what kind of % the hard right really represent electorally in this country. He suggested 30%.
I think that’s generous but let’s assume it’s correct.
The point is very simple. The hard right cannot, and will never, win power in the UK. This isn’t the US. We are very very different and it ain’t going to happen.
So quite what will transpire for centre-right politics I don’t know. Someone’s suggestion that Labour now occupy the centre-right is amusing but untrue. Starmer is a pragmatist, yes, but he’s fairly left of centre. His Labour Party may attract some One Nation tories, but I think that’s not going to be a widespread move.
So what the hell happens to the centre-right here after the election? Will the Conservative Party survive? And if so what will they do about the hard right Faragists? Will that fault line which we’ve all known about for 20+ years now become an unbridgeable canyon? Did Brexit finally break the tories?
One corollary of all this is that Sunak’s lurch to the right is now utterly doomed. He is, as Peston put it, Reform Lite. His appeal to the dog whistle anti-woke culture wars is now undone. And he’s lost the One Nation tories in the process.
We could possibly see a poll with the Conservative share in mid-teens, perhaps as low as 15%.
I think 30% is probably high too - I’d say rather there’s more a hardcore of 10%-ish genuinely hard right and then depending how respectable any political vehicle can make them, a further 10% who can be persuaded to go that far. Times change of course, and an issue like Brexit - which is not inherently a hard right cause but was enthusiastically adopted by it - can deliver more votes if deployed effectively as a wedge.
Luckily or not, the hard right’s Achilles heel is competence, more so than the far left whose weakness is factionalism (though both phenomena effect both extremes, of course) - hence BNP, UKIP etc councillors tend not to last that long when actually elected and realise that they can’t bring back proper binmen.
Sunak’s basic problem is that most people hate him. But, he’s really carrying the can for the incompetence of May, Johnson, and Truss.
Do most (real world) people hate him? Really? PB is not the real world.
When something went really badly wrong at work today someone quipped "that was a bit of a Sunak". It got a lot of knowing smiles.
Yes, people in the real world seem to genuinely dislike Sunak. To a much more universal extent that seemed to be the case with Boris or Truss. Of course, that might just be his misfortune to be a fag-end PM. Possibly anyone in his situation would be regarded the same. But I don't recall the same level of opprobrium towards Major. Possibly towards Brown. Like Brown, Sunak unfortunately just ooozes insincerity.
Unfair but yes. Sunak is neither as dishonest as Johnson nor as deluded as Truss but isn't appreciated for it.
I think there is some substance to the public's dislike of Sunak. A billionaire with a very right wing ideology, thinks government should be "small" ie favour rich people liked himself, has clearly no interest in people and how they live. This doesn't sit well.
Sunak is a nice guy,.
No he isn’t.
No one who deliberately inflames culture wars, promotes sending boat people to a corrupt dangerous African country, attacks people with disabilities including mental ill-health, attacks LGBGTQ minorities, attacks young people on their smart phones and wants to march them off to war, flies everywhere in a helicopter to block out the appalling public service decline over which he has presided … can be described as a ‘nice guy.’
I’d love it if he lost his seat. He’s a thoroughly nasty piece of work.
Only a tory campaigner a long, long, way down their rabbit hole could think otherwise.
Well so you say but the only nastiness Ive noticed in this campaign is Starmer bullying a woman because she's elderly and black.
And probably because she's a woman too, Labour dont do women.
Farage is vg at grinning but a clip on Newsnight showed him throwing a hissy fit (or doing a Kemi) when a journo was trying to question him....the BBC is a disgrace etc . Galloway reacts in just the same way.
Sunak’s basic problem is that most people hate him. But, he’s really carrying the can for the incompetence of May, Johnson, and Truss.
Do most (real world) people hate him? Really? PB is not the real world.
When something went really badly wrong at work today someone quipped "that was a bit of a Sunak". It got a lot of knowing smiles.
