The Tories' problem is that they had 14 years to do something about thought-non-crime and didn't.
So often, they were all talk and no action. Repeatedly, I’m left wondering what the Conservatives thought they were there for, other than enjoying the fruits of office.
I think many were secretly embarrassed at being Conservatives and couldn't bring themselves to act to deliver for their base; the fact their members and voters were not only increased the contempt.
In that sense, it's a bit similar to the difference between the CofE clergy and laity.
Wonder if the two organisations have something of the same underlying problem. Namely, the generation gap between the supporters (mostly retired in both cases) and the staff/leadership (mostly not retired). If you are a post-boomer, you tend to look at both institutions as fundamentally strange.
That leads to a couple of questions which neither institution seems to be answering convincingly. First is what to do about that- go all-in on serving the minority that you do get (red meat Conservatism, or full-on evangelism or traditional Anglo catholicism), or think about the ninety five percent who never darken your door?
The other is what's the right attitude to the future? Aim to pass on a functional institution or society, or spend it all on us now?
In the case of the Conservatives (unlike the C of E), there’s a big potential support base.
39% voted for right of centre parties in July, and polling suggests their support is about 45% now. Neither immigration, nor death, is destroying popular support for the right.
But, a lot of Conservative MP’s give the impression of being uneasy about trying to appeal to that body of support.
I think it’s mostly due to growing up in an era where upper middle class people and graduates still tended to vote right, and quite abruptly finding that is not the case. They find that many of their peers thoroughly disapprove of them and their supporters.
Political loyalty now runs vertically, through social classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
I think the Conservatives are in big trouble if Labour get a better grip of immigration than they did.
After Trump's victory, Labour ignore immigration (both legal and illegal) at their peril.
However successfully Labour handle the small boats it won't be good enough for Farage. Even if Labour bring arrival numbers down considerably that doesn't resolve the issue that vexes Farage and his racist chums, namely "foreigners" who are already here. Although that doesn't necessarily assist the Tories.
Perhaps when it comes down to immigration ("foreigners") the Tories need to out Farage, Farage. Is Badenoch capable of such performative cruelty? If she is not we have Jenrick, who would be quite comfortable with rounding "foreigners" up and packing them on buses to Dundalk, patiently waiting for his moment.
Probably neither are. Opinium confirms Badenoch is just treading water and holding the Tory vote which voted for Rishi in July while it is Farage who is eating into the wwc Labour vote. Jenrick might have made a bit more progress winning back Boris voters now voting Reform but he was an ex Remainer Cameroon which put a ceiling on that.
The only Tory leader who could really squeeze the Reform vote and reunite the Right is probably now Jacob Rees Mogg if he wins back his Somerset seat at the next GE (or moves to a more winnable prospect like the seat Liam Fox only just lost which is also in North Somerset). Assuming Boris doesn't return of course given he was the man who put Farage back in his box in the first place in 2019 when May was leaking voters massively to him
Yup, imagine going into the election now rather than July. Petrol prices at the lowest for over a year, economy would be growing much faster than it is now, immigration numbers would be coming down and people would have had a relatively relaxing summer to reflect on their situation. It would still have been a loss but I think the Tories would have scraped 200 seats and Labour a much smaller majority. Holding it around now so that Nige would have had to split his time between Reform and Trump would have been very beneficial to the Tories as well.
Whataboutary at its finest.
Firstly, if the US election has taught you anything it is that formal economic metrics count for zip when compared to the lived experience. Counterbalance petrol at £1.30 a litre with a four pint flagon of Cravendale at between £2.50 and three quid.
Secondly, the small boats issue has largely been ignored by the media. Sunak lit that touch paper with his five pledges, and has been horsewhipped with it ever since. The numbers are still enormous and one flight to Rwanda would have highlighted the Conservative Government were just taking the piss.
Thirdly, riding on the crest of a Trump victory wave is more likely to have assisted Reform than the Tories.
I bet he was getting contrary advice as well: that going sooner was better.
I really cannot see a delay as having improved things for the Tories - their problems were far more structural than just people feeling better off or not. The changes there would have been tiny, and would have been dwarfed by the fact that people simply wanted change.
So if he had delayed, we would see a threader with other stories about the contrary advice: that going earlier would have been better,
The Tories were doomed.
edit: and first with an on-topic post!
I think it was pretty mad the Tories went in July rather than October, but I concede there may have been further drip-drip-drip by-elections and defections.
However, I don't think they'd have done worse than 120 seats had they waited another 3 months - and the economy would have certainly improved.
And if Rishi had waited another three months, or even till January, then Conservatives would have enjoyed an extra three or six months in office, with jobs and wages to pay their mortgages. That many Conservative colleagues are not very well off and depend on their salaries is often lost on millionaire Conservative leaders from Mrs Thatcher through David Cameron to Rishi Sunak.
Less so Maggie, she did not grow up rich and while Dennis was a millionaire she wasn't
Margaret Thatcher had married Dennis some three decades before reaching Downing Street, where she started the fashion of turning down recommended pay increases.
I bet he was getting contrary advice as well: that going sooner was better.
I really cannot see a delay as having improved things for the Tories - their problems were far more structural than just people feeling better off or not. The changes there would have been tiny, and would have been dwarfed by the fact that people simply wanted change.
So if he had delayed, we would see a threader with other stories about the contrary advice: that going earlier would have been better,
The Tories were doomed.
edit: and first with an on-topic post!
I think it was pretty mad the Tories went in July rather than October, but I concede there may have been further drip-drip-drip by-elections and defections.
However, I don't think they'd have done worse than 120 seats had they waited another 3 months - and the economy would have certainly improved.
And if Rishi had waited another three months, or even till January, then Conservatives would have enjoyed an extra three or six months in office, with jobs and wages to pay their mortgages. That many Conservative colleagues are not very well off and depend on their salaries is often lost on millionaire Conservative leaders from Mrs Thatcher through David Cameron to Rishi Sunak.
