There is something to be said for making the right decisions whatever their immediate popularity since the end results will swing the mood back in your direction when it matters.
I doubt that is what is happening here. Lab also badly need a Campbell type to establish some discipline in the ranks of the 'advisers'. Just like their Con versions they all think they are a lot cleverer than they really are.
Well, they were doing a lot of unpopular things to fix the deficit, plus the Lib-Dem collapse after joining the coalition saw a direct switch from Lib to Lab.
Cameron was also much more personally popular as LOTO compared to Starmer and that carried over into government to some degree.
Forget the polls PB is such fun as the apologists led by chief moron Anabobazina are now begging posters to be nice. They should really be re-reading Animal Farm. Politics is a grubby business and as all good conservatives know the troughs tempt all the piggies with remarkable speed this time.
It's funny to see posters who acted all moral at pointing out failures by the Conservative Party and its MPs, who are suddenly blind to issues now Labour is in government. Especially whilst they still decry the Conservatives.
It sorta shows that it was not morality that drove their criticisms, but naked partisanship. (*)
Fortunately, not every posted suffers from this affliction.
(*) For some odd reason, I initially wrote that as parsnipship. Which opens up some intriguing possibilities. A ship made out of a parsnip? A ship carrying nothing but parsnips? The state of being a parsnip?
Aren’t you the poster who gives a green-ish card to Johnson while continuing to castigate Keir for his curry?
Was I giving a "green-ish card" to Johnson? I don't think so...
I was certainly the poster who was castigating Johnson back as far as his time as MoL, and stating that he would not be a good PM. I also stated well before the election that Starmer would probably be better than Sunak, but would have problems because he is not a salesman.
But currygate's interesting. One of my criticisms of Johnson was that he had a habit of not learning lessons: when he makes a mistake, he's either too stupid, too stubborn or too proud to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Currygate was a mistake from the optics POV at least; and Starmer's making similar mistakes again. And again.
I think Starmer fucked up the optics here badly.
But currygate really wasn’t interesting. It was a load of bollocks served up by alt-right journalists and the ever credulous BigG
Were you here for RAFgate? That one was a proper zinger. I only learned of it the other day thanks to @TheScreamingEagles 's explanation. Wow. Just wow.
Was that the same as torpedo gate?
On one level, you have to salute BigG’s indefatigabilty.
No wonder he was selected as special driver for Windsor Davies MP in 1948!
Special driver for the late Wyn Roberts at elections, especially the Falklands one when we had many questions about the sinking of the Belgrano, and finally for David Jones in 2010 when in our campaign car Brown's 'bigotgate' came over live
How we laughed
Brown was right about Mrs Duffy –– she was/is a bigot. He should have stuck to his guns!
Insulting the working class live on TV is OK then
He said (privately, as he thought) to a colleague that she was a bigoted woman. Which she was. He didn't stand up on the Six O'Clock News and declare it to the nation.
The six o'clock news did though and the media revelled in their gotcha moment
Fascinating to read the Conservatives lead by 30 among men but are only level pegging among women.
In July here, men voted 23% Conservative and 17% Reform but women voted 26% Conservative and 12% Reform. I'm trying to recall if this gender disparity was showing in the pre-election polls.
It's an increasing phenomenon. Women are much more liberal than men.
They keeping banging on about white men being a problem, which pisses off white men and drives division, without doing anything to bring either closer together or solve any underlying issues.
Not white men in Korea or Tunisia...
But it takes two to tango. Maybe the women have a point.
Forget the polls PB is such fun as the apologists led by chief moron Anabobazina are now begging posters to be nice. They should really be re-reading Animal Farm. Politics is a grubby business and as all good conservatives know the troughs tempt all the piggies with remarkable speed this time.
It's funny to see posters who acted all moral at pointing out failures by the Conservative Party and its MPs, who are suddenly blind to issues now Labour is in government. Especially whilst they still decry the Conservatives.
It sorta shows that it was not morality that drove their criticisms, but naked partisanship. (*)
Fortunately, not every posted suffers from this affliction.
(*) For some odd reason, I initially wrote that as parsnipship. Which opens up some intriguing possibilities. A ship made out of a parsnip? A ship carrying nothing but parsnips? The state of being a parsnip?
Aren’t you the poster who gives a green-ish card to Johnson while continuing to castigate Keir for his curry?
Was I giving a "green-ish card" to Johnson? I don't think so...
I was certainly the poster who was castigating Johnson back as far as his time as MoL, and stating that he would not be a good PM. I also stated well before the election that Starmer would probably be better than Sunak, but would have problems because he is not a salesman.
But currygate's interesting. One of my criticisms of Johnson was that he had a habit of not learning lessons: when he makes a mistake, he's either too stupid, too stubborn or too proud to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Currygate was a mistake from the optics POV at least; and Starmer's making similar mistakes again. And again.
I think Starmer fucked up the optics here badly.
But currygate really wasn’t interesting. It was a load of bollocks served up by alt-right journalists and the ever credulous BigG
Were you here for RAFgate? That one was a proper zinger. I only learned of it the other day thanks to @TheScreamingEagles 's explanation. Wow. Just wow.
Was that the same as torpedo gate?
On one level, you have to salute BigG’s indefatigabilty.
No wonder he was selected as special driver for Windsor Davies MP in 1948!
Special driver for the late Wyn Roberts at elections, especially the Falklands one when we had many questions about the sinking of the Belgrano, and finally for David Jones in 2010 when in our campaign car Brown's 'bigotgate' came over live
How we laughed
Brown was right about Mrs Duffy –– she was/is a bigot. He should have stuck to his guns!
Bigot or not, Mrs Duffy was a portent of Brexit and the 2019 general election/red wall collapse.
And she may yet be a potent of a Con/Ref coalition government in 2029.
John Gray in New Statesman says it has to be Kemi Badenoch.
She is the only candidate he argues who understands what the conservatives need to do to take a "floundering" labour government which is a hotchpotch of State knows best technocracy and progressive legalists.
Fascinating to read the Conservatives lead by 30 among men but are only level pegging among women.
In July here, men voted 23% Conservative and 17% Reform but women voted 26% Conservative and 12% Reform. I'm trying to recall if this gender disparity was showing in the pre-election polls.
It's an increasing phenomenon. Women are much more liberal than men.
They keeping banging on about white men being a problem, which pisses off white men and drives division, without doing anything to bring either closer together or solve any underlying issues.
The interesting thing about the divergence in Europe is more women are becoming liberal than there are men becoming conservative. As to whether this is a shorter or longer term phenomenon, we'll see.
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Birmingham is very similar; at one point recently it claimed to be the youngest city in Europe. It has everything and the potential is vast. Also housing is very cheap, you can buy a 1 bed flat in a nice area for £130k. People should quit London for Birmingham.
Birmingham is probably the most dismal urban experience in the Western hemisphere.
I grew up in suburban Birmingham. Pleasant enough. The city centre wants another few decades of regeneration, though. People started moving back into the city centre in the 1990s with developments like Brindley Place, but it rather stalled.
The £130k flats can be found even walking distance from HS2.
Like all second tier British cities, it suffers from a fatal lack of local autonomy and therefore investment.
But even by British standards, it’s a bit shit.
Not sure what the urban version of “rizz” is, but Birmingham doesn’t have much of it. Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool are all better.
I quite like Brum. It has never been fashionable with the intellectual elite. It's a gritty city where there's muck and brass, hence when someone wants to have a crass neauvou riche character to laugh at they make them a Brummy, as per Harry Enfield.
It's a great and dynamic city. The British city most like America in its contempt for intellectual pretension and its social mobility.
The city demolishes and re-dos its centre a few times each century and sometimes gets it right.
I was there last week for a research meeting. It's a great city for people who want to give two fingers to English snobs,
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Birmingham is very similar; at one point recently it claimed to be the youngest city in Europe. It has everything and the potential is vast. Also housing is very cheap, you can buy a 1 bed flat in a nice area for £130k. People should quit London for Birmingham.
Birmingham is probably the most dismal urban experience in the Western hemisphere.
Victoria Square is pretty cool, but that apart yes, I guess so.
The Labour government is clearly unpopular. However at the moment the split on the right between the Tories and Reform under FPTP means they are still on course for a majority again at the next GE, even if they lose seats
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Manchester is a great city. I had many insanely good nights out there during the 90s when it was edgy as F. But, it’s bigger and better now.
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Birmingham is very similar; at one point recently it claimed to be the youngest city in Europe. It has everything and the potential is vast. Also housing is very cheap, you can buy a 1 bed flat in a nice area for £130k. People should quit London for Birmingham.
Birmingham is probably the most dismal urban experience in the Western hemisphere.
I grew up in suburban Birmingham. Pleasant enough. The city centre wants another few decades of regeneration, though. People started moving back into the city centre in the 1990s with developments like Brindley Place, but it rather stalled.
The £130k flats can be found even walking distance from HS2.
Like all second tier British cities, it suffers from a fatal lack of local autonomy and therefore investment.
But even by British standards, it’s a bit shit.
Not sure what the urban version of “rizz” is, but Birmingham doesn’t have much of it. Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool are all better.
I quite like Brum. It has never been fashionable with the intellectual elite. It's a gritty city where there's muck and brass, hence when someone wants to have a crass neauvou riche character to laugh at they make them a Brummy, as per Harry Enfield.
It's a great and dynamic city. The British city most like America in its contempt for intellectual pretension and its social mobility.
The city demolishes and re-dos its centre a few times each century and sometimes gets it right.
I was there last week for a research meeting. It's a great city for people who want to give two fingers to English snobs,
Although when those of us who grew up there open our mouths we sound like blithering idiots. Head and shoulders the most offensive accent in the British Isles.
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Birmingham is very similar; at one point recently it claimed to be the youngest city in Europe. It has everything and the potential is vast. Also housing is very cheap, you can buy a 1 bed flat in a nice area for £130k. People should quit London for Birmingham.
Birmingham is probably the most dismal urban experience in the Western hemisphere.
Here speaks a man who has never been to Pristina, Kosova
Forget the polls PB is such fun as the apologists led by chief moron Anabobazina are now begging posters to be nice. They should really be re-reading Animal Farm. Politics is a grubby business and as all good conservatives know the troughs tempt all the piggies with remarkable speed this time.
It's funny to see posters who acted all moral at pointing out failures by the Conservative Party and its MPs, who are suddenly blind to issues now Labour is in government. Especially whilst they still decry the Conservatives.
It sorta shows that it was not morality that drove their criticisms, but naked partisanship. (*)
Fortunately, not every posted suffers from this affliction.
(*) For some odd reason, I initially wrote that as parsnipship. Which opens up some intriguing possibilities. A ship made out of a parsnip? A ship carrying nothing but parsnips? The state of being a parsnip?
Aren’t you the poster who gives a green-ish card to Johnson while continuing to castigate Keir for his curry?
Was I giving a "green-ish card" to Johnson? I don't think so...
I was certainly the poster who was castigating Johnson back as far as his time as MoL, and stating that he would not be a good PM. I also stated well before the election that Starmer would probably be better than Sunak, but would have problems because he is not a salesman.
But currygate's interesting. One of my criticisms of Johnson was that he had a habit of not learning lessons: when he makes a mistake, he's either too stupid, too stubborn or too proud to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Currygate was a mistake from the optics POV at least; and Starmer's making similar mistakes again. And again.
I think Starmer fucked up the optics here badly.
But currygate really wasn’t interesting. It was a load of bollocks served up by alt-right journalists and the ever credulous BigG
Were you here for RAFgate? That one was a proper zinger. I only learned of it the other day thanks to @TheScreamingEagles 's explanation. Wow. Just wow.
Was that the same as torpedo gate?
On one level, you have to salute BigG’s indefatigabilty.
No wonder he was selected as special driver for Windsor Davies MP in 1948!
No, Torpedogate was a veritable flesh wound compared with RAFgate... one speaks only of the latter in hushed tones. It is simply not suitable for a family forum.
I always think it shows a weakness when a poster apologises for an error but then some still seem to delight in ignoring it
I corrected my mistake about taking down the ballistic missiles and replicated the Ministry of Defence statement tha RAF planes were involved in the action that night
Pity we are not all perfect but can correct our errors
In over 62,000 posts I have erred on occasions but try to convey accurate information often accompanied by quotes from Sky, Guardian, Independent and others
This is a Conservative blog and you are quite rightly all piling into the Commies.
BigG. you have been like a terrier in calling out the most egregious corruption of the last decade. Currygate, Goonergate, Glassesgate, Victoria'ssecretgate, RAFgate, Angie'shousegate and Torpedogate, to name but a few.
Anabob you are not playing nicely on BigG's gates. "Go, walk out the door,...you're not welcome anymore". It's all going a bit Correct Horse Battery with everyone piling in on you, I thought Felix was particularly vicious.
@Anabobazina they have tumbled your game and you need a really flamboyant flounce to go out in style! My anti- PBTory flounce a fortnight ago was a bit shite so I can't offer up any advice
I’ll survive! (What in the holy name of Aphrodite is Victoriassecretgate?)
Also, randomly, for cities worse than Birmingham in the "western hemisphere"
Port au Prince, Haiti Ciudad Juarez, Mexico Anywhere else in Mexico Those weirdly bleak inland cities in California Brussels Any city in northern Peru Swindon
Forget the polls PB is such fun as the apologists led by chief moron Anabobazina are now begging posters to be nice. They should really be re-reading Animal Farm. Politics is a grubby business and as all good conservatives know the troughs tempt all the piggies with remarkable speed this time.
It's funny to see posters who acted all moral at pointing out failures by the Conservative Party and its MPs, who are suddenly blind to issues now Labour is in government. Especially whilst they still decry the Conservatives.
It sorta shows that it was not morality that drove their criticisms, but naked partisanship. (*)
Fortunately, not every posted suffers from this affliction.
(*) For some odd reason, I initially wrote that as parsnipship. Which opens up some intriguing possibilities. A ship made out of a parsnip? A ship carrying nothing but parsnips? The state of being a parsnip?
Aren’t you the poster who gives a green-ish card to Johnson while continuing to castigate Keir for his curry?
Was I giving a "green-ish card" to Johnson? I don't think so...
I was certainly the poster who was castigating Johnson back as far as his time as MoL, and stating that he would not be a good PM. I also stated well before the election that Starmer would probably be better than Sunak, but would have problems because he is not a salesman.
But currygate's interesting. One of my criticisms of Johnson was that he had a habit of not learning lessons: when he makes a mistake, he's either too stupid, too stubborn or too proud to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Currygate was a mistake from the optics POV at least; and Starmer's making similar mistakes again. And again.
I think Starmer fucked up the optics here badly.
But currygate really wasn’t interesting. It was a load of bollocks served up by alt-right journalists and the ever credulous BigG
Were you here for RAFgate? That one was a proper zinger. I only learned of it the other day thanks to @TheScreamingEagles 's explanation. Wow. Just wow.
Was that the same as torpedo gate?
On one level, you have to salute BigG’s indefatigabilty.
No wonder he was selected as special driver for Windsor Davies MP in 1948!
No, Torpedogate was a veritable flesh wound compared with RAFgate... one speaks only of the latter in hushed tones. It is simply not suitable for a family forum.
I always think it shows a weakness when a poster apologises for an error but then some still seem to delight in ignoring it
I corrected my mistake about taking down the ballistic missiles and replicated the Ministry of Defence statement tha RAF planes were involved in the action that night
Pity we are not all perfect but can correct our errors
In over 62,000 posts I have erred on occasions but try to convey accurate information often accompanied by quotes from Sky, Guardian, Independent and others
This is a Conservative blog and you are quite rightly all piling into the Commies.
BigG. you have been like a terrier in calling out the most egregious corruption of the last decade. Currygate, Goonergate, Glassesgate, Victoria'ssecretgate, RAFgate, Angie'shousegate and Torpedogate, to name but a few.
Anabob you are not playing nicely on BigG's gates. "Go, walk out the door,...you're not welcome anymore". It's all going a bit Correct Horse Battery with everyone piling in on you, I thought Felix was particularly vicious.
@Anabobazina they have tumbled your game and you need a really flamboyant flounce to go out in style! My anti- PBTory flounce a fortnight ago was a bit shite so I can't offer up any advice
I’ll survive! (What in the holy name of Aphrodite is Victoriassecretgate?)
A lot of commentators here have taken a particularly keen interest in the first lady's underwear.
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Birmingham is very similar; at one point recently it claimed to be the youngest city in Europe. It has everything and the potential is vast. Also housing is very cheap, you can buy a 1 bed flat in a nice area for £130k. People should quit London for Birmingham.
Birmingham is probably the most dismal urban experience in the Western hemisphere.
I grew up in suburban Birmingham. Pleasant enough. The city centre wants another few decades of regeneration, though. People started moving back into the city centre in the 1990s with developments like Brindley Place, but it rather stalled.
The £130k flats can be found even walking distance from HS2.
In Birmingham I would say it is the centre which has the appeal and the suburbs that really need the regeneration. It is excessively car dominated. There are lots of little used parks and open spaces which basically look like wasteland, and noticeably less wealth. The contrast with London in this respect is enormous. On the other hand housing is affordable and there are very nice enclaves like Moseley.
The bankruptcy of the Council over the equal pay issue is very unfortunate.
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
I really must visit Manchester again. I haven't been for 15 years at least: I need to see this change
Also I like early industrial sites and cities, they have noom
One of the noomiest places on earth is Coalbrookdale. You can sense that - yes, the world changed here
Incidentally CERN also has that. Tons of Noom. A trillion trillion bosons of Noom, whizzing around the Large Hadron Collider, smashing into glittering Noomons
CERN is almost as powerfully noomy as Coalbrookdale. It is that good
Ancoats is industrial noom. The museum of science and industry is pleasant, but not particularly noomy. For science noom, we have Joddrell Bank radio telescope. It is magnificent. You can see it from miles around and you cannot stop looking at it. And it is listening to space, which is almost religious in its noominess.
