Let’s face it, none of the candidates is Augustus Caesar, they all have grave flaws. Badenoch is flimsy, Patel is widely disliked, Tugendhat is Who?
This guy probably has the fewest flaws. He’s young, articulate, not posh - self made. He looks vaguely prime ministerial and he’s quite right wing without being Suella, voters may like that
Also, it will drive the Corbynite anti-Semites mad if both the PM and the LOTO have “Zio” wives. So it’s worth doing for that alone
Unfortunately he's also an unelectable careerist dud who's very obviously manoeuvring himself to gain the votes of the remaining hard-line factionalists in the PCP in order to get into the final two.
Chasing Farage is a mug's game. The threat from the LibDems hoovering up the remaining Home Counties seats (backbone of the Tory party since Lord Salisbury) is far more existential.
I disagree: the next leader of the Conservative Party has two tasks. The first is neutralize Reform, to get them into the mid single digits opinion poll-wise, and ensuring they don't get a foothold in local government. Now, sure, this won't win them the next election, but before anything else, the Conservatives must make Reform irrelevant.
Once Reform has been vanquished and the Conservatives have become the only credible party of the right, then they can tack back again towards the centre.
What's all this tacking to the centre stuff? Mushy compromises and splitting the difference?
Voters want pragmatism and solutions. Real leaders define and shape exactly where that is themselves.
The liberals at large really don't get this (not at all) because they protect core aspects of their theology as sacrosanct and are simply incapable of seeing it in any other way. This happened with free movement and I can see it happening with migration and asylum rights more broadly, and the HRA on top.
That's the opportunity for the Conservatives and to be seen as the new redefined centre ground, if they can get the tone and pitch right.
When I say "tack to the centre", what I mean is that the Conservatives need to win the voters who went Reform first. And once they've won those guys back and eliminated Reform, then they can look to win back voters who went LibDem or Labour.
But they do need to win back both sets of voters.
And, importantly, they need to do it in the order you prescribe. Because if they tack to the centre FIRST then Reform will surge and potentially devour them
Neutralising Reform is the initial task
Yes, that makes sense. They can probably afford to go a little too far to do so without permanently losing the ability to appeal to more central voters later, but it is still a risk, the leadership candidates know Reform is task 1 but disagree on how to go about that.
Taoiseach Simon Harris says the era of self regulation by social media companies is over
He’s prepared to meet Elon Musk and other social media company execs to discuss Irish government plans for financial sanctions and personal liabilities for failing to remove harmful content
I should qualify my previous post re Canadian government warning Canadians not to travel to the UK, that their actual advise is 'visitors should exercise a high degree of caution in the country'
"UK"
Outside England and Belfast (bits of), where's the problem?
Warnings across Wales tonight apparently
Where are these "100 violent protests"? I don't see evidence of even one, yet
Of course they may happen, but I stand by my prediction that police have been spooked by spectres on Telegram, probably called Ivan or Oleg
Let’s face it, none of the candidates is Augustus Caesar, they all have grave flaws. Badenoch is flimsy, Patel is widely disliked, Tugendhat is Who?
This guy probably has the fewest flaws. He’s young, articulate, not posh - self made. He looks vaguely prime ministerial and he’s quite right wing without being Suella, voters may like that
Also, it will drive the Corbynite anti-Semites mad if both the PM and the LOTO have “Zio” wives. So it’s worth doing for that alone
Unfortunately he's also an unelectable careerist dud who's very obviously manoeuvring himself to gain the votes of the remaining hard-line factionalists in the PCP in order to get into the final two.
Chasing Farage is a mug's game. The threat from the LibDems hoovering up the remaining Home Counties seats (backbone of the Tory party since Lord Salisbury) is far more existential.
I disagree: the next leader of the Conservative Party has two tasks. The first is neutralize Reform, to get them into the mid single digits opinion poll-wise, and ensuring they don't get a foothold in local government. Now, sure, this won't win them the next election, but before anything else, the Conservatives must make Reform irrelevant.
Once Reform has been vanquished and the Conservatives have become the only credible party of the right, then they can tack back again towards the centre.
What's all this tacking to the centre stuff? Mushy compromises and splitting the difference?
Voters want pragmatism and solutions. Real leaders define and shape exactly where that is themselves.
The liberals at large really don't get this (not at all) because they protect core aspects of their theology as sacrosanct and are simply incapable of seeing it in any other way. This happened with free movement and I can see it happening with migration and asylum rights more broadly, and the HRA on top.
That's the opportunity for the Conservatives and to be seen as the new redefined centre ground, if they can get the tone and pitch right.
When I say "tack to the centre", what I mean is that the Conservatives need to win the voters who went Reform first. And once they've won those guys back and eliminated Reform, then they can look to win back voters who went LibDem or Labour.
But they do need to win back both sets of voters.
There seems to be an unwritten assumption here that Reform voters will vote for the tory party - I just don't see it..
It's not an assumption that all of them will - some won't vote for anyone if not Reform, and some will indeed splinter off to others - but an assumption that of available voting blocs the Tories have the best chance to make inroads with Reform voters at the present time.
Taoiseach Simon Harris says the era of self regulation by social media companies is over
He’s prepared to meet Elon Musk and other social media company execs to discuss Irish government plans for financial sanctions and personal liabilities for failing to remove harmful content
Taoiseach Simon Harris says the era of self regulation by social media companies is over
He’s prepared to meet Elon Musk and other social media company execs to discuss Irish government plans for financial sanctions and personal liabilities for failing to remove harmful content
I wonder how the Irish people will feel if Meta and Twitter simply shut down their services in Ireland? I see a surge in VPN usage coming soon.
If governments, including ours, shut down services that didn't voluntarily comply with national laws, norms and customs about libel, conspiracy, organising crime, abuse, harmful content, racial slurs etc then services would arise, funded by advertisers who would have confidence in them, which did so.
At the moment Gresham's law applies. Only government intervention can change that.
I should qualify my previous post re Canadian government warning Canadians not to travel to the UK, that their actual advise is 'visitors should exercise a high degree of caution in the country'
"UK"
Outside England and Belfast (bits of), where's the problem?
Warnings across Wales tonight apparently
Where are these "100 violent protests"? I don't see evidence of even one, yet
Of course they may happen, but I stand by my prediction that police have been spooked by spectres on Telegram, probably called Ivan or Oleg
I tend to agree and wait to see if anything does happen tonight
Let’s face it, none of the candidates is Augustus Caesar, they all have grave flaws. Badenoch is flimsy, Patel is widely disliked, Tugendhat is Who?
This guy probably has the fewest flaws. He’s young, articulate, not posh - self made. He looks vaguely prime ministerial and he’s quite right wing without being Suella, voters may like that
Also, it will drive the Corbynite anti-Semites mad if both the PM and the LOTO have “Zio” wives. So it’s worth doing for that alone
Unfortunately he's also an unelectable careerist dud who's very obviously manoeuvring himself to gain the votes of the remaining hard-line factionalists in the PCP in order to get into the final two.
Chasing Farage is a mug's game. The threat from the LibDems hoovering up the remaining Home Counties seats (backbone of the Tory party since Lord Salisbury) is far more existential.
I disagree: the next leader of the Conservative Party has two tasks. The first is neutralize Reform, to get them into the mid single digits opinion poll-wise, and ensuring they don't get a foothold in local government. Now, sure, this won't win them the next election, but before anything else, the Conservatives must make Reform irrelevant.
Once Reform has been vanquished and the Conservatives have become the only credible party of the right, then they can tack back again towards the centre.
What's all this tacking to the centre stuff? Mushy compromises and splitting the difference?
Voters want pragmatism and solutions. Real leaders define and shape exactly where that is themselves.
The liberals at large really don't get this (not at all) because they protect core aspects of their theology as sacrosanct and are simply incapable of seeing it in any other way. This happened with free movement and I can see it happening with migration and asylum rights more broadly, and the HRA on top.
That's the opportunity for the Conservatives and to be seen as the new redefined centre ground, if they can get the tone and pitch right.
When I say "tack to the centre", what I mean is that the Conservatives need to win the voters who went Reform first. And once they've won those guys back and eliminated Reform, then they can look to win back voters who went LibDem or Labour.
But they do need to win back both sets of voters.
And, importantly, they need to do it in the order you prescribe. Because if they tack to the centre FIRST then Reform will surge and potentially devour them
Jenrick seems most likely to bring back Reform voters? And will he really drive off that many still voting for the Tories, the core voters?
So he probably will do well in the contest despite or even because of his remarks.
He looks like a nice safe Cameroon, I don't believe he will frighten anyone. It's bollocks
There is more to the allegations that he is greedy and the like, but then he's a Tory, greed is to Tories as canting hypocrisy is to Labour. Also, crucially, his greed has made him a rich man, through his own hard work. He is NOT an Old Etonian, he is NOT Rishi the Billionaire
Also, and finally, the Tories need to be thinking about how to fight the next war, not the last one. They really DO need those Reform voters to return, who is likely to do that, without alienating the centre right?
It will HAVE to be someone firm on immigration, because - sadly - this pivotal issue is going to dominate from now on, along with the economy
The Tories have no great choices, Jenrick seems the least bad. Tories should ignore lefties advising them to become like the Lib Dems, that advice is either disingenuous or clueless
I want a BAME Loto, that way I wont have to listen to 5 years of Lefty dross on race and women. Old pasty face Starmer just wont cut it.
Let's be fair - you'd prefer a half-open pot noodle to Starmer.
Well that's hardly news. However setting my personal dislike aside I am surprised at just how inept his government has been. The honeymoon has been remarkably short.
Perhaps he will get a grip and he's just having teething problems or it might be the shitshow that was the Cons masked Labours inadequacies.
Un shitshow peut en cacher un autre
Why aren't you in Versailles for the French National Championships? A friend has asked me to go with her tomorrow morning. I'm thinking about it. If you'd been there instead of stirring it on here you could have introduced us to the Compte.
I should qualify my previous post re Canadian government warning Canadians not to travel to the UK, that their actual advise is 'visitors should exercise a high degree of caution in the country'
"UK"
Outside England and Belfast (bits of), where's the problem?
Warnings across Wales tonight apparently
Where are these "100 violent protests"? I don't see evidence of even one, yet
Of course they may happen, but I stand by my prediction that police have been spooked by spectres on Telegram, probably called Ivan or Oleg
Could be a form of expectation management. If they don't happen then the plod can take credit.
Although two people of my vague acquaintance, lawyers, have had their workplaces names on Telegram and a few others who run their firms online, their home addresses. I've shared my mercifully Twitter based experience of far-right "targeting" (seems extreme for what happened but couldn't think of anything better) of me as a lawyer on here before so maybe I'm not seeing this objectively.
Taoiseach Simon Harris says the era of self regulation by social media companies is over
He’s prepared to meet Elon Musk and other social media company execs to discuss Irish government plans for financial sanctions and personal liabilities for failing to remove harmful content
I wonder how the Irish people will feel if Meta and Twitter simply shut down their services in Ireland? I see a surge in VPN usage coming soon.
If governments, including ours, shut down services that didn't voluntarily comply with national laws, norms and customs about libel, conspiracy, organising crime, abuse, harmful content, racial slurs etc then services would arise, funded by advertisers who would have confidence in them, which did so.
At the moment Gresham's law applies. Only government intervention can change that.
Nah. It would take decades for that to happen and all that would happen is that people would access the existing services via VPNs. Just look at China's attempts to shut down access to social media. It doesn't work.
And I do love the fact that people attack the chinese and other dictatorships for trying to stop people accessing social media because of their national laws and then support our own country doing the same thing.
@krishgm Following Jenrick's suggestion that people who shout 'God is Great' in the street should be arrested another Tory leadership candidate @MelJStride said "I think the suggestion of wholesale criminalisation of the words Allahu Akbar is unwise and insensitive. Any threat in the use of these words can only ever be implied in the very rarest of circumstances. Context clearly matters hugely here."
Criminalisation of words in that manner is a pretty dumb idea.
Even 370 years ago Parliamentarians could see the problems with going after very general terms (though in this example a label rather than an expression) and how your intent in doing so, even if noble (in your own mind) can be problematic later. Arrest people saying God is Great in one way and floodgates surely would be opened.
18 December 1656 Colonel Sydenham: I am as much against the Quakers as any man, but would not bring in a law against Quakers by a general word. It is a word that signifies nothing, individuum vagum nearly. It is like the word Lollards or Puritans, under the notion whereof, many godly persons are now under the altar, their blood being poured out. It is of dangerous consequence to make a law under general terms, and leave it to after ages to interpret your meaning. Let it be plainly explained what the offences shall be. But your proper way now, is to refer the petitions to a Committee, who may take out the heads of them, and represent their sense to you, and then you may make a law as you see occasion.
Mr. Bond: If men boggle at the word Quaker, leave it out. If we had had a law against them, we should not have troubled ourselves with this fellow[Nayler]. They are a generation that begin to lisp already. It will make men wear their swords. I desire the Question may be put.
Lord Strickland: You will not find in all your statutebooks a definition of Quaker or Blasphemy. Other States never do it, further than as disturbers of the peace. We know how laws against Papists were turned upon the honestest men. We may all, in after ages, be called Quakers. It is a word nobody understands. I would have it left to your Committee to consider of the heads of the petitions, and represent them to you, and then you may make a law against them. But we all know how the edge of former laws against Papists has been turned upon the best Protestants, the truest professors of religion, the honest Puritan, as they called him, a good profession, but hard to be understood, as this word Quaker will be in after ages.
Let’s face it, none of the candidates is Augustus Caesar, they all have grave flaws. Badenoch is flimsy, Patel is widely disliked, Tugendhat is Who?