Less so Maggie, she did not grow up rich and while Dennis was a millionaire she wasn't
You could argue that Rishi didn’t grow up “rich” either. His parents made sacrifices to cover his school fees and he wouldn’t have been considered rich with a doctor father and pharmacist mother compared to his peers at school.
He had a privileged education but only became rich through his work and richer through his marriage.
The Tories' problem is that they had 14 years to do something about thought-non-crime and didn't.
So often, they were all talk and no action. Repeatedly, I’m left wondering what the Conservatives thought they were there for, other than enjoying the fruits of office.
I think many were secretly embarrassed at being Conservatives and couldn't bring themselves to act to deliver for their base; the fact their members and voters were not only increased the contempt.
In that sense, it's a bit similar to the difference between the CofE clergy and laity.
Wonder if the two organisations have something of the same underlying problem. Namely, the generation gap between the supporters (mostly retired in both cases) and the staff/leadership (mostly not retired). If you are a post-boomer, you tend to look at both institutions as fundamentally strange.
That leads to a couple of questions which neither institution seems to be answering convincingly. First is what to do about that- go all-in on serving the minority that you do get (red meat Conservatism, or full-on evangelism or traditional Anglo catholicism), or think about the ninety five percent who never darken your door?
The other is what's the right attitude to the future? Aim to pass on a functional institution or society, or spend it all on us now?
In the case of the Conservatives (unlike the C of E), there’s a big potential support base.
39% voted for right of centre parties in July, and polling suggests their support is about 45% now. Neither immigration, nor death, is destroying popular support for the right.
But, a lot of Conservative MP’s give the impression of being uneasy about trying to appeal to that body of support.
I think it’s mostly due to growing up in an era where upper middle class people and graduates still tended to vote right, and quite abruptly finding that is not the case. They find that many of their peers thoroughly disapprove of them and their supporters.
Political loyalty now runs vertically, through social classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
I think the Conservatives are in big trouble if Labour get a better grip of immigration than they did.
After Trump's victory, Labour ignore immigration (both legal and illegal) at their peril.
However successfully Labour handle the small boats it won't be good enough for Farage. Even if Labour bring arrival numbers down considerably that doesn't resolve the issue that vexes Farage and his racist chums, namely "foreigners" who are already here. Although that doesn't necessarily assist the Tories.
Perhaps when it comes down to immigration ("foreigners") the Tories need to out Farage, Farage. Is Badenoch capable of such performative cruelty? If she is not we have Jenrick, who would be quite comfortable with rounding "foreigners" up and packing them on buses to Dundalk, patiently waiting for his moment.
Probably neither are. Opinium confirms Badenoch is just treading water and holding the Tory vote which voted for Rishi in July while it is Farage who is eating into the wwc Labour vote. Jenrick might have made a bit more progress winning back Boris voters now voting Reform but he was an ex Remainer Cameroon which put a ceiling on that.
The only Tory leader who could really squeeze the Reform vote and reunite the Right is probably now Jacob Rees Mogg if he wins back his Somerset seat at the next GE (or moves to a more winnable prospect like the seat Liam Fox only just lost which is also in North Somerset). Assuming Boris doesn't return of course given he was the man who put Farage back in his box in the first place in 2019 when May was leaking voters massively to him
Meanwhile back on planet earth, the Rees Mogg led radical right Conservative party shed Centrist Dad votes to the Liberal Democrats.
I’m watching Sky news. I don’t know who the speaker is, but she’s evil. I mean fully fucking evil. Right now she’s doing the whole climate NIMBYism thing. China USA blah blah blah.
But that’s not the evil thing. After commenting that Europe is so “sclerotic” (yawn) that we should do a deal with Trump where we kowtow to his highness in exchange for reduced tariffs, she then said, and I quote, “Zelenskyy is going to have to realise that this war needs a diplomatic solution, rather than a land grab”.
Rather than a land grab. I mean. Where do you start. Who’s doing the land grab? Angry goose meme. But of course she wasn’t challenged on this, because the West is terrified of those twats in the Kremlin.
Hence Zelensky is getting closer to developing a nuclear bomb
Her comments might be a bit offensive, but does she deserve to be nuked?
Probably. I don't see how getting a primitive nuclear device helps Ukraine, they need to deliver it as well and even if they do, Putin will retaliate either with full-blown nukes or by "accidentally" hitting a nuclear power station. The west left support for Ukraine far too late, in hindsight the time to have stopped Putin was right at the beginning when all his tanks were stuck in a convoy on the roads.
You don't build one, you build a dozen.
And you don't use it, you just ring up the White House and tell them "unless you continue to support us, we will detonate one of these on the Black Sea."
One single nuclear test like that and the entire world is in chaos. Stock markets down 50% overnight. People fighting each other in the shops for the last loo rolls and tinned beans. Half the population of western cities fleeing en masse to the countryside. Panic in the streets.
Ukraine need to play hardball now. It's the only way to prevent themselves being strongarmed into a deal that favours Russia.
Clearly some people on here are desperate for WW3 ..🥴🤨
It is somewhat hard to see how the situation above is better for the rest of the world than a suboptimal peace deal.
As I've pointed out many times, the west giving in to Putin's nuclear blackmail has made the world a much more dangerous place. Now every tinpot regime with expansionist ideas will realise that having nukes means the civilised world will just give in to whatever they wish. Why spend billions on a military that can often be defeated - and which can turn against you - and which puts you in hock to supplier countries, when you can build a nuke for less?
Of the many, many problems inflicted by an old fool's dithering, that's obviously not one. It's been blindingly obvious since the 40s that nuclear weapons have a powerful deterrent effect, and ghastly regimes haven't needed the Ukraine war to demonstrate that to them. Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea, South Africa are varying examples of tinpot regimes who realised this long before 2022.
What the war and Biden's dithering has done is demonstrate to democracies like Ukraine, but perhaps also South Korea, Taiwan, Poland, Japan and others, that they can't rely on the US shield. Again, some have been realising that since 2016 or before - Ukraine is not the only example of America's chronic unreliability as an ally. That is where the true damage to the nuclear proliferation framework lies.