Forget the polls PB is such fun as the apologists led by chief moron Anabobazina are now begging posters to be nice. They should really be re-reading Animal Farm. Politics is a grubby business and as all good conservatives know the troughs tempt all the piggies with remarkable speed this time.
It's funny to see posters who acted all moral at pointing out failures by the Conservative Party and its MPs, who are suddenly blind to issues now Labour is in government. Especially whilst they still decry the Conservatives.
It sorta shows that it was not morality that drove their criticisms, but naked partisanship. (*)
Fortunately, not every posted suffers from this affliction.
(*) For some odd reason, I initially wrote that as parsnipship. Which opens up some intriguing possibilities. A ship made out of a parsnip? A ship carrying nothing but parsnips? The state of being a parsnip?
Aren’t you the poster who gives a green-ish card to Johnson while continuing to castigate Keir for his curry?
Was I giving a "green-ish card" to Johnson? I don't think so...
I was certainly the poster who was castigating Johnson back as far as his time as MoL, and stating that he would not be a good PM. I also stated well before the election that Starmer would probably be better than Sunak, but would have problems because he is not a salesman.
But currygate's interesting. One of my criticisms of Johnson was that he had a habit of not learning lessons: when he makes a mistake, he's either too stupid, too stubborn or too proud to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Currygate was a mistake from the optics POV at least; and Starmer's making similar mistakes again. And again.
I think Starmer fucked up the optics here badly.
But currygate really wasn’t interesting. It was a load of bollocks served up by alt-right journalists and the ever credulous BigG
Were you here for RAFgate? That one was a proper zinger. I only learned of it the other day thanks to @TheScreamingEagles 's explanation. Wow. Just wow.
Was that the same as torpedo gate?
On one level, you have to salute BigG’s indefatigabilty.
No wonder he was selected as special driver for Windsor Davies MP in 1948!
No, Torpedogate was a veritable flesh wound compared with RAFgate... one speaks only of the latter in hushed tones. It is simply not suitable for a family forum.
I always think it shows a weakness when a poster apologises for an error but then some still seem to delight in ignoring it
I corrected my mistake about taking down the ballistic missiles and replicated the Ministry of Defence statement tha RAF planes were involved in the action that night
Pity we are not all perfect but can correct our errors
In over 62,000 posts I have erred on occasions but try to convey accurate information often accompanied by quotes from Sky, Guardian, Independent and others
This is a Conservative blog and you are quite rightly all piling into the Commies.
BigG. you have been like a terrier in calling out the most egregious corruption of the last decade. Currygate, Goonergate, Glassesgate, Victoria'ssecretgate, RAFgate, Angie'shousegate and Torpedogate, to name but a few.
Anabob you are not playing nicely on BigG's gates. "Go, walk out the door,...you're not welcome anymore". It's all going a bit Correct Horse Battery with everyone piling in on you, I thought Felix was particularly vicious.
@Anabobazina they have tumbled your game and you need a really flamboyant flounce to go out in style! My anti- PBTory flounce a fortnight ago was a bit shite so I can't offer up any advice
I’ll survive! (What in the holy name of Aphrodite is Victoriassecretgate?)
Are you still here?
Lady Victoria's pants purchased by Lord Alii. It caused grave concern amongst PB snowflakes.
Can anyone actually name any wrong decisions *yet* Labour have made other than WFA cut that 1) Sunak and Hunt *wouldn't have done* and 2) are unpopular with the public? Because early release of prisoners, handing over sovereignty over the Chagos Islands etc. would have happened under Sunak anyway and coming to terms with the unions is broadly supported.
£22 bn on carbon capture.
1) Pretty crucial if we are serious about net zero (particularly industries who need natural gas and can't find an alternative) 2) It's over 25 years 3) Can't find much evidence of a public outcry outside the usual suspects (e.g partisan Tories, anti-woke grifters).
I'm not a Tory, and it's an economically and technologically shit idea.
Over 25years is beside the point. It's a long term commitment of resources. To dead end tech.
Not been good polling in swing states this week for Harris. Looking pretty bleak frankly.
Aditya Chakrabortty looks at why these voters don't feel the economy is working for them and why they will vote Trump 2.0
"I checked in on Mike Stout. We first talked in a diner in Pittsburgh in 2012, the year Obama won re-election. Mike and his wife, Steffi, had worked in Pennsylvania’s steel industry, with good union pay and pensions.
Life for the Stouts has been frozen for years. At the root of democratic capitalism is an old promise: tomorrow will be better than today. But that promise was broken long ago for Mike’s family and many of his friends’ households, too. He knew plenty of former steelworkers in this swing state who next month would vote Trump. Sure he was a liar, “but at least he lies to their faces, rather than ignoring them”."
At the moment I think Trump wins most of the rustbelt again as he did in 2016, the white working class is firmly back in his corner now Biden is gone.
He is also making gains with Latinos so may pick up Arizona and Nevada too. Harris is doing even better than Biden with white college graduates though and African Americans are now backing her more than they were backing Biden in the spring. There is a route to EC victory for Harris then if she wins NC, which has above average numbers of graduates and African Americans and Georgia, which has average numbers of graduates and above average numbers of African Americans and Pennsylvania, which looks close but also has more graduates than average. While Michigan and Wisconsin have below average numbers of graduates and above average numbers of white working class voters (Michigan also has a lot of Muslims unhappy with Harris and Biden over Gaza)
Forget the polls PB is such fun as the apologists led by chief moron Anabobazina are now begging posters to be nice. They should really be re-reading Animal Farm. Politics is a grubby business and as all good conservatives know the troughs tempt all the piggies with remarkable speed this time.
It's funny to see posters who acted all moral at pointing out failures by the Conservative Party and its MPs, who are suddenly blind to issues now Labour is in government. Especially whilst they still decry the Conservatives.
It sorta shows that it was not morality that drove their criticisms, but naked partisanship. (*)
Fortunately, not every posted suffers from this affliction.
(*) For some odd reason, I initially wrote that as parsnipship. Which opens up some intriguing possibilities. A ship made out of a parsnip? A ship carrying nothing but parsnips? The state of being a parsnip?
Aren’t you the poster who gives a green-ish card to Johnson while continuing to castigate Keir for his curry?
Was I giving a "green-ish card" to Johnson? I don't think so...
I was certainly the poster who was castigating Johnson back as far as his time as MoL, and stating that he would not be a good PM. I also stated well before the election that Starmer would probably be better than Sunak, but would have problems because he is not a salesman.
But currygate's interesting. One of my criticisms of Johnson was that he had a habit of not learning lessons: when he makes a mistake, he's either too stupid, too stubborn or too proud to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Currygate was a mistake from the optics POV at least; and Starmer's making similar mistakes again. And again.
I think Starmer fucked up the optics here badly.
But currygate really wasn’t interesting. It was a load of bollocks served up by alt-right journalists and the ever credulous BigG
Were you here for RAFgate? That one was a proper zinger. I only learned of it the other day thanks to @TheScreamingEagles 's explanation. Wow. Just wow.
Was that the same as torpedo gate?
On one level, you have to salute BigG’s indefatigabilty.
No wonder he was selected as special driver for Windsor Davies MP in 1948!
No, Torpedogate was a veritable flesh wound compared with RAFgate... one speaks only of the latter in hushed tones. It is simply not suitable for a family forum.
I always think it shows a weakness when a poster apologises for an error but then some still seem to delight in ignoring it
I corrected my mistake about taking down the ballistic missiles and replicated the Ministry of Defence statement tha RAF planes were involved in the action that night
Pity we are not all perfect but can correct our errors
In over 62,000 posts I have erred on occasions but try to convey accurate information often accompanied by quotes from Sky, Guardian, Independent and others
This is a Conservative blog and you are quite rightly all piling into the Commies.
BigG. you have been like a terrier in calling out the most egregious corruption of the last decade. Currygate, Goonergate, Glassesgate, Victoria'ssecretgate, RAFgate, Angie'shousegate and Torpedogate, to name but a few.
Anabob you are not playing nicely on BigG's gates. "Go, walk out the door,...you're not welcome anymore". It's all going a bit Correct Horse Battery with everyone piling in on you, I thought Felix was particularly vicious.
@Anabobazina they have tumbled your game and you need a really flamboyant flounce to go out in style! My anti- PBTory flounce a fortnight ago was a bit shite so I can't offer up any advice
I’ll survive! (What in the holy name of Aphrodite is Victoriassecretgate?)
A lot of commentators here have taken a particularly keen interest in the first lady's underwear.
I wondered if it might be something along those lines. Thoughts and prayers for the ageing lotharios on here. No wonder FROCKGATE was so popular!!
Forget the polls PB is such fun as the apologists led by chief moron Anabobazina are now begging posters to be nice. They should really be re-reading Animal Farm. Politics is a grubby business and as all good conservatives know the troughs tempt all the piggies with remarkable speed this time.
It's funny to see posters who acted all moral at pointing out failures by the Conservative Party and its MPs, who are suddenly blind to issues now Labour is in government. Especially whilst they still decry the Conservatives.
It sorta shows that it was not morality that drove their criticisms, but naked partisanship. (*)
Fortunately, not every posted suffers from this affliction.
(*) For some odd reason, I initially wrote that as parsnipship. Which opens up some intriguing possibilities. A ship made out of a parsnip? A ship carrying nothing but parsnips? The state of being a parsnip?
Aren’t you the poster who gives a green-ish card to Johnson while continuing to castigate Keir for his curry?
Was I giving a "green-ish card" to Johnson? I don't think so...
I was certainly the poster who was castigating Johnson back as far as his time as MoL, and stating that he would not be a good PM. I also stated well before the election that Starmer would probably be better than Sunak, but would have problems because he is not a salesman.
But currygate's interesting. One of my criticisms of Johnson was that he had a habit of not learning lessons: when he makes a mistake, he's either too stupid, too stubborn or too proud to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Currygate was a mistake from the optics POV at least; and Starmer's making similar mistakes again. And again.
I think Starmer fucked up the optics here badly.
But currygate really wasn’t interesting. It was a load of bollocks served up by alt-right journalists and the ever credulous BigG
Were you here for RAFgate? That one was a proper zinger. I only learned of it the other day thanks to @TheScreamingEagles 's explanation. Wow. Just wow.
Was that the same as torpedo gate?
On one level, you have to salute BigG’s indefatigabilty.
No wonder he was selected as special driver for Windsor Davies MP in 1948!
No, Torpedogate was a veritable flesh wound compared with RAFgate... one speaks only of the latter in hushed tones. It is simply not suitable for a family forum.
I always think it shows a weakness when a poster apologises for an error but then some still seem to delight in ignoring it
I corrected my mistake about taking down the ballistic missiles and replicated the Ministry of Defence statement tha RAF planes were involved in the action that night
Pity we are not all perfect but can correct our errors
In over 62,000 posts I have erred on occasions but try to convey accurate information often accompanied by quotes from Sky, Guardian, Independent and others
This is a Conservative blog and you are quite rightly all piling into the Commies.
BigG. you have been like a terrier in calling out the most egregious corruption of the last decade. Currygate, Goonergate, Glassesgate, Victoria'ssecretgate, RAFgate, Angie'shousegate and Torpedogate, to name but a few.
Anabob you are not playing nicely on BigG's gates. "Go, walk out the door,...you're not welcome anymore". It's all going a bit Correct Horse Battery with everyone piling in on you, I thought Felix was particularly vicious.
@Anabobazina they have tumbled your game and you need a really flamboyant flounce to go out in style! My anti- PBTory flounce a fortnight ago was a bit shite so I can't offer up any advice
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Birmingham is very similar; at one point recently it claimed to be the youngest city in Europe. It has everything and the potential is vast. Also housing is very cheap, you can buy a 1 bed flat in a nice area for £130k. People should quit London for Birmingham.
Birmingham is probably the most dismal urban experience in the Western hemisphere.
I grew up in suburban Birmingham. Pleasant enough. The city centre wants another few decades of regeneration, though. People started moving back into the city centre in the 1990s with developments like Brindley Place, but it rather stalled.
The £130k flats can be found even walking distance from HS2.
In Birmingham I would say it is the centre which has the appeal and the suburbs that really need the regeneration. It is excessively car dominated. There are lots of little used parks and open spaces which basically look like wasteland, and noticeably less wealth. The contrast with London in this respect is enormous. On the other hand housing is affordable and there are very nice enclaves like Moseley.
The bankruptcy of the Council over the equal pay issue is very unfortunate.
I had a great weekend there recently. Much underrated city. Good nightlife.
Fascinating to read the Conservatives lead by 30 among men but are only level pegging among women.
In July here, men voted 23% Conservative and 17% Reform but women voted 26% Conservative and 12% Reform. I'm trying to recall if this gender disparity was showing in the pre-election polls.
It's an increasing phenomenon. Women are much more liberal than men.
They keeping banging on about white men being a problem, which pisses off white men and drives division, without doing anything to bring either closer together or solve any underlying issues.
The obvious explanation for this ideological divide is Andrew Tate - although now misogyny will be defined as terrorism, it should correct the situation.
Also, randomly, for cities worse than Birmingham in the "western hemisphere"
Port au Prince, Haiti Ciudad Juarez, Mexico Anywhere else in Mexico Those weirdly bleak inland cities in California Brussels Any city in northern Peru Swindon
Nonsense
Plaza De Armas in Trujillo, Peru, in the late afternoon… a coffee as the sun sets. To the lulling sound of the school children practising the goose step.
Looks like after 9 years in Opposition the Canadian Conservatives are heading for most seats again (you can't really call them Tories as the party is a merger of Canadian Tories and Reform).
However Trudeau is so unpopular now if Harris wins having replaced Biden, Canadian Liberals might try and follow suit and replace him before the Federal election to try and at least prevent a Poilievre majority which looks odds on now
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
I really must visit Manchester again. I haven't been for 15 years at least: I need to see this change
Also I like early industrial sites and cities, they have noom
One of the noomiest places on earth is Coalbrookdale. You can sense that - yes, the world changed here
Incidentally CERN also has that. Tons of Noom. A trillion trillion bosons of Noom, whizzing around the Large Hadron Collider, smashing into glittering Noomons
CERN is almost as powerfully noomy as Coalbrookdale. It is that good
Ancoats is industrial noom. The museum of science and industry is pleasant, but not particularly noomy. For science noom, we have Joddrell Bank radio telescope. It is magnificent. You can see it from miles around and you cannot stop looking at it. And it is listening to space, which is almost religious in its noominess.
Yes, Jodrell Bank is the CERN of the 1950s. From back when we could Do Stuff.
I have some of the construction photographs as a relative was one of the engineers on the project. An amazing piece of work.
Forget the polls PB is such fun as the apologists led by chief moron Anabobazina are now begging posters to be nice. They should really be re-reading Animal Farm. Politics is a grubby business and as all good conservatives know the troughs tempt all the piggies with remarkable speed this time.
It's funny to see posters who acted all moral at pointing out failures by the Conservative Party and its MPs, who are suddenly blind to issues now Labour is in government. Especially whilst they still decry the Conservatives.
It sorta shows that it was not morality that drove their criticisms, but naked partisanship. (*)
Fortunately, not every posted suffers from this affliction.
(*) For some odd reason, I initially wrote that as parsnipship. Which opens up some intriguing possibilities. A ship made out of a parsnip? A ship carrying nothing but parsnips? The state of being a parsnip?
Aren’t you the poster who gives a green-ish card to Johnson while continuing to castigate Keir for his curry?
Was I giving a "green-ish card" to Johnson? I don't think so...
I was certainly the poster who was castigating Johnson back as far as his time as MoL, and stating that he would not be a good PM. I also stated well before the election that Starmer would probably be better than Sunak, but would have problems because he is not a salesman.
But currygate's interesting. One of my criticisms of Johnson was that he had a habit of not learning lessons: when he makes a mistake, he's either too stupid, too stubborn or too proud to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Currygate was a mistake from the optics POV at least; and Starmer's making similar mistakes again. And again.
I think Starmer fucked up the optics here badly.
But currygate really wasn’t interesting. It was a load of bollocks served up by alt-right journalists and the ever credulous BigG
Were you here for RAFgate? That one was a proper zinger. I only learned of it the other day thanks to @TheScreamingEagles 's explanation. Wow. Just wow.
Was that the same as torpedo gate?
On one level, you have to salute BigG’s indefatigabilty.
No wonder he was selected as special driver for Windsor Davies MP in 1948!
No, Torpedogate was a veritable flesh wound compared with RAFgate... one speaks only of the latter in hushed tones. It is simply not suitable for a family forum.
I always think it shows a weakness when a poster apologises for an error but then some still seem to delight in ignoring it
I corrected my mistake about taking down the ballistic missiles and replicated the Ministry of Defence statement tha RAF planes were involved in the action that night
Pity we are not all perfect but can correct our errors
In over 62,000 posts I have erred on occasions but try to convey accurate information often accompanied by quotes from Sky, Guardian, Independent and others
This is a Conservative blog and you are quite rightly all piling into the Commies.
BigG. you have been like a terrier in calling out the most egregious corruption of the last decade. Currygate, Goonergate, Glassesgate, Victoria'ssecretgate, RAFgate, Angie'shousegate and Torpedogate, to name but a few.
Anabob you are not playing nicely on BigG's gates. "Go, walk out the door,...you're not welcome anymore". It's all going a bit Correct Horse Battery with everyone piling in on you, I thought Felix was particularly vicious.