This guy probably has the fewest flaws. He’s young, articulate, not posh - self made. He looks vaguely prime ministerial and he’s quite right wing without being Suella, voters may like that
Also, it will drive the Corbynite anti-Semites mad if both the PM and the LOTO have “Zio” wives. So it’s worth doing for that alone
Unfortunately he's also an unelectable careerist dud who's very obviously manoeuvring himself to gain the votes of the remaining hard-line factionalists in the PCP in order to get into the final two.
Chasing Farage is a mug's game. The threat from the LibDems hoovering up the remaining Home Counties seats (backbone of the Tory party since Lord Salisbury) is far more existential.
I disagree: the next leader of the Conservative Party has two tasks. The first is neutralize Reform, to get them into the mid single digits opinion poll-wise, and ensuring they don't get a foothold in local government. Now, sure, this won't win them the next election, but before anything else, the Conservatives must make Reform irrelevant.
Once Reform has been vanquished and the Conservatives have become the only credible party of the right, then they can tack back again towards the centre.
What's all this tacking to the centre stuff? Mushy compromises and splitting the difference?
Voters want pragmatism and solutions. Real leaders define and shape exactly where that is themselves.
The liberals at large really don't get this (not at all) because they protect core aspects of their theology as sacrosanct and are simply incapable of seeing it in any other way. This happened with free movement and I can see it happening with migration and asylum rights more broadly, and the HRA on top.
That's the opportunity for the Conservatives and to be seen as the new redefined centre ground, if they can get the tone and pitch right.
When I say "tack to the centre", what I mean is that the Conservatives need to win the voters who went Reform first. And once they've won those guys back and eliminated Reform, then they can look to win back voters who went LibDem or Labour.
But they do need to win back both sets of voters.
But that isn't how it works.
If they tack hard right to pick up Reform voters, how would that be recognised before GE 2029?
And even if they did, why would Reform not just get them back as soon as they tack centrally?
The Tories have to choose. Are they to be an anti-immigration party, appealing to the "left behind" or are they the party of pro-business bourgeoisie in shire areas?
Let’s face it, none of the candidates is Augustus Caesar, they all have grave flaws. Badenoch is flimsy, Patel is widely disliked, Tugendhat is Who?
This guy probably has the fewest flaws. He’s young, articulate, not posh - self made. He looks vaguely prime ministerial and he’s quite right wing without being Suella, voters may like that
Also, it will drive the Corbynite anti-Semites mad if both the PM and the LOTO have “Zio” wives. So it’s worth doing for that alone
Unfortunately he's also an unelectable careerist dud who's very obviously manoeuvring himself to gain the votes of the remaining hard-line factionalists in the PCP in order to get into the final two.
Chasing Farage is a mug's game. The threat from the LibDems hoovering up the remaining Home Counties seats (backbone of the Tory party since Lord Salisbury) is far more existential.
I disagree: the next leader of the Conservative Party has two tasks. The first is neutralize Reform, to get them into the mid single digits opinion poll-wise, and ensuring they don't get a foothold in local government. Now, sure, this won't win them the next election, but before anything else, the Conservatives must make Reform irrelevant.
Once Reform has been vanquished and the Conservatives have become the only credible party of the right, then they can tack back again towards the centre.
The Conservatives lost about 60 seats to the Lib Dems mainly in the south - the heartiest of their heartlands. They look to be difficult to dislodge. There may be 30 or 40 other seats with very small margins that could go next time. Against that the Conservatives lost 5 seats to Reform. So the suggestion is to potentially sacrifice 100 or seats to the Lib Dems and allow them to embed while they concentrate on Reform.
Now I get the real prize is Labour seats where Tories and Reform split a right wing vote. It depends on Reform disappearing of their own accord and Labour, LD and Greens not voting tactically. Even then the numbers may not add up.
Egypt has issued a curious NOTAM instructing Egyptian airlines avoid Iranian airspace between 0100-0400 UTC on 8 Aug. We say curious as Egyptian carriers route around Iran already as normal procedure. 🕵️♂️ @_opsgroup
On one level it brings me great joy to see Jenrick saying these things. It makes it all the more certain that, even if the party were stupid eough to make him Leader, his chances of becoming PM are, to all intents and purposes, zero. Lets have lots more rope for him to hang himself with.
(1) I think Jenrick is probably the candidate to beat at the moment and (2) I could easily see circumstances where he's pilloried constantly by the elites but still wins in 2028/2029 against a desperately unpopular Labour government
Because of stuff like THIS
"Labour scraps previous government’s ‘British workers’ social housing allocation plan"
Labour are going to become blisteringly unpopular very quickly. They are pushing a Woke, pro-more-migration agenda at the very moment when the country is firmly rowing the other way (even as we all recoil from these horrible riots)
With the labour party, there are a lot of contested subjects that they aren't even capable of rationally debating, due to the extent that 'woke discourse' has affected them. so they will just end up making bad political decisions. They may be able to sort out something like planning, but they have almost no chance at all of sorting out immigration.
Yes, precisely. They are emotionally and constitutionally incapable of dealing with the boats/migration, they are so marinated in Wokeness. It is like asking a devout Catholic to write abortion law and mandate abortion clinics
I predicted before the election that this one issue, above all others, was a reef in the shallows, waiting to rip open the government's keel. I didn't expect them to go sailing speedily TOWARDS the rocks with such blind eagerness
Their first instinct is to close down discussion of the subject.
Egypt has issued a curious NOTAM instructing Egyptian airlines avoid Iranian airspace between 0100-0400 UTC on 8 Aug. We say curious as Egyptian carriers route around Iran already as normal procedure. 🕵️♂️ @_opsgroup
'Allahu Akbar’ is spoken peacefully and spiritually by millions of British Muslims in their daily lives.
But the aggressive chanting below is intimidatory and threatening. And it’s an offence under Section 4 and 5 of the Public Order Act.
Extremists routinely abuse common expressions for their own shameful ends.
All violence must end. All violence must be called out.'
I do feel the full context matters - such that people care anymore. It's probably still unworkable though. You could have demonstrators loudly chanting 'Britain is great' in a way that might seem intimadatory. I don't think you can ban it.
Before dismissing Jenrick and Braverman as nothing more than grifters, remember that both are married to Jewish people and it can't have been easy for them to witness the scenes of Jew hatred week after week in London.
I should qualify my previous post re Canadian government warning Canadians not to travel to the UK, that their actual advise is 'visitors should exercise a high degree of caution in the country'
"UK"
Outside England and Belfast (bits of), where's the problem?
Warnings across Wales tonight apparently
Where are these "100 violent protests"? I don't see evidence of even one, yet
Of course they may happen, but I stand by my prediction that police have been spooked by spectres on Telegram, probably called Ivan or Oleg
Egypt has issued a curious NOTAM instructing Egyptian airlines avoid Iranian airspace between 0100-0400 UTC on 8 Aug. We say curious as Egyptian carriers route around Iran already as normal procedure. 🕵️♂️ @_opsgroup
Let’s face it, none of the candidates is Augustus Caesar, they all have grave flaws. Badenoch is flimsy, Patel is widely disliked, Tugendhat is Who?
This guy probably has the fewest flaws. He’s young, articulate, not posh - self made. He looks vaguely prime ministerial and he’s quite right wing without being Suella, voters may like that
Also, it will drive the Corbynite anti-Semites mad if both the PM and the LOTO have “Zio” wives. So it’s worth doing for that alone
Unfortunately he's also an unelectable careerist dud who's very obviously manoeuvring himself to gain the votes of the remaining hard-line factionalists in the PCP in order to get into the final two.
Chasing Farage is a mug's game. The threat from the LibDems hoovering up the remaining Home Counties seats (backbone of the Tory party since Lord Salisbury) is far more existential.
I disagree: the next leader of the Conservative Party has two tasks. The first is neutralize Reform, to get them into the mid single digits opinion poll-wise, and ensuring they don't get a foothold in local government. Now, sure, this won't win them the next election, but before anything else, the Conservatives must make Reform irrelevant.
Once Reform has been vanquished and the Conservatives have become the only credible party of the right, then they can tack back again towards the centre.
The Conservatives lost about 60 seats to the Lib Dems in the south - the heartiest of their heartlands. They look to be difficult to dislodge. There may be 30 or 40 other seats with very small margins that could go next time. Against that the Conservatives lost 5 seats to Reform. So the suggestion is to potentially sacrifice 100 or seats to the Lib Dems and allow them to embed while they concentrate on Reform.
Now I get the real prize is Labour seats where Tories and Reform split a right wing vote. It depends on Reform disappearing of their own accord and Labour, LD and Greens not voting tactically. Even then the numbers may not add up.
Not an obviously smart strategy.
You appear to be suggesting that the Tories lost to the Lib Dems via a straight transfer of votes from 2019 Boris Tory to 2024 Lib Dem. That's a ludicrous suggestion.
NASA just stated officially on a public call (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYPL6bx87yM) that they are planning, as a contingency, the return of the Boeing Starliner Crew on SpaceX Dragon (Crew 9).
They've also announced that a contingency for a 5th seat on Dragon has been officially designed and tested. And even a contingency for 7 passengers total (4 + 3) on Dragon - that's complete Apollo Rescue CSM stuff! All designed and ready for flight.
States that automated undock for Starliner just requires software parameter changes, not software changes.
This is very serious now, for Boeing. They are really considering abandoning Starliner and sending the astronauts home on Dragon.
Egypt has issued a curious NOTAM instructing Egyptian airlines avoid Iranian airspace between 0100-0400 UTC on 8 Aug. We say curious as Egyptian carriers route around Iran already as normal procedure. 🕵️♂️ @_opsgroup
Let’s face it, none of the candidates is Augustus Caesar, they all have grave flaws. Badenoch is flimsy, Patel is widely disliked, Tugendhat is Who?
This guy probably has the fewest flaws. He’s young, articulate, not posh - self made. He looks vaguely prime ministerial and he’s quite right wing without being Suella, voters may like that
Also, it will drive the Corbynite anti-Semites mad if both the PM and the LOTO have “Zio” wives. So it’s worth doing for that alone
Unfortunately he's also an unelectable careerist dud who's very obviously manoeuvring himself to gain the votes of the remaining hard-line factionalists in the PCP in order to get into the final two.
Chasing Farage is a mug's game. The threat from the LibDems hoovering up the remaining Home Counties seats (backbone of the Tory party since Lord Salisbury) is far more existential.
I disagree: the next leader of the Conservative Party has two tasks. The first is neutralize Reform, to get them into the mid single digits opinion poll-wise, and ensuring they don't get a foothold in local government. Now, sure, this won't win them the next election, but before anything else, the Conservatives must make Reform irrelevant.
Once Reform has been vanquished and the Conservatives have become the only credible party of the right, then they can tack back again towards the centre.
What's all this tacking to the centre stuff? Mushy compromises and splitting the difference?
Voters want pragmatism and solutions. Real leaders define and shape exactly where that is themselves.
The liberals at large really don't get this (not at all) because they protect core aspects of their theology as sacrosanct and are simply incapable of seeing it in any other way. This happened with free movement and I can see it happening with migration and asylum rights more broadly, and the HRA on top.
That's the opportunity for the Conservatives and to be seen as the new redefined centre ground, if they can get the tone and pitch right.
When I say "tack to the centre", what I mean is that the Conservatives need to win the voters who went Reform first. And once they've won those guys back and eliminated Reform, then they can look to win back voters who went LibDem or Labour.
But they do need to win back both sets of voters.
And, importantly, they need to do it in the order you prescribe. Because if they tack to the centre FIRST then Reform will surge and potentially devour them
Neutralising Reform is the initial task
Agree 100%
And what are people like me to do? Hang around and hope that at some point the Tories come back to some form of sanity and electability?
Egypt has issued a curious NOTAM instructing Egyptian airlines avoid Iranian airspace between 0100-0400 UTC on 8 Aug. We say curious as Egyptian carriers route around Iran already as normal procedure. 🕵️♂️ @_opsgroup
The concrete on the third and fourth layers of concrete for the bunker for the servants to the servants hall is still curing.
I know. The servants could rough it without their own servants. But it's been a tough year for them. One of the junior footmen was hit by the mortgage thing and had to give up his second best Rolls.
Egypt has issued a curious NOTAM instructing Egyptian airlines avoid Iranian airspace between 0100-0400 UTC on 8 Aug. We say curious as Egyptian carriers route around Iran already as normal procedure. 🕵️♂️ @_opsgroup
I've been wondering about relations between these countries of late. Egypt mus be losing a lot of money due to the Houthis blocking shipping through the Suez Canal.
'Allahu Akbar’ is spoken peacefully and spiritually by millions of British Muslims in their daily lives.
But the aggressive chanting below is intimidatory and threatening. And it’s an offence under Section 4 and 5 of the Public Order Act.
Extremists routinely abuse common expressions for their own shameful ends.
All violence must end. All violence must be called out.'
I do feel the full context matters - such that people care anymore. It's probably still unworkable though. You could have demonstrators loudly chanting 'Britain is great' in a way that might seem intimadatory. I don't think you can ban it.
Before dismissing Jenrick and Braverman as nothing more than grifters, remember that both are married to Jewish people and it can't have been easy for them to witness the scenes of Jew hatred week after week in London.
I think that’s unfair.
Most of us dismissed them as grifters a long time ago.
Egypt has issued a curious NOTAM instructing Egyptian airlines avoid Iranian airspace between 0100-0400 UTC on 8 Aug. We say curious as Egyptian carriers route around Iran already as normal procedure. 🕵️♂️ @_opsgroup
Let’s face it, none of the candidates is Augustus Caesar, they all have grave flaws. Badenoch is flimsy, Patel is widely disliked, Tugendhat is Who?