“To be America’s enemy is dangerous. To be America’s friend is fatal.”
The original was better:
I would rather be the Englishman’s enemy than their friend. For they buy their enemies and sell their friends.
Who said/wrote that?
I tried Google but it doesn't seem to be able to pin it down. It references George Orwell but doesn't give the exact quote or even anything close to it.
Yep - me too.
I guess we'll have to wait for the wisdom of @StillWaters to enlighten us.
I am sure I have heard it before. So surprised it is not appearing anywhere.
AI tells me:
The quote "better to be the enemy of the English than their friend. for they buy their enemies and sell their friends" is attributed to Lord Palmerston, a British statesman and Prime Minister from 1855–8 and 1859–65.
Yes Rishi was a perfectly intelligent and competent person for an elite high pressure technocratic job like PM, if you ignored the voters and having a clear ideology. He had an elite education at Winchester, Oxford and Stanford and had worked at elite investment bank Goldman Sachs where he made lots of money. He did an OK job getting the finances back in order and tightening visa requirements at No 10 in the period he was there.
As a political campaigner however Rishi was hopeless, arguably even Truss was a better campaigner given she beat him in the 2022 party leadership election. His lack of political instinct also meant he went for a summer rather than autumn election despite the advice of the likes of Levido against that. Rishi was simply not in the same league as the best vote winning campaigners and party leaders like Blair, Cameron and Boris, indeed even Corbyn was a better campaigner than Rishi was.
I agree with all that, though I would add that, when it came to persuading voters, Blair was such an off-the-scale genius that putting him in the same league as Boris or David Cameron is probably unfair.
Sunak never really articulated why he wanted to be Prime Minister - there was no positive vision for the country that people could aspire to. The most successful politicians do that, but Sunak, for some baffling reason, hadn't grasped that a bit of technocratic competence isn't a substitute for inspirational leadership. Of course, as the electorate are now discovering, Starmer doesn't have either of those.
Yes Starmer like Sunak is a technocrat elitist not a campaigner. It was the the divide between the Tories and Reform that got him his landslide, voteshare wise he did worse than Blair in all his 3 elections and worse than Corbyn in 2017 and even worse than Kinnock in 1992. Hence already Labour has fallen even further in the polls now in office and he has to take unpopular decisions and indeed as you say Starmer isn't even as good at being a competent technocrat in No 10 as Rishi was
Public policy as a means to manage the psychological state of the PM. Imagine cancelling a decades-long infrastructure project in an attempt to gee up the Prime Minister.
The short answer then is that Sunak called an early election because he fundamentally doesn't understand politics.
I do have to give him credit for sticking around as Tory leader for an extended leadership election despite obviously being beyond sick of the whole thing.
It was done because as Chief Secretary and Chancellor often complained HS2 was a waste of money.
Which it is.
Why is creating the necessary capacity on the West Coast Mainline a problem that has existed since the 1980s a waste of money?
I’m watching Sky news. I don’t know who the speaker is, but she’s evil. I mean fully fucking evil. Right now she’s doing the whole climate NIMBYism thing. China USA blah blah blah.
But that’s not the evil thing. After commenting that Europe is so “sclerotic” (yawn) that we should do a deal with Trump where we kowtow to his highness in exchange for reduced tariffs, she then said, and I quote, “Zelenskyy is going to have to realise that this war needs a diplomatic solution, rather than a land grab”.
Rather than a land grab. I mean. Where do you start. Who’s doing the land grab? Angry goose meme. But of course she wasn’t challenged on this, because the West is terrified of those twats in the Kremlin.
Hence Zelensky is getting closer to developing a nuclear bomb
Her comments might be a bit offensive, but does she deserve to be nuked?
Probably. I don't see how getting a primitive nuclear device helps Ukraine, they need to deliver it as well and even if they do, Putin will retaliate either with full-blown nukes or by "accidentally" hitting a nuclear power station. The west left support for Ukraine far too late, in hindsight the time to have stopped Putin was right at the beginning when all his tanks were stuck in a convoy on the roads.
You don't build one, you build a dozen.
And you don't use it, you just ring up the White House and tell them "unless you continue to support us, we will detonate one of these on the Black Sea."
One single nuclear test like that and the entire world is in chaos. Stock markets down 50% overnight. People fighting each other in the shops for the last loo rolls and tinned beans. Half the population of western cities fleeing en masse to the countryside. Panic in the streets.
Ukraine need to play hardball now. It's the only way to prevent themselves being strongarmed into a deal that favours Russia.
Clearly some people on here are desperate for WW3 ..🥴🤨
It is somewhat hard to see how the situation above is better for the rest of the world than a suboptimal peace deal.
As I've pointed out many times, the west giving in to Putin's nuclear blackmail has made the world a much more dangerous place. Now every tinpot regime with expansionist ideas will realise that having nukes means the civilised world will just give in to whatever they wish. Why spend billions on a military that can often be defeated - and which can turn against you - and which puts you in hock to supplier countries, when you can build a nuke for less?
Of the many, many problems inflicted by an old fool's dithering, that's obviously not one. It's been blindingly obvious since the 40s that nuclear weapons have a powerful deterrent effect, and ghastly regimes haven't needed the Ukraine war to demonstrate that to them. Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea, South Africa are varying examples of tinpot regimes who realised this long before 2022.
What the war and Biden's dithering has done is demonstrate to democracies like Ukraine, but perhaps also South Korea, Taiwan, Poland, Japan and others, that they can't rely on the US shield. Again, some have been realising that since 2016 or before - Ukraine is not the only example of America's chronic unreliability as an ally. That is where the true damage to the nuclear proliferation framework lies.
“To be America’s enemy is dangerous. To be America’s friend is fatal.”
The original was better:
I would rather be the Englishman’s enemy than their friend. For they buy their enemies and sell their friends.