@Anabobazina they have tumbled your game and you need a really flamboyant flounce to go out in style! My anti- PBTory flounce a fortnight ago was a bit shite so I can't offer up any advice
I’ll survive! (What in the holy name of Aphrodite is Victoriassecretgate?)
Are you still here?
Lady Victoria's pants purchased by Lord Alii. It caused grave concern amongst PB snowflakes.
No wonder they kept repeating it all day… and all night.
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Birmingham is very similar; at one point recently it claimed to be the youngest city in Europe. It has everything and the potential is vast. Also housing is very cheap, you can buy a 1 bed flat in a nice area for £130k. People should quit London for Birmingham.
Birmingham is probably the most dismal urban experience in the Western hemisphere.
I grew up in suburban Birmingham. Pleasant enough. The city centre wants another few decades of regeneration, though. People started moving back into the city centre in the 1990s with developments like Brindley Place, but it rather stalled.
The £130k flats can be found even walking distance from HS2.
Like all second tier British cities, it suffers from a fatal lack of local autonomy and therefore investment.
But even by British standards, it’s a bit shit.
Not sure what the urban version of “rizz” is, but Birmingham doesn’t have much of it. Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool are all better.
I quite like Brum. It has never been fashionable with the intellectual elite. It's a gritty city where there's muck and brass, hence when someone wants to have a crass neauvou riche character to laugh at they make them a Brummy, as per Harry Enfield.
It's a great and dynamic city. The British city most like America in its contempt for intellectual pretension and its social mobility.
The city demolishes and re-dos its centre a few times each century and sometimes gets it right.
I was there last week for a research meeting. It's a great city for people who want to give two fingers to English snobs,
Although when those of us who grew up there open our mouths we sound like blithering idiots. Head and shoulders the most offensive accent in the British Isles.
That is English snobbery writ large. It's the first place that I remember living too.
People from other regions hold onto their accents, Brummies much less so, also other parts of the Black Country.
It simply isn't fashionable in this country to make your money in manufacturing, unless it is heavy industry like coal and steel whence prolier than thou. It's much more genteel to make your money by country estates, financial services or best of all inheriting.
Birmingham (and the Black Country) are places where it's nothing to be ashamed of.
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Birmingham is very similar; at one point recently it claimed to be the youngest city in Europe. It has everything and the potential is vast. Also housing is very cheap, you can buy a 1 bed flat in a nice area for £130k. People should quit London for Birmingham.
Birmingham is probably the most dismal urban experience in the Western hemisphere.
Here speaks a man who has never been to Pristina, Kosova
Here speaks a man who does not know what the Western Hemisphere is.
Also, randomly, for cities worse than Birmingham in the "western hemisphere"
Port au Prince, Haiti Ciudad Juarez, Mexico Anywhere else in Mexico Those weirdly bleak inland cities in California Brussels Any city in northern Peru Swindon
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Birmingham is very similar; at one point recently it claimed to be the youngest city in Europe. It has everything and the potential is vast. Also housing is very cheap, you can buy a 1 bed flat in a nice area for £130k. People should quit London for Birmingham.
Birmingham is probably the most dismal urban experience in the Western hemisphere.
I grew up in suburban Birmingham. Pleasant enough. The city centre wants another few decades of regeneration, though. People started moving back into the city centre in the 1990s with developments like Brindley Place, but it rather stalled.
The £130k flats can be found even walking distance from HS2.
Like all second tier British cities, it suffers from a fatal lack of local autonomy and therefore investment.
But even by British standards, it’s a bit shit.
Not sure what the urban version of “rizz” is, but Birmingham doesn’t have much of it. Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool are all better.
I quite like Brum. It has never been fashionable with the intellectual elite. It's a gritty city where there's muck and brass, hence when someone wants to have a crass neauvou riche character to laugh at they make them a Brummy, as per Harry Enfield.
It's a great and dynamic city. The British city most like America in its contempt for intellectual pretension and its social mobility.
The city demolishes and re-dos its centre a few times each century and sometimes gets it right.
I was there last week for a research meeting. It's a great city for people who want to give two fingers to English snobs,
Although when those of us who grew up there open our mouths we sound like blithering idiots. Head and shoulders the most offensive accent in the British Isles.
That is English snobbery writ large. It's the first place that I remember living too.
People from other regions hold onto their accents, Brummies much less so, also other parts of the Black Country.
It simply isn't fashionable in this country to make your money in manufacturing, unless it is heavy industry like coal and steel whence prolier than thou. It's much more genteel to make your money by course try estates, financial services or best of all inheriting.
Birmingham (and the Black Country) are places where it's nothing to be ashamed of.
Suddenly we are suggesting that anti-Brummagist feeling is mere snobbery.
No.
I posted that Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow are all better. None precisely have a snooty reputation.
So it is with the accent, for that matter. It sounds objectively crass, whereas most other regional accents are actually charming.
There is something to be said for making the right decisions whatever their immediate popularity since the end results will swing the mood back in your direction when it matters.
I doubt that is what is happening here. Lab also badly need a Campbell type to establish some discipline in the ranks of the 'advisers'. Just like their Con versions they all think they are a lot cleverer than they really are.
The winter fuel allowance was an attempt to look "serious" about the deficit which backfired completely. It's not a bad policy to stop giving public money to those who don't need it when we are £100 billion in the hole but it's bad politically to do that, instigate a cliff-edge means test AND give big pay settlements to parts of the public sector and unionised workers at the same time. It makes you look a) vindictive b) in hock to your "friends" and c) not that serious about the deficit.
On the "gifts", Starmer misread the public mood much as Truss did. There's a strong sense of "fairness" out there which says why should a politician get a free ticket to say Taylor Swift when I have to pay £x? Now, you can get over-puritan about it (the publication of the gifts to the new North East Mayor contained events in her area which she, as an elected representative, should attend) and there will always be events at which the Prime Minister, as Head of Government, should be present but like others I'm not convinced a Taylor Swift concert is one of them.
Compounding that was everything Starmer had said before the election about how his Government was going to comport itself differently to its predecessor. If there's one thing the public dislikes it's a hypocrite.
So we have discordant optics, a misreading of the public mood and a strong stench of hypocrisy combined and that pretty much explains where Starmer's immediate post-election approval numbers have gone. I'll be charitable and say that's part of the learning curve of Government and when you've been out of the loop for 14 years it's not easy to pick up the thread. The other issue is picking up the detritus of the last administration's failures and mistakes but the electorate are a capricious lot - as soon as the new Government takes over, everything is your fault irrespective of whether the actual decision was taken years previously.
Forget the polls PB is such fun as the apologists led by chief moron Anabobazina are now begging posters to be nice. They should really be re-reading Animal Farm. Politics is a grubby business and as all good conservatives know the troughs tempt all the piggies with remarkable speed this time.
It's funny to see posters who acted all moral at pointing out failures by the Conservative Party and its MPs, who are suddenly blind to issues now Labour is in government. Especially whilst they still decry the Conservatives.
It sorta shows that it was not morality that drove their criticisms, but naked partisanship. (*)
Fortunately, not every posted suffers from this affliction.
(*) For some odd reason, I initially wrote that as parsnipship. Which opens up some intriguing possibilities. A ship made out of a parsnip? A ship carrying nothing but parsnips? The state of being a parsnip?
Aren’t you the poster who gives a green-ish card to Johnson while continuing to castigate Keir for his curry?
Was I giving a "green-ish card" to Johnson? I don't think so...
I was certainly the poster who was castigating Johnson back as far as his time as MoL, and stating that he would not be a good PM. I also stated well before the election that Starmer would probably be better than Sunak, but would have problems because he is not a salesman.
But currygate's interesting. One of my criticisms of Johnson was that he had a habit of not learning lessons: when he makes a mistake, he's either too stupid, too stubborn or too proud to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Currygate was a mistake from the optics POV at least; and Starmer's making similar mistakes again. And again.
I think Starmer fucked up the optics here badly.
But currygate really wasn’t interesting. It was a load of bollocks served up by alt-right journalists and the ever credulous BigG
Were you here for RAFgate? That one was a proper zinger. I only learned of it the other day thanks to @TheScreamingEagles 's explanation. Wow. Just wow.
Was that the same as torpedo gate?
On one level, you have to salute BigG’s indefatigabilty.
No wonder he was selected as special driver for Windsor Davies MP in 1948!
No, Torpedogate was a veritable flesh wound compared with RAFgate... one speaks only of the latter in hushed tones. It is simply not suitable for a family forum.
I always think it shows a weakness when a poster apologises for an error but then some still seem to delight in ignoring it
I corrected my mistake about taking down the ballistic missiles and replicated the Ministry of Defence statement tha RAF planes were involved in the action that night
Pity we are not all perfect but can correct our errors
In over 62,000 posts I have erred on occasions but try to convey accurate information often accompanied by quotes from Sky, Guardian, Independent and others
This is a Conservative blog and you are quite rightly all piling into the Commies.
BigG. you have been like a terrier in calling out the most egregious corruption of the last decade. Currygate, Goonergate, Glassesgate, Victoria'ssecretgate, RAFgate, Angie'shousegate and Torpedogate, to name but a few.
Anabob you are not playing nicely on BigG's gates. "Go, walk out the door,...you're not welcome anymore". It's all going a bit Correct Horse Battery with everyone piling in on you, I thought Felix was particularly vicious.
@Anabobazina they have tumbled your game and you need a really flamboyant flounce to go out in style! My anti- PBTory flounce a fortnight ago was a bit shite so I can't offer up any advice
I’ll survive! (What in the holy name of Aphrodite is Victoriassecretgate?)
A lot of commentators here have taken a particularly keen interest in the first lady's underwear.
It caused one overwrought poster (I won't name and shame) to type the word "panties".
A moment of deep cringe that took a while to dissipate.
There is something to be said for making the right decisions whatever their immediate popularity since the end results will swing the mood back in your direction when it matters.
I doubt that is what is happening here. Lab also badly need a Campbell type to establish some discipline in the ranks of the 'advisers'. Just like their Con versions they all think they are a lot cleverer than they really are.
The winter fuel allowance was an attempt to look "serious" about the deficit which backfired completely. It's not a bad policy to stop giving public money to those who don't need it when we are £100 billion in the hole but it's bad politically to do that, instigate a cliff-edge means test AND give big pay settlements to parts of the public sector and unionised workers at the same time. It makes you look a) vindictive b) in hock to your "friends" and c) not that serious about the deficit.
On the "gifts", Starmer misread the public mood much as Truss did. There's a strong sense of "fairness" out there which says why should a politician get a free ticket to say Taylor Swift when I have to pay £x? Now, you can get over-puritan about it (the publication of the gifts to the new North East Mayor contained events in her area which she, as an elected representative, should attend) and there will always be events at which the Prime Minister, as Head of Government, should be present but like others I'm not convinced a Taylor Swift concert is one of them.
Compounding that was everything Starmer had said before the election about how his Government was going to comport itself differently to its predecessor. If there's one thing the public dislikes it's a hypocrite.
So we have discordant optics, a misreading of the public mood and a strong stench of hypocrisy combined and that pretty much explains where Starmer's immediate post-election approval numbers have gone. I'll be charitable and say that's part of the learning curve of Government and when you've been out of the loop for 14 years it's not easy to pick up the thread. The other issue is picking up the detritus of the last administration's failures and mistakes but the electorate are a capricious lot - as soon as the new Government takes over, everything is your fault irrespective of whether the actual decision was taken years previously.
Very well expressed and tonight news of no 10 publicly putting down its own Transport Secretary is extraordinary
Forget the polls PB is such fun as the apologists led by chief moron Anabobazina are now begging posters to be nice. They should really be re-reading Animal Farm. Politics is a grubby business and as all good conservatives know the troughs tempt all the piggies with remarkable speed this time.
It's funny to see posters who acted all moral at pointing out failures by the Conservative Party and its MPs, who are suddenly blind to issues now Labour is in government. Especially whilst they still decry the Conservatives.
It sorta shows that it was not morality that drove their criticisms, but naked partisanship. (*)
Fortunately, not every posted suffers from this affliction.
(*) For some odd reason, I initially wrote that as parsnipship. Which opens up some intriguing possibilities. A ship made out of a parsnip? A ship carrying nothing but parsnips? The state of being a parsnip?
Aren’t you the poster who gives a green-ish card to Johnson while continuing to castigate Keir for his curry?
Was I giving a "green-ish card" to Johnson? I don't think so...
I was certainly the poster who was castigating Johnson back as far as his time as MoL, and stating that he would not be a good PM. I also stated well before the election that Starmer would probably be better than Sunak, but would have problems because he is not a salesman.
But currygate's interesting. One of my criticisms of Johnson was that he had a habit of not learning lessons: when he makes a mistake, he's either too stupid, too stubborn or too proud to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Currygate was a mistake from the optics POV at least; and Starmer's making similar mistakes again. And again.
I think Starmer fucked up the optics here badly.
But currygate really wasn’t interesting. It was a load of bollocks served up by alt-right journalists and the ever credulous BigG
Were you here for RAFgate? That one was a proper zinger. I only learned of it the other day thanks to @TheScreamingEagles 's explanation. Wow. Just wow.
Was that the same as torpedo gate?
On one level, you have to salute BigG’s indefatigabilty.
No wonder he was selected as special driver for Windsor Davies MP in 1948!
No, Torpedogate was a veritable flesh wound compared with RAFgate... one speaks only of the latter in hushed tones. It is simply not suitable for a family forum.
I always think it shows a weakness when a poster apologises for an error but then some still seem to delight in ignoring it
I corrected my mistake about taking down the ballistic missiles and replicated the Ministry of Defence statement tha RAF planes were involved in the action that night
Pity we are not all perfect but can correct our errors
In over 62,000 posts I have erred on occasions but try to convey accurate information often accompanied by quotes from Sky, Guardian, Independent and others
This is a Conservative blog and you are quite rightly all piling into the Commies.
BigG. you have been like a terrier in calling out the most egregious corruption of the last decade. Currygate, Goonergate, Glassesgate, Victoria'ssecretgate, RAFgate, Angie'shousegate and Torpedogate, to name but a few.
Anabob you are not playing nicely on BigG's gates. "Go, walk out the door,...you're not welcome anymore". It's all going a bit Correct Horse Battery with everyone piling in on you, I thought Felix was particularly vicious.
@Anabobazina they have tumbled your game and you need a really flamboyant flounce to go out in style! My anti- PBTory flounce a fortnight ago was a bit shite so I can't offer up any advice
I’ll survive! (What in the holy name of Aphrodite is Victoriassecretgate?)
A lot of commentators here have taken a particularly keen interest in the first lady's underwear.
It caused one overwrought poster (I won't name and shame) to type the word "panties".
A moment of deep cringe that took a while to dissipate.
“First Lady” is rather the mal mot here.
As for Lady Starmer’s panties, it could become a PB stock-in-phrase, if we try hard enough. A colourful variation to Sir Keir’s curry.
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Birmingham is very similar; at one point recently it claimed to be the youngest city in Europe. It has everything and the potential is vast. Also housing is very cheap, you can buy a 1 bed flat in a nice area for £130k. People should quit London for Birmingham.
Birmingham is probably the most dismal urban experience in the Western hemisphere.
I grew up in suburban Birmingham. Pleasant enough. The city centre wants another few decades of regeneration, though. People started moving back into the city centre in the 1990s with developments like Brindley Place, but it rather stalled.
The £130k flats can be found even walking distance from HS2.
Like all second tier British cities, it suffers from a fatal lack of local autonomy and therefore investment.
But even by British standards, it’s a bit shit.
Not sure what the urban version of “rizz” is, but Birmingham doesn’t have much of it. Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool are all better.
I quite like Brum. It has never been fashionable with the intellectual elite. It's a gritty city where there's muck and brass, hence when someone wants to have a crass neauvou riche character to laugh at they make them a Brummy, as per Harry Enfield.
It's a great and dynamic city. The British city most like America in its contempt for intellectual pretension and its social mobility.
The city demolishes and re-dos its centre a few times each century and sometimes gets it right.
I was there last week for a research meeting. It's a great city for people who want to give two fingers to English snobs,
Although when those of us who grew up there open our mouths we sound like blithering idiots. Head and shoulders the most offensive accent in the British Isles.
That is English snobbery writ large. It's the first place that I remember living too.
People from other regions hold onto their accents, Brummies much less so, also other parts of the Black Country.
It simply isn't fashionable in this country to make your money in manufacturing, unless it is heavy industry like coal and steel whence prolier than thou. It's much more genteel to make your money by country estates, financial services or best of all inheriting.
Birmingham (and the Black Country) are places where it's nothing to be ashamed of.
I had always been in the top groups at comp. On my arrival at Ledbury Grammar School I was told by a boy with marbles in his mouth that the way I sounded suggested I was "poor and ill educated". It really f***** me up. Although out of the two of us, to date, I am the only one who hasn't had a column in the London Gazette advising of one's bankruptcy.
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Birmingham is very similar; at one point recently it claimed to be the youngest city in Europe. It has everything and the potential is vast. Also housing is very cheap, you can buy a 1 bed flat in a nice area for £130k. People should quit London for Birmingham.
Birmingham is probably the most dismal urban experience in the Western hemisphere.
I grew up in suburban Birmingham. Pleasant enough. The city centre wants another few decades of regeneration, though. People started moving back into the city centre in the 1990s with developments like Brindley Place, but it rather stalled.
The £130k flats can be found even walking distance from HS2.
Like all second tier British cities, it suffers from a fatal lack of local autonomy and therefore investment.
But even by British standards, it’s a bit shit.
Not sure what the urban version of “rizz” is, but Birmingham doesn’t have much of it. Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool are all better.