Yes, people in the real world seem to genuinely dislike Sunak. To a much more universal extent that seemed to be the case with Boris or Truss. Of course, that might just be his misfortune to be a fag-end PM. Possibly anyone in his situation would be regarded the same. But I don't recall the same level of opprobrium towards Major. Possibly towards Brown. Like Brown, Sunak unfortunately just ooozes insincerity.
When Major lost to Blair and drove to the Palace to resign as PM there was a sea of middle fingers from the public waving him goodbye down The Mall.
His reputation improved after his defeat, but not during. And he was considered to be weak at the time.
In a country the size of Britain you can always find any number of knobheads out to make a point. But I recall Major himself being held in considerably higher esteem than his party. I don't think this is true of Rishi. I wonder if things might have been different for him had he taken over as soon as Boris's star began to wane.
@HYUFD made an interesting point earlier, slightly marred by then heading off on a tangent.
It’s what kind of % the hard right really represent electorally in this country. He suggested 30%.
I think that’s generous but let’s assume it’s correct.
The point is very simple. The hard right cannot, and will never, win power in the UK. This isn’t the US. We are very very different and it ain’t going to happen.
So quite what will transpire for centre-right politics I don’t know. Someone’s suggestion that Labour now occupy the centre-right is amusing but untrue. Starmer is a pragmatist, yes, but he’s fairly left of centre. His Labour Party may attract some One Nation tories, but I think that’s not going to be a widespread move.
So what the hell happens to the centre-right here after the election? Will the Conservative Party survive? And if so what will they do about the hard right Faragists? Will that fault line which we’ve all known about for 20+ years now become an unbridgeable canyon? Did Brexit finally break the tories?
One corollary of all this is that Sunak’s lurch to the right is now utterly doomed. He is, as Peston put it, Reform Lite. His appeal to the dog whistle anti-woke culture wars is now undone. And he’s lost the One Nation tories in the process.
We could possibly see a poll with the Conservative share in mid-teens, perhaps as low as 15%.
Nah. I’m old enough to remember the obituaries for the Labour Party in the far off year of *checks notes* 2019.
And 2015.
And the Tory obituaries in 2005, 2001, and 1997.
And the Labour obituaries in 1992, 1987, and 1983.
The “other lot” always comes back. Even if the Tory Party dies (highly unlikely), a right wing Government will take power in due course, possibly as a soon as next time in a world this volatile.
In 2024, it’s Labour’s “turn”. But that just means the clock starts ticking on the chess clock.
Sunak’s basic problem is that most people hate him. But, he’s really carrying the can for the incompetence of May, Johnson, and Truss.
Do most (real world) people hate him? Really? PB is not the real world.
When something went really badly wrong at work today someone quipped "that was a bit of a Sunak". It got a lot of knowing smiles.
Yes, people in the real world seem to genuinely dislike Sunak. To a much more universal extent that seemed to be the case with Boris or Truss. Of course, that might just be his misfortune to be a fag-end PM. Possibly anyone in his situation would be regarded the same. But I don't recall the same level of opprobrium towards Major. Possibly towards Brown. Like Brown, Sunak unfortunately just ooozes insincerity.
Unfair but yes. Sunak is neither as dishonest as Johnson nor as deluded as Truss but isn't appreciated for it.
I think there is some substance to the public's dislike of Sunak. A billionaire with a very right wing ideology, thinks government should be "small" ie favour rich people liked himself, has clearly no interest in people and how they live. This doesn't sit well.
Sunak is a nice guy,.
No he isn’t.
No one who deliberately inflames culture wars, promotes sending boat people to a corrupt dangerous African country, attacks people with disabilities including mental ill-health, attacks LGBGTQ minorities, attacks young people on their smart phones and wants to march them off to war, flies everywhere in a helicopter to block out the appalling public service decline over which he has presided … can be described as a ‘nice guy.’
I’d love it if he lost his seat. He’s a thoroughly nasty piece of work.
Only a tory campaigner a long, long, way down their rabbit hole could think otherwise.
Well so you say but the only nastiness Ive noticed in this campaign is Starmer bullying a woman because she's elderly and black.
And probably because she's a woman too, Labour dont do women.