Who said/wrote that?
I tried Google but it doesn't seem to be able to pin it down. It references George Orwell but doesn't give the exact quote or even anything close to it.
Yep - me too.
I guess we'll have to wait for the wisdom of @StillWaters to enlighten us.
I am sure I have heard it before. So surprised it is not appearing anywhere.
AI tells me:
The quote "better to be the enemy of the English than their friend. for they buy their enemies and sell their friends" is attributed to Lord Palmerston, a British statesman and Prime Minister from 1855–8 and 1859–65.
AI is crap at facts - what it is really good at is looking for someone who made a number of similar quotes and attributing one that wasn't made by Lord Palmerston to him...
What Lord Palmerston is actually known for is "No eternal allies, no perpetual enemies" i.e. your interests can change...
Public policy as a means to manage the psychological state of the PM. Imagine cancelling a decades-long infrastructure project in an attempt to gee up the Prime Minister.
The short answer then is that Sunak called an early election because he fundamentally doesn't understand politics.
I do have to give him credit for sticking around as Tory leader for an extended leadership election despite obviously being beyond sick of the whole thing.
It was done because as Chief Secretary and Chancellor often complained HS2 was a waste of money.
Which it is.
Why is creating the necessary capacity on the West Coast Mainline a problem that has existed since the 1980s a waste of money?
It’s the great British asset sweat-off isn’t it. Don’t build, and somehow they’ll come anyway. Or not.
I’m watching Sky news. I don’t know who the speaker is, but she’s evil. I mean fully fucking evil. Right now she’s doing the whole climate NIMBYism thing. China USA blah blah blah.
But that’s not the evil thing. After commenting that Europe is so “sclerotic” (yawn) that we should do a deal with Trump where we kowtow to his highness in exchange for reduced tariffs, she then said, and I quote, “Zelenskyy is going to have to realise that this war needs a diplomatic solution, rather than a land grab”.
Rather than a land grab. I mean. Where do you start. Who’s doing the land grab? Angry goose meme. But of course she wasn’t challenged on this, because the West is terrified of those twats in the Kremlin.
Hence Zelensky is getting closer to developing a nuclear bomb
Her comments might be a bit offensive, but does she deserve to be nuked?
Probably. I don't see how getting a primitive nuclear device helps Ukraine, they need to deliver it as well and even if they do, Putin will retaliate either with full-blown nukes or by "accidentally" hitting a nuclear power station. The west left support for Ukraine far too late, in hindsight the time to have stopped Putin was right at the beginning when all his tanks were stuck in a convoy on the roads.
You don't build one, you build a dozen.
And you don't use it, you just ring up the White House and tell them "unless you continue to support us, we will detonate one of these on the Black Sea."
One single nuclear test like that and the entire world is in chaos. Stock markets down 50% overnight. People fighting each other in the shops for the last loo rolls and tinned beans. Half the population of western cities fleeing en masse to the countryside. Panic in the streets.
Ukraine need to play hardball now. It's the only way to prevent themselves being strongarmed into a deal that favours Russia.
Clearly some people on here are desperate for WW3 ..🥴🤨
It is somewhat hard to see how the situation above is better for the rest of the world than a suboptimal peace deal.
As I've pointed out many times, the west giving in to Putin's nuclear blackmail has made the world a much more dangerous place. Now every tinpot regime with expansionist ideas will realise that having nukes means the civilised world will just give in to whatever they wish. Why spend billions on a military that can often be defeated - and which can turn against you - and which puts you in hock to supplier countries, when you can build a nuke for less?
Of the many, many problems inflicted by an old fool's dithering, that's obviously not one. It's been blindingly obvious since the 40s that nuclear weapons have a powerful deterrent effect, and ghastly regimes haven't needed the Ukraine war to demonstrate that to them. Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea, South Africa are varying examples of tinpot regimes who realised this long before 2022.
What the war and Biden's dithering has done is demonstrate to democracies like Ukraine, but perhaps also South Korea, Taiwan, Poland, Japan and others, that they can't rely on the US shield. Again, some have been realising that since 2016 or before - Ukraine is not the only example of America's chronic unreliability as an ally. That is where the true damage to the nuclear proliferation framework lies.
“To be America’s enemy is dangerous. To be America’s friend is fatal.”
The original was better:
I would rather be the Englishman’s enemy than their friend. For they buy their enemies and sell their friends.
Who said/wrote that?
I tried Google but it doesn't seem to be able to pin it down. It references George Orwell but doesn't give the exact quote or even anything close to it.
Yep - me too.
I guess we'll have to wait for the wisdom of @StillWaters to enlighten us.
I am sure I have heard it before. So surprised it is not appearing anywhere.
AI tells me:
The quote "better to be the enemy of the English than their friend. for they buy their enemies and sell their friends" is attributed to Lord Palmerston, a British statesman and Prime Minister from 1855–8 and 1859–65.
AI is crap at facts - what it is really good at is looking for someone who made a number of similar quotes and attributing one that wasn't made by Lord Palmerston to him...
What Lord Palmerston is actually known for is "No eternal allies, no perpetual enemies" i.e. your interests can change...
I bet he was getting contrary advice as well: that going sooner was better.
I really cannot see a delay as having improved things for the Tories - their problems were far more structural than just people feeling better off or not. The changes there would have been tiny, and would have been dwarfed by the fact that people simply wanted change.
So if he had delayed, we would see a threader with other stories about the contrary advice: that going earlier would have been better,
The Tories were doomed.
edit: and first with an on-topic post!
I think it was pretty mad the Tories went in July rather than October, but I concede there may have been further drip-drip-drip by-elections and defections.
However, I don't think they'd have done worse than 120 seats had they waited another 3 months - and the economy would have certainly improved.
You are wrong.