I quite like Brum. It has never been fashionable with the intellectual elite. It's a gritty city where there's muck and brass, hence when someone wants to have a crass neauvou riche character to laugh at they make them a Brummy, as per Harry Enfield.
It's a great and dynamic city. The British city most like America in its contempt for intellectual pretension and its social mobility.
The city demolishes and re-dos its centre a few times each century and sometimes gets it right.
I was there last week for a research meeting. It's a great city for people who want to give two fingers to English snobs,
Although when those of us who grew up there open our mouths we sound like blithering idiots. Head and shoulders the most offensive accent in the British Isles.
That is English snobbery writ large. It's the first place that I remember living too.
People from other regions hold onto their accents, Brummies much less so, also other parts of the Black Country.
It simply isn't fashionable in this country to make your money in manufacturing, unless it is heavy industry like coal and steel whence prolier than thou. It's much more genteel to make your money by course try estates, financial services or best of all inheriting.
Birmingham (and the Black Country) are places where it's nothing to be ashamed of.
Suddenly we are suggesting that anti-Brummagist feeling is mere snobbery.
No.
I posted that Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow are all better. None precisely have a snooty reputation.
So it is with the accent, for that matter. It sounds objectively crass, whereas most other regional accents are actually charming.
There's a great variety of West Midlands accents. Broad Nuneaton is nothing like Brummie.
Also, randomly, for cities worse than Birmingham in the "western hemisphere"
Port au Prince, Haiti Ciudad Juarez, Mexico Anywhere else in Mexico Those weirdly bleak inland cities in California Brussels Any city in northern Peru Swindon
Swindon does not deserve that shame.
As it's a town.
Swindon has a few decent pubs, some in the low town and some in the high town. The walk in between though - very very rough. Twenty minutes closer to London and it would be very different. See also Peterborough.
The Labour government is clearly unpopular. However at the moment the split on the right between the Tories and Reform under FPTP means they are still on course for a majority again at the next GE, even if they lose seats
Yes. Unless a serious electoral threat from their left emerges Labour's position is structurally strong.
Also, randomly, for cities worse than Birmingham in the "western hemisphere"
Port au Prince, Haiti Ciudad Juarez, Mexico Anywhere else in Mexico Those weirdly bleak inland cities in California Brussels Any city in northern Peru Swindon
Swindon does not deserve that shame.
As it's a town.
Gave the world XTC, so certainly can't be all bad.
There is something to be said for making the right decisions whatever their immediate popularity since the end results will swing the mood back in your direction when it matters.
I doubt that is what is happening here. Lab also badly need a Campbell type to establish some discipline in the ranks of the 'advisers'. Just like their Con versions they all think they are a lot cleverer than they really are.
The winter fuel allowance was an attempt to look "serious" about the deficit which backfired completely. It's not a bad policy to stop giving public money to those who don't need it when we are £100 billion in the hole but it's bad politically to do that, instigate a cliff-edge means test AND give big pay settlements to parts of the public sector and unionised workers at the same time. It makes you look a) vindictive b) in hock to your "friends" and c) not that serious about the deficit.
On the "gifts", Starmer misread the public mood much as Truss did. There's a strong sense of "fairness" out there which says why should a politician get a free ticket to say Taylor Swift when I have to pay £x? Now, you can get over-puritan about it (the publication of the gifts to the new North East Mayor contained events in her area which she, as an elected representative, should attend) and there will always be events at which the Prime Minister, as Head of Government, should be present but like others I'm not convinced a Taylor Swift concert is one of them.
Compounding that was everything Starmer had said before the election about how his Government was going to comport itself differently to its predecessor. If there's one thing the public dislikes it's a hypocrite.
So we have discordant optics, a misreading of the public mood and a strong stench of hypocrisy combined and that pretty much explains where Starmer's immediate post-election approval numbers have gone. I'll be charitable and say that's part of the learning curve of Government and when you've been out of the loop for 14 years it's not easy to pick up the thread. The other issue is picking up the detritus of the last administration's failures and mistakes but the electorate are a capricious lot - as soon as the new Government takes over, everything is your fault irrespective of whether the actual decision was taken years previously.
Very well expressed and tonight news of no 10 publicly putting down its own Transport Secretary is extraordinary
Forget the polls PB is such fun as the apologists led by chief moron Anabobazina are now begging posters to be nice. They should really be re-reading Animal Farm. Politics is a grubby business and as all good conservatives know the troughs tempt all the piggies with remarkable speed this time.
It's funny to see posters who acted all moral at pointing out failures by the Conservative Party and its MPs, who are suddenly blind to issues now Labour is in government. Especially whilst they still decry the Conservatives.
It sorta shows that it was not morality that drove their criticisms, but naked partisanship. (*)
Fortunately, not every posted suffers from this affliction.
(*) For some odd reason, I initially wrote that as parsnipship. Which opens up some intriguing possibilities. A ship made out of a parsnip? A ship carrying nothing but parsnips? The state of being a parsnip?
Aren’t you the poster who gives a green-ish card to Johnson while continuing to castigate Keir for his curry?
Was I giving a "green-ish card" to Johnson? I don't think so...
I was certainly the poster who was castigating Johnson back as far as his time as MoL, and stating that he would not be a good PM. I also stated well before the election that Starmer would probably be better than Sunak, but would have problems because he is not a salesman.
But currygate's interesting. One of my criticisms of Johnson was that he had a habit of not learning lessons: when he makes a mistake, he's either too stupid, too stubborn or too proud to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Currygate was a mistake from the optics POV at least; and Starmer's making similar mistakes again. And again.
I think Starmer fucked up the optics here badly.
But currygate really wasn’t interesting. It was a load of bollocks served up by alt-right journalists and the ever credulous BigG
Were you here for RAFgate? That one was a proper zinger. I only learned of it the other day thanks to @TheScreamingEagles 's explanation. Wow. Just wow.
Was that the same as torpedo gate?
On one level, you have to salute BigG’s indefatigabilty.
No wonder he was selected as special driver for Windsor Davies MP in 1948!
No, Torpedogate was a veritable flesh wound compared with RAFgate... one speaks only of the latter in hushed tones. It is simply not suitable for a family forum.
I always think it shows a weakness when a poster apologises for an error but then some still seem to delight in ignoring it
I corrected my mistake about taking down the ballistic missiles and replicated the Ministry of Defence statement tha RAF planes were involved in the action that night
Pity we are not all perfect but can correct our errors
In over 62,000 posts I have erred on occasions but try to convey accurate information often accompanied by quotes from Sky, Guardian, Independent and others
This is a Conservative blog and you are quite rightly all piling into the Commies.
BigG. you have been like a terrier in calling out the most egregious corruption of the last decade. Currygate, Goonergate, Glassesgate, Victoria'ssecretgate, RAFgate, Angie'shousegate and Torpedogate, to name but a few.
Anabob you are not playing nicely on BigG's gates. "Go, walk out the door,...you're not welcome anymore". It's all going a bit Correct Horse Battery with everyone piling in on you, I thought Felix was particularly vicious.
@Anabobazina they have tumbled your game and you need a really flamboyant flounce to go out in style! My anti- PBTory flounce a fortnight ago was a bit shite so I can't offer up any advice
I’ll survive! (What in the holy name of Aphrodite is Victoriassecretgate?)
Are you still here?
Lady Victoria's pants purchased by Lord Alii. It caused grave concern amongst PB snowflakes.
No wonder they kept repeating it all day… and all night.
Must be dreadfully embarrassing for the poor woman. I wonder if her husband gets a regular earful about it.
Which would of course mean that nothing like it EVER happens again.
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Birmingham is very similar; at one point recently it claimed to be the youngest city in Europe. It has everything and the potential is vast. Also housing is very cheap, you can buy a 1 bed flat in a nice area for £130k. People should quit London for Birmingham.
Birmingham is probably the most dismal urban experience in the Western hemisphere.
Here speaks a man who has never been to Pristina, Kosova
Here speaks a man who does not know what the Western Hemisphere is.
Actually, I don't. Do you?
If it is just the New World then it does not include Birmigham
If it includes Europe then it includes Pristina. Or is there some weird fault-line related to communism?
For me the western hemisphere means the Americas plus Europe up to the Urals/Caucasus. Christendom, if you like
I'd be interested to hear a definition that manages to include Birmingham but excludes mainland Europe
Edit to add: Ah you mean technically anything west of the Prime meridian. Meaning that much of Kent is in the "eastern hemisphere", which is fucking ridiculous, no offense
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Birmingham is very similar; at one point recently it claimed to be the youngest city in Europe. It has everything and the potential is vast. Also housing is very cheap, you can buy a 1 bed flat in a nice area for £130k. People should quit London for Birmingham.
Birmingham is probably the most dismal urban experience in the Western hemisphere.
I grew up in suburban Birmingham. Pleasant enough. The city centre wants another few decades of regeneration, though. People started moving back into the city centre in the 1990s with developments like Brindley Place, but it rather stalled.
The £130k flats can be found even walking distance from HS2.
Like all second tier British cities, it suffers from a fatal lack of local autonomy and therefore investment.
But even by British standards, it’s a bit shit.
Not sure what the urban version of “rizz” is, but Birmingham doesn’t have much of it. Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool are all better.
I quite like Brum. It has never been fashionable with the intellectual elite. It's a gritty city where there's muck and brass, hence when someone wants to have a crass neauvou riche character to laugh at they make them a Brummy, as per Harry Enfield.
It's a great and dynamic city. The British city most like America in its contempt for intellectual pretension and its social mobility.
The city demolishes and re-dos its centre a few times each century and sometimes gets it right.
I was there last week for a research meeting. It's a great city for people who want to give two fingers to English snobs,
Although when those of us who grew up there open our mouths we sound like blithering idiots. Head and shoulders the most offensive accent in the British Isles.
That is English snobbery writ large. It's the first place that I remember living too.
People from other regions hold onto their accents, Brummies much less so, also other parts of the Black Country.
It simply isn't fashionable in this country to make your money in manufacturing, unless it is heavy industry like coal and steel whence prolier than thou. It's much more genteel to make your money by course try estates, financial services or best of all inheriting.
Birmingham (and the Black Country) are places where it's nothing to be ashamed of.
Suddenly we are suggesting that anti-Brummagist feeling is mere snobbery.
No.
I posted that Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow are all better. None precisely have a snooty reputation.
So it is with the accent, for that matter. It sounds objectively crass, whereas most other regional accents are actually charming.
Yep. That's what I was saying. Birmingham has never been fashionable.
Britons don't respect innovation and industry if it involves getting your hands dirty.
The rather disturbing McCullough murders hearing ended today with a life sentence, minimum 36 years. The judge's remarks shed little light on the oddest feature: the defendant was the youngest of 5 daughters, and after she murdered her parents it was over 4 years before anyone noticed there were two missing from the ranks. The GP spotted something odd in the end. Funny old world.
Yes. We should be proud to stand up for the fair pay and strong employment rights of channel workers. And should not be beholden to the Sultan who cares for neither.
What is the point of Labour if not to help workers?
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Birmingham is very similar; at one point recently it claimed to be the youngest city in Europe. It has everything and the potential is vast. Also housing is very cheap, you can buy a 1 bed flat in a nice area for £130k. People should quit London for Birmingham.
Birmingham is probably the most dismal urban experience in the Western hemisphere.
Here speaks a man who has never been to Pristina, Kosova
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Birmingham is very similar; at one point recently it claimed to be the youngest city in Europe. It has everything and the potential is vast. Also housing is very cheap, you can buy a 1 bed flat in a nice area for £130k. People should quit London for Birmingham.
Birmingham is probably the most dismal urban experience in the Western hemisphere.
Here speaks a man who has never been to Pristina, Kosova
Here speaks a man who does not know what the Western Hemisphere is.
Actually, I don't. Do you?
If it is just the New World then it does not include Birmigham
If it includes Europe then it includes Pristina. Or is there some weird fault-line related to communism?
For me the western hemisphere means the Americas plus Europe up to the Urals/Caucasus. Christendom, if you like
I'd be interested to hear a definition that manages to include Birmingham but excludes mainland Europe
West of Greenwich, East of NZ and the Bering Strait.
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Birmingham is very similar; at one point recently it claimed to be the youngest city in Europe. It has everything and the potential is vast. Also housing is very cheap, you can buy a 1 bed flat in a nice area for £130k. People should quit London for Birmingham.
Birmingham is probably the most dismal urban experience in the Western hemisphere.
I grew up in suburban Birmingham. Pleasant enough. The city centre wants another few decades of regeneration, though. People started moving back into the city centre in the 1990s with developments like Brindley Place, but it rather stalled.
The £130k flats can be found even walking distance from HS2.
Like all second tier British cities, it suffers from a fatal lack of local autonomy and therefore investment.
But even by British standards, it’s a bit shit.
Not sure what the urban version of “rizz” is, but Birmingham doesn’t have much of it. Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool are all better.
I quite like Brum. It has never been fashionable with the intellectual elite. It's a gritty city where there's muck and brass, hence when someone wants to have a crass neauvou riche character to laugh at they make them a Brummy, as per Harry Enfield.
It's a great and dynamic city. The British city most like America in its contempt for intellectual pretension and its social mobility.
The city demolishes and re-dos its centre a few times each century and sometimes gets it right.
I was there last week for a research meeting. It's a great city for people who want to give two fingers to English snobs,
Although when those of us who grew up there open our mouths we sound like blithering idiots. Head and shoulders the most offensive accent in the British Isles.
What's worse, your Sutton Coalfield or my South Yorkshire one?
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Birmingham is very similar; at one point recently it claimed to be the youngest city in Europe. It has everything and the potential is vast. Also housing is very cheap, you can buy a 1 bed flat in a nice area for £130k. People should quit London for Birmingham.
Birmingham is probably the most dismal urban experience in the Western hemisphere.
Here speaks a man who has never been to Pristina, Kosova
Here speaks a man who does not know what the Western Hemisphere is.
Actually, I don't. Do you?
If it is just the New World then it does not include Birmigham
If it includes Europe then it includes Pristina. Or is there some weird fault-line related to communism?
For me the western hemisphere means the Americas plus Europe up to the Urals/Caucasus. Christendom, if you like
I'd be interested to hear a definition that manages to include Birmingham but excludes mainland Europe
Edit to add: Ah you mean technically anything west of the Prime meridian. Meaning that much of Kent is in the "eastern hemisphere", which is fucking ridiculous, no offense
I assume it’s west of 0°, which does include the great city of Birmingham. (But only two thirds of London)
Forget the polls PB is such fun as the apologists led by chief moron Anabobazina are now begging posters to be nice. They should really be re-reading Animal Farm. Politics is a grubby business and as all good conservatives know the troughs tempt all the piggies with remarkable speed this time.
It's funny to see posters who acted all moral at pointing out failures by the Conservative Party and its MPs, who are suddenly blind to issues now Labour is in government. Especially whilst they still decry the Conservatives.
It sorta shows that it was not morality that drove their criticisms, but naked partisanship. (*)
Fortunately, not every posted suffers from this affliction.
(*) For some odd reason, I initially wrote that as parsnipship. Which opens up some intriguing possibilities. A ship made out of a parsnip? A ship carrying nothing but parsnips? The state of being a parsnip?
Aren’t you the poster who gives a green-ish card to Johnson while continuing to castigate Keir for his curry?
Was I giving a "green-ish card" to Johnson? I don't think so...
I was certainly the poster who was castigating Johnson back as far as his time as MoL, and stating that he would not be a good PM. I also stated well before the election that Starmer would probably be better than Sunak, but would have problems because he is not a salesman.
But currygate's interesting. One of my criticisms of Johnson was that he had a habit of not learning lessons: when he makes a mistake, he's either too stupid, too stubborn or too proud to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Currygate was a mistake from the optics POV at least; and Starmer's making similar mistakes again. And again.
I think Starmer fucked up the optics here badly.
But currygate really wasn’t interesting. It was a load of bollocks served up by alt-right journalists and the ever credulous BigG
Were you here for RAFgate? That one was a proper zinger. I only learned of it the other day thanks to @TheScreamingEagles 's explanation. Wow. Just wow.
Was that the same as torpedo gate?
On one level, you have to salute BigG’s indefatigabilty.
No wonder he was selected as special driver for Windsor Davies MP in 1948!
No, Torpedogate was a veritable flesh wound compared with RAFgate... one speaks only of the latter in hushed tones. It is simply not suitable for a family forum.
I always think it shows a weakness when a poster apologises for an error but then some still seem to delight in ignoring it
I corrected my mistake about taking down the ballistic missiles and replicated the Ministry of Defence statement tha RAF planes were involved in the action that night
Pity we are not all perfect but can correct our errors
In over 62,000 posts I have erred on occasions but try to convey accurate information often accompanied by quotes from Sky, Guardian, Independent and others
This is a Conservative blog and you are quite rightly all piling into the Commies.
BigG. you have been like a terrier in calling out the most egregious corruption of the last decade. Currygate, Goonergate, Glassesgate, Victoria'ssecretgate, RAFgate, Angie'shousegate and Torpedogate, to name but a few.
Anabob you are not playing nicely on BigG's gates. "Go, walk out the door,...you're not welcome anymore". It's all going a bit Correct Horse Battery with everyone piling in on you, I thought Felix was particularly vicious.
@Anabobazina they have tumbled your game and you need a really flamboyant flounce to go out in style! My anti- PBTory flounce a fortnight ago was a bit shite so I can't offer up any advice
I’ll survive! (What in the holy name of Aphrodite is Victoriassecretgate?)
Are you still here?
Lady Victoria's pants purchased by Lord Alii. It caused grave concern amongst PB snowflakes.
No wonder they kept repeating it all day… and all night.
You two do realise that, by discussing this non-story, that is of interest to no one, you have joined the alt-right extremists?