You know, as well as I do, that in the words of Luke Skywalker not one single word of what you’ve just put is true.
I won't shed any tears if the Tories get wiped out on 4th July.
That only happens if Farage wipes them out and realigns the right in his favour.
However Reform voters alone even then would not be enough to beat Labour, they would need some One Nation Tories too. If they went LD then Starmer could largely stay PM even if the economy went south by dividing the opposition between Farage and Reform on the right, the LDs and rump One Nation centrist Tories and the Greens to his left. In such a scenario FPTP would ironically be better for Starmer Labour than FPTP but PR now better for the Tories as well as ReformUK, the LDs and Greens
On the other hand PR would probably make the break up of the right wing into separate parties a permanent state of affairs.
Do you think Starmer might really do it?
He'd have the opportunity. Blair had it, and passed.
It would render a massive improvement to our political system a single costless stroke.
I think he might but you can never be sure. Politicians, eh?
In any world where Labour has 380+ seats, PR is going to be pretty unattractive to Starmer (and doubly so his MPs).
Sunak’s basic problem is that most people hate him. But, he’s really carrying the can for the incompetence of May, Johnson, and Truss.
Do most (real world) people hate him? Really? PB is not the real world.
When something went really badly wrong at work today someone quipped "that was a bit of a Sunak". It got a lot of knowing smiles.
Yes, people in the real world seem to genuinely dislike Sunak. To a much more universal extent that seemed to be the case with Boris or Truss. Of course, that might just be his misfortune to be a fag-end PM. Possibly anyone in his situation would be regarded the same. But I don't recall the same level of opprobrium towards Major. Possibly towards Brown. Like Brown, Sunak unfortunately just ooozes insincerity.
Unfair but yes. Sunak is neither as dishonest as Johnson nor as deluded as Truss but isn't appreciated for it.
I think there is some substance to the public's dislike of Sunak. A billionaire with a very right wing ideology, thinks government should be "small" ie favour rich people liked himself, has clearly no interest in people and how they live. This doesn't sit well.
Sunak is a nice guy,.
No he isn’t.
No one who deliberately inflames culture wars, promotes sending boat people to a corrupt dangerous African country, attacks people with disabilities including mental ill-health, attacks LGBGTQ minorities, attacks young people on their smart phones and wants to march them off to war, flies everywhere in a helicopter to block out the appalling public service decline over which he has presided … can be described as a ‘nice guy.’
I’d love it if he lost his seat. He’s a thoroughly nasty piece of work.
Only a tory campaigner a long, long, way down their rabbit hole could think otherwise.
Well so you say but the only nastiness Ive noticed in this campaign is Starmer bullying a woman because she's elderly and black.
And probably because she's a woman too, Labour dont do women.
You know, as well as I do, that in the words of Luke Skywalker not one single word of what you’ve just put is true.
If you want to understand just how manufactured the transgender culture war is, less than 2 years ago Kemi Badenoch was celebrating the fact that it was becoming easier to apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate
Sunak’s basic problem is that most people hate him. But, he’s really carrying the can for the incompetence of May, Johnson, and Truss.
Do most (real world) people hate him? Really? PB is not the real world.
When something went really badly wrong at work today someone quipped "that was a bit of a Sunak". It got a lot of knowing smiles.
Yes, people in the real world seem to genuinely dislike Sunak. To a much more universal extent that seemed to be the case with Boris or Truss. Of course, that might just be his misfortune to be a fag-end PM. Possibly anyone in his situation would be regarded the same. But I don't recall the same level of opprobrium towards Major. Possibly towards Brown. Like Brown, Sunak unfortunately just ooozes insincerity.
Unfair but yes. Sunak is neither as dishonest as Johnson nor as deluded as Truss but isn't appreciated for it.
I think there is some substance to the public's dislike of Sunak. A billionaire with a very right wing ideology, thinks government should be "small" ie favour rich people liked himself, has clearly no interest in people and how they live. This doesn't sit well.
Sunak is a nice guy,.
No he isn’t.