This guy probably has the fewest flaws. He’s young, articulate, not posh - self made. He looks vaguely prime ministerial and he’s quite right wing without being Suella, voters may like that
Also, it will drive the Corbynite anti-Semites mad if both the PM and the LOTO have “Zio” wives. So it’s worth doing for that alone
Unfortunately he's also an unelectable careerist dud who's very obviously manoeuvring himself to gain the votes of the remaining hard-line factionalists in the PCP in order to get into the final two.
Chasing Farage is a mug's game. The threat from the LibDems hoovering up the remaining Home Counties seats (backbone of the Tory party since Lord Salisbury) is far more existential.
I disagree: the next leader of the Conservative Party has two tasks. The first is neutralize Reform, to get them into the mid single digits opinion poll-wise, and ensuring they don't get a foothold in local government. Now, sure, this won't win them the next election, but before anything else, the Conservatives must make Reform irrelevant.
Once Reform has been vanquished and the Conservatives have become the only credible party of the right, then they can tack back again towards the centre.
What's all this tacking to the centre stuff? Mushy compromises and splitting the difference?
Voters want pragmatism and solutions. Real leaders define and shape exactly where that is themselves.
The liberals at large really don't get this (not at all) because they protect core aspects of their theology as sacrosanct and are simply incapable of seeing it in any other way. This happened with free movement and I can see it happening with migration and asylum rights more broadly, and the HRA on top.
That's the opportunity for the Conservatives and to be seen as the new redefined centre ground, if they can get the tone and pitch right.
When I say "tack to the centre", what I mean is that the Conservatives need to win the voters who went Reform first. And once they've won those guys back and eliminated Reform, then they can look to win back voters who went LibDem or Labour.
But they do need to win back both sets of voters.
But that isn't how it works.
If they tack hard right to pick up Reform voters, how would that be recognised before GE 2029?
And even if they did, why would Reform not just get them back as soon as they tack centrally?
The Tories have to choose. Are they to be an anti-immigration party, appealing to the "left behind" or are they the party of pro-business bourgeoisie in shire areas?
They don't 'have to choose'.
They have to be both: sort immigration and be pro-business.
I see that as entirely possible. Indeed, I see it as essential.
I should qualify my previous post re Canadian government warning Canadians not to travel to the UK, that their actual advise is 'visitors should exercise a high degree of caution in the country'
"UK"
Outside England and Belfast (bits of), where's the problem?
Warnings across Wales tonight apparently
Where are these "100 violent protests"? I don't see evidence of even one, yet
Of course they may happen, but I stand by my prediction that police have been spooked by spectres on Telegram, probably called Ivan or Oleg
Let’s face it, none of the candidates is Augustus Caesar, they all have grave flaws. Badenoch is flimsy, Patel is widely disliked, Tugendhat is Who?
This guy probably has the fewest flaws. He’s young, articulate, not posh - self made. He looks vaguely prime ministerial and he’s quite right wing without being Suella, voters may like that
Also, it will drive the Corbynite anti-Semites mad if both the PM and the LOTO have “Zio” wives. So it’s worth doing for that alone
Unfortunately he's also an unelectable careerist dud who's very obviously manoeuvring himself to gain the votes of the remaining hard-line factionalists in the PCP in order to get into the final two.
Chasing Farage is a mug's game. The threat from the LibDems hoovering up the remaining Home Counties seats (backbone of the Tory party since Lord Salisbury) is far more existential.
I disagree: the next leader of the Conservative Party has two tasks. The first is neutralize Reform, to get them into the mid single digits opinion poll-wise, and ensuring they don't get a foothold in local government. Now, sure, this won't win them the next election, but before anything else, the Conservatives must make Reform irrelevant.
Once Reform has been vanquished and the Conservatives have become the only credible party of the right, then they can tack back again towards the centre.
What's all this tacking to the centre stuff? Mushy compromises and splitting the difference?
Voters want pragmatism and solutions. Real leaders define and shape exactly where that is themselves.
The liberals at large really don't get this (not at all) because they protect core aspects of their theology as sacrosanct and are simply incapable of seeing it in any other way. This happened with free movement and I can see it happening with migration and asylum rights more broadly, and the HRA on top.
That's the opportunity for the Conservatives and to be seen as the new redefined centre ground, if they can get the tone and pitch right.
When I say "tack to the centre", what I mean is that the Conservatives need to win the voters who went Reform first. And once they've won those guys back and eliminated Reform, then they can look to win back voters who went LibDem or Labour.
But they do need to win back both sets of voters.
But that isn't how it works.
If they tack hard right to pick up Reform voters, how would that be recognised before GE 2029?
And even if they did, why would Reform not just get them back as soon as they tack centrally?
The Tories have to choose. Are they to be an anti-immigration party, appealing to the "left behind" or are they the party of pro-business bourgeoisie in shire areas?
They don't 'have to choose'.
They have to be both: sort immigration and be pro-business.
I see that as entirely possible. Indeed, I see it as essential.
They tried that 6 weeks ago and fell between stools, shedding voters in many directions.
I might spend my holidays mainly relistening to 90s British acts albums.
Boy, there was some good stuff: Pulp, Blur, Space, The Verve and even Radiohead.
Whenever I see some wannabe local councillor trying to get elected, doing their schpiel to camera, walking down some prominent local road, or next to a local landmark, this stonker of a tune from Space always comes into my head;
'Allahu Akbar’ is spoken peacefully and spiritually by millions of British Muslims in their daily lives.
But the aggressive chanting below is intimidatory and threatening. And it’s an offence under Section 4 and 5 of the Public Order Act.
Extremists routinely abuse common expressions for their own shameful ends.
All violence must end. All violence must be called out.'
I do feel the full context matters - such that people care anymore. It's probably still unworkable though. You could have demonstrators loudly chanting 'Britain is great' in a way that might seem intimadatory. I don't think you can ban it.
Before dismissing Jenrick and Braverman as nothing more than grifters, remember that both are married to Jewish people and it can't have been easy for them to witness the scenes of Jew hatred week after week in London.
Which is utterly different as to what he was portrayed as saying.
Let’s face it, none of the candidates is Augustus Caesar, they all have grave flaws. Badenoch is flimsy, Patel is widely disliked, Tugendhat is Who?
This guy probably has the fewest flaws. He’s young, articulate, not posh - self made. He looks vaguely prime ministerial and he’s quite right wing without being Suella, voters may like that
Also, it will drive the Corbynite anti-Semites mad if both the PM and the LOTO have “Zio” wives. So it’s worth doing for that alone
Unfortunately he's also an unelectable careerist dud who's very obviously manoeuvring himself to gain the votes of the remaining hard-line factionalists in the PCP in order to get into the final two.
Chasing Farage is a mug's game. The threat from the LibDems hoovering up the remaining Home Counties seats (backbone of the Tory party since Lord Salisbury) is far more existential.
I disagree: the next leader of the Conservative Party has two tasks. The first is neutralize Reform, to get them into the mid single digits opinion poll-wise, and ensuring they don't get a foothold in local government. Now, sure, this won't win them the next election, but before anything else, the Conservatives must make Reform irrelevant.
Once Reform has been vanquished and the Conservatives have become the only credible party of the right, then they can tack back again towards the centre.
What's all this tacking to the centre stuff? Mushy compromises and splitting the difference?
Voters want pragmatism and solutions. Real leaders define and shape exactly where that is themselves.
The liberals at large really don't get this (not at all) because they protect core aspects of their theology as sacrosanct and are simply incapable of seeing it in any other way. This happened with free movement and I can see it happening with migration and asylum rights more broadly, and the HRA on top.
That's the opportunity for the Conservatives and to be seen as the new redefined centre ground, if they can get the tone and pitch right.
When I say "tack to the centre", what I mean is that the Conservatives need to win the voters who went Reform first. And once they've won those guys back and eliminated Reform, then they can look to win back voters who went LibDem or Labour.
But they do need to win back both sets of voters.
And, importantly, they need to do it in the order you prescribe. Because if they tack to the centre FIRST then Reform will surge and potentially devour them
Neutralising Reform is the initial task
Agree 100%
And what are people like me to do? Hang around and hope that at some point the Tories come back to some form of sanity and electability?
Sod that.
Do you approve of the political consensus that says close Grangemouth, stop drilling for oil or tax producers out of existence, outsource making everything to China, keep the tax burden at a historic high etc.? Because you seem pretty against it, so why are you so desparate for the Tories to avoid any departure from it?
NASA just stated officially on a public call (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYPL6bx87yM) that they are planning, as a contingency, the return of the Boeing Starliner Crew on SpaceX Dragon (Crew 9).
They've also announced that a contingency for a 5th seat on Dragon has been officially designed and tested. And even a contingency for 7 passengers total (4 + 3) on Dragon - that's complete Apollo Rescue CSM stuff! All designed and ready for flight.
States that automated undock for Starliner just requires software parameter changes, not software changes.
This is very serious now, for Boeing. They are really considering abandoning Starliner and sending the astronauts home on Dragon.
That is a very good decision from NASA. Shows that at least someone in the organsation is using their brains.
Boeing are toast. At least with their current middle and upper management.
I might spend my holidays mainly relistening to 90s British acts albums.
Boy, there was some good stuff: Pulp, Blur, Space, The Verve and even Radiohead.
And Oasis too before they veered into self parody. A good time to become a teenager. And weird how it all seemed to end around the time Blair had his parties in No.10. Not that it was his fault.
Egypt has issued a curious NOTAM instructing Egyptian airlines avoid Iranian airspace between 0100-0400 UTC on 8 Aug. We say curious as Egyptian carriers route around Iran already as normal procedure. 🕵️♂️ @_opsgroup
The concrete on the third and fourth layers of concrete for the bunker for the servants to the servants hall is still curing.
I know. The servants could rough it without their own servants. But it's been a tough year for them. One of the junior footmen was hit by the mortgage thing and had to give up his second best Rolls.
Have I mentioned the first leg of my holiday begins with a stay at Trump's hotel in North Britain?
Let’s face it, none of the candidates is Augustus Caesar, they all have grave flaws. Badenoch is flimsy, Patel is widely disliked, Tugendhat is Who?
This guy probably has the fewest flaws. He’s young, articulate, not posh - self made. He looks vaguely prime ministerial and he’s quite right wing without being Suella, voters may like that
Also, it will drive the Corbynite anti-Semites mad if both the PM and the LOTO have “Zio” wives. So it’s worth doing for that alone
Unfortunately he's also an unelectable careerist dud who's very obviously manoeuvring himself to gain the votes of the remaining hard-line factionalists in the PCP in order to get into the final two.
Chasing Farage is a mug's game. The threat from the LibDems hoovering up the remaining Home Counties seats (backbone of the Tory party since Lord Salisbury) is far more existential.
I disagree: the next leader of the Conservative Party has two tasks. The first is neutralize Reform, to get them into the mid single digits opinion poll-wise, and ensuring they don't get a foothold in local government. Now, sure, this won't win them the next election, but before anything else, the Conservatives must make Reform irrelevant.
Once Reform has been vanquished and the Conservatives have become the only credible party of the right, then they can tack back again towards the centre.
What's all this tacking to the centre stuff? Mushy compromises and splitting the difference?
Voters want pragmatism and solutions. Real leaders define and shape exactly where that is themselves.
The liberals at large really don't get this (not at all) because they protect core aspects of their theology as sacrosanct and are simply incapable of seeing it in any other way. This happened with free movement and I can see it happening with migration and asylum rights more broadly, and the HRA on top.
That's the opportunity for the Conservatives and to be seen as the new redefined centre ground, if they can get the tone and pitch right.
When I say "tack to the centre", what I mean is that the Conservatives need to win the voters who went Reform first. And once they've won those guys back and eliminated Reform, then they can look to win back voters who went LibDem or Labour.
But they do need to win back both sets of voters.
But that isn't how it works.
If they tack hard right to pick up Reform voters, how would that be recognised before GE 2029?
And even if they did, why would Reform not just get them back as soon as they tack centrally?
The Tories have to choose. Are they to be an anti-immigration party, appealing to the "left behind" or are they the party of pro-business bourgeoisie in shire areas?
They don't 'have to choose'.
They have to be both: sort immigration and be pro-business.
I see that as entirely possible. Indeed, I see it as essential.
They tried that 6 weeks ago and fell between stools, shedding voters in many directions.
But even then Labour only got 33.7% of the vote, on a dismal 60% turnout
That's the opportunity for the Tories: Starmer is not Blair, and there is no money left. The Tories really can do this in one term
First
1. Labour are going to be massively unpopular
This is a necessary but not sufficient condition. Also required is:
2. The Tories need to win back MOST of the Reform voters (they cannot win all of them), they also need to appear united, cohesive, aggressive. And intelligently pro-business and pro-enterprise, even as Labour beats us all to death with taxes and gives NHS managers 800% pay rises and builds endless ugly new homes for endless waves of new migration. And puts pylons in every beautiful valley so Ed Miliband can personally feel good about himself in Dartmouth Park
NASA just stated officially on a public call (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYPL6bx87yM) that they are planning, as a contingency, the return of the Boeing Starliner Crew on SpaceX Dragon (Crew 9).
They've also announced that a contingency for a 5th seat on Dragon has been officially designed and tested. And even a contingency for 7 passengers total (4 + 3) on Dragon - that's complete Apollo Rescue CSM stuff! All designed and ready for flight.
States that automated undock for Starliner just requires software parameter changes, not software changes.
This is very serious now, for Boeing. They are really considering abandoning Starliner and sending the astronauts home on Dragon.
AFAICR Crew Dragon was always designed to carry seven max; they just chose to routinely carry fewer and a little more cargo and space inside. I *think* there were pictures of NASA reps examining a Crew Dragon setup for seven.
Another minor issue: Boeing's crew suits are incompatible with SpaceX's (or you can say the other way around...), so they may have to send a couple of specially made SpaceX suits up to to the crew.