Firstly, and to be fair to you, it’s hard to compute how having an election was a reset on the mood. Things like record boat crossings, covid reports, murders in kindergarten by terrorist, are a counterfactual how they would have been received by an electorate and played out by fever pitched media on war footing awaiting an imminent General Election. But it’s likely the election and government change a reset button was pressed on mood - meaning Labour didn’t get the degree of flak for these bad news stories Sunak’s government would have done.
To be unfair to you, you should realise the economy didn’t leap into election saving sunlit uplands, it was never going to, and the way people were going to vote the Tories down to 120 MPs was already baked in and decided a long time ago, regardless of little ticks in economic upturn.
Inflation in US is lower on November 1st 2024 was lower, nearly halved from what Trump left Biden, but people didn’t rejoice at that news. To laugh at the highly paid Spad who wrote that memo, if they couldn’t see there would be no second hand punching due to fantastic news in economy, then they shouldn’t have been highly paid in first place. Alternatively they created the memo simply to cover their own professional arse - we shouldn’t listen to it but know they were actually pleased to cash the cheque and move on from a shit hole that theoretically could still be in place this week and everyday since July 4th.
At turn of year it should have been obvious to all political bettors, the election was never going to be this side of the summer recess.
The next question in front of us as political bettors, is what is going to happen next, what will be the next big thing in UK politics that helps us be ahead of the game on UK politics.
Firstly, the next General Election date I am 100% certain is May 3rd 2029. And it will be dominated by Brexit.
May 3rd 2029 The Conservative Party will be United around, and comfortably way ahead in the polls, thanks to Brexit 2.0.
Brexit 2 - now let’s use Brexit Freedoms & Opportunities to diverge from the failed European Socialist model, and make UK Great Again! The EU model the failed Labour government clearly tied themselves to, as they failed to provide growth, better incomes, lower taxes, economic productivity, and better living standards. Now, by embracing our Brexit Freedoms and Opportunities, run down area’s of UK will be rejuvenated, and £XXXM of investment will flow into the NHS.
The Tories' problem is that they had 14 years to do something about thought-non-crime and didn't.
So often, they were all talk and no action. Repeatedly, I’m left wondering what the Conservatives thought they were there for, other than enjoying the fruits of office.
I think many were secretly embarrassed at being Conservatives and couldn't bring themselves to act to deliver for their base; the fact their members and voters were not only increased the contempt.
In that sense, it's a bit similar to the difference between the CofE clergy and laity.
Wonder if the two organisations have something of the same underlying problem. Namely, the generation gap between the supporters (mostly retired in both cases) and the staff/leadership (mostly not retired). If you are a post-boomer, you tend to look at both institutions as fundamentally strange.
That leads to a couple of questions which neither institution seems to be answering convincingly. First is what to do about that- go all-in on serving the minority that you do get (red meat Conservatism, or full-on evangelism or traditional Anglo catholicism), or think about the ninety five percent who never darken your door?
The other is what's the right attitude to the future? Aim to pass on a functional institution or society, or spend it all on us now?
In the case of the Conservatives (unlike the C of E), there’s a big potential support base.
39% voted for right of centre parties in July, and polling suggests their support is about 45% now. Neither immigration, nor death, is destroying popular support for the right.
But, a lot of Conservative MP’s give the impression of being uneasy about trying to appeal to that body of support.
I think it’s mostly due to growing up in an era where upper middle class people and graduates still tended to vote right, and quite abruptly finding that is not the case. They find that many of their peers thoroughly disapprove of them and their supporters.
Political loyalty now runs vertically, through social classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
I think the Conservatives are in big trouble if Labour get a better grip of immigration than they did.
After Trump's victory, Labour ignore immigration (both legal and illegal) at their peril.
However successfully Labour handle the small boats it won't be good enough for Farage. Even if Labour bring arrival numbers down considerably that doesn't resolve the issue that vexes Farage and his racist chums, namely "foreigners" who are already here. Although that doesn't necessarily assist the Tories.
Perhaps when it comes down to immigration ("foreigners") the Tories need to out Farage, Farage. Is Badenoch capable of such performative cruelty? If she is not we have Jenrick, who would be quite comfortable with rounding "foreigners" up and packing them on buses to Dundalk, patiently waiting for his moment.
Probably neither are. Opinium confirms Badenoch is just treading water and holding the Tory vote which voted for Rishi in July while it is Farage who is eating into the wwc Labour vote. Jenrick might have made a bit more progress winning back Boris voters now voting Reform but he was an ex Remainer Cameroon which put a ceiling on that.
The only Tory leader who could really squeeze the Reform vote and reunite the Right is probably now Jacob Rees Mogg if he wins back his Somerset seat at the next GE (or moves to a more winnable prospect like the seat Liam Fox only just lost which is also in North Somerset). Assuming Boris doesn't return of course given he was the man who put Farage back in his box in the first place in 2019 when May was leaking voters massively to him
Meanwhile back on planet earth, the Rees Mogg led radical right Conservative party shed Centrist Dad votes to the Liberal Democrats.
Not really, centrist dads already largely voted LD or for Starmer in July anyway. Yet the combined Tory and Reform vote was still bigger than the Labour vote then and in most seats the LDs gained from the Tories the Tory and Reform combined vote was also bigger than the LD vote
Yup, imagine going into the election now rather than July. Petrol prices at the lowest for over a year, economy would be growing much faster than it is now, immigration numbers would be coming down and people would have had a relatively relaxing summer to reflect on their situation. It would still have been a loss but I think the Tories would have scraped 200 seats and Labour a much smaller majority. Holding it around now so that Nige would have had to split his time between Reform and Trump would have been very beneficial to the Tories as well.
Whataboutary at its finest.
Firstly, if the US election has taught you anything it is that formal economic metrics count for zip when compared to the lived experience. Counterbalance petrol at £1.30 a litre with a four pint flagon of Cravendale at between £2.50 and three quid.
Secondly, the small boats issue has largely been ignored by the media. Sunak lit that touch paper with his five pledges, and has been horsewhipped with it ever since. The numbers are still enormous and one flight to Rwanda would have highlighted the Conservative Government were just taking the piss.