No one who deliberately inflames culture wars, promotes sending boat people to a corrupt dangerous African country, attacks people with disabilities including mental ill-health, attacks LGBGTQ minorities, attacks young people on their smart phones and wants to march them off to war, flies everywhere in a helicopter to block out the appalling public service decline over which he has presided … can be described as a ‘nice guy.’
I’d love it if he lost his seat. He’s a thoroughly nasty piece of work.
Only a tory campaigner a long, long, way down their rabbit hole could think otherwise.
Well so you say but the only nastiness Ive noticed in this campaign is Starmer bullying a woman because she's elderly and black.
And probably because she's a woman too, Labour dont do women.
You know, as well as I do, that in the words of Luke Skywalker not one single word of what you’ve just put is true.
Farage is vg at grinning but a clip on Newsnight showed him throwing a hissy fit (or doing a Kemi) when a journo was trying to question him....the BBC is a disgrace etc . Galloway reacts in just the same way.
His 8th FPTP loss is going to be one of the highlights of July 5th.
He has a level of support, but with a low ceiling.
I passionately hate Sunak and so does everyone I know. My Surrey tory friend thinks he’s horrible, and stabbed her beloved Boris in the back, and another sometime tory voter I know thinks he’s nasty and can’t stand him and described Sunak to me yesterday as ‘evil’.
I hate Sunak. He’s a nasty little shit who has attacked vulnerable groups and people in his evil culture wars. He’s highly privileged, out of touch with ordinary people, and his policies are ruthlessly uncaring.
I assume your outpouring of hate towards Sunak is your way of dealing with him and his views that you oppose, but it is not something that shows you in good light and is in many ways one of the reasons people do not want to stand for public office due to the threat of personal violence coming from hate
Of course Sunak is someone you dislike intensely but generating hate against anyone is unacceptable
I dislike Farage intensely and reject all he stands for but I would not use the term hate but express a heartfelt desire to see him and his views firmly beaten at the ballot box
Comments
Dorries: Death is not the end based on everything I’ve seen
Lammy: how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb
Daily Telegraph: Covid jabs caused excess deaths
Daily Star: our tits are getting bigger and bigger
2017 figures are irrelevant. Yes some LD voters who voted Tory in 2015 in Thanet went Labour in 2017 once fear of Farage had gone and he was not standing but without their support lent to Mackinley in 2015, Farage would have won in 2015
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cxww0e2xlnxo
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.167249195
https://x.com/joseph_gellman/status/1797547988379955603
Nobody tell Leon.
The more the toxic left leave Labour, the more electable they become.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trans-row-professor-professor-kathleen-stock-backed-by-equalities-minister-kemi-badenoch-f28jtkckw
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/property/bought-dream-home-france-cheaper-cost-england/
However Reform voters alone even then would not be enough to beat Labour, they would need some One Nation Tories too. If they went LD then Starmer could largely stay PM even if the economy went south by dividing the opposition between Farage and Reform on the right, the LDs and rump One Nation centrist Tories and the Greens to his left. In such a scenario FPTP would ironically be better for Starmer Labour than FPTP but PR now better for the Tories as well as ReformUK, the LDs and Greens
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1797778977454792904
Is interesting when you start to follow the breadcrumbs of who these people a) side with (its not just Iran), b) side against and c) seem to associate with.
Wyatt Reed is not the only Grayzone author to have worked for Russian outlets. Grayzone contributor and London journalist Mohamed Elmaazi wrote full-time for Sputnik between 2019 and 2021, he says on his LinkedIn profile. Regular Grayzone freelancer Jeremy Loffredo was full-time at RT in the same years, according to his LinkedIn. Neither responded to requests for comment. All these people helped both Russia and Iran to spread disinformation in America.
https://x.com/Top1Rating/status/1797779401964462165
There is some proper journalism to be done here about the new media journalists.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgrrng3l6jro
Have got to think that all the hostages are dead now, bar the few human shields around the boss man. Both from the time in captivity, but also they aren't serving any real purpose for Hamas now, as the deals being proposed are now just talking about return of bodies on the same level as any that might be alive.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd11j09q2llo
BBC slipping up calling Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda and the Taliban terrorists without the quote marks. It should of course be "groups that some countries define as terrorists".