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Birmingham is very similar; at one point recently it claimed to be the youngest city in Europe. It has everything and the potential is vast. Also housing is very cheap, you can buy a 1 bed flat in a nice area for £130k. People should quit London for Birmingham.
Birmingham is probably the most dismal urban experience in the Western hemisphere.
I grew up in suburban Birmingham. Pleasant enough. The city centre wants another few decades of regeneration, though. People started moving back into the city centre in the 1990s with developments like Brindley Place, but it rather stalled.
The £130k flats can be found even walking distance from HS2.
Like all second tier British cities, it suffers from a fatal lack of local autonomy and therefore investment.
But even by British standards, it’s a bit shit.
Not sure what the urban version of “rizz” is, but Birmingham doesn’t have much of it. Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool are all better.
I quite like Brum. It has never been fashionable with the intellectual elite. It's a gritty city where there's muck and brass, hence when someone wants to have a crass neauvou riche character to laugh at they make them a Brummy, as per Harry Enfield.
It's a great and dynamic city. The British city most like America in its contempt for intellectual pretension and its social mobility.
The city demolishes and re-dos its centre a few times each century and sometimes gets it right.
I was there last week for a research meeting. It's a great city for people who want to give two fingers to English snobs,
Although when those of us who grew up there open our mouths we sound like blithering idiots. Head and shoulders the most offensive accent in the British Isles.
What's worse, your Sutton Coalfield or my South Yorkshire one?
Does Scouse not feature in a list of dodgy accents?
There is something to be said for making the right decisions whatever their immediate popularity since the end results will swing the mood back in your direction when it matters.
I doubt that is what is happening here. Lab also badly need a Campbell type to establish some discipline in the ranks of the 'advisers'. Just like their Con versions they all think they are a lot cleverer than they really are.
The winter fuel allowance was an attempt to look "serious" about the deficit which backfired completely. It's not a bad policy to stop giving public money to those who don't need it when we are £100 billion in the hole but it's bad politically to do that, instigate a cliff-edge means test AND give big pay settlements to parts of the public sector and unionised workers at the same time. It makes you look a) vindictive b) in hock to your "friends" and c) not that serious about the deficit.
On the "gifts", Starmer misread the public mood much as Truss did. There's a strong sense of "fairness" out there which says why should a politician get a free ticket to say Taylor Swift when I have to pay £x? Now, you can get over-puritan about it (the publication of the gifts to the new North East Mayor contained events in her area which she, as an elected representative, should attend) and there will always be events at which the Prime Minister, as Head of Government, should be present but like others I'm not convinced a Taylor Swift concert is one of them.
Compounding that was everything Starmer had said before the election about how his Government was going to comport itself differently to its predecessor. If there's one thing the public dislikes it's a hypocrite.
So we have discordant optics, a misreading of the public mood and a strong stench of hypocrisy combined and that pretty much explains where Starmer's immediate post-election approval numbers have gone. I'll be charitable and say that's part of the learning curve of Government and when you've been out of the loop for 14 years it's not easy to pick up the thread. The other issue is picking up the detritus of the last administration's failures and mistakes but the electorate are a capricious lot - as soon as the new Government takes over, everything is your fault irrespective of whether the actual decision was taken years previously.
Very well expressed and tonight news of no 10 publicly putting down its own Transport Secretary is extraordinary
Extraordinary is rather gilding the lily.
Why
On the eve of an investment summit no 10 publicly calls out a minister making the DP World news story more controversial than necessary
Forget the polls PB is such fun as the apologists led by chief moron Anabobazina are now begging posters to be nice. They should really be re-reading Animal Farm. Politics is a grubby business and as all good conservatives know the troughs tempt all the piggies with remarkable speed this time.
It's funny to see posters who acted all moral at pointing out failures by the Conservative Party and its MPs, who are suddenly blind to issues now Labour is in government. Especially whilst they still decry the Conservatives.
It sorta shows that it was not morality that drove their criticisms, but naked partisanship. (*)
Fortunately, not every posted suffers from this affliction.
(*) For some odd reason, I initially wrote that as parsnipship. Which opens up some intriguing possibilities. A ship made out of a parsnip? A ship carrying nothing but parsnips? The state of being a parsnip?
Aren’t you the poster who gives a green-ish card to Johnson while continuing to castigate Keir for his curry?
Was I giving a "green-ish card" to Johnson? I don't think so...
I was certainly the poster who was castigating Johnson back as far as his time as MoL, and stating that he would not be a good PM. I also stated well before the election that Starmer would probably be better than Sunak, but would have problems because he is not a salesman.
But currygate's interesting. One of my criticisms of Johnson was that he had a habit of not learning lessons: when he makes a mistake, he's either too stupid, too stubborn or too proud to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Currygate was a mistake from the optics POV at least; and Starmer's making similar mistakes again. And again.
I think Starmer fucked up the optics here badly.
But currygate really wasn’t interesting. It was a load of bollocks served up by alt-right journalists and the ever credulous BigG
Were you here for RAFgate? That one was a proper zinger. I only learned of it the other day thanks to @TheScreamingEagles 's explanation. Wow. Just wow.
Was that the same as torpedo gate?
On one level, you have to salute BigG’s indefatigabilty.
No wonder he was selected as special driver for Windsor Davies MP in 1948!
No, Torpedogate was a veritable flesh wound compared with RAFgate... one speaks only of the latter in hushed tones. It is simply not suitable for a family forum.
I always think it shows a weakness when a poster apologises for an error but then some still seem to delight in ignoring it
I corrected my mistake about taking down the ballistic missiles and replicated the Ministry of Defence statement tha RAF planes were involved in the action that night
Pity we are not all perfect but can correct our errors
In over 62,000 posts I have erred on occasions but try to convey accurate information often accompanied by quotes from Sky, Guardian, Independent and others
This is a Conservative blog and you are quite rightly all piling into the Commies.
BigG. you have been like a terrier in calling out the most egregious corruption of the last decade. Currygate, Goonergate, Glassesgate, Victoria'ssecretgate, RAFgate, Angie'shousegate and Torpedogate, to name but a few.
Anabob you are not playing nicely on BigG's gates. "Go, walk out the door,...you're not welcome anymore". It's all going a bit Correct Horse Battery with everyone piling in on you, I thought Felix was particularly vicious.
@Anabobazina they have tumbled your game and you need a really flamboyant flounce to go out in style! My anti- PBTory flounce a fortnight ago was a bit shite so I can't offer up any advice
I’ll survive! (What in the holy name of Aphrodite is Victoriassecretgate?)
A lot of commentators here have taken a particularly keen interest in the first lady's underwear.
It caused one overwrought poster (I won't name and shame) to type the word "panties".
A moment of deep cringe that took a while to dissipate.
“First Lady” is rather the mal mot here.
As for Lady Starmer’s panties, it could become a PB stock-in-phrase, if we try hard enough. A colourful variation to Sir Keir’s curry.
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Birmingham is very similar; at one point recently it claimed to be the youngest city in Europe. It has everything and the potential is vast. Also housing is very cheap, you can buy a 1 bed flat in a nice area for £130k. People should quit London for Birmingham.
Birmingham is probably the most dismal urban experience in the Western hemisphere.
I grew up in suburban Birmingham. Pleasant enough. The city centre wants another few decades of regeneration, though. People started moving back into the city centre in the 1990s with developments like Brindley Place, but it rather stalled.
The £130k flats can be found even walking distance from HS2.
In Birmingham I would say it is the centre which has the appeal and the suburbs that really need the regeneration. It is excessively car dominated. There are lots of little used parks and open spaces which basically look like wasteland, and noticeably less wealth. The contrast with London in this respect is enormous. On the other hand housing is affordable and there are very nice enclaves like Moseley.
The bankruptcy of the Council over the equal pay issue is very unfortunate.
Birmingham may be somewhat car dominated but Milton Keynes is totally car-controlled. Cyclists are excluded from the main roads of MK - fast dual and single carriageways, including delivery riders. This is by design as the City Council has not put in cycle paths although there would be plenty of space on the grass verges.
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Birmingham is very similar; at one point recently it claimed to be the youngest city in Europe. It has everything and the potential is vast. Also housing is very cheap, you can buy a 1 bed flat in a nice area for £130k. People should quit London for Birmingham.
Birmingham is probably the most dismal urban experience in the Western hemisphere.
Here speaks a man who has never been to Pristina, Kosova
Here speaks a man who does not know what the Western Hemisphere is.
Actually, I don't. Do you?
If it is just the New World then it does not include Birmigham
If it includes Europe then it includes Pristina. Or is there some weird fault-line related to communism?
For me the western hemisphere means the Americas plus Europe up to the Urals/Caucasus. Christendom, if you like
I'd be interested to hear a definition that manages to include Birmingham but excludes mainland Europe
West of Greenwich, East of NZ and the Bering Strait.
Western in this country text presumably refers to the cultural sense, despite the word hemisphere suggesting literal geography. I mean, Australia is part of The West.
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Birmingham is very similar; at one point recently it claimed to be the youngest city in Europe. It has everything and the potential is vast. Also housing is very cheap, you can buy a 1 bed flat in a nice area for £130k. People should quit London for Birmingham.
Birmingham is probably the most dismal urban experience in the Western hemisphere.
I grew up in suburban Birmingham. Pleasant enough. The city centre wants another few decades of regeneration, though. People started moving back into the city centre in the 1990s with developments like Brindley Place, but it rather stalled.
The £130k flats can be found even walking distance from HS2.
Like all second tier British cities, it suffers from a fatal lack of local autonomy and therefore investment.
But even by British standards, it’s a bit shit.
Not sure what the urban version of “rizz” is, but Birmingham doesn’t have much of it. Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool are all better.
I quite like Brum. It has never been fashionable with the intellectual elite. It's a gritty city where there's muck and brass, hence when someone wants to have a crass neauvou riche character to laugh at they make them a Brummy, as per Harry Enfield.
It's a great and dynamic city. The British city most like America in its contempt for intellectual pretension and its social mobility.
The city demolishes and re-dos its centre a few times each century and sometimes gets it right.
I was there last week for a research meeting. It's a great city for people who want to give two fingers to English snobs,
Although when those of us who grew up there open our mouths we sound like blithering idiots. Head and shoulders the most offensive accent in the British Isles.
That is English snobbery writ large. It's the first place that I remember living too.
People from other regions hold onto their accents, Brummies much less so, also other parts of the Black Country.
It simply isn't fashionable in this country to make your money in manufacturing, unless it is heavy industry like coal and steel whence prolier than thou. It's much more genteel to make your money by course try estates, financial services or best of all inheriting.
Birmingham (and the Black Country) are places where it's nothing to be ashamed of.
Suddenly we are suggesting that anti-Brummagist feeling is mere snobbery.
No.
I posted that Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow are all better. None precisely have a snooty reputation.
So it is with the accent, for that matter. It sounds objectively crass, whereas most other regional accents are actually charming.
There's a great variety of West Midlands accents. Broad Nuneaton is nothing like Brummie.
I lived and worked in S Essex for 30 years. I never thought about the accent. Then I moved away, and I’ve lived in N Essex for 20 years. Today I went to S Essex to the funeral of an old friend. The S Essex accents grated!
Forget the polls PB is such fun as the apologists led by chief moron Anabobazina are now begging posters to be nice. They should really be re-reading Animal Farm. Politics is a grubby business and as all good conservatives know the troughs tempt all the piggies with remarkable speed this time.
It's funny to see posters who acted all moral at pointing out failures by the Conservative Party and its MPs, who are suddenly blind to issues now Labour is in government. Especially whilst they still decry the Conservatives.
It sorta shows that it was not morality that drove their criticisms, but naked partisanship. (*)
Fortunately, not every posted suffers from this affliction.
(*) For some odd reason, I initially wrote that as parsnipship. Which opens up some intriguing possibilities. A ship made out of a parsnip? A ship carrying nothing but parsnips? The state of being a parsnip?
Aren’t you the poster who gives a green-ish card to Johnson while continuing to castigate Keir for his curry?
Was I giving a "green-ish card" to Johnson? I don't think so...
I was certainly the poster who was castigating Johnson back as far as his time as MoL, and stating that he would not be a good PM. I also stated well before the election that Starmer would probably be better than Sunak, but would have problems because he is not a salesman.
But currygate's interesting. One of my criticisms of Johnson was that he had a habit of not learning lessons: when he makes a mistake, he's either too stupid, too stubborn or too proud to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Currygate was a mistake from the optics POV at least; and Starmer's making similar mistakes again. And again.
I think Starmer fucked up the optics here badly.
But currygate really wasn’t interesting. It was a load of bollocks served up by alt-right journalists and the ever credulous BigG
Were you here for RAFgate? That one was a proper zinger. I only learned of it the other day thanks to @TheScreamingEagles 's explanation. Wow. Just wow.
Was that the same as torpedo gate?
On one level, you have to salute BigG’s indefatigabilty.
No wonder he was selected as special driver for Windsor Davies MP in 1948!
No, Torpedogate was a veritable flesh wound compared with RAFgate... one speaks only of the latter in hushed tones. It is simply not suitable for a family forum.
I always think it shows a weakness when a poster apologises for an error but then some still seem to delight in ignoring it
I corrected my mistake about taking down the ballistic missiles and replicated the Ministry of Defence statement tha RAF planes were involved in the action that night
Pity we are not all perfect but can correct our errors
In over 62,000 posts I have erred on occasions but try to convey accurate information often accompanied by quotes from Sky, Guardian, Independent and others
This is a Conservative blog and you are quite rightly all piling into the Commies.
BigG. you have been like a terrier in calling out the most egregious corruption of the last decade. Currygate, Goonergate, Glassesgate, Victoria'ssecretgate, RAFgate, Angie'shousegate and Torpedogate, to name but a few.
Anabob you are not playing nicely on BigG's gates. "Go, walk out the door,...you're not welcome anymore". It's all going a bit Correct Horse Battery with everyone piling in on you, I thought Felix was particularly vicious.
@Anabobazina they have tumbled your game and you need a really flamboyant flounce to go out in style! My anti- PBTory flounce a fortnight ago was a bit shite so I can't offer up any advice
I’ll survive! (What in the holy name of Aphrodite is Victoriassecretgate?)
Are you still here?
Lady Victoria's pants purchased by Lord Alii. It caused grave concern amongst PB snowflakes.
No wonder they kept repeating it all day… and all night.
Must be dreadfully embarrassing for the poor woman. I wonder if her husband gets a regular earful about it.
Which would of course mean that nothing like it EVER happens again.
Hopefully, anyway!
I just find it distasteful, and the criticism was directed to dresses she wore given to her by Alli
Not been good polling in swing states this week for Harris. Looking pretty bleak frankly.
Aditya Chakrabortty looks at why these voters don't feel the economy is working for them and why they will vote Trump 2.0
"I checked in on Mike Stout. We first talked in a diner in Pittsburgh in 2012, the year Obama won re-election. Mike and his wife, Steffi, had worked in Pennsylvania’s steel industry, with good union pay and pensions.
Life for the Stouts has been frozen for years. At the root of democratic capitalism is an old promise: tomorrow will be better than today. But that promise was broken long ago for Mike’s family and many of his friends’ households, too. He knew plenty of former steelworkers in this swing state who next month would vote Trump. Sure he was a liar, “but at least he lies to their faces, rather than ignoring them”."
At the moment I think Trump wins most of the rustbelt again as he did in 2016, the white working class is firmly back in his corner now Biden is gone.
He is also making gains with Latinos so may pick up Arizona and Nevada too. Harris is doing even better than Biden with white college graduates though and African Americans are now backing her more than they were backing Biden in the spring. There is a route to EC victory for Harris then if she wins NC, which has above average numbers of graduates and African Americans and Georgia, which has average numbers of graduates and above average numbers of African Americans and Pennsylvania, which looks close but also has more graduates than average. While Michigan and Wisconsin have below average numbers of graduates and above average numbers of white working class voters (Michigan also has a lot of Muslims unhappy with Harris and Biden over Gaza)
Yes. We should be proud to stand up for the fair pay and strong employment rights of channel workers. And should not be beholden to the Sultan who cares for neither.
What is the point of Labour if not to help workers?
How does losing a one billion pound investment help the economy and workers ?
Forget the polls PB is such fun as the apologists led by chief moron Anabobazina are now begging posters to be nice. They should really be re-reading Animal Farm. Politics is a grubby business and as all good conservatives know the troughs tempt all the piggies with remarkable speed this time.
It's funny to see posters who acted all moral at pointing out failures by the Conservative Party and its MPs, who are suddenly blind to issues now Labour is in government. Especially whilst they still decry the Conservatives.
It sorta shows that it was not morality that drove their criticisms, but naked partisanship. (*)
Fortunately, not every posted suffers from this affliction.
(*) For some odd reason, I initially wrote that as parsnipship. Which opens up some intriguing possibilities. A ship made out of a parsnip? A ship carrying nothing but parsnips? The state of being a parsnip?
Aren’t you the poster who gives a green-ish card to Johnson while continuing to castigate Keir for his curry?
Was I giving a "green-ish card" to Johnson? I don't think so...
I was certainly the poster who was castigating Johnson back as far as his time as MoL, and stating that he would not be a good PM. I also stated well before the election that Starmer would probably be better than Sunak, but would have problems because he is not a salesman.
But currygate's interesting. One of my criticisms of Johnson was that he had a habit of not learning lessons: when he makes a mistake, he's either too stupid, too stubborn or too proud to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Currygate was a mistake from the optics POV at least; and Starmer's making similar mistakes again. And again.
I think Starmer fucked up the optics here badly.