Thirdly, riding on the crest of a Trump victory wave is more likely to have assisted Reform than the Tories.
Can you imagine how gung-ho Farage would be if the election was this Thursday..
And the boats issue definitely hasn't been fixed - Farage would have been equally happy to highlight it every day.
I can easily see alternative histories where the Tories got 200 seats and ones where they got 70...
I bet he was getting contrary advice as well: that going sooner was better.
I really cannot see a delay as having improved things for the Tories - their problems were far more structural than just people feeling better off or not. The changes there would have been tiny, and would have been dwarfed by the fact that people simply wanted change.
So if he had delayed, we would see a threader with other stories about the contrary advice: that going earlier would have been better,
The Tories were doomed.
edit: and first with an on-topic post!
I think it was pretty mad the Tories went in July rather than October, but I concede there may have been further drip-drip-drip by-elections and defections.
However, I don't think they'd have done worse than 120 seats had they waited another 3 months - and the economy would have certainly improved.
And if Rishi had waited another three months, or even till January, then Conservatives would have enjoyed an extra three or six months in office, with jobs and wages to pay their mortgages. That many Conservative colleagues are not very well off and depend on their salaries is often lost on millionaire Conservative leaders from Mrs Thatcher through David Cameron to Rishi Sunak.
Less so Maggie, she did not grow up rich and while Dennis was a millionaire she wasn't
You could argue that Rishi didn’t grow up “rich” either. His parents made sacrifices to cover his school fees and he wouldn’t have been considered rich with a doctor father and pharmacist mother compared to his peers at school.
He had a privileged education but only became rich through his work and richer through his marriage.
His GP father would certainly have been richer than Thatcher's grocer father
Public policy as a means to manage the psychological state of the PM. Imagine cancelling a decades-long infrastructure project in an attempt to gee up the Prime Minister.
The short answer then is that Sunak called an early election because he fundamentally doesn't understand politics.
I do have to give him credit for sticking around as Tory leader for an extended leadership election despite obviously being beyond sick of the whole thing.
It was done because as Chief Secretary and Chancellor often complained HS2 was a waste of money.
Which it is.
Why is creating the necessary capacity on the West Coast Mainline a problem that has existed since the 1980s a waste of money?
It’s the great British asset sweat-off isn’t it. Don’t build, and somehow they’ll come anyway. Or not.
We can't sweat it anymore and parts of it are now falling apart - see for example the current boarding problems at Euston...
Couldn't we just have given him a couple of days on holiday off rather than cancelled the main infrastructure project of the last couple of decades? Might have been cheaper, just saying.
See if I was PM and in a similar funk the only thing that would get me out of that funk would be to nuke France.
The French are lucky I didn't choose a career in politics.
I seem to recall Nostrodamus predicting that Paris would be nuked.
The Tories' problem is that they had 14 years to do something about thought-non-crime and didn't.
So often, they were all talk and no action. Repeatedly, I’m left wondering what the Conservatives thought they were there for, other than enjoying the fruits of office.
I think many were secretly embarrassed at being Conservatives and couldn't bring themselves to act to deliver for their base; the fact their members and voters were not only increased the contempt.
In that sense, it's a bit similar to the difference between the CofE clergy and laity.
Wonder if the two organisations have something of the same underlying problem. Namely, the generation gap between the supporters (mostly retired in both cases) and the staff/leadership (mostly not retired). If you are a post-boomer, you tend to look at both institutions as fundamentally strange.
That leads to a couple of questions which neither institution seems to be answering convincingly. First is what to do about that- go all-in on serving the minority that you do get (red meat Conservatism, or full-on evangelism or traditional Anglo catholicism), or think about the ninety five percent who never darken your door?
The other is what's the right attitude to the future? Aim to pass on a functional institution or society, or spend it all on us now?
In the case of the Conservatives (unlike the C of E), there’s a big potential support base.
39% voted for right of centre parties in July, and polling suggests their support is about 45% now. Neither immigration, nor death, is destroying popular support for the right.
But, a lot of Conservative MP’s give the impression of being uneasy about trying to appeal to that body of support.
I think it’s mostly due to growing up in an era where upper middle class people and graduates still tended to vote right, and quite abruptly finding that is not the case. They find that many of their peers thoroughly disapprove of them and their supporters.
Political loyalty now runs vertically, through social classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
I think the Conservatives are in big trouble if Labour get a better grip of immigration than they did.
After Trump's victory, Labour ignore immigration (both legal and illegal) at their peril.
However successfully Labour handle the small boats it won't be good enough for Farage. Even if Labour bring arrival numbers down considerably that doesn't resolve the issue that vexes Farage and his racist chums, namely "foreigners" who are already here. Although that doesn't necessarily assist the Tories.
Perhaps when it comes down to immigration ("foreigners") the Tories need to out Farage, Farage. Is Badenoch capable of such performative cruelty? If she is not we have Jenrick, who would be quite comfortable with rounding "foreigners" up and packing them on buses to Dundalk, patiently waiting for his moment.
Probably neither are. Opinium confirms Badenoch is just treading water and holding the Tory vote which voted for Rishi in July while it is Farage who is eating into the wwc Labour vote. Jenrick might have made a bit more progress winning back Boris voters now voting Reform but he was an ex Remainer Cameroon which put a ceiling on that.
The only Tory leader who could really squeeze the Reform vote and reunite the Right is probably now Jacob Rees Mogg if he wins back his Somerset seat at the next GE (or moves to a more winnable prospect like the seat Liam Fox only just lost which is also in North Somerset). Assuming Boris doesn't return of course given he was the man who put Farage back in his box in the first place in 2019 when May was leaking voters massively to him
Meanwhile back on planet earth, the Rees Mogg led radical right Conservative party shed Centrist Dad votes to the Liberal Democrats.