I'd love to be the tailor sent up to ensure the fit is just perfect!
(Just before Apollo 11, Collins damaged both pairs of his EVA gloves. NASA flew a seamstress who made the gloves across the country to personally make a new pair. It was her first time out of her ?home town? / state.)
Let’s face it, none of the candidates is Augustus Caesar, they all have grave flaws. Badenoch is flimsy, Patel is widely disliked, Tugendhat is Who?
This guy probably has the fewest flaws. He’s young, articulate, not posh - self made. He looks vaguely prime ministerial and he’s quite right wing without being Suella, voters may like that
Also, it will drive the Corbynite anti-Semites mad if both the PM and the LOTO have “Zio” wives. So it’s worth doing for that alone
Unfortunately he's also an unelectable careerist dud who's very obviously manoeuvring himself to gain the votes of the remaining hard-line factionalists in the PCP in order to get into the final two.
Chasing Farage is a mug's game. The threat from the LibDems hoovering up the remaining Home Counties seats (backbone of the Tory party since Lord Salisbury) is far more existential.
I disagree: the next leader of the Conservative Party has two tasks. The first is neutralize Reform, to get them into the mid single digits opinion poll-wise, and ensuring they don't get a foothold in local government. Now, sure, this won't win them the next election, but before anything else, the Conservatives must make Reform irrelevant.
Once Reform has been vanquished and the Conservatives have become the only credible party of the right, then they can tack back again towards the centre.
What's all this tacking to the centre stuff? Mushy compromises and splitting the difference?
Voters want pragmatism and solutions. Real leaders define and shape exactly where that is themselves.
The liberals at large really don't get this (not at all) because they protect core aspects of their theology as sacrosanct and are simply incapable of seeing it in any other way. This happened with free movement and I can see it happening with migration and asylum rights more broadly, and the HRA on top.
That's the opportunity for the Conservatives and to be seen as the new redefined centre ground, if they can get the tone and pitch right.
When I say "tack to the centre", what I mean is that the Conservatives need to win the voters who went Reform first. And once they've won those guys back and eliminated Reform, then they can look to win back voters who went LibDem or Labour.
But they do need to win back both sets of voters.
But that isn't how it works.
If they tack hard right to pick up Reform voters, how would that be recognised before GE 2029?
And even if they did, why would Reform not just get them back as soon as they tack centrally?
The Tories have to choose. Are they to be an anti-immigration party, appealing to the "left behind" or are they the party of pro-business bourgeoisie in shire areas?
They don't 'have to choose'.
They have to be both: sort immigration and be pro-business.
I see that as entirely possible. Indeed, I see it as essential.
They tried that 6 weeks ago and fell between stools, shedding voters in many directions.
The question there, that no one asks is - pro *what* business?
For example, are we pro-Thames Water? Or should we say fuck Thames Water?
What about businesses that are based on ultra cheap labour?
What about businesses that are based on sweating ultra cheap labour?
What about businesses that are based on paying less than minimum wage - see the garment trade around Leicester?
NASA just stated officially on a public call (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYPL6bx87yM) that they are planning, as a contingency, the return of the Boeing Starliner Crew on SpaceX Dragon (Crew 9).
They've also announced that a contingency for a 5th seat on Dragon has been officially designed and tested. And even a contingency for 7 passengers total (4 + 3) on Dragon - that's complete Apollo Rescue CSM stuff! All designed and ready for flight.
States that automated undock for Starliner just requires software parameter changes, not software changes.
This is very serious now, for Boeing. They are really considering abandoning Starliner and sending the astronauts home on Dragon.
That is a very good decision from NASA. Shows that at least someone in the organsation is using their brains.
Boeing are toast. At least with their current middle and upper management.
What the heck happened? They're such a huge company yet seem to be totally spiralling.
NASA just stated officially on a public call (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYPL6bx87yM) that they are planning, as a contingency, the return of the Boeing Starliner Crew on SpaceX Dragon (Crew 9).
They've also announced that a contingency for a 5th seat on Dragon has been officially designed and tested. And even a contingency for 7 passengers total (4 + 3) on Dragon - that's complete Apollo Rescue CSM stuff! All designed and ready for flight.
States that automated undock for Starliner just requires software parameter changes, not software changes.
This is very serious now, for Boeing. They are really considering abandoning Starliner and sending the astronauts home on Dragon.
LOL. It took a while for NASA to get there, but they’re slowly moving along the right path.
Let’s face it, none of the candidates is Augustus Caesar, they all have grave flaws. Badenoch is flimsy, Patel is widely disliked, Tugendhat is Who?
This guy probably has the fewest flaws. He’s young, articulate, not posh - self made. He looks vaguely prime ministerial and he’s quite right wing without being Suella, voters may like that
Also, it will drive the Corbynite anti-Semites mad if both the PM and the LOTO have “Zio” wives. So it’s worth doing for that alone
Unfortunately he's also an unelectable careerist dud who's very obviously manoeuvring himself to gain the votes of the remaining hard-line factionalists in the PCP in order to get into the final two.
Chasing Farage is a mug's game. The threat from the LibDems hoovering up the remaining Home Counties seats (backbone of the Tory party since Lord Salisbury) is far more existential.
I disagree: the next leader of the Conservative Party has two tasks. The first is neutralize Reform, to get them into the mid single digits opinion poll-wise, and ensuring they don't get a foothold in local government. Now, sure, this won't win them the next election, but before anything else, the Conservatives must make Reform irrelevant.
Once Reform has been vanquished and the Conservatives have become the only credible party of the right, then they can tack back again towards the centre.
What's all this tacking to the centre stuff? Mushy compromises and splitting the difference?
Voters want pragmatism and solutions. Real leaders define and shape exactly where that is themselves.
The liberals at large really don't get this (not at all) because they protect core aspects of their theology as sacrosanct and are simply incapable of seeing it in any other way. This happened with free movement and I can see it happening with migration and asylum rights more broadly, and the HRA on top.
That's the opportunity for the Conservatives and to be seen as the new redefined centre ground, if they can get the tone and pitch right.
When I say "tack to the centre", what I mean is that the Conservatives need to win the voters who went Reform first. And once they've won those guys back and eliminated Reform, then they can look to win back voters who went LibDem or Labour.
But they do need to win back both sets of voters.
But that isn't how it works.
If they tack hard right to pick up Reform voters, how would that be recognised before GE 2029?
And even if they did, why would Reform not just get them back as soon as they tack centrally?
The Tories have to choose. Are they to be an anti-immigration party, appealing to the "left behind" or are they the party of pro-business bourgeoisie in shire areas?
They don't 'have to choose'.
They have to be both: sort immigration and be pro-business.
I see that as entirely possible. Indeed, I see it as essential.
They tried that 6 weeks ago and fell between stools, shedding voters in many directions.
For example, are we pro-Thames Water? Or should we say fuck Thames Water?
What about businesses that are based on ultra cheap labour?
What about businesses that are based on sweating ultra cheap labour?
What about businesses that are based on paying less than minimum wage - see the garment trade around Leicester?
'Allahu Akbar’ is spoken peacefully and spiritually by millions of British Muslims in their daily lives.
But the aggressive chanting below is intimidatory and threatening. And it’s an offence under Section 4 and 5 of the Public Order Act.
Extremists routinely abuse common expressions for their own shameful ends.
All violence must end. All violence must be called out.'
I do feel the full context matters - such that people care anymore. It's probably still unworkable though. You could have demonstrators loudly chanting 'Britain is great' in a way that might seem intimadatory. I don't think you can ban it.
Before dismissing Jenrick and Braverman as nothing more than grifters, remember that both are married to Jewish people and it can't have been easy for them to witness the scenes of Jew hatred week after week in London.
Which is utterly different as to what he was portrayed as saying.
Funnily enough the context of his statement about the context of other statements does indeed put a different spin on things.
Let’s face it, none of the candidates is Augustus Caesar, they all have grave flaws. Badenoch is flimsy, Patel is widely disliked, Tugendhat is Who?
This guy probably has the fewest flaws. He’s young, articulate, not posh - self made. He looks vaguely prime ministerial and he’s quite right wing without being Suella, voters may like that
Also, it will drive the Corbynite anti-Semites mad if both the PM and the LOTO have “Zio” wives. So it’s worth doing for that alone
Unfortunately he's also an unelectable careerist dud who's very obviously manoeuvring himself to gain the votes of the remaining hard-line factionalists in the PCP in order to get into the final two.
Chasing Farage is a mug's game. The threat from the LibDems hoovering up the remaining Home Counties seats (backbone of the Tory party since Lord Salisbury) is far more existential.
I disagree: the next leader of the Conservative Party has two tasks. The first is neutralize Reform, to get them into the mid single digits opinion poll-wise, and ensuring they don't get a foothold in local government. Now, sure, this won't win them the next election, but before anything else, the Conservatives must make Reform irrelevant.
Once Reform has been vanquished and the Conservatives have become the only credible party of the right, then they can tack back again towards the centre.
What's all this tacking to the centre stuff? Mushy compromises and splitting the difference?
Voters want pragmatism and solutions. Real leaders define and shape exactly where that is themselves.
The liberals at large really don't get this (not at all) because they protect core aspects of their theology as sacrosanct and are simply incapable of seeing it in any other way. This happened with free movement and I can see it happening with migration and asylum rights more broadly, and the HRA on top.
That's the opportunity for the Conservatives and to be seen as the new redefined centre ground, if they can get the tone and pitch right.
When I say "tack to the centre", what I mean is that the Conservatives need to win the voters who went Reform first. And once they've won those guys back and eliminated Reform, then they can look to win back voters who went LibDem or Labour.
But they do need to win back both sets of voters.
And, importantly, they need to do it in the order you prescribe. Because if they tack to the centre FIRST then Reform will surge and potentially devour them
Neutralising Reform is the initial task
Agree 100%
And what are people like me to do? Hang around and hope that at some point the Tories come back to some form of sanity and electability?
Sod that.
Do you approve of the political consensus that says close Grangemouth, stop drilling for oil or tax producers out of existence, outsource making everything to China, keep the tax burden at a historic high etc.? Because you seem pretty against it, so why are you so desparate for the Tories to avoid any departure from it?
The politicians are not closing Grangemouth, Ineos are. They are doing so because the feedstock is drying up and they are struggling to be price competitive, especially with all the incredibly short sighted and stupid "windfall" taxes dumped on North Sea oil.
I find the argument that we should import our oil from the likes of Saudi or Russia than drilling our our own utterly bizarre. Obviously our policies should be looking to reduce our oil consumption but that is an entirely different question than where that oil comes from.
Outsourcing our manufacturing to China was another huge mistake made when Ed f****** Miliband was last in charge of our energy policies. The man is almost criminally stupid.
The tax burden I am more ambivalent about. We absolutely must reduce or even eliminate the deficit. That requires both higher taxes and lower spending. We should not go to either end of the see saw.
So I am not content that we have a Labour government but I also recognise that the last government was utterly exhausted and frankly making ever more stupid decisions. But I don't agree that the answer to stupid is even more stupid. Going after Reform is not the answer. They are a bunch of twats and the Tories need to aim for more centre right policies.
It also uses the American term, BIPOC - it says we must defend Black and Indigenous and People of Colour
So, er, who are these indigenous to be defended? The Anglo-Celts like me?? Cool! Or is it the Beaker People? Who are these British indigenes being defended even as we "drive the Zios" out of Finchley?
This is such dreck I wonder if it is designed to discredit the movement
NASA just stated officially on a public call (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYPL6bx87yM) that they are planning, as a contingency, the return of the Boeing Starliner Crew on SpaceX Dragon (Crew 9).
They've also announced that a contingency for a 5th seat on Dragon has been officially designed and tested. And even a contingency for 7 passengers total (4 + 3) on Dragon - that's complete Apollo Rescue CSM stuff! All designed and ready for flight.
States that automated undock for Starliner just requires software parameter changes, not software changes.
This is very serious now, for Boeing. They are really considering abandoning Starliner and sending the astronauts home on Dragon.
AFAICR Crew Dragon was always designed to carry seven max; they just chose to routinely carry fewer and a little more cargo and space inside. I *think* there were pictures of NASA reps examining a Crew Dragon setup for seven.
Another minor issue: Boeing's crew suits are incompatible with SpaceX's (or you can say the other way around...), so they may have to send a couple of specially made SpaceX suits up to to the crew.
I'd love to be the tailor sent up to ensure the fit is just perfect!
(Just before Apollo 11, Collins damaged both pairs of his EVA gloves. NASA flew a seamstress who made the gloves across the country to personally make a new pair. It was her first time out of her ?home town? / state.)
The configuration of 7 was reduced to 4, for Dragon, because NASA had some concerns about a hard landing causing an "excursion" of the seats in the top row into the bottom row. Interestingly, the Apollo rescue CSM had exactly the same issue - on a harder landing (than had ever occurred in Apollo) the top seats might impact the people below.
The incompatibility is to do with the connections from the suit to the spacecraft. In both cases, the suits are really an extension of the spacecraft. They have different electrical, cooling and air connectors. Well, SpaceX create a single, multi function connector - which Boeing declined to standardise on.
It appears that SpaceX didn't delete the extra suit connections or reduce the capability of the environmental systems when they reduced from 7 to 4.
They would send up suits with the Dragon capsule for the Starliner crew. Because of the hardware rich approach at SpaceX, they have numbers of suits on hand and identified some that would fit well enough.
NASA just stated officially on a public call (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYPL6bx87yM) that they are planning, as a contingency, the return of the Boeing Starliner Crew on SpaceX Dragon (Crew 9).
They've also announced that a contingency for a 5th seat on Dragon has been officially designed and tested. And even a contingency for 7 passengers total (4 + 3) on Dragon - that's complete Apollo Rescue CSM stuff! All designed and ready for flight.