But currygate really wasn’t interesting. It was a load of bollocks served up by alt-right journalists and the ever credulous BigG
Were you here for RAFgate? That one was a proper zinger. I only learned of it the other day thanks to @TheScreamingEagles 's explanation. Wow. Just wow.
Was that the same as torpedo gate?
On one level, you have to salute BigG’s indefatigabilty.
No wonder he was selected as special driver for Windsor Davies MP in 1948!
No, Torpedogate was a veritable flesh wound compared with RAFgate... one speaks only of the latter in hushed tones. It is simply not suitable for a family forum.
I always think it shows a weakness when a poster apologises for an error but then some still seem to delight in ignoring it
I corrected my mistake about taking down the ballistic missiles and replicated the Ministry of Defence statement tha RAF planes were involved in the action that night
Pity we are not all perfect but can correct our errors
In over 62,000 posts I have erred on occasions but try to convey accurate information often accompanied by quotes from Sky, Guardian, Independent and others
This is a Conservative blog and you are quite rightly all piling into the Commies.
BigG. you have been like a terrier in calling out the most egregious corruption of the last decade. Currygate, Goonergate, Glassesgate, Victoria'ssecretgate, RAFgate, Angie'shousegate and Torpedogate, to name but a few.
Anabob you are not playing nicely on BigG's gates. "Go, walk out the door,...you're not welcome anymore". It's all going a bit Correct Horse Battery with everyone piling in on you, I thought Felix was particularly vicious.
@Anabobazina they have tumbled your game and you need a really flamboyant flounce to go out in style! My anti- PBTory flounce a fortnight ago was a bit shite so I can't offer up any advice
I’ll survive! (What in the holy name of Aphrodite is Victoriassecretgate?)
Are you still here?
Lady Victoria's pants purchased by Lord Alii. It caused grave concern amongst PB snowflakes.
No wonder they kept repeating it all day… and all night.
Must be dreadfully embarrassing for the poor woman. I wonder if her husband gets a regular earful about it.
Which would of course mean that nothing like it EVER happens again.
Hopefully, anyway!
I just find it distasteful, and the criticism was directed to dresses she wore given to her by Alli
Victoria’s Secret do not, to my knowledge, sell dresses…
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Manchester is a great city. I had many insanely good nights out there during the 90s when it was edgy as F. But, it’s bigger and better now.
Manchester is an amazing city and is incredibly regenerated over the last decade or so. Still gritty in parts, but also more hopeful and optimistic and friendly than London. It very much feels like a city with energy, on the up and up.
Probably the best place in the UK in a venn diagram of affordability, interesting stuff going on, constantly changing and evolving. Other cities may beat it on individual metrics but it sits at that sweet spot in the centre of the venn diagram.
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Birmingham is very similar; at one point recently it claimed to be the youngest city in Europe. It has everything and the potential is vast. Also housing is very cheap, you can buy a 1 bed flat in a nice area for £130k. People should quit London for Birmingham.
Birmingham is probably the most dismal urban experience in the Western hemisphere.
I grew up in suburban Birmingham. Pleasant enough. The city centre wants another few decades of regeneration, though. People started moving back into the city centre in the 1990s with developments like Brindley Place, but it rather stalled.
The £130k flats can be found even walking distance from HS2.
In Birmingham I would say it is the centre which has the appeal and the suburbs that really need the regeneration. It is excessively car dominated. There are lots of little used parks and open spaces which basically look like wasteland, and noticeably less wealth. The contrast with London in this respect is enormous. On the other hand housing is affordable and there are very nice enclaves like Moseley.
The bankruptcy of the Council over the equal pay issue is very unfortunate.
I had a great weekend there recently. Much underrated city. Good nightlife.
Back in the 80s the pub scene in the city centre was dire. The aftermath of the pub bombings meant that folk stayed in the suburbs.
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Birmingham is very similar; at one point recently it claimed to be the youngest city in Europe. It has everything and the potential is vast. Also housing is very cheap, you can buy a 1 bed flat in a nice area for £130k. People should quit London for Birmingham.
Birmingham is probably the most dismal urban experience in the Western hemisphere.
I grew up in suburban Birmingham. Pleasant enough. The city centre wants another few decades of regeneration, though. People started moving back into the city centre in the 1990s with developments like Brindley Place, but it rather stalled.
The £130k flats can be found even walking distance from HS2.
Like all second tier British cities, it suffers from a fatal lack of local autonomy and therefore investment.
But even by British standards, it’s a bit shit.
Not sure what the urban version of “rizz” is, but Birmingham doesn’t have much of it. Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool are all better.
I quite like Brum. It has never been fashionable with the intellectual elite. It's a gritty city where there's muck and brass, hence when someone wants to have a crass neauvou riche character to laugh at they make them a Brummy, as per Harry Enfield.
It's a great and dynamic city. The British city most like America in its contempt for intellectual pretension and its social mobility.
The city demolishes and re-dos its centre a few times each century and sometimes gets it right.
I was there last week for a research meeting. It's a great city for people who want to give two fingers to English snobs,
Although when those of us who grew up there open our mouths we sound like blithering idiots. Head and shoulders the most offensive accent in the British Isles.
What's worse, your Sutton Coalfield or my South Yorkshire one?
Do you sound like Jasper Carrot singing Funky Moped? No, well there is your answer.
Forget the polls PB is such fun as the apologists led by chief moron Anabobazina are now begging posters to be nice. They should really be re-reading Animal Farm. Politics is a grubby business and as all good conservatives know the troughs tempt all the piggies with remarkable speed this time.
It's funny to see posters who acted all moral at pointing out failures by the Conservative Party and its MPs, who are suddenly blind to issues now Labour is in government. Especially whilst they still decry the Conservatives.
It sorta shows that it was not morality that drove their criticisms, but naked partisanship. (*)
Fortunately, not every posted suffers from this affliction.
(*) For some odd reason, I initially wrote that as parsnipship. Which opens up some intriguing possibilities. A ship made out of a parsnip? A ship carrying nothing but parsnips? The state of being a parsnip?
Aren’t you the poster who gives a green-ish card to Johnson while continuing to castigate Keir for his curry?
Was I giving a "green-ish card" to Johnson? I don't think so...
I was certainly the poster who was castigating Johnson back as far as his time as MoL, and stating that he would not be a good PM. I also stated well before the election that Starmer would probably be better than Sunak, but would have problems because he is not a salesman.
But currygate's interesting. One of my criticisms of Johnson was that he had a habit of not learning lessons: when he makes a mistake, he's either too stupid, too stubborn or too proud to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Currygate was a mistake from the optics POV at least; and Starmer's making similar mistakes again. And again.
I think Starmer fucked up the optics here badly.
But currygate really wasn’t interesting. It was a load of bollocks served up by alt-right journalists and the ever credulous BigG
Were you here for RAFgate? That one was a proper zinger. I only learned of it the other day thanks to @TheScreamingEagles 's explanation. Wow. Just wow.
Was that the same as torpedo gate?
On one level, you have to salute BigG’s indefatigabilty.
No wonder he was selected as special driver for Windsor Davies MP in 1948!
No, Torpedogate was a veritable flesh wound compared with RAFgate... one speaks only of the latter in hushed tones. It is simply not suitable for a family forum.
I always think it shows a weakness when a poster apologises for an error but then some still seem to delight in ignoring it
I corrected my mistake about taking down the ballistic missiles and replicated the Ministry of Defence statement tha RAF planes were involved in the action that night
Pity we are not all perfect but can correct our errors
In over 62,000 posts I have erred on occasions but try to convey accurate information often accompanied by quotes from Sky, Guardian, Independent and others
This is a Conservative blog and you are quite rightly all piling into the Commies.
BigG. you have been like a terrier in calling out the most egregious corruption of the last decade. Currygate, Goonergate, Glassesgate, Victoria'ssecretgate, RAFgate, Angie'shousegate and Torpedogate, to name but a few.
Anabob you are not playing nicely on BigG's gates. "Go, walk out the door,...you're not welcome anymore". It's all going a bit Correct Horse Battery with everyone piling in on you, I thought Felix was particularly vicious.
@Anabobazina they have tumbled your game and you need a really flamboyant flounce to go out in style! My anti- PBTory flounce a fortnight ago was a bit shite so I can't offer up any advice
I’ll survive! (What in the holy name of Aphrodite is Victoriassecretgate?)
A lot of commentators here have taken a particularly keen interest in the first lady's underwear.
It caused one overwrought poster (I won't name and shame) to type the word "panties".
A moment of deep cringe that took a while to dissipate.
“First Lady” is rather the mal mot here.
As for Lady Starmer’s panties, it could become a PB stock-in-phrase, if we try hard enough. A colourful variation to Sir Keir’s curry.
Mods!
"pant**s"
Ok, I remarked on this at the time but I'll ask again. What is wrong with the word "panties"? Is this some cultural taboo I am unaware of? Does this apply to other elements of womens underwear? Is "bra" still OK? Am genuinely puzzled.
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Birmingham is very similar; at one point recently it claimed to be the youngest city in Europe. It has everything and the potential is vast. Also housing is very cheap, you can buy a 1 bed flat in a nice area for £130k. People should quit London for Birmingham.
Birmingham is probably the most dismal urban experience in the Western hemisphere.
Here speaks a man who has never been to Pristina, Kosova
Here speaks a man who does not know what the Western Hemisphere is.
Actually, I don't. Do you?
If it is just the New World then it does not include Birmigham
If it includes Europe then it includes Pristina. Or is there some weird fault-line related to communism?
For me the western hemisphere means the Americas plus Europe up to the Urals/Caucasus. Christendom, if you like
I'd be interested to hear a definition that manages to include Birmingham but excludes mainland Europe
West of Greenwich, East of NZ and the Bering Strait.
Western in this country text presumably refers to the cultural sense, despite the word hemisphere suggesting literal geography. I mean, Australia is part of The West.
In anticipation of the next US Presidential Election, now less than four weeks away, we at Redfield & Wilton Strategies have decided to poll two key states which could be critical in determining who becomes the next occupant of the White House – Georgia and Pennsylvania.
In our swing state voting intention poll conducted between 27 September and 2 October, Kamala Harris led Trump by 1% in Pennsylvania (48% to 47%), whilst both candidates were tied on 47% in Georgia. Trump now leads Harris by 2% in Pennsylvania (48% to 46%) and by 1% in Georgia (48% to 47%).
However, it is worth noting that in both states Donald Trump’s leads are within the margin of error.
For context, in the 2020 Presidential Election, Joe Biden carried Georgia by just 11,779 votes (0.2%) and Pennsylvania by 80,555 votes (1.2%)
There is something to be said for making the right decisions whatever their immediate popularity since the end results will swing the mood back in your direction when it matters.
I doubt that is what is happening here. Lab also badly need a Campbell type to establish some discipline in the ranks of the 'advisers'. Just like their Con versions they all think they are a lot cleverer than they really are.
The winter fuel allowance was an attempt to look "serious" about the deficit which backfired completely. It's not a bad policy to stop giving public money to those who don't need it when we are £100 billion in the hole but it's bad politically to do that, instigate a cliff-edge means test AND give big pay settlements to parts of the public sector and unionised workers at the same time. It makes you look a) vindictive b) in hock to your "friends" and c) not that serious about the deficit.
On the "gifts", Starmer misread the public mood much as Truss did. There's a strong sense of "fairness" out there which says why should a politician get a free ticket to say Taylor Swift when I have to pay £x? Now, you can get over-puritan about it (the publication of the gifts to the new North East Mayor contained events in her area which she, as an elected representative, should attend) and there will always be events at which the Prime Minister, as Head of Government, should be present but like others I'm not convinced a Taylor Swift concert is one of them.
Compounding that was everything Starmer had said before the election about how his Government was going to comport itself differently to its predecessor. If there's one thing the public dislikes it's a hypocrite.
So we have discordant optics, a misreading of the public mood and a strong stench of hypocrisy combined and that pretty much explains where Starmer's immediate post-election approval numbers have gone. I'll be charitable and say that's part of the learning curve of Government and when you've been out of the loop for 14 years it's not easy to pick up the thread. The other issue is picking up the detritus of the last administration's failures and mistakes but the electorate are a capricious lot - as soon as the new Government takes over, everything is your fault irrespective of whether the actual decision was taken years previously.
The gifts thing was much more than a misreading or fast learning curve. That the last government was not only incompetent but also in hock to their mates and on the side of chancers was central to both iis unpopularity and our expectations of Labour.
It was not incidental but of the essence that Starmer and co could not be bought by anyone. This required acting in the utmost good faith. This is not recoverable, because it displays who you are.
Forget the polls PB is such fun as the apologists led by chief moron Anabobazina are now begging posters to be nice. They should really be re-reading Animal Farm. Politics is a grubby business and as all good conservatives know the troughs tempt all the piggies with remarkable speed this time.
It's funny to see posters who acted all moral at pointing out failures by the Conservative Party and its MPs, who are suddenly blind to issues now Labour is in government. Especially whilst they still decry the Conservatives.
It sorta shows that it was not morality that drove their criticisms, but naked partisanship. (*)
Fortunately, not every posted suffers from this affliction.
(*) For some odd reason, I initially wrote that as parsnipship. Which opens up some intriguing possibilities. A ship made out of a parsnip? A ship carrying nothing but parsnips? The state of being a parsnip?
Aren’t you the poster who gives a green-ish card to Johnson while continuing to castigate Keir for his curry?
Was I giving a "green-ish card" to Johnson? I don't think so...
I was certainly the poster who was castigating Johnson back as far as his time as MoL, and stating that he would not be a good PM. I also stated well before the election that Starmer would probably be better than Sunak, but would have problems because he is not a salesman.
But currygate's interesting. One of my criticisms of Johnson was that he had a habit of not learning lessons: when he makes a mistake, he's either too stupid, too stubborn or too proud to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Currygate was a mistake from the optics POV at least; and Starmer's making similar mistakes again. And again.
I think Starmer fucked up the optics here badly.
But currygate really wasn’t interesting. It was a load of bollocks served up by alt-right journalists and the ever credulous BigG
Were you here for RAFgate? That one was a proper zinger. I only learned of it the other day thanks to @TheScreamingEagles 's explanation. Wow. Just wow.
Was that the same as torpedo gate?
On one level, you have to salute BigG’s indefatigabilty.
No wonder he was selected as special driver for Windsor Davies MP in 1948!
No, Torpedogate was a veritable flesh wound compared with RAFgate... one speaks only of the latter in hushed tones. It is simply not suitable for a family forum.
I always think it shows a weakness when a poster apologises for an error but then some still seem to delight in ignoring it
I corrected my mistake about taking down the ballistic missiles and replicated the Ministry of Defence statement tha RAF planes were involved in the action that night
Pity we are not all perfect but can correct our errors
In over 62,000 posts I have erred on occasions but try to convey accurate information often accompanied by quotes from Sky, Guardian, Independent and others
This is a Conservative blog and you are quite rightly all piling into the Commies.
BigG. you have been like a terrier in calling out the most egregious corruption of the last decade. Currygate, Goonergate, Glassesgate, Victoria'ssecretgate, RAFgate, Angie'shousegate and Torpedogate, to name but a few.
Anabob you are not playing nicely on BigG's gates. "Go, walk out the door,...you're not welcome anymore". It's all going a bit Correct Horse Battery with everyone piling in on you, I thought Felix was particularly vicious.
@Anabobazina they have tumbled your game and you need a really flamboyant flounce to go out in style! My anti- PBTory flounce a fortnight ago was a bit shite so I can't offer up any advice
I’ll survive! (What in the holy name of Aphrodite is Victoriassecretgate?)
Are you still here?
Lady Victoria's pants purchased by Lord Alii. It caused grave concern amongst PB snowflakes.
No wonder they kept repeating it all day… and all night.
Must be dreadfully embarrassing for the poor woman. I wonder if her husband gets a regular earful about it.
Which would of course mean that nothing like it EVER happens again.
Hopefully, anyway!
I just find it distasteful, and the criticism was directed to dresses she wore given to her by Alli
Victoria’s Secret do not, to my knowledge, sell dresses…
As has been said you are the one continuing this rather distasteful nonsense and is utterly disrespectful to Lady Starmer
Yes. We should be proud to stand up for the fair pay and strong employment rights of channel workers. And should not be beholden to the Sultan who cares for neither.
What is the point of Labour if not to help workers?
The point is to stand on the other side of the wooden box with the gold thing on it for a while. Once in a while Punch hits from the left, once in a while from the right.
I think you'll find that Keir's "sausages" faux-pas was actually a cry for help from behind the screen.
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Birmingham is very similar; at one point recently it claimed to be the youngest city in Europe. It has everything and the potential is vast. Also housing is very cheap, you can buy a 1 bed flat in a nice area for £130k. People should quit London for Birmingham.
Birmingham is probably the most dismal urban experience in the Western hemisphere.
Forget the polls PB is such fun as the apologists led by chief moron Anabobazina are now begging posters to be nice. They should really be re-reading Animal Farm. Politics is a grubby business and as all good conservatives know the troughs tempt all the piggies with remarkable speed this time.
It's funny to see posters who acted all moral at pointing out failures by the Conservative Party and its MPs, who are suddenly blind to issues now Labour is in government. Especially whilst they still decry the Conservatives.
It sorta shows that it was not morality that drove their criticisms, but naked partisanship. (*)
Fortunately, not every posted suffers from this affliction.
(*) For some odd reason, I initially wrote that as parsnipship. Which opens up some intriguing possibilities. A ship made out of a parsnip? A ship carrying nothing but parsnips? The state of being a parsnip?
Aren’t you the poster who gives a green-ish card to Johnson while continuing to castigate Keir for his curry?
Was I giving a "green-ish card" to Johnson? I don't think so...