Not really, centrist dads already largely voted LD or for Starmer in July anyway. Yet the combined Tory and Reform vote was still bigger than the Labour vote then and in most seats the LDs gained from the Tories the Tory and Reform combined vote was also bigger than the LD vote
The Trump experience of the next 4 years will have a big effect on whether Reform make progress and/or the Tories go full MAGA.
The next US presidential election, if it happens, is due before the likely next UK general election date. That’s 4 years of water under the bridge.
I’m watching Sky news. I don’t know who the speaker is, but she’s evil. I mean fully fucking evil. Right now she’s doing the whole climate NIMBYism thing. China USA blah blah blah.
But that’s not the evil thing. After commenting that Europe is so “sclerotic” (yawn) that we should do a deal with Trump where we kowtow to his highness in exchange for reduced tariffs, she then said, and I quote, “Zelenskyy is going to have to realise that this war needs a diplomatic solution, rather than a land grab”.
Rather than a land grab. I mean. Where do you start. Who’s doing the land grab? Angry goose meme. But of course she wasn’t challenged on this, because the West is terrified of those twats in the Kremlin.
Hence Zelensky is getting closer to developing a nuclear bomb
Her comments might be a bit offensive, but does she deserve to be nuked?
Probably. I don't see how getting a primitive nuclear device helps Ukraine, they need to deliver it as well and even if they do, Putin will retaliate either with full-blown nukes or by "accidentally" hitting a nuclear power station. The west left support for Ukraine far too late, in hindsight the time to have stopped Putin was right at the beginning when all his tanks were stuck in a convoy on the roads.
You don't build one, you build a dozen.
And you don't use it, you just ring up the White House and tell them "unless you continue to support us, we will detonate one of these on the Black Sea."
One single nuclear test like that and the entire world is in chaos. Stock markets down 50% overnight. People fighting each other in the shops for the last loo rolls and tinned beans. Half the population of western cities fleeing en masse to the countryside. Panic in the streets.
Ukraine need to play hardball now. It's the only way to prevent themselves being strongarmed into a deal that favours Russia.
Clearly some people on here are desperate for WW3 ..🥴🤨
It is somewhat hard to see how the situation above is better for the rest of the world than a suboptimal peace deal.
As I've pointed out many times, the west giving in to Putin's nuclear blackmail has made the world a much more dangerous place. Now every tinpot regime with expansionist ideas will realise that having nukes means the civilised world will just give in to whatever they wish. Why spend billions on a military that can often be defeated - and which can turn against you - and which puts you in hock to supplier countries, when you can build a nuke for less?
Of the many, many problems inflicted by an old fool's dithering, that's obviously not one. It's been blindingly obvious since the 40s that nuclear weapons have a powerful deterrent effect, and ghastly regimes haven't needed the Ukraine war to demonstrate that to them. Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea, South Africa are varying examples of tinpot regimes who realised this long before 2022.
What the war and Biden's dithering has done is demonstrate to democracies like Ukraine, but perhaps also South Korea, Taiwan, Poland, Japan and others, that they can't rely on the US shield. Again, some have been realising that since 2016 or before - Ukraine is not the only example of America's chronic unreliability as an ally. That is where the true damage to the nuclear proliferation framework lies.
“To be America’s enemy is dangerous. To be America’s friend is fatal.”
The original was better:
I would rather be the Englishman’s enemy than their friend. For they buy their enemies and sell their friends.
Who said/wrote that?
I tried Google but it doesn't seem to be able to pin it down. It references George Orwell but doesn't give the exact quote or even anything close to it.
Yep - me too.
I guess we'll have to wait for the wisdom of @StillWaters to enlighten us.
I am sure I have heard it before. So surprised it is not appearing anywhere.
AI tells me:
The quote "better to be the enemy of the English than their friend. for they buy their enemies and sell their friends" is attributed to Lord Palmerston, a British statesman and Prime Minister from 1855–8 and 1859–65.
AI is crap at facts - what it is really good at is looking for someone who made a number of similar quotes and attributing one that wasn't made by Lord Palmerston to him...
What Lord Palmerston is actually known for is "No eternal allies, no perpetual enemies" i.e. your interests can change...
Who did say that quote then?
Google doesn't know - and that's the difference
Google - turns round and says Googlewhack - but here are some alternatives. AI - says has to be someone so let's guess and pretend we are correct.
One is the answer of an librarian the other that of a 4 year old child trying to please mummy / daddy..
The Tories' problem is that they had 14 years to do something about thought-non-crime and didn't.
So often, they were all talk and no action. Repeatedly, I’m left wondering what the Conservatives thought they were there for, other than enjoying the fruits of office.
I think many were secretly embarrassed at being Conservatives and couldn't bring themselves to act to deliver for their base; the fact their members and voters were not only increased the contempt.
In that sense, it's a bit similar to the difference between the CofE clergy and laity.
Wonder if the two organisations have something of the same underlying problem. Namely, the generation gap between the supporters (mostly retired in both cases) and the staff/leadership (mostly not retired). If you are a post-boomer, you tend to look at both institutions as fundamentally strange.
That leads to a couple of questions which neither institution seems to be answering convincingly. First is what to do about that- go all-in on serving the minority that you do get (red meat Conservatism, or full-on evangelism or traditional Anglo catholicism), or think about the ninety five percent who never darken your door?
The other is what's the right attitude to the future? Aim to pass on a functional institution or society, or spend it all on us now?
In the case of the Conservatives (unlike the C of E), there’s a big potential support base.
39% voted for right of centre parties in July, and polling suggests their support is about 45% now. Neither immigration, nor death, is destroying popular support for the right.
But, a lot of Conservative MP’s give the impression of being uneasy about trying to appeal to that body of support.
I think it’s mostly due to growing up in an era where upper middle class people and graduates still tended to vote right, and quite abruptly finding that is not the case. They find that many of their peers thoroughly disapprove of them and their supporters.
Political loyalty now runs vertically, through social classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
I think the Conservatives are in big trouble if Labour get a better grip of immigration than they did.