Andy Verity will be sent for re-education.
President Joe Biden is expected to announce an executive order as early as Tuesday that would effectively shut down the US-Mexico border to asylum-seekers crossing illegally when a daily threshold of crossings is exceeded – a sweeping and controversial proposal that is likely to receive fierce pushback from progressives and immigration advocates.
The executive action, described to CNN by multiple people briefed on the order, would mark a significant attempt by Biden to address head on one of his biggest political vulnerabilities, just weeks before the first presidential debate with former President Donald Trump. Trump has made hard-line immigration policies a cornerstone of his campaign.
The executive order uses an authority known as “212(f)” – a regulation used under the Trump administration and widely denounced at the time by Democrats.
Counting starts 3.30 am BST
https://www.ndtv.com/livetv-ndtv24x7
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/elections/results
Hopefully my last "antisocial hours" elec until July 4/5!
Thanks
DC
An average of a dozen polls predicts the BJP-led NDA winning 365 of 543 seats.
The most optimistic polls give the NDA 400 seats, matching Mr Modi's target, while the lowest estimate is 316 seats, still well above the 272 needed to form a government.
Judges in the US state can already order someone convicted of child sex crimes to undergo chemical castration - but the surgical method is a much more invasive procedure"
https://news.sky.com/story/convicted-paedophiles-could-soon-be-ordered-to-undergo-surgical-castration-in-louisiana-13147575
https://x.com/sam_d_1995/status/1797415566094807375
The number of children with the highest levels of Send has increased by more than 60% since 2015 - driving a £3.5bn increase in the high-needs budget, the report says. That has used up nearly half of the £7.6bn increase in school spending in the same time period.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c133gem0m78o
I hate Sunak. He’s a nasty little shit who has attacked vulnerable groups and people in his evil culture wars. He’s highly privileged, out of touch with ordinary people, and his policies are ruthlessly uncaring.
I hate Sunak. Loathe him.
Boris not for Brexit, which would have happened eventually and probably with a better deal, but for purging his opponents from the PCP and leaving behind a bunch of incompetent ideologues, with whom, ironically, he shared no political philosophy.
He'd have the opportunity. Blair had it, and passed.
It would render a massive improvement to our political system a single costless stroke.
I think he might but you can never be sure. Politicians, eh?
As I understand it, the two main reason business costs in this country are so high are poor infrastructure and training.
Brexit may have been a dumb idea but difficult to blame it for either of those.
The point is to appear to be doing something whilst making the banks lots of money from the pretence.
Also, are they actual money in the bank, or just pledges?
(I have no idea how the US campaign system works...)
This doesn’t feel like a great result for Modi, all things considered.
Are they running a worse campaign than May's? I think so. The Henly fiasco may have appeared trivial, but you have to ask why nobody checked the backdrop and spotted the possibility of embarrassing photobombers.
Are they amateurs, or just plug stupid?
Rather that Brexit was supposed to make all this better - and as I've regularly noted, all it has done is provide a decade long distraction from addressing any of our real problems.
Still, now Farage is running, Brexiteers get the opportunity to vote for fantasy Brexit all over again.
So the distraction continues.
May I remind you of your prediction in Benpointer's Excellent Competition? NOM and Labour 290 seats you said. How are you going to cope with the humiliation?
If I were you I'd get out there now and start canvassing for Sunak.
He ought to be bust by now, but he plainly has massive support. All thiose MAGA mugs? Putin?
I really have no idea.
Meanwhile, back in reality ...
As the EU heads to the hard right he'll be the Man. Starmer no mates will have no-one talk to.
It’s what kind of % the hard right really represent electorally in this country. He suggested 30%.
I think that’s generous but let’s assume it’s correct.
The point is very simple. The hard right cannot, and will never, win power in the UK. This isn’t the US. We are very very different and it ain’t going to happen.