States that automated undock for Starliner just requires software parameter changes, not software changes.
This is very serious now, for Boeing. They are really considering abandoning Starliner and sending the astronauts home on Dragon.
That is a very good decision from NASA. Shows that at least someone in the organsation is using their brains.
Boeing are toast. At least with their current middle and upper management.
They haven't made the decision yet.
Eric Berger, the journalist who is the expert on the area, thinks it is 60/40 abandoning Starliner.
Let’s face it, none of the candidates is Augustus Caesar, they all have grave flaws. Badenoch is flimsy, Patel is widely disliked, Tugendhat is Who?
This guy probably has the fewest flaws. He’s young, articulate, not posh - self made. He looks vaguely prime ministerial and he’s quite right wing without being Suella, voters may like that
Also, it will drive the Corbynite anti-Semites mad if both the PM and the LOTO have “Zio” wives. So it’s worth doing for that alone
Unfortunately he's also an unelectable careerist dud who's very obviously manoeuvring himself to gain the votes of the remaining hard-line factionalists in the PCP in order to get into the final two.
Chasing Farage is a mug's game. The threat from the LibDems hoovering up the remaining Home Counties seats (backbone of the Tory party since Lord Salisbury) is far more existential.
I disagree: the next leader of the Conservative Party has two tasks. The first is neutralize Reform, to get them into the mid single digits opinion poll-wise, and ensuring they don't get a foothold in local government. Now, sure, this won't win them the next election, but before anything else, the Conservatives must make Reform irrelevant.
Once Reform has been vanquished and the Conservatives have become the only credible party of the right, then they can tack back again towards the centre.
What's all this tacking to the centre stuff? Mushy compromises and splitting the difference?
Voters want pragmatism and solutions. Real leaders define and shape exactly where that is themselves.
The liberals at large really don't get this (not at all) because they protect core aspects of their theology as sacrosanct and are simply incapable of seeing it in any other way. This happened with free movement and I can see it happening with migration and asylum rights more broadly, and the HRA on top.
That's the opportunity for the Conservatives and to be seen as the new redefined centre ground, if they can get the tone and pitch right.
When I say "tack to the centre", what I mean is that the Conservatives need to win the voters who went Reform first. And once they've won those guys back and eliminated Reform, then they can look to win back voters who went LibDem or Labour.
But they do need to win back both sets of voters.
And, importantly, they need to do it in the order you prescribe. Because if they tack to the centre FIRST then Reform will surge and potentially devour them
Neutralising Reform is the initial task
Agree 100%
And what are people like me to do? Hang around and hope that at some point the Tories come back to some form of sanity and electability?
Sod that.
Do you approve of the political consensus that says close Grangemouth, stop drilling for oil or tax producers out of existence, outsource making everything to China, keep the tax burden at a historic high etc.? Because you seem pretty against it, so why are you so desparate for the Tories to avoid any departure from it?
The politicians are not closing Grangemouth, Ineos are. They are doing so because the feedstock is drying up and they are struggling to be price competitive, especially with all the incredibly short sighted and stupid "windfall" taxes dumped on North Sea oil.
I find the argument that we should import our oil from the likes of Saudi or Russia than drilling our our own utterly bizarre. Obviously our policies should be looking to reduce our oil consumption but that is an entirely different question than where that oil comes from.
Outsourcing our manufacturing to China was another huge mistake made when Ed f****** Miliband was last in charge of our energy policies. The man is almost criminally stupid.
The tax burden I am more ambivalent about. We absolutely must reduce or even eliminate the deficit. That requires both higher taxes and lower spending. We should not go to either end of the see saw.
So I am not content that we have a Labour government but I also recognise that the last government was utterly exhausted and frankly making ever more stupid decisions. But I don't agree that the answer to stupid is even more stupid. Going after Reform is not the answer. They are a bunch of twats and the Tories need to aim for more centre right policies.
My points were perhaps somewhat disordered, but what I am saying is that a sensible right wing policy agenda is, by its nature, radical these days. There's no point in trying to be well-behaved to fit in with the polite consensus. It's not going to work.
NASA just stated officially on a public call (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYPL6bx87yM) that they are planning, as a contingency, the return of the Boeing Starliner Crew on SpaceX Dragon (Crew 9).
They've also announced that a contingency for a 5th seat on Dragon has been officially designed and tested. And even a contingency for 7 passengers total (4 + 3) on Dragon - that's complete Apollo Rescue CSM stuff! All designed and ready for flight.
States that automated undock for Starliner just requires software parameter changes, not software changes.
This is very serious now, for Boeing. They are really considering abandoning Starliner and sending the astronauts home on Dragon.
AFAICR Crew Dragon was always designed to carry seven max; they just chose to routinely carry fewer and a little more cargo and space inside. I *think* there were pictures of NASA reps examining a Crew Dragon setup for seven.
Another minor issue: Boeing's crew suits are incompatible with SpaceX's (or you can say the other way around...), so they may have to send a couple of specially made SpaceX suits up to to the crew.
I'd love to be the tailor sent up to ensure the fit is just perfect!
(Just before Apollo 11, Collins damaged both pairs of his EVA gloves. NASA flew a seamstress who made the gloves across the country to personally make a new pair. It was her first time out of her ?home town? / state.)
The configuration of 7 was reduced to 4, for Dragon, because NASA had some concerns about a hard landing causing an "excursion" of the seats in the top row into the bottom row. Interestingly, the Apollo rescue CSM had exactly the same issue - on a harder landing (than had ever occurred in Apollo) the top seats might impact the people below.
The incompatibility is to do with the connections from the suit to the spacecraft. In both cases, the suits are really an extension of the spacecraft. They have different electrical, cooling and air connectors. Well, SpaceX create a single, multi function connector - which Boeing declined to standardise on.
It appears that SpaceX didn't delete the extra suit connections or reduce the capability of the environmental systems when they reduced from 7 to 4.
They would send up suits with the Dragon capsule for the Starliner crew. Because of the hardware rich approach at SpaceX, they have numbers of suits on hand and identified some that would fit well enough.
Yes to all of that; but it was just NASA that insisted the capacity go from 7 to 4. SpaceX kept the capability in theory for private customers.
Let’s face it, none of the candidates is Augustus Caesar, they all have grave flaws. Badenoch is flimsy, Patel is widely disliked, Tugendhat is Who?
This guy probably has the fewest flaws. He’s young, articulate, not posh - self made. He looks vaguely prime ministerial and he’s quite right wing without being Suella, voters may like that
Also, it will drive the Corbynite anti-Semites mad if both the PM and the LOTO have “Zio” wives. So it’s worth doing for that alone
Unfortunately he's also an unelectable careerist dud who's very obviously manoeuvring himself to gain the votes of the remaining hard-line factionalists in the PCP in order to get into the final two.
Chasing Farage is a mug's game. The threat from the LibDems hoovering up the remaining Home Counties seats (backbone of the Tory party since Lord Salisbury) is far more existential.
I disagree: the next leader of the Conservative Party has two tasks. The first is neutralize Reform, to get them into the mid single digits opinion poll-wise, and ensuring they don't get a foothold in local government. Now, sure, this won't win them the next election, but before anything else, the Conservatives must make Reform irrelevant.
Once Reform has been vanquished and the Conservatives have become the only credible party of the right, then they can tack back again towards the centre.
What's all this tacking to the centre stuff? Mushy compromises and splitting the difference?
Voters want pragmatism and solutions. Real leaders define and shape exactly where that is themselves.
The liberals at large really don't get this (not at all) because they protect core aspects of their theology as sacrosanct and are simply incapable of seeing it in any other way. This happened with free movement and I can see it happening with migration and asylum rights more broadly, and the HRA on top.
That's the opportunity for the Conservatives and to be seen as the new redefined centre ground, if they can get the tone and pitch right.
When I say "tack to the centre", what I mean is that the Conservatives need to win the voters who went Reform first. And once they've won those guys back and eliminated Reform, then they can look to win back voters who went LibDem or Labour.
But they do need to win back both sets of voters.
And, importantly, they need to do it in the order you prescribe. Because if they tack to the centre FIRST then Reform will surge and potentially devour them
Neutralising Reform is the initial task
Agree 100%
And what are people like me to do? Hang around and hope that at some point the Tories come back to some form of sanity and electability?
Sod that.
Do you approve of the political consensus that says close Grangemouth, stop drilling for oil or tax producers out of existence, outsource making everything to China, keep the tax burden at a historic high etc.? Because you seem pretty against it, so why are you so desparate for the Tories to avoid any departure from it?
The politicians are not closing Grangemouth, Ineos are. They are doing so because the feedstock is drying up and they are struggling to be price competitive, especially with all the incredibly short sighted and stupid "windfall" taxes dumped on North Sea oil.
I find the argument that we should import our oil from the likes of Saudi or Russia than drilling our our own utterly bizarre. Obviously our policies should be looking to reduce our oil consumption but that is an entirely different question than where that oil comes from.
Outsourcing our manufacturing to China was another huge mistake made when Ed f****** Miliband was last in charge of our energy policies. The man is almost criminally stupid.
The tax burden I am more ambivalent about. We absolutely must reduce or even eliminate the deficit. That requires both higher taxes and lower spending. We should not go to either end of the see saw.
So I am not content that we have a Labour government but I also recognise that the last government was utterly exhausted and frankly making ever more stupid decisions. But I don't agree that the answer to stupid is even more stupid. Going after Reform is not the answer. They are a bunch of twats and the Tories need to aim for more centre right policies.
But on the plus side the stupid fkers who back Miliband may be about to have blackout in the near future.
'Allahu Akbar’ is spoken peacefully and spiritually by millions of British Muslims in their daily lives.
But the aggressive chanting below is intimidatory and threatening. And it’s an offence under Section 4 and 5 of the Public Order Act.
Extremists routinely abuse common expressions for their own shameful ends.
All violence must end. All violence must be called out.'
I do feel the full context matters - such that people care anymore. It's probably still unworkable though. You could have demonstrators loudly chanting 'Britain is great' in a way that might seem intimadatory. I don't think you can ban it.
Before dismissing Jenrick and Braverman as nothing more than grifters, remember that both are married to Jewish people and it can't have been easy for them to witness the scenes of Jew hatred week after week in London.
Which is utterly different as to what he was portrayed as saying.
Funnily enough the context of his statement about the context of other statements does indeed put a different spin on things.
Though it is curious that in the context of the worst race riots of recent years he focuses on an Islamic phrase rather than an EDL one.
NASA just stated officially on a public call (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYPL6bx87yM) that they are planning, as a contingency, the return of the Boeing Starliner Crew on SpaceX Dragon (Crew 9).
They've also announced that a contingency for a 5th seat on Dragon has been officially designed and tested. And even a contingency for 7 passengers total (4 + 3) on Dragon - that's complete Apollo Rescue CSM stuff! All designed and ready for flight.
States that automated undock for Starliner just requires software parameter changes, not software changes.
This is very serious now, for Boeing. They are really considering abandoning Starliner and sending the astronauts home on Dragon.
That is a very good decision from NASA. Shows that at least someone in the organsation is using their brains.
Boeing are toast. At least with their current middle and upper management.
They haven't made the decision yet.
Eric Berger, the journalist who is the expert on the area, thinks it is 60/40 abandoning Starliner.
They've just said the decision will be made "Mid August".
There will be a meeting, if they can't agree, gets bumped to the Deputy Administrator. Who will probably call on Ballast Nelson.
NASA just stated officially on a public call (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYPL6bx87yM) that they are planning, as a contingency, the return of the Boeing Starliner Crew on SpaceX Dragon (Crew 9).
They've also announced that a contingency for a 5th seat on Dragon has been officially designed and tested. And even a contingency for 7 passengers total (4 + 3) on Dragon - that's complete Apollo Rescue CSM stuff! All designed and ready for flight.
States that automated undock for Starliner just requires software parameter changes, not software changes.
This is very serious now, for Boeing. They are really considering abandoning Starliner and sending the astronauts home on Dragon.
That is a very good decision from NASA. Shows that at least someone in the organsation is using their brains.
Boeing are toast. At least with their current middle and upper management.
They haven't made the decision yet.
Eric Berger, the journalist who is the expert on the area, thinks it is 60/40 abandoning Starliner.
They've just said the decision will be made "Mid August".
There will be a meeting, if they can't agree, gets bumped to the Deputy Administrator. Who will probably call on Ballast Nelson.
NASA just stated officially on a public call (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYPL6bx87yM) that they are planning, as a contingency, the return of the Boeing Starliner Crew on SpaceX Dragon (Crew 9).
They've also announced that a contingency for a 5th seat on Dragon has been officially designed and tested. And even a contingency for 7 passengers total (4 + 3) on Dragon - that's complete Apollo Rescue CSM stuff! All designed and ready for flight.
States that automated undock for Starliner just requires software parameter changes, not software changes.
This is very serious now, for Boeing. They are really considering abandoning Starliner and sending the astronauts home on Dragon.
AFAICR Crew Dragon was always designed to carry seven max; they just chose to routinely carry fewer and a little more cargo and space inside. I *think* there were pictures of NASA reps examining a Crew Dragon setup for seven.
Another minor issue: Boeing's crew suits are incompatible with SpaceX's (or you can say the other way around...), so they may have to send a couple of specially made SpaceX suits up to to the crew.
I'd love to be the tailor sent up to ensure the fit is just perfect!
(Just before Apollo 11, Collins damaged both pairs of his EVA gloves. NASA flew a seamstress who made the gloves across the country to personally make a new pair. It was her first time out of her ?home town? / state.)