They won't, Farage might
Is there much evidence of Farage being a master of the tedious, administrative grind necessary to sort out the immigration/migrant problem?
Given how often he crosses the Atlantic, he has a lot of direct experience of border control. Though finding his way to Clacton is more challenging.
At least with surprising self-awareness he’s realised that his presence would in no way Make Clacton Great Again, rather the reverse in fact.
Public policy as a means to manage the psychological state of the PM. Imagine cancelling a decades-long infrastructure project in an attempt to gee up the Prime Minister.
The short answer then is that Sunak called an early election because he fundamentally doesn't understand politics.
I do have to give him credit for sticking around as Tory leader for an extended leadership election despite obviously being beyond sick of the whole thing.
It was done because as Chief Secretary and Chancellor often complained HS2 was a waste of money.
Which it is.
Why is creating the necessary capacity on the West Coast Mainline a problem that has existed since the 1980s a waste of money?
It’s the great British asset sweat-off isn’t it. Don’t build, and somehow they’ll come anyway. Or not.
We can't sweat it anymore and parts of it are now falling apart - see for example the current boarding problems at Euston...
That won’t stop some people being reflexively anti any kind of major infrastructure investment. Penny pinching is in the country’s genes.
I bet he was getting contrary advice as well: that going sooner was better.
I really cannot see a delay as having improved things for the Tories - their problems were far more structural than just people feeling better off or not. The changes there would have been tiny, and would have been dwarfed by the fact that people simply wanted change.
So if he had delayed, we would see a threader with other stories about the contrary advice: that going earlier would have been better,
The Tories were doomed.
edit: and first with an on-topic post!
I think it was pretty mad the Tories went in July rather than October, but I concede there may have been further drip-drip-drip by-elections and defections.
However, I don't think they'd have done worse than 120 seats had they waited another 3 months - and the economy would have certainly improved.
And if Rishi had waited another three months, or even till January, then Conservatives would have enjoyed an extra three or six months in office, with jobs and wages to pay their mortgages. That many Conservative colleagues are not very well off and depend on their salaries is often lost on millionaire Conservative leaders from Mrs Thatcher through David Cameron to Rishi Sunak.
Less so Maggie, she did not grow up rich and while Dennis was a millionaire she wasn't
You could argue that Rishi didn’t grow up “rich” either. His parents made sacrifices to cover his school fees and he wouldn’t have been considered rich with a doctor father and pharmacist mother compared to his peers at school.
He had a privileged education but only became rich through his work and richer through his marriage.
His GP father would certainly have been richer than Thatcher's grocer father
Your analysis of psephological data is exemplary. Your grasp of what is important to the man on the Clapham Omnibus is not.
The Tories' problem is that they had 14 years to do something about thought-non-crime and didn't.
So often, they were all talk and no action. Repeatedly, I’m left wondering what the Conservatives thought they were there for, other than enjoying the fruits of office.
I think many were secretly embarrassed at being Conservatives and couldn't bring themselves to act to deliver for their base; the fact their members and voters were not only increased the contempt.
In that sense, it's a bit similar to the difference between the CofE clergy and laity.
Wonder if the two organisations have something of the same underlying problem. Namely, the generation gap between the supporters (mostly retired in both cases) and the staff/leadership (mostly not retired). If you are a post-boomer, you tend to look at both institutions as fundamentally strange.
That leads to a couple of questions which neither institution seems to be answering convincingly. First is what to do about that- go all-in on serving the minority that you do get (red meat Conservatism, or full-on evangelism or traditional Anglo catholicism), or think about the ninety five percent who never darken your door?
The other is what's the right attitude to the future? Aim to pass on a functional institution or society, or spend it all on us now?
In the case of the Conservatives (unlike the C of E), there’s a big potential support base.
39% voted for right of centre parties in July, and polling suggests their support is about 45% now. Neither immigration, nor death, is destroying popular support for the right.
But, a lot of Conservative MP’s give the impression of being uneasy about trying to appeal to that body of support.
I think it’s mostly due to growing up in an era where upper middle class people and graduates still tended to vote right, and quite abruptly finding that is not the case. They find that many of their peers thoroughly disapprove of them and their supporters.
Political loyalty now runs vertically, through social classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
I think the Conservatives are in big trouble if Labour get a better grip of immigration than they did.
After Trump's victory, Labour ignore immigration (both legal and illegal) at their peril.
However successfully Labour handle the small boats it won't be good enough for Farage. Even if Labour bring arrival numbers down considerably that doesn't resolve the issue that vexes Farage and his racist chums, namely "foreigners" who are already here. Although that doesn't necessarily assist the Tories.
Perhaps when it comes down to immigration ("foreigners") the Tories need to out Farage, Farage. Is Badenoch capable of such performative cruelty? If she is not we have Jenrick, who would be quite comfortable with rounding "foreigners" up and packing them on buses to Dundalk, patiently waiting for his moment.
Probably neither are. Opinium confirms Badenoch is just treading water and holding the Tory vote which voted for Rishi in July while it is Farage who is eating into the wwc Labour vote. Jenrick might have made a bit more progress winning back Boris voters now voting Reform but he was an ex Remainer Cameroon which put a ceiling on that.
The only Tory leader who could really squeeze the Reform vote and reunite the Right is probably now Jacob Rees Mogg if he wins back his Somerset seat at the next GE (or moves to a more winnable prospect like the seat Liam Fox only just lost which is also in North Somerset). Assuming Boris doesn't return of course given he was the man who put Farage back in his box in the first place in 2019 when May was leaking voters massively to him
Meanwhile back on planet earth, the Rees Mogg led radical right Conservative party shed Centrist Dad votes to the Liberal Democrats.
Not really, centrist dads already largely voted LD or for Starmer in July anyway. Yet the combined Tory and Reform vote was still bigger than the Labour vote then and in most seats the LDs gained from the Tories the Tory and Reform combined vote was also bigger than the LD vote
The Trump experience of the next 4 years will have a big effect on whether Reform make