I was certainly the poster who was castigating Johnson back as far as his time as MoL, and stating that he would not be a good PM. I also stated well before the election that Starmer would probably be better than Sunak, but would have problems because he is not a salesman.
But currygate's interesting. One of my criticisms of Johnson was that he had a habit of not learning lessons: when he makes a mistake, he's either too stupid, too stubborn or too proud to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Currygate was a mistake from the optics POV at least; and Starmer's making similar mistakes again. And again.
I think Starmer fucked up the optics here badly.
But currygate really wasn’t interesting. It was a load of bollocks served up by alt-right journalists and the ever credulous BigG
Were you here for RAFgate? That one was a proper zinger. I only learned of it the other day thanks to @TheScreamingEagles 's explanation. Wow. Just wow.
Was that the same as torpedo gate?
On one level, you have to salute BigG’s indefatigabilty.
No wonder he was selected as special driver for Windsor Davies MP in 1948!
No, Torpedogate was a veritable flesh wound compared with RAFgate... one speaks only of the latter in hushed tones. It is simply not suitable for a family forum.
I always think it shows a weakness when a poster apologises for an error but then some still seem to delight in ignoring it
I corrected my mistake about taking down the ballistic missiles and replicated the Ministry of Defence statement tha RAF planes were involved in the action that night
Pity we are not all perfect but can correct our errors
In over 62,000 posts I have erred on occasions but try to convey accurate information often accompanied by quotes from Sky, Guardian, Independent and others
This is a Conservative blog and you are quite rightly all piling into the Commies.
BigG. you have been like a terrier in calling out the most egregious corruption of the last decade. Currygate, Goonergate, Glassesgate, Victoria'ssecretgate, RAFgate, Angie'shousegate and Torpedogate, to name but a few.
Anabob you are not playing nicely on BigG's gates. "Go, walk out the door,...you're not welcome anymore". It's all going a bit Correct Horse Battery with everyone piling in on you, I thought Felix was particularly vicious.
@Anabobazina they have tumbled your game and you need a really flamboyant flounce to go out in style! My anti- PBTory flounce a fortnight ago was a bit shite so I can't offer up any advice
I’ll survive! (What in the holy name of Aphrodite is Victoriassecretgate?)
A lot of commentators here have taken a particularly keen interest in the first lady's underwear.
It caused one overwrought poster (I won't name and shame) to type the word "panties".
A moment of deep cringe that took a while to dissipate.
“First Lady” is rather the mal mot here.
As for Lady Starmer’s panties, it could become a PB stock-in-phrase, if we try hard enough. A colourful variation to Sir Keir’s curry.
Mods!
"pant**s"
Ok, I remarked on this at the time but I'll ask again. What is wrong with the word "panties"? Is this some cultural taboo I am unaware of? Does this apply to other elements of womens underwear? Is "bra" still OK? Am genuinely puzzled.
It wasn't until the advent of Zoom/Teams/Skype that I found out that swigging from the bottle (Diet Coke) was considered infra-dig. I know picking your nose and chewing with your mouth open is rude. I recently found out that "Bugger me sideways" caused gasps of amazement. What else is rude that I don't know about?
I’m walking through Camden Market. The youthful energy is insane. No other city - not even New York - matches it. Something unique in the air. Far more dynamic than any city in the EU
London PULSATES. What is being hatched here in this crazy mash of energetic people from all over?
It may yet save us
London doesn't have to do it alone. The growth in Manchester over the past ten years jas been remarkable. Manchester is, if anything*, a younger city than London. It's hard, in Manchester, to recognise the story of national decline. Granted there is a lot of grot - but good grief it's a different city to 20 years ago. Which in turn was a very different city to 20 years before that.
*figure pulled out of my arse but feels right.
Birmingham is very similar; at one point recently it claimed to be the youngest city in Europe. It has everything and the potential is vast. Also housing is very cheap, you can buy a 1 bed flat in a nice area for £130k. People should quit London for Birmingham.
Birmingham is probably the most dismal urban experience in the Western hemisphere.
I grew up in suburban Birmingham. Pleasant enough. The city centre wants another few decades of regeneration, though. People started moving back into the city centre in the 1990s with developments like Brindley Place, but it rather stalled.
The £130k flats can be found even walking distance from HS2.
In Birmingham I would say it is the centre which has the appeal and the suburbs that really need the regeneration. It is excessively car dominated. There are lots of little used parks and open spaces which basically look like wasteland, and noticeably less wealth. The contrast with London in this respect is enormous. On the other hand housing is affordable and there are very nice enclaves like Moseley.
The bankruptcy of the Council over the equal pay issue is very unfortunate.
I had a great weekend there recently. Much underrated city. Good nightlife.
Back in the 80s the pub scene in the city centre was dire. The aftermath of the pub bombings meant that folk stayed in the suburbs.
I’m talking late nineties. The house clubs kicked.
Re clobbergate, I noticed Keir looked quite dowdy on the news tonight. I think he's ditched the Richard Gere look in response to all the criticism. Shame because he's one of those guys who wears a smart outfit well. Bit of a clothes horse.
Re clobbergate, I noticed Keir looked quite dowdy on the news tonight. I think he's ditched the Richard Gere look in response to all the criticism. Shame because he's one of those guys who wears a smart outfit well. Bit of a clothes horse.
Forget the polls PB is such fun as the apologists led by chief moron Anabobazina are now begging posters to be nice. They should really be re-reading Animal Farm. Politics is a grubby business and as all good conservatives know the troughs tempt all the piggies with remarkable speed this time.
It's funny to see posters who acted all moral at pointing out failures by the Conservative Party and its MPs, who are suddenly blind to issues now Labour is in government. Especially whilst they still decry the Conservatives.
It sorta shows that it was not morality that drove their criticisms, but naked partisanship. (*)
Fortunately, not every posted suffers from this affliction.
(*) For some odd reason, I initially wrote that as parsnipship. Which opens up some intriguing possibilities. A ship made out of a parsnip? A ship carrying nothing but parsnips? The state of being a parsnip?
Aren’t you the poster who gives a green-ish card to Johnson while continuing to castigate Keir for his curry?
Was I giving a "green-ish card" to Johnson? I don't think so...
I was certainly the poster who was castigating Johnson back as far as his time as MoL, and stating that he would not be a good PM. I also stated well before the election that Starmer would probably be better than Sunak, but would have problems because he is not a salesman.
But currygate's interesting. One of my criticisms of Johnson was that he had a habit of not learning lessons: when he makes a mistake, he's either too stupid, too stubborn or too proud to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Currygate was a mistake from the optics POV at least; and Starmer's making similar mistakes again. And again.
I think Starmer fucked up the optics here badly.
But currygate really wasn’t interesting. It was a load of bollocks served up by alt-right journalists and the ever credulous BigG
Were you here for RAFgate? That one was a proper zinger. I only learned of it the other day thanks to @TheScreamingEagles 's explanation. Wow. Just wow.
Was that the same as torpedo gate?
On one level, you have to salute BigG’s indefatigabilty.
No wonder he was selected as special driver for Windsor Davies MP in 1948!
No, Torpedogate was a veritable flesh wound compared with RAFgate... one speaks only of the latter in hushed tones. It is simply not suitable for a family forum.
I always think it shows a weakness when a poster apologises for an error but then some still seem to delight in ignoring it
I corrected my mistake about taking down the ballistic missiles and replicated the Ministry of Defence statement tha RAF planes were involved in the action that night
Pity we are not all perfect but can correct our errors
In over 62,000 posts I have erred on occasions but try to convey accurate information often accompanied by quotes from Sky, Guardian, Independent and others
This is a Conservative blog and you are quite rightly all piling into the Commies.
BigG. you have been like a terrier in calling out the most egregious corruption of the last decade. Currygate, Goonergate, Glassesgate, Victoria'ssecretgate, RAFgate, Angie'shousegate and Torpedogate, to name but a few.
Anabob you are not playing nicely on BigG's gates. "Go, walk out the door,...you're not welcome anymore". It's all going a bit Correct Horse Battery with everyone piling in on you, I thought Felix was particularly vicious.
@Anabobazina they have tumbled your game and you need a really flamboyant flounce to go out in style! My anti- PBTory flounce a fortnight ago was a bit shite so I can't offer up any advice
I’ll survive! (What in the holy name of Aphrodite is Victoriassecretgate?)
A lot of commentators here have taken a particularly keen interest in the first lady's underwear.
It caused one overwrought poster (I won't name and shame) to type the word "panties".
A moment of deep cringe that took a while to dissipate.
“First Lady” is rather the mal mot here.
As for Lady Starmer’s panties, it could become a PB stock-in-phrase, if we try hard enough. A colourful variation to Sir Keir’s curry.
Mods!
"pant**s"
Ok, I remarked on this at the time but I'll ask again. What is wrong with the word "panties"? Is this some cultural taboo I am unaware of? Does this apply to other elements of womens underwear? Is "bra" still OK? Am genuinely puzzled.
Forget the polls PB is such fun as the apologists led by chief moron Anabobazina are now begging posters to be nice. They should really be re-reading Animal Farm. Politics is a grubby business and as all good conservatives know the troughs tempt all the piggies with remarkable speed this time.
It's funny to see posters who acted all moral at pointing out failures by the Conservative Party and its MPs, who are suddenly blind to issues now Labour is in government. Especially whilst they still decry the Conservatives.
It sorta shows that it was not morality that drove their criticisms, but naked partisanship. (*)
Fortunately, not every posted suffers from this affliction.
(*) For some odd reason, I initially wrote that as parsnipship. Which opens up some intriguing possibilities. A ship made out of a parsnip? A ship carrying nothing but parsnips? The state of being a parsnip?
Aren’t you the poster who gives a green-ish card to Johnson while continuing to castigate Keir for his curry?
Was I giving a "green-ish card" to Johnson? I don't think so...
I was certainly the poster who was castigating Johnson back as far as his time as MoL, and stating that he would not be a good PM. I also stated well before the election that Starmer would probably be better than Sunak, but would have problems because he is not a salesman.
But currygate's interesting. One of my criticisms of Johnson was that he had a habit of not learning lessons: when he makes a mistake, he's either too stupid, too stubborn or too proud to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Currygate was a mistake from the optics POV at least; and Starmer's making similar mistakes again. And again.
I think Starmer fucked up the optics here badly.
But currygate really wasn’t interesting. It was a load of bollocks served up by alt-right journalists and the ever credulous BigG
Were you here for RAFgate? That one was a proper zinger. I only learned of it the other day thanks to @TheScreamingEagles 's explanation. Wow. Just wow.
Was that the same as torpedo gate?
On one level, you have to salute BigG’s indefatigabilty.
No wonder he was selected as special driver for Windsor Davies MP in 1948!
No, Torpedogate was a veritable flesh wound compared with RAFgate... one speaks only of the latter in hushed tones. It is simply not suitable for a family forum.
I always think it shows a weakness when a poster apologises for an error but then some still seem to delight in ignoring it
I corrected my mistake about taking down the ballistic missiles and replicated the Ministry of Defence statement tha RAF planes were involved in the action that night
Pity we are not all perfect but can correct our errors
In over 62,000 posts I have erred on occasions but try to convey accurate information often accompanied by quotes from Sky, Guardian, Independent and others
This is a Conservative blog and you are quite rightly all piling into the Commies.
BigG. you have been like a terrier in calling out the most egregious corruption of the last decade. Currygate, Goonergate, Glassesgate, Victoria'ssecretgate, RAFgate, Angie'shousegate and Torpedogate, to name but a few.
Anabob you are not playing nicely on BigG's gates. "Go, walk out the door,...you're not welcome anymore". It's all going a bit Correct Horse Battery with everyone piling in on you, I thought Felix was particularly vicious.
@Anabobazina they have tumbled your game and you need a really flamboyant flounce to go out in style! My anti- PBTory flounce a fortnight ago was a bit shite so I can't offer up any advice
I’ll survive! (What in the holy name of Aphrodite is Victoriassecretgate?)
A lot of commentators here have taken a particularly keen interest in the first lady's underwear.
It caused one overwrought poster (I won't name and shame) to type the word "panties".
A moment of deep cringe that took a while to dissipate.
“First Lady” is rather the mal mot here.
As for Lady Starmer’s panties, it could become a PB stock-in-phrase, if we try hard enough. A colourful variation to Sir Keir’s curry.
I once ran a password cracker on our local IT accounts. And a variation of 'panties' was the most common password. Which taught me a lot about the professorial class.
Forget the polls PB is such fun as the apologists led by chief moron Anabobazina are now begging posters to be nice. They should really be re-reading Animal Farm. Politics is a grubby business and as all good conservatives know the troughs tempt all the piggies with remarkable speed this time.
It's funny to see posters who acted all moral at pointing out failures by the Conservative Party and its MPs, who are suddenly blind to issues now Labour is in government. Especially whilst they still decry the Conservatives.
It sorta shows that it was not morality that drove their criticisms, but naked partisanship. (*)
Fortunately, not every posted suffers from this affliction.
(*) For some odd reason, I initially wrote that as parsnipship. Which opens up some intriguing possibilities. A ship made out of a parsnip? A ship carrying nothing but parsnips? The state of being a parsnip?
Aren’t you the poster who gives a green-ish card to Johnson while continuing to castigate Keir for his curry?
Was I giving a "green-ish card" to Johnson? I don't think so...
I was certainly the poster who was castigating Johnson back as far as his time as MoL, and stating that he would not be a good PM. I also stated well before the election that Starmer would probably be better than Sunak, but would have problems because he is not a salesman.
But currygate's interesting. One of my criticisms of Johnson was that he had a habit of not learning lessons: when he makes a mistake, he's either too stupid, too stubborn or too proud to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Currygate was a mistake from the optics POV at least; and Starmer's making similar mistakes again. And again.
I think Starmer fucked up the optics here badly.
But currygate really wasn’t interesting. It was a load of bollocks served up by alt-right journalists and the ever credulous BigG
Were you here for RAFgate? That one was a proper zinger. I only learned of it the other day thanks to @TheScreamingEagles 's explanation. Wow. Just wow.
Was that the same as torpedo gate?
On one level, you have to salute BigG’s indefatigabilty.
No wonder he was selected as special driver for Windsor Davies MP in 1948!
No, Torpedogate was a veritable flesh wound compared with RAFgate... one speaks only of the latter in hushed tones. It is simply not suitable for a family forum.
I always think it shows a weakness when a poster apologises for an error but then some still seem to delight in ignoring it
I corrected my mistake about taking down the ballistic missiles and replicated the Ministry of Defence statement tha RAF planes were involved in the action that night
Pity we are not all perfect but can correct our errors
In over 62,000 posts I have erred on occasions but try to convey accurate information often accompanied by quotes from Sky, Guardian, Independent and others
This is a Conservative blog and you are quite rightly all piling into the Commies.
BigG. you have been like a terrier in calling out the most egregious corruption of the last decade. Currygate, Goonergate, Glassesgate, Victoria'ssecretgate, RAFgate, Angie'shousegate and Torpedogate, to name but a few.
Anabob you are not playing nicely on BigG's gates. "Go, walk out the door,...you're not welcome anymore". It's all going a bit Correct Horse Battery with everyone piling in on you, I thought Felix was particularly vicious.
@Anabobazina they have tumbled your game and you need a really flamboyant flounce to go out in style! My anti- PBTory flounce a fortnight ago was a bit shite so I can't offer up any advice
I’ll survive! (What in the holy name of Aphrodite is Victoriassecretgate?)
Are you still here?
Lady Victoria's pants purchased by Lord Alii. It caused grave concern amongst PB snowflakes.
No wonder they kept repeating it all day… and all night.
Must be dreadfully embarrassing for the poor woman. I wonder if her husband gets a regular earful about it.
Which would of course mean that nothing like it EVER happens again.
Hopefully, anyway!
I just find it distasteful, and the criticism was directed to dresses she wore given to her by Alli
Victoria’s Secret do not, to my knowledge, sell dresses…
In case anyone was wondering, Victoria's secret is that she doesn't eat.
Re clobbergate, I noticed Keir looked quite dowdy on the news tonight. I think he's ditched the Richard Gere look in response to all the criticism. Shame because he's one of those guys who wears a smart outfit well. Bit of a clothes horse.
He looked as if he wanted to be anywhere other than on the news
He seems to be finding being PM is not a walk in the park
Re clobbergate, I noticed Keir looked quite dowdy on the news tonight. I think he's ditched the Richard Gere look in response to all the criticism. Shame because he's one of those guys who wears a smart outfit well. Bit of a clothes horse.
I mean wearing the finest suits money can buy was never the issue. Wearing the finest suits someone else's money can buy was the problem...
Manchester Newcastle Liverpool Birmingham Nottingham Sheffield Bristol Leeds
...yeah, that's about right. Measured by 'where would it be most exciting be youmg and at large'. Personally, having lived in (as well as Manchester) both Sheffield and Nottingham, I'd leapfrog Sheffield above Nottingham. If access to job opportunities is a consideration, Birmingham and Leeds each shuffle up the order a bit. Newcastle is wonderful. Amazing to look at and to be in. But also a long way from everywhere else and you can complete it rather quickly.
London is clearly a great city. Where it falls down is affordability. It's amazing, but it's hard to afford any sort of life there. It's sui generis.
Ranked by 'where would I like to make my life', and assuming I had no friends or family to consider, I'd probably rank them Sheffield Manchester Bristol Leeds Newcastle (only because of the distance from the rest of the country and the relative lack of job opportunities) Liverpool (sorry Liverpool - you're a great city, but the accent grates on me. And the women are orange.) Nottingham Birmingham
In anticipation of the next US Presidential Election, now less than four weeks away, we at Redfield & Wilton Strategies have decided to poll two key states which could be critical in determining who becomes the next occupant of the White House – Georgia and Pennsylvania.