The configuration of 7 was reduced to 4, for Dragon, because NASA had some concerns about a hard landing causing an "excursion" of the seats in the top row into the bottom row. Interestingly, the Apollo rescue CSM had exactly the same issue - on a harder landing (than had ever occurred in Apollo) the top seats might impact the people below.
The incompatibility is to do with the connections from the suit to the spacecraft. In both cases, the suits are really an extension of the spacecraft. They have different electrical, cooling and air connectors. Well, SpaceX create a single, multi function connector - which Boeing declined to standardise on.
It appears that SpaceX didn't delete the extra suit connections or reduce the capability of the environmental systems when they reduced from 7 to 4.
They would send up suits with the Dragon capsule for the Starliner crew. Because of the hardware rich approach at SpaceX, they have numbers of suits on hand and identified some that would fit well enough.
Yes to all of that; but it was just NASA that insisted the capacity go from 7 to 4. SpaceX kept the capability in theory for private customers.
I don't think they've been offering it as an option to private customers. Sounds like they just read the history of Skylab.
It also uses the American term, BIPOC - it says we must defend Black and Indigenous and People of Colour
So, er, who are these indigenous to be defended? The Anglo-Celts like me?? Cool! Or is it the Beaker People? Who are these British indigenes being defended even as we "drive the Zios" out of Finchley?
This is such dreck I wonder if it is designed to discredit the movement
I imagine it is 100% sincere, people just cannot help but adopt americanisms even when it make zero sense. Maybe people can send them free copies of 'This is Not America' by Tomiwa Owolade.
If I see 'anti-racist' in someone's twitter bio I would give it at least a 50/50 chance they are an open and proud racist. We've seen before how people can say very racist things and then protest they cannot be racist because they say they are anti-racism.
NASA just stated officially on a public call (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYPL6bx87yM) that they are planning, as a contingency, the return of the Boeing Starliner Crew on SpaceX Dragon (Crew 9).
They've also announced that a contingency for a 5th seat on Dragon has been officially designed and tested. And even a contingency for 7 passengers total (4 + 3) on Dragon - that's complete Apollo Rescue CSM stuff! All designed and ready for flight.
States that automated undock for Starliner just requires software parameter changes, not software changes.
This is very serious now, for Boeing. They are really considering abandoning Starliner and sending the astronauts home on Dragon.
That is a very good decision from NASA. Shows that at least someone in the organsation is using their brains.
Boeing are toast. At least with their current middle and upper management.
They haven't made the decision yet.
Eric Berger, the journalist who is the expert on the area, thinks it is 60/40 abandoning Starliner.
They've just said the decision will be made "Mid August".
There will be a meeting, if they can't agree, gets bumped to the Deputy Administrator. Who will probably call on Ballast Nelson.
That they’re even still trying to rescue the project after two months, tells you all you need to know about the politics.
A totally apolitical organisation would have the rescue Dragon on the pad a long time ago.
An extreme Telegram chat with 15,000 members, that was set up in the aftermath of the Southport killings and was influential in publicising local protests, was removed last night amid a series of violent threats posted by its members.
A new Telegram channel has now been set up.
Update: The new replacement Telegram channel has now been taken down, too.
Telegram has confirmed to me that it's removing calls for violence in the UK.
"Moderators are actively monitoring the situation and are removing channels and posts containing calls to violence. Calls to violence are explicitly forbidden by Telegram's terms of service."
Let’s face it, none of the candidates is Augustus Caesar, they all have grave flaws. Badenoch is flimsy, Patel is widely disliked, Tugendhat is Who?
This guy probably has the fewest flaws. He’s young, articulate, not posh - self made. He looks vaguely prime ministerial and he’s quite right wing without being Suella, voters may like that
Also, it will drive the Corbynite anti-Semites mad if both the PM and the LOTO have “Zio” wives. So it’s worth doing for that alone
Unfortunately he's also an unelectable careerist dud who's very obviously manoeuvring himself to gain the votes of the remaining hard-line factionalists in the PCP in order to get into the final two.
Chasing Farage is a mug's game. The threat from the LibDems hoovering up the remaining Home Counties seats (backbone of the Tory party since Lord Salisbury) is far more existential.
I disagree: the next leader of the Conservative Party has two tasks. The first is neutralize Reform, to get them into the mid single digits opinion poll-wise, and ensuring they don't get a foothold in local government. Now, sure, this won't win them the next election, but before anything else, the Conservatives must make Reform irrelevant.
Once Reform has been vanquished and the Conservatives have become the only credible party of the right, then they can tack back again towards the centre.
What's all this tacking to the centre stuff? Mushy compromises and splitting the difference?
Voters want pragmatism and solutions. Real leaders define and shape exactly where that is themselves.
The liberals at large really don't get this (not at all) because they protect core aspects of their theology as sacrosanct and are simply incapable of seeing it in any other way. This happened with free movement and I can see it happening with migration and asylum rights more broadly, and the HRA on top.
That's the opportunity for the Conservatives and to be seen as the new redefined centre ground, if they can get the tone and pitch right.
When I say "tack to the centre", what I mean is that the Conservatives need to win the voters who went Reform first. And once they've won those guys back and eliminated Reform, then they can look to win back voters who went LibDem or Labour.
But they do need to win back both sets of voters.
And, importantly, they need to do it in the order you prescribe. Because if they tack to the centre FIRST then Reform will surge and potentially devour them
Neutralising Reform is the initial task
Agree 100%
And what are people like me to do? Hang around and hope that at some point the Tories come back to some form of sanity and electability?
Sod that.
Do you approve of the political consensus that says close Grangemouth, stop drilling for oil or tax producers out of existence, outsource making everything to China, keep the tax burden at a historic high etc.? Because you seem pretty against it, so why are you so desparate for the Tories to avoid any departure from it?
The politicians are not closing Grangemouth, Ineos are. They are doing so because the feedstock is drying up and they are struggling to be price competitive, especially with all the incredibly short sighted and stupid "windfall" taxes dumped on North Sea oil.
I find the argument that we should import our oil from the likes of Saudi or Russia than drilling our our own utterly bizarre. Obviously our policies should be looking to reduce our oil consumption but that is an entirely different question than where that oil comes from.
Outsourcing our manufacturing to China was another huge mistake made when Ed f****** Miliband was last in charge of our energy policies. The man is almost criminally stupid.
The tax burden I am more ambivalent about. We absolutely must reduce or even eliminate the deficit. That requires both higher taxes and lower spending. We should not go to either end of the see saw.
So I am not content that we have a Labour government but I also recognise that the last government was utterly exhausted and frankly making ever more stupid decisions. But I don't agree that the answer to stupid is even more stupid. Going after Reform is not the answer. They are a bunch of twats and the Tories need to aim for more centre right policies.
Was Ed really responsible for outsourcing the UK's industrial capacity? I think you should be looking closer to the 80's than the mid 2000's for the largest declines at least in terms of employment and energy consumption.
'Allahu Akbar’ is spoken peacefully and spiritually by millions of British Muslims in their daily lives.
But the aggressive chanting below is intimidatory and threatening. And it’s an offence under Section 4 and 5 of the Public Order Act.
Extremists routinely abuse common expressions for their own shameful ends.
All violence must end. All violence must be called out.'
I do feel the full context matters - such that people care anymore. It's probably still unworkable though. You could have demonstrators loudly chanting 'Britain is great' in a way that might seem intimadatory. I don't think you can ban it.
Before dismissing Jenrick and Braverman as nothing more than grifters, remember that both are married to Jewish people and it can't have been easy for them to witness the scenes of Jew hatred week after week in London.
Which is utterly different as to what he was portrayed as saying.
Funnily enough the context of his statement about the context of other statements does indeed put a different spin on things.
Though it is curious that in the context of the worst race riots of recent years he focuses on an Islamic phrase rather than an EDL one.
Why could that possibly be?
Because he's the worst person in the world.
He must not become leader. And I have just enough faith in the vestigal good sense of the parliamentary party in seeing what is self evident to me that I believe he is a good lay at these prices.
'Allahu Akbar’ is spoken peacefully and spiritually by millions of British Muslims in their daily lives.
But the aggressive chanting below is intimidatory and threatening. And it’s an offence under Section 4 and 5 of the Public Order Act.
Extremists routinely abuse common expressions for their own shameful ends.
All violence must end. All violence must be called out.'
I do feel the full context matters - such that people care anymore. It's probably still unworkable though. You could have demonstrators loudly chanting 'Britain is great' in a way that might seem intimadatory. I don't think you can ban it.
Before dismissing Jenrick and Braverman as nothing more than grifters, remember that both are married to Jewish people and it can't have been easy for them to witness the scenes of Jew hatred week after week in London.
Which is utterly different as to what he was portrayed as saying.
Funnily enough the context of his statement about the context of other statements does indeed put a different spin on things.
Though it is curious that in the context of the worst race riots of recent years he focuses on an Islamic phrase rather than an EDL one.
Why could that possibly be?
That may speak to his priorities, but wouldn't make his statement - though still unworkable and wrong - not quite what was advertised.
I cannot really look at him the same way after the visual comparison to Matt Gaetz was made.
It also uses the American term, BIPOC - it says we must defend Black and Indigenous and People of Colour
So, er, who are these indigenous to be defended? The Anglo-Celts like me?? Cool! Or is it the Beaker People? Who are these British indigenes being defended even as we "drive the Zios" out of Finchley?
This is such dreck I wonder if it is designed to discredit the movement
it gets worse, especially if you are Jewish
"When all the sides in the ‘race wars’ hate you.
Finchley against fascists: ‘We will not be mobilising or standing with Zionist, liberal Zionist, Zionist sympathisers. Zionism is fascism.’
The Islamic Human Rights Commission: ‘[the Far Right have been] enabled by their Zionist financiers abroad.’
The Far Right: ‘Reminder to British patriots: Jews are immigrants too.’"
Let’s face it, none of the candidates is Augustus Caesar, they all have grave flaws. Badenoch is flimsy, Patel is widely disliked, Tugendhat is Who?
This guy probably has the fewest flaws. He’s young, articulate, not posh - self made. He looks vaguely prime ministerial and he’s quite right wing without being Suella, voters may like that
Also, it will drive the Corbynite anti-Semites mad if both the PM and the LOTO have “Zio” wives. So it’s worth doing for that alone
Unfortunately he's also an unelectable careerist dud who's very obviously manoeuvring himself to gain the votes of the remaining hard-line factionalists in the PCP in order to get into the final two.
Chasing Farage is a mug's game. The threat from the LibDems hoovering up the remaining Home Counties seats (backbone of the Tory party since Lord Salisbury) is far more existential.
I disagree: the next leader of the Conservative Party has two tasks. The first is neutralize Reform, to get them into the mid single digits opinion poll-wise, and ensuring they don't get a foothold in local government. Now, sure, this won't win them the next election, but before anything else, the Conservatives must make Reform irrelevant.
Once Reform has been vanquished and the Conservatives have become the only credible party of the right, then they can tack back again towards the centre.
What's all this tacking to the centre stuff? Mushy compromises and splitting the difference?
Voters want pragmatism and solutions. Real leaders define and shape exactly where that is themselves.
The liberals at large really don't get this (not at all) because they protect core aspects of their theology as sacrosanct and are simply incapable of seeing it in any other way. This happened with free movement and I can see it happening with migration and asylum rights more broadly, and the HRA on top.
That's the opportunity for the Conservatives and to be seen as the new redefined centre ground, if they can get the tone and pitch right.
When I say "tack to the centre", what I mean is that the Conservatives need to win the voters who went Reform first. And once they've won those guys back and eliminated Reform, then they can look to win back voters who went LibDem or Labour.
But they do need to win back both sets of voters.
And, importantly, they need to do it in the order you prescribe. Because if they tack to the centre FIRST then Reform will surge and potentially devour them
Neutralising Reform is the initial task
Agree 100%
And what are people like me to do? Hang around and hope that at some point the Tories come back to some form of sanity and electability?
Sod that.
Do you approve of the political consensus that says close Grangemouth, stop drilling for oil or tax producers out of existence, outsource making everything to China, keep the tax burden at a historic high etc.? Because you seem pretty against it, so why are you so desparate for the Tories to avoid any departure from it?
The politicians are not closing Grangemouth, Ineos are. They are doing so because the feedstock is drying up and they are struggling to be price competitive, especially with all the incredibly short sighted and stupid "windfall" taxes dumped on North Sea oil.
I find the argument that we should import our oil from the likes of Saudi or Russia than drilling our our own utterly bizarre. Obviously our policies should be looking to reduce our oil consumption but that is an entirely different question than where that oil comes from.
Outsourcing our manufacturing to China was another huge mistake made when Ed f****** Miliband was last in charge of our energy policies. The man is almost criminally stupid.
The tax burden I am more ambivalent about. We absolutely must reduce or even eliminate the deficit. That requires both higher taxes and lower spending. We should not go to either end of the see saw.
So I am not content that we have a Labour government but I also recognise that the last government was utterly exhausted and frankly making ever more stupid decisions. But I don't agree that the answer to stupid is even more stupid. Going after Reform is not the answer. They are a bunch of twats and the Tories need to aim for more centre right policies.
But on the plus side the stupid fkers who back Miliband may be about to have blackout in the near future.
'Allahu Akbar’ is spoken peacefully and spiritually by millions of British Muslims in their daily lives.
But the aggressive chanting below is intimidatory and threatening. And it’s an offence under Section 4 and 5 of the Public Order Act.
Extremists routinely abuse common expressions for their own shameful ends.
All violence must end. All violence must be called out.'
I do feel the full context matters - such that people care anymore. It's probably still unworkable though. You could have demonstrators loudly chanting 'Britain is great' in a way that might seem intimadatory. I don't think you can ban it.
Before dismissing Jenrick and Braverman as nothing more than grifters, remember that both are married to Jewish people and it can't have been easy for them to witness the scenes of Jew hatred week after week in London.