So quite what will transpire for centre-right politics I don’t know. Someone’s suggestion that Labour now occupy the centre-right is amusing but untrue. Starmer is a pragmatist, yes, but he’s fairly left of centre. His Labour Party may attract some One Nation tories, but I think that’s not going to be a widespread move.
So what the hell happens to the centre-right here after the election? Will the Conservative Party survive? And if so what will they do about the hard right Faragists? Will that fault line which we’ve all known about for 20+ years now become an unbridgeable canyon? Did Brexit finally break the tories?
One corollary of all this is that Sunak’s lurch to the right is now utterly doomed. He is, as Peston put it, Reform Lite. His appeal to the dog whistle anti-woke culture wars is now undone. And he’s lost the One Nation tories in the process.
We could possibly see a poll with the Conservative share in mid-teens, perhaps as low as 15%.
https://youtu.be/q71j4S3r4Yo?si=coVw9J-8ak-nlSTY
His reputation improved after his defeat, but not during. And he was considered to be weak at the time.
The trouble is he shit political instincts and a tin ear for connecting with people. That's why he's in the trouble he's in.
The Tories really are screwed. Sunak is just bland. A charisma bypass.
Mishal is very bright, unlike her interviewee yesterday.
Funny thing is that I’ve twice voted Conservative in General Elections.
There’s a lot of people like me who cannot stand what the current tories have done and where they’ve gone.
No one who deliberately inflames culture wars, promotes sending boat people to a corrupt dangerous African country, attacks people with disabilities including mental ill-health, attacks LGBGTQ minorities, attacks young people on their smart phones and wants to march them off to war, flies everywhere in a helicopter to block out the appalling public service decline over which he has presided … can be described as a ‘nice guy.’
I’d love it if he lost his seat. He’s a thoroughly nasty piece of work.
Only a tory campaigner a long, long, way down their rabbit hole could think otherwise.
@HYUFD I will return to the South Thanet GE15 result but probably won't have time until the weekend.
It says a lot about your own insecurities. As well as your innate nastiness. You and the current Conservative Party are well suited and your defeat thoroughly deserved.
https://agendapublica.es/noticia/14102/state-of-denmark-and-whether-it-should-be-copied-by-europe
I didn't think the Conservatives would be this useless nor Labour so well drilled.
Luckily or not, the hard right’s Achilles heel is competence, more so than the far left whose weakness is factionalism (though both phenomena effect both extremes, of course) - hence BNP, UKIP etc councillors tend not to last that long when actually elected and realise that they can’t bring back proper binmen.
And probably because she's a woman too, Labour dont do women.
We need them back on the centre-right.
Extremism of the Faragist-Sunak-Badenoch-Braverman-Tommy Robinson populist kind should appall all but the most nasty citizens.
Thank goodness we have FPTP in this country to help keep out such extremism.
I wonder if things might have been different for him had he taken over as soon as Boris's star began to wane.
And 2015.
And the Tory obituaries in 2005, 2001, and 1997.
And the Labour obituaries in 1992, 1987, and 1983.
The “other lot” always comes back. Even if the Tory Party dies (highly unlikely), a right wing Government will take power in due course, possibly as a soon as next time in a world this volatile.
In 2024, it’s Labour’s “turn”. But that just means the clock starts ticking on the chess clock.
Be careful what you wish for.
Naughty boy.
name me a female leader of Labour
name me a non-white Labour leader
The criteria for obtaining one did not change.
That was what the Scottish GRR Bill sought to do and was blocked.
Population + 7.7%
Households + 4.6%
Dwellings + 10.7%
House prices + 72%
But I get your point.
He has a level of support, but with a low ceiling.
I assume your outpouring of hate towards Sunak is your way of dealing with him and his views that you oppose, but it is not something that shows you in good light and is in many ways one of the reasons people do not want to stand for public office due to the threat of personal violence coming from hate
Of course Sunak is someone you dislike intensely but generating hate against anyone is unacceptable
I dislike Farage intensely and reject all he stands for but I would not use the term hate but express a heartfelt desire to see him and his views firmly beaten at the ballot box