In our swing state voting intention poll conducted between 27 September and 2 October, Kamala Harris led Trump by 1% in Pennsylvania (48% to 47%), whilst both candidates were tied on 47% in Georgia. Trump now leads Harris by 2% in Pennsylvania (48% to 46%) and by 1% in Georgia (48% to 47%).
However, it is worth noting that in both states Donald Trump’s leads are within the margin of error.
For context, in the 2020 Presidential Election, Joe Biden carried Georgia by just 11,779 votes (0.2%) and Pennsylvania by 80,555 votes (1.2%)
'In both Georgia and Pennsylvania, the proportion of undecided voters (3% and 4%, respectively) is greater than Trump’s polling leads over Harris.
In a tight election, with several states likely to be settled by only a few thousand votes, any movement of 2020 Biden voters to Trump or 2020 Trump voters to Harris could make the key difference
In both states, more 2020 Biden voters say they will now vote for Trump than 2020 Trump voters say they will vote for Harris. The proportion of Biden 2020 voters who would now vote for Trump stands at 12% in Pennsylvania and 13% in Georgia. Conversely, just 6% of 2020 Trump voters now intend to vote for Harris in Pennsylvania, compared to 11% in Georgia.
Furthermore, a higher percentage of Trump 2020 voters say they will vote for Donald Trump in November than Biden 2020 voters say they will vote for Harris in both states. Trump retains 86% of his 2020 voters in Georgia, rising to 90% in Pennsylvania. Harris is supported by 82% of voters in Georgia who voted for Joe Biden in 2020, as well as 85% in Pennsylvania.'
Forget the polls PB is such fun as the apologists led by chief moron Anabobazina are now begging posters to be nice. They should really be re-reading Animal Farm. Politics is a grubby business and as all good conservatives know the troughs tempt all the piggies with remarkable speed this time.
It's funny to see posters who acted all moral at pointing out failures by the Conservative Party and its MPs, who are suddenly blind to issues now Labour is in government. Especially whilst they still decry the Conservatives.
It sorta shows that it was not morality that drove their criticisms, but naked partisanship. (*)
Fortunately, not every posted suffers from this affliction.
(*) For some odd reason, I initially wrote that as parsnipship. Which opens up some intriguing possibilities. A ship made out of a parsnip? A ship carrying nothing but parsnips? The state of being a parsnip?
Aren’t you the poster who gives a green-ish card to Johnson while continuing to castigate Keir for his curry?
Was I giving a "green-ish card" to Johnson? I don't think so...
I was certainly the poster who was castigating Johnson back as far as his time as MoL, and stating that he would not be a good PM. I also stated well before the election that Starmer would probably be better than Sunak, but would have problems because he is not a salesman.
But currygate's interesting. One of my criticisms of Johnson was that he had a habit of not learning lessons: when he makes a mistake, he's either too stupid, too stubborn or too proud to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Currygate was a mistake from the optics POV at least; and Starmer's making similar mistakes again. And again.
I think Starmer fucked up the optics here badly.
But currygate really wasn’t interesting. It was a load of bollocks served up by alt-right journalists and the ever credulous BigG
Were you here for RAFgate? That one was a proper zinger. I only learned of it the other day thanks to @TheScreamingEagles 's explanation. Wow. Just wow.
Was that the same as torpedo gate?
On one level, you have to salute BigG’s indefatigabilty.
No wonder he was selected as special driver for Windsor Davies MP in 1948!
No, Torpedogate was a veritable flesh wound compared with RAFgate... one speaks only of the latter in hushed tones. It is simply not suitable for a family forum.
I always think it shows a weakness when a poster apologises for an error but then some still seem to delight in ignoring it
I corrected my mistake about taking down the ballistic missiles and replicated the Ministry of Defence statement tha RAF planes were involved in the action that night
Pity we are not all perfect but can correct our errors
In over 62,000 posts I have erred on occasions but try to convey accurate information often accompanied by quotes from Sky, Guardian, Independent and others
This is a Conservative blog and you are quite rightly all piling into the Commies.
BigG. you have been like a terrier in calling out the most egregious corruption of the last decade. Currygate, Goonergate, Glassesgate, Victoria'ssecretgate, RAFgate, Angie'shousegate and Torpedogate, to name but a few.
Anabob you are not playing nicely on BigG's gates. "Go, walk out the door,...you're not welcome anymore". It's all going a bit Correct Horse Battery with everyone piling in on you, I thought Felix was particularly vicious.
@Anabobazina they have tumbled your game and you need a really flamboyant flounce to go out in style! My anti- PBTory flounce a fortnight ago was a bit shite so I can't offer up any advice
I’ll survive! (What in the holy name of Aphrodite is Victoriassecretgate?)
Are you still here?
Lady Victoria's pants purchased by Lord Alii. It caused grave concern amongst PB snowflakes.
No wonder they kept repeating it all day… and all night.
Must be dreadfully embarrassing for the poor woman. I wonder if her husband gets a regular earful about it.
Which would of course mean that nothing like it EVER happens again.
Hopefully, anyway!
I just find it distasteful, and the criticism was directed to dresses she wore given to her by Alli
Why were you not quite so outraged at Lady Bamford feeding Prime Minister Johnson and his family via multiple exclusive mail order grocery deliveries?
Forget the polls PB is such fun as the apologists led by chief moron Anabobazina are now begging posters to be nice. They should really be re-reading Animal Farm. Politics is a grubby business and as all good conservatives know the troughs tempt all the piggies with remarkable speed this time.
It's funny to see posters who acted all moral at pointing out failures by the Conservative Party and its MPs, who are suddenly blind to issues now Labour is in government. Especially whilst they still decry the Conservatives.
It sorta shows that it was not morality that drove their criticisms, but naked partisanship. (*)
Fortunately, not every posted suffers from this affliction.
(*) For some odd reason, I initially wrote that as parsnipship. Which opens up some intriguing possibilities. A ship made out of a parsnip? A ship carrying nothing but parsnips? The state of being a parsnip?
Aren’t you the poster who gives a green-ish card to Johnson while continuing to castigate Keir for his curry?
Was I giving a "green-ish card" to Johnson? I don't think so...
I was certainly the poster who was castigating Johnson back as far as his time as MoL, and stating that he would not be a good PM. I also stated well before the election that Starmer would probably be better than Sunak, but would have problems because he is not a salesman.
But currygate's interesting. One of my criticisms of Johnson was that he had a habit of not learning lessons: when he makes a mistake, he's either too stupid, too stubborn or too proud to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Currygate was a mistake from the optics POV at least; and Starmer's making similar mistakes again. And again.
I think Starmer fucked up the optics here badly.
But currygate really wasn’t interesting. It was a load of bollocks served up by alt-right journalists and the ever credulous BigG
Were you here for RAFgate? That one was a proper zinger. I only learned of it the other day thanks to @TheScreamingEagles 's explanation. Wow. Just wow.
Was that the same as torpedo gate?
On one level, you have to salute BigG’s indefatigabilty.
No wonder he was selected as special driver for Windsor Davies MP in 1948!
No, Torpedogate was a veritable flesh wound compared with RAFgate... one speaks only of the latter in hushed tones. It is simply not suitable for a family forum.
I always think it shows a weakness when a poster apologises for an error but then some still seem to delight in ignoring it
I corrected my mistake about taking down the ballistic missiles and replicated the Ministry of Defence statement tha RAF planes were involved in the action that night
Pity we are not all perfect but can correct our errors
In over 62,000 posts I have erred on occasions but try to convey accurate information often accompanied by quotes from Sky, Guardian, Independent and others
This is a Conservative blog and you are quite rightly all piling into the Commies.
BigG. you have been like a terrier in calling out the most egregious corruption of the last decade. Currygate, Goonergate, Glassesgate, Victoria'ssecretgate, RAFgate, Angie'shousegate and Torpedogate, to name but a few.
Anabob you are not playing nicely on BigG's gates. "Go, walk out the door,...you're not welcome anymore". It's all going a bit Correct Horse Battery with everyone piling in on you, I thought Felix was particularly vicious.
@Anabobazina they have tumbled your game and you need a really flamboyant flounce to go out in style! My anti- PBTory flounce a fortnight ago was a bit shite so I can't offer up any advice
I’ll survive! (What in the holy name of Aphrodite is Victoriassecretgate?)
A lot of commentators here have taken a particularly keen interest in the first lady's underwear.
It caused one overwrought poster (I won't name and shame) to type the word "panties".
A moment of deep cringe that took a while to dissipate.
“First Lady” is rather the mal mot here.
As for Lady Starmer’s panties, it could become a PB stock-in-phrase, if we try hard enough. A colourful variation to Sir Keir’s curry.
Mods!
"pant**s"
Ok, I remarked on this at the time but I'll ask again. What is wrong with the word "panties"? Is this some cultural taboo I am unaware of? Does this apply to other elements of womens underwear? Is "bra" still OK? Am genuinely puzzled.
You just shouldn't say it esp if you're a man of a certain age.
Comments
I doubt that is what is happening here. Lab also badly need a Campbell type to establish some discipline in the ranks of the 'advisers'. Just like their Con versions they all think they are a lot cleverer than they really are.
Cameron was also much more personally popular as LOTO compared to Starmer and that carried over into government to some degree.
But it takes two to tango. Maybe the women have a point.
And she may yet be a potent of a Con/Ref coalition government in 2029.
It's a great and dynamic city. The British city most like America in its contempt for intellectual pretension and its social mobility.
The city demolishes and re-dos its centre a few times each century and sometimes gets it right.
I was there last week for a research meeting. It's a great city for people who want to give two fingers to English snobs,
Port au Prince, Haiti
Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
Anywhere else in Mexico
Those weirdly bleak inland cities in California
Brussels
Any city in northern Peru
Swindon
The bankruptcy of the Council over the equal pay issue is very unfortunate.
The museum of science and industry is pleasant, but not particularly noomy. For science noom, we have Joddrell Bank radio telescope. It is magnificent. You can see it from miles around and you cannot stop looking at it. And it is listening to space, which is almost religious in its noominess.
Lady Victoria's pants purchased by Lord Alii. It caused grave concern amongst PB snowflakes.
Over 25years is beside the point. It's a long term commitment of resources. To dead end tech.
And 'blue hydrogen' is taking the piss.
He is also making gains with Latinos so may pick up Arizona and Nevada too. Harris is doing even better than Biden with white college graduates though and African Americans are now backing her more than they were backing Biden in the spring. There is a route to EC victory for Harris then if she wins NC, which has above average numbers of graduates and African Americans and Georgia, which has average numbers of graduates and above average numbers of African Americans and Pennsylvania, which looks close but also has more graduates than average. While Michigan and Wisconsin have below average numbers of graduates and above average numbers of white working class voters (Michigan also has a lot of Muslims unhappy with Harris and Biden over Gaza)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dYWe1c3OyU
Plaza De Armas in Trujillo, Peru, in the late afternoon… a coffee as the sun sets. To the lulling sound of the school children practising the goose step.
However Trudeau is so unpopular now if Harris wins having replaced Biden, Canadian Liberals might try and follow suit and replace him before the Federal election to try and at least prevent a Poilievre majority which looks odds on now
Except with white women aged under 50.
I fear it is not enough.
I have some of the construction photographs as a relative was one of the engineers on the project. An amazing piece of work.
I didn’t believe it at first.
No 10 has issued a statement following the row with DP that the view of Transport Secretary, Louise Haigh, does nor refect the government view
How embarrassing
https://news.sky.com/story/blow-to-no-10s-investment-summit-as-port-giant-pulls-1631bn-announcement-over-po-row-13231876
People from other regions hold onto their accents, Brummies much less so, also other parts of the Black Country.
It simply isn't fashionable in this country to make your money in manufacturing, unless it is heavy industry like coal and steel whence prolier than thou. It's much more genteel to make your money by country estates, financial services or best of all inheriting.
Birmingham (and the Black Country) are places where it's nothing to be ashamed of.
As it's a town.
No.
I posted that Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow are all better. None precisely have a snooty reputation.
So it is with the accent, for that matter.
It sounds objectively crass, whereas most other regional accents are actually charming.
On the "gifts", Starmer misread the public mood much as Truss did. There's a strong sense of "fairness" out there which says why should a politician get a free ticket to say Taylor Swift when I have to pay £x? Now, you can get over-puritan about it (the publication of the gifts to the new North East Mayor contained events in her area which she, as an elected representative, should attend) and there will always be events at which the Prime Minister, as Head of Government, should be present but like others I'm not convinced a Taylor Swift concert is one of them.
Compounding that was everything Starmer had said before the election about how his Government was going to comport itself differently to its predecessor. If there's one thing the public dislikes it's a hypocrite.
So we have discordant optics, a misreading of the public mood and a strong stench of hypocrisy combined and that pretty much explains where Starmer's immediate post-election approval numbers have gone. I'll be charitable and say that's part of the learning curve of Government and when you've been out of the loop for 14 years it's not easy to pick up the thread. The other issue is picking up the detritus of the last administration's failures and mistakes but the electorate are a capricious lot - as soon as the new Government takes over, everything is your fault irrespective of whether the actual decision was taken years previously.
A moment of deep cringe that took a while to dissipate.
As for Lady Starmer’s panties, it could become a PB stock-in-phrase, if we try hard enough. A colourful variation to Sir Keir’s curry.
Which would of course mean that nothing like it EVER happens again.
Hopefully, anyway!
Russia: 43% (-5 from 1 Aug)
China: 12% (-2)
Israel: 11% (+4)
United States: 8% (=)
Iran: 8% (+3)
North Korea: 4% (=)
Some other country: 1% (=)
https://x.com/YouGov/status/1844776439041634357
If it is just the New World then it does not include Birmigham
If it includes Europe then it includes Pristina. Or is there some weird fault-line related to communism?
For me the western hemisphere means the Americas plus Europe up to the Urals/Caucasus. Christendom, if you like
I'd be interested to hear a definition that manages to include Birmingham but excludes mainland Europe
Edit to add: Ah you mean technically anything west of the Prime meridian. Meaning that much of Kent is in the "eastern hemisphere", which is fucking ridiculous, no offense
Britons don't respect innovation and industry if it involves getting your hands dirty.
London (but you need to know London)
Manchester
Newcastle
Liverpool
Birmingham
Nottingham
Sheffield
Bristol
Leeds
What is the point of Labour if not to help workers?
Such as Stephen Fry.
What’s the phone number for Prevent?
On the eve of an investment summit no 10 publicly calls out a minister making the DP World news story more controversial than necessary
"pant**s"
Today I went to S Essex to the funeral of an old friend. The S Essex accents grated!
Probably the best place in the UK in a venn diagram of affordability, interesting stuff going on, constantly changing and evolving. Other cities may beat it on individual metrics but it sits at that sweet spot in the centre of the venn diagram.
https://redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/pennsylvania-and-georgia-voting-intention-8-9-october-2024/
In anticipation of the next US Presidential Election, now less than four weeks away, we at Redfield & Wilton Strategies have decided to poll two key states which could be critical in determining who becomes the next occupant of the White House – Georgia and Pennsylvania.
In our swing state voting intention poll conducted between 27 September and 2 October, Kamala Harris led Trump by 1% in Pennsylvania (48% to 47%), whilst both candidates were tied on 47% in Georgia. Trump now leads Harris by 2% in Pennsylvania (48% to 46%) and by 1% in Georgia (48% to 47%).
However, it is worth noting that in both states Donald Trump’s leads are within the margin of error.
For context, in the 2020 Presidential Election, Joe Biden carried Georgia by just 11,779 votes (0.2%) and Pennsylvania by 80,555 votes (1.2%)
It was not incidental but of the essence that Starmer and co could not be bought by anyone. This required acting in the utmost good faith. This is not recoverable, because it displays who you are.
I think you'll find that Keir's "sausages" faux-pas was actually a cry for help from behind the screen.
Funny old world.
The British English word is knickers.
He seems to be finding being PM is not a walk in the park
Personally, having lived in (as well as Manchester) both Sheffield and Nottingham, I'd leapfrog Sheffield above Nottingham.
If access to job opportunities is a consideration, Birmingham and Leeds each shuffle up the order a bit.
Newcastle is wonderful. Amazing to look at and to be in. But also a long way from everywhere else and you can complete it rather quickly.
London is clearly a great city. Where it falls down is affordability. It's amazing, but it's hard to afford any sort of life there. It's sui generis.
Ranked by 'where would I like to make my life', and assuming I had no friends or family to consider, I'd probably rank them
Sheffield
Manchester
Bristol
Leeds
Newcastle (only because of the distance from the rest of the country and the relative lack of job opportunities)
Liverpool (sorry Liverpool - you're a great city, but the accent grates on me. And the women are orange.)
Nottingham
Birmingham
In a tight election, with several states likely to be settled by only a few thousand votes, any movement of 2020 Biden voters to Trump or 2020 Trump voters to Harris could make the key difference
In both states, more 2020 Biden voters say they will now vote for Trump than 2020 Trump voters say they will vote for Harris. The proportion of Biden 2020 voters who would now vote for Trump stands at 12% in Pennsylvania and 13% in Georgia. Conversely, just 6% of 2020 Trump voters now intend to vote for Harris in Pennsylvania, compared to 11% in Georgia.
Furthermore, a higher percentage of Trump 2020 voters say they will vote for Donald Trump in November than Biden 2020 voters say they will vote for Harris in both states. Trump retains 86% of his 2020 voters in Georgia, rising to 90% in Pennsylvania. Harris is supported by 82% of voters in Georgia who voted for Joe Biden in 2020, as well as 85% in Pennsylvania.'
Bra is absolutely fine.