Which is utterly different as to what he was portrayed as saying.
Funnily enough the context of his statement about the context of other statements does indeed put a different spin on things.
Though it is curious that in the context of the worst race riots of recent years he focuses on an Islamic phrase rather than an EDL one.
Why could that possibly be?
Because he's the worst person in the world.
He must not become leader. And I have just enough faith in the vestigal good sense of the parliamentary party in seeing what is self evident to me that I believe he is a good lay at these prices.
Nah, he isn't the worst person in the world. Not while Yaxley Lennon, Andrew Tate and Nigel Farage still breathe.
Let’s face it, none of the candidates is Augustus Caesar, they all have grave flaws. Badenoch is flimsy, Patel is widely disliked, Tugendhat is Who?
This guy probably has the fewest flaws. He’s young, articulate, not posh - self made. He looks vaguely prime ministerial and he’s quite right wing without being Suella, voters may like that
Also, it will drive the Corbynite anti-Semites mad if both the PM and the LOTO have “Zio” wives. So it’s worth doing for that alone
Unfortunately he's also an unelectable careerist dud who's very obviously manoeuvring himself to gain the votes of the remaining hard-line factionalists in the PCP in order to get into the final two.
Chasing Farage is a mug's game. The threat from the LibDems hoovering up the remaining Home Counties seats (backbone of the Tory party since Lord Salisbury) is far more existential.
I disagree: the next leader of the Conservative Party has two tasks. The first is neutralize Reform, to get them into the mid single digits opinion poll-wise, and ensuring they don't get a foothold in local government. Now, sure, this won't win them the next election, but before anything else, the Conservatives must make Reform irrelevant.
Once Reform has been vanquished and the Conservatives have become the only credible party of the right, then they can tack back again towards the centre.
What's all this tacking to the centre stuff? Mushy compromises and splitting the difference?
Voters want pragmatism and solutions. Real leaders define and shape exactly where that is themselves.
The liberals at large really don't get this (not at all) because they protect core aspects of their theology as sacrosanct and are simply incapable of seeing it in any other way. This happened with free movement and I can see it happening with migration and asylum rights more broadly, and the HRA on top.
That's the opportunity for the Conservatives and to be seen as the new redefined centre ground, if they can get the tone and pitch right.
When I say "tack to the centre", what I mean is that the Conservatives need to win the voters who went Reform first. And once they've won those guys back and eliminated Reform, then they can look to win back voters who went LibDem or Labour.
But they do need to win back both sets of voters.
And, importantly, they need to do it in the order you prescribe. Because if they tack to the centre FIRST then Reform will surge and potentially devour them
Neutralising Reform is the initial task
Agree 100%
And what are people like me to do? Hang around and hope that at some point the Tories come back to some form of sanity and electability?
Sod that.
Do you approve of the political consensus that says close Grangemouth, stop drilling for oil or tax producers out of existence, outsource making everything to China, keep the tax burden at a historic high etc.? Because you seem pretty against it, so why are you so desparate for the Tories to avoid any departure from it?
The politicians are not closing Grangemouth, Ineos are. They are doing so because the feedstock is drying up and they are struggling to be price competitive, especially with all the incredibly short sighted and stupid "windfall" taxes dumped on North Sea oil.
I find the argument that we should import our oil from the likes of Saudi or Russia than drilling our our own utterly bizarre. Obviously our policies should be looking to reduce our oil consumption but that is an entirely different question than where that oil comes from.
Outsourcing our manufacturing to China was another huge mistake made when Ed f****** Miliband was last in charge of our energy policies. The man is almost criminally stupid.
The tax burden I am more ambivalent about. We absolutely must reduce or even eliminate the deficit. That requires both higher taxes and lower spending. We should not go to either end of the see saw.
So I am not content that we have a Labour government but I also recognise that the last government was utterly exhausted and frankly making ever more stupid decisions. But I don't agree that the answer to stupid is even more stupid. Going after Reform is not the answer. They are a bunch of twats and the Tories need to aim for more centre right policies.
But on the plus side the stupid fkers who back Miliband may be about to have blackout in the near future.
It also uses the American term, BIPOC - it says we must defend Black and Indigenous and People of Colour
So, er, who are these indigenous to be defended? The Anglo-Celts like me?? Cool! Or is it the Beaker People? Who are these British indigenes being defended even as we "drive the Zios" out of Finchley?
This is such dreck I wonder if it is designed to discredit the movement
it gets worse, especially if you are Jewish
"When all the sides in the ‘race wars’ hate you.
Finchley against fascists: ‘We will not be mobilising or standing with Zionist, liberal Zionist, Zionist sympathisers. Zionism is fascism.’
The Islamic Human Rights Commission: ‘[the Far Right have been] enabled by their Zionist financiers abroad.’
The Far Right: ‘Reminder to British patriots: Jews are immigrants too.’"
What exactly is a British Jew meant to do in the face of all this from all sides? Hide? Emigrate? Despair?
I would not feel at all safe in this country if I were a British Jew.
I don't think it's a majority who hate them, but there are large groups who do and might get violent with it, and the scale of those groups is I think underplayed.
It also uses the American term, BIPOC - it says we must defend Black and Indigenous and People of Colour
So, er, who are these indigenous to be defended? The Anglo-Celts like me?? Cool! Or is it the Beaker People? Who are these British indigenes being defended even as we "drive the Zios" out of Finchley?
This is such dreck I wonder if it is designed to discredit the movement
it gets worse, especially if you are Jewish
"When all the sides in the ‘race wars’ hate you.
Finchley against fascists: ‘We will not be mobilising or standing with Zionist, liberal Zionist, Zionist sympathisers. Zionism is fascism.’
The Islamic Human Rights Commission: ‘[the Far Right have been] enabled by their Zionist financiers abroad.’
The Far Right: ‘Reminder to British patriots: Jews are immigrants too.’"
It also uses the American term, BIPOC - it says we must defend Black and Indigenous and People of Colour
So, er, who are these indigenous to be defended? The Anglo-Celts like me?? Cool! Or is it the Beaker People? Who are these British indigenes being defended even as we "drive the Zios" out of Finchley?
This is such dreck I wonder if it is designed to discredit the movement
it gets worse, especially if you are Jewish
"When all the sides in the ‘race wars’ hate you.
Finchley against fascists: ‘We will not be mobilising or standing with Zionist, liberal Zionist, Zionist sympathisers. Zionism is fascism.’
The Islamic Human Rights Commission: ‘[the Far Right have been] enabled by their Zionist financiers abroad.’
The Far Right: ‘Reminder to British patriots: Jews are immigrants too.’"
It also uses the American term, BIPOC - it says we must defend Black and Indigenous and People of Colour
So, er, who are these indigenous to be defended? The Anglo-Celts like me?? Cool! Or is it the Beaker People? Who are these British indigenes being defended even as we "drive the Zios" out of Finchley?
This is such dreck I wonder if it is designed to discredit the movement
I imagine it is 100% sincere, people just cannot help but adopt americanisms even when it make zero sense. Maybe people can send them free copies of 'This is Not America' by Tomiwa Owolade.
If I see 'anti-racist' in someone's twitter bio I would give it at least a 50/50 chance they are an open and proud racist. We've seen before how people can say very racist things and then protest they cannot be racist because they say they are anti-racism.
Yes, on investigation it turns out to be horribly real. These "Finchley anti-racists" are outright anti-Semites, they don't even try to hide it. They are so extreme they despise Jewish "two state solutionists" (??!!) and even Fatah (???!!!!)
NASA just stated officially on a public call (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYPL6bx87yM) that they are planning, as a contingency, the return of the Boeing Starliner Crew on SpaceX Dragon (Crew 9).
They've also announced that a contingency for a 5th seat on Dragon has been officially designed and tested. And even a contingency for 7 passengers total (4 + 3) on Dragon - that's complete Apollo Rescue CSM stuff! All designed and ready for flight.
States that automated undock for Starliner just requires software parameter changes, not software changes.
This is very serious now, for Boeing. They are really considering abandoning Starliner and sending the astronauts home on Dragon.
That is a very good decision from NASA. Shows that at least someone in the organsation is using their brains.
Boeing are toast. At least with their current middle and upper management.
They haven't made the decision yet.
Eric Berger, the journalist who is the expert on the area, thinks it is 60/40 abandoning Starliner.
They've just said the decision will be made "Mid August".
There will be a meeting, if they can't agree, gets bumped to the Deputy Administrator. Who will probably call on Ballast Nelson.
That they’re even still trying to rescue the project after two months, tells you all you need to know about the politics.
A totally apolitical organisation would have the rescue Dragon on the pad a long time ago.
Actually they can't
Starliner can't undock without crew at the moment. They are changing the software "parameters" now.
This will take weeks apparently.
Until they do that, Starliner is stuck on one of the 2 IDA ports on ISS.
Which would fuck up ISS for the future.
Yes, after the unmanned test flight that failed, they changed the software for the crewed flight. Removing the capability.
Meanwhile SpaceX kept the weight and cost of the ability to support 7 on Dragon, unasked. Maybe they have a space movie weekend and watched Marooned*?
It also uses the American term, BIPOC - it says we must defend Black and Indigenous and People of Colour
So, er, who are these indigenous to be defended? The Anglo-Celts like me?? Cool! Or is it the Beaker People? Who are these British indigenes being defended even as we "drive the Zios" out of Finchley?
This is such dreck I wonder if it is designed to discredit the movement
I imagine it is 100% sincere, people just cannot help but adopt americanisms even when it make zero sense. Maybe people can send them free copies of 'This is Not America' by Tomiwa Owolade.
If I see 'anti-racist' in someone's twitter bio I would give it at least a 50/50 chance they are an open and proud racist. We've seen before how people can say very racist things and then protest they cannot be racist because they say they are anti-racism.
Anti-'thing' usually ends up being similar to 'thing'.
It also uses the American term, BIPOC - it says we must defend Black and Indigenous and People of Colour
So, er, who are these indigenous to be defended? The Anglo-Celts like me?? Cool! Or is it the Beaker People? Who are these British indigenes being defended even as we "drive the Zios" out of Finchley?
This is such dreck I wonder if it is designed to discredit the movement
I imagine it is 100% sincere, people just cannot help but adopt americanisms even when it make zero sense. Maybe people can send them free copies of 'This is Not America' by Tomiwa Owolade.
If I see 'anti-racist' in someone's twitter bio I would give it at least a 50/50 chance they are an open and proud racist. We've seen before how people can say very racist things and then protest they cannot be racist because they say they are anti-racism.
Yes, on investigation it turns out to be horribly real. These "Finchley anti-racists" are outright anti-Semites, they don't even try to hide it. They are so extreme they despise Jewish "two state solutionists" (??!!) and even Fatah (???!!!!)
It also uses the American term, BIPOC - it says we must defend Black and Indigenous and People of Colour
So, er, who are these indigenous to be defended? The Anglo-Celts like me?? Cool! Or is it the Beaker People? Who are these British indigenes being defended even as we "drive the Zios" out of Finchley?
This is such dreck I wonder if it is designed to discredit the movement
it gets worse, especially if you are Jewish
"When all the sides in the ‘race wars’ hate you.
Finchley against fascists: ‘We will not be mobilising or standing with Zionist, liberal Zionist, Zionist sympathisers. Zionism is fascism.’
The Islamic Human Rights Commission: ‘[the Far Right have been] enabled by their Zionist financiers abroad.’
The Far Right: ‘Reminder to British patriots: Jews are immigrants too.’"
It also uses the American term, BIPOC - it says we must defend Black and Indigenous and People of Colour
So, er, who are these indigenous to be defended? The Anglo-Celts like me?? Cool! Or is it the Beaker People? Who are these British indigenes being defended even as we "drive the Zios" out of Finchley?
This is such dreck I wonder if it is designed to discredit the movement
I imagine it is 100% sincere, people just cannot help but adopt americanisms even when it make zero sense. Maybe people can send them free copies of 'This is Not America' by Tomiwa Owolade.
If I see 'anti-racist' in someone's twitter bio I would give it at least a 50/50 chance they are an open and proud racist. We've seen before how people can say very racist things and then protest they cannot be racist because they say they are anti-racism.
Anti-'thing' usually ends up being similar to 'thing'.
“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
and
My version is "Be careful what you wish for. Sometimes, what you wish for gets you."
It also uses the American term, BIPOC - it says we must defend Black and Indigenous and People of Colour
So, er, who are these indigenous to be defended? The Anglo-Celts like me?? Cool! Or is it the Beaker People? Who are these British indigenes being defended even as we "drive the Zios" out of Finchley?
This is such dreck I wonder if it is designed to discredit the movement
I imagine it is 100% sincere, people just cannot help but adopt americanisms even when it make zero sense. Maybe people can send them free copies of 'This is Not America' by Tomiwa Owolade.
If I see 'anti-racist' in someone's twitter bio I would give it at least a 50/50 chance they are an open and proud racist. We've seen before how people can say very racist things and then protest they cannot be racist because they say they are anti-racism.
Yes, on investigation it turns out to be horribly real. These "Finchley anti-racists" are outright anti-Semites, they don't even try to hide it. They are so extreme they despise Jewish "two state solutionists" (??!!) and even Fatah (???!!!!)
Only Hamas are OK, it seems. Literally: Hamas
Grotesque nutters
Hopefully they’re Russian trolls.
Nope. Real, it seems. People on TwiX know them
This is also bleakly depressing
The DPP is now saying it will come after people who simply share images or videos of riots. They are so keen to control the narrative they will criminalise people discussing these riots. Or at least that is what this sounds like to me
"DPP warns sharing online images of riots could be an offence"
I doubt Jenrick's comments will harm him either with the right of the Tory parliamentary party, Tory members or indeed Reform voters and redwall seats the Tories need to win back.
Legally though personally I wouldn't make saying 'God is great' in Arabic illegal there is no doubt its association with acts of terrorism when it has often been shouted will mean many, maybe most voters would not have too much problem arresting those shouting it in the street outside a place of worship
'Allahu Akbar’ is spoken peacefully and spiritually by millions of British Muslims in their daily lives.
But the aggressive chanting below is intimidatory and threatening. And it’s an offence under Section 4 and 5 of the Public Order Act.
Extremists routinely abuse common expressions for their own shameful ends.
All violence must end. All violence must be called out.'
I do feel the full context matters - such that people care anymore. It's probably still unworkable though. You could have demonstrators loudly chanting 'Britain is great' in a way that might seem intimadatory. I don't think you can ban it.
Before dismissing Jenrick and Braverman as nothing more than grifters, remember that both are married to Jewish people and it can't have been easy for them to witness the scenes of Jew hatred week after week in London.
Which is utterly different as to what he was portrayed as saying.
Funnily enough the context of his statement about the context of other statements does indeed put a different spin on things.
Though it is curious that in the context of the worst race riots of recent years he focuses on an Islamic phrase rather than an EDL one.
Why could that possibly be?
Because he's the worst person in the world.
He must not become leader. And I have just enough faith in the vestigal good sense of the parliamentary party in seeing what is self evident to me that I believe he is a good lay at these prices.
Nah, he isn't the worst person in the world. Not while Yaxley Lennon, Andrew Tate and Nigel Farage still breathe.
It may appear that way but do not be fooled... He would espouse their views, and worse, if he thought it would make him popular. The three of them do at least seem to mostly believe the abhorrent stuff they say (Farage maybe not so much as the other two, but he says less bad stuff and is probably sozzled if it's after 11am in any case which also reduces his culpability imo). Also they would physically fight for their beliefs as well (again, Farage maybe not so much). I don't call that a virtue, quite the opposite in fact - but it's at least less cowardly than egging on the yobs like a little worm from his armchair which is what Jenrick would do if it benefited him.
Comments
Of course they may happen, but I stand by my prediction that police have been spooked by spectres on Telegram, probably called Ivan or Oleg
https://x.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1821194491069657146
At the moment Gresham's law applies. Only government intervention can change that.
Although two people of my vague acquaintance, lawyers, have had their workplaces names on Telegram and a few others who run their firms online, their home addresses. I've shared my mercifully Twitter based experience of far-right "targeting" (seems extreme for what happened but couldn't think of anything better) of me as a lawyer on here before so maybe I'm not seeing this objectively.
And I do love the fact that people attack the chinese and other dictatorships for trying to stop people accessing social media because of their national laws and then support our own country doing the same thing.
I'm beginning to regret Kamala did not choose Hope, she's a natural.
Even 370 years ago Parliamentarians could see the problems with going after very general terms (though in this example a label rather than an expression) and how your intent in doing so, even if noble (in your own mind) can be problematic later. Arrest people saying God is Great in one way and floodgates surely would be opened.
18 December 1656
Colonel Sydenham: I am as much against the Quakers as any man, but would not bring in a law against Quakers by a general word. It is a word that signifies nothing, individuum vagum nearly. It is like the word Lollards or Puritans, under the notion whereof, many godly persons are now under the altar, their blood being poured out. It is of dangerous consequence to make a law under general terms, and leave it to after ages to interpret your meaning. Let it be plainly explained what the offences shall be. But your proper way now, is to refer the petitions to a Committee, who may take out the heads of them, and represent their sense to you, and then you may make a law as you see occasion.
Mr. Bond: If men boggle at the word Quaker, leave it out. If we had had a law against them, we should not have troubled ourselves with this fellow[Nayler]. They are a generation that begin to lisp already. It will make men wear their swords. I desire the Question may be put.
Lord Strickland: You will not find in all your statutebooks a definition of Quaker or Blasphemy. Other States never do it, further than as disturbers of the peace. We know how laws against Papists were turned upon the honestest men. We may all, in after ages, be called Quakers. It is a word nobody understands. I would have it left to your Committee to consider of the heads of the petitions, and represent them to you, and then you may make a law against them. But we all know how the edge of former laws against Papists has been turned upon the best Protestants, the truest professors of religion, the honest Puritan, as they called him, a good profession, but hard to be understood, as this word Quaker will be in after ages.
https://www.british-history.ac.uk/burton-diaries/vol1/pp168-175
If they tack hard right to pick up Reform voters, how would that be recognised before GE 2029?
And even if they did, why would Reform not just get them back as soon as they tack centrally?
The Tories have to choose. Are they to be an anti-immigration party, appealing to the "left behind" or are they the party of pro-business bourgeoisie in shire areas?
Now I get the real prize is Labour seats where Tories and Reform split a right wing vote. It depends on Reform disappearing of their own accord and Labour, LD and Greens not voting tactically. Even then the numbers may not add up.
Not an obviously smart strategy.
Egypt has issued a curious NOTAM instructing Egyptian airlines avoid Iranian airspace between 0100-0400 UTC on 8 Aug. We say curious as Egyptian carriers route around Iran already as normal procedure. 🕵️♂️ @_opsgroup
https://x.com/flightradar24/status/1821218915113988331
'Allahu Akbar’ is spoken peacefully and spiritually by millions of British Muslims in their daily lives.
But the aggressive chanting below is intimidatory and threatening. And it’s an offence under Section 4 and 5 of the Public Order Act.
Extremists routinely abuse common expressions for their own shameful ends.
All violence must end. All violence must be called out.'
I do feel the full context matters - such that people care anymore. It's probably still unworkable though. You could have demonstrators loudly chanting 'Britain is great' in a way that might seem intimadatory. I don't think you can ban it.
Before dismissing Jenrick and Braverman as nothing more than grifters, remember that both are married to Jewish people and it can't have been easy for them to witness the scenes of Jew hatred week after week in London.
NASA just stated officially on a public call (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYPL6bx87yM) that they are planning, as a contingency, the return of the Boeing Starliner Crew on SpaceX Dragon (Crew 9).
They've also announced that a contingency for a 5th seat on Dragon has been officially designed and tested. And even a contingency for 7 passengers total (4 + 3) on Dragon - that's complete Apollo Rescue CSM stuff! All designed and ready for flight.
States that automated undock for Starliner just requires software parameter changes, not software changes.
This is very serious now, for Boeing. They are really considering abandoning Starliner and sending the astronauts home on Dragon.
Boy, there was some good stuff: Pulp, Blur, Space, The Verve and even Radiohead.
Sod that.
The concrete on the third and fourth layers of concrete for the bunker for the servants to the servants hall is still curing.
I know. The servants could rough it without their own servants. But it's been a tough year for them. One of the junior footmen was hit by the mortgage thing and had to give up his second best Rolls.
Most of us dismissed them as grifters a long time ago.
They have to be both: sort immigration and be pro-business.
I see that as entirely possible. Indeed, I see it as essential.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE8ER2bobIc
100% cancellable, for all sorts of valid reasons, these days!
Thatcher came up with a brilliant plan that had lower levels of immigration and massively boosted business...
If only the Tories could remember what it was
Let's not forget: she won three big election victories in a row as a consequence.
Boeing are toast. At least with their current middle and upper management.
My love of redheads began there.
That's the opportunity for the Tories: Starmer is not Blair, and there is no money left. The Tories really can do this in one term
First
1. Labour are going to be massively unpopular
This is a necessary but not sufficient condition. Also required is:
2. The Tories need to win back MOST of the Reform voters (they cannot win all of them), they also need to appear united, cohesive, aggressive. And intelligently pro-business and pro-enterprise, even as Labour beats us all to death with taxes and gives NHS managers 800% pay rises and builds endless ugly new homes for endless waves of new migration. And puts pylons in every beautiful valley so Ed Miliband can personally feel good about himself in Dartmouth Park
Another minor issue: Boeing's crew suits are incompatible with SpaceX's (or you can say the other way around...), so they may have to send a couple of specially made SpaceX suits up to to the crew.
I'd love to be the tailor sent up to ensure the fit is just perfect!
(Just before Apollo 11, Collins damaged both pairs of his EVA gloves. NASA flew a seamstress who made the gloves across the country to personally make a new pair. It was her first time out of her ?home town? / state.)
For example, are we pro-Thames Water? Or should we say fuck Thames Water?
What about businesses that are based on ultra cheap labour?
What about businesses that are based on sweating ultra cheap labour?
What about businesses that are based on paying less than minimum wage - see the garment trade around Leicester?
What about Twatter? Faceache? Are we pro them?
Hard not to be in many industries
See above.
Yes, but only if palms are greased
Do they need any help?
The politicians are not closing Grangemouth, Ineos are. They are doing so because the feedstock is drying up and they are struggling to be price competitive, especially with all the incredibly short sighted and stupid "windfall" taxes dumped on North Sea oil.
I find the argument that we should import our oil from the likes of Saudi or Russia than drilling our our own utterly bizarre. Obviously our policies should be looking to reduce our oil consumption but that is an entirely different question than where that oil comes from.
Outsourcing our manufacturing to China was another huge mistake made when Ed f****** Miliband was last in charge of our energy policies. The man is almost criminally stupid.
The tax burden I am more ambivalent about. We absolutely must reduce or even eliminate the deficit. That requires both higher taxes and lower spending. We should not go to either end of the see saw.
So I am not content that we have a Labour government but I also recognise that the last government was utterly exhausted and frankly making ever more stupid decisions. But I don't agree that the answer to stupid is even more stupid. Going after Reform is not the answer. They are a bunch of twats and the Tories need to aim for more centre right policies.
Finchley being home to one of London's bigger Jewish communities
https://x.com/supergutman/status/1821231224117195248
It also uses the American term, BIPOC - it says we must defend Black and Indigenous and People of Colour
So, er, who are these indigenous to be defended? The Anglo-Celts like me?? Cool! Or is it the Beaker People? Who are these British indigenes being defended even as we "drive the Zios" out of Finchley?
This is such dreck I wonder if it is designed to discredit the movement
The incompatibility is to do with the connections from the suit to the spacecraft. In both cases, the suits are really an extension of the spacecraft. They have different electrical, cooling and air connectors. Well, SpaceX create a single, multi function connector - which Boeing declined to standardise on.
It appears that SpaceX didn't delete the extra suit connections or reduce the capability of the environmental systems when they reduced from 7 to 4.
They would send up suits with the Dragon capsule for the Starliner crew. Because of the hardware rich approach at SpaceX, they have numbers of suits on hand and identified some that would fit well enough.
Eric Berger, the journalist who is the expert on the area, thinks it is 60/40 abandoning Starliner.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/08/07/power-chiefs-fear-net-zero-blackouts-in-london/
Why could that possibly be?
There will be a meeting, if they can't agree, gets bumped to the Deputy Administrator. Who will probably call on Ballast Nelson.
If I see 'anti-racist' in someone's twitter bio I would give it at least a 50/50 chance they are an open and proud racist. We've seen before how people can say very racist things and then protest they cannot be racist because they say they are anti-racism.
A totally apolitical organisation would have the rescue Dragon on the pad a long time ago.
A new Telegram channel has now been set up.
Update: The new replacement Telegram channel has now been taken down, too.
Telegram has confirmed to me that it's removing calls for violence in the UK.
"Moderators are actively monitoring the situation and are removing channels and posts containing calls to violence. Calls to violence are explicitly forbidden by Telegram's terms of service."
https://x.com/Shayan86/status/1821209721782636732
He must not become leader. And I have just enough faith in the vestigal good sense of the parliamentary party in seeing what is self evident to me that I believe he is a good lay at these prices.
I cannot really look at him the same way after the visual comparison to Matt Gaetz was made.
"When all the sides in the ‘race wars’ hate you.
Finchley against fascists: ‘We will not be mobilising or standing with Zionist, liberal Zionist, Zionist sympathisers. Zionism is fascism.’
The Islamic Human Rights Commission: ‘[the Far Right have been] enabled by their Zionist financiers abroad.’
The Far Right: ‘Reminder to British patriots: Jews are immigrants too.’"
https://x.com/nicolelampert/status/1821210572559380584
What exactly is a British Jew meant to do in the face of all this from all sides? Hide? Emigrate? Despair?
Zombie was an incredible, unoverplayable song.
I don't think it's a majority who hate them, but there are large groups who do and might get violent with it, and the scale of those groups is I think underplayed.
Only Hamas are OK, it seems. Literally: Hamas
Grotesque nutters
Starliner can't undock without crew at the moment. They are changing the software "parameters" now.
This will take weeks apparently.
Until they do that, Starliner is stuck on one of the 2 IDA ports on ISS.
Which would fuck up ISS for the future.
Yes, after the unmanned test flight that failed, they changed the software for the crewed flight. Removing the capability.
Meanwhile SpaceX kept the weight and cost of the ability to support 7 on Dragon, unasked. Maybe they have a space movie weekend and watched Marooned*?
*Said film actually sparked the Apollo Rescue CSM - http://www.astronautix.com/a/apollorescuecsm.html
and
My version is "Be careful what you wish for. Sometimes, what you wish for gets you."
This is also bleakly depressing
The DPP is now saying it will come after people who simply share images or videos of riots. They are so keen to control the narrative they will criminalise people discussing these riots. Or at least that is what this sounds like to me
"DPP warns sharing online images of riots could be an offence"
https://x.com/DreyfusJames/status/1821231009276555764
Can it get any more dystopian?
Legally though personally I wouldn't make saying 'God is great' in Arabic illegal there is no doubt its association with acts of terrorism when it has often been shouted will mean many, maybe most voters would not have too much problem arresting those shouting it in the street outside a place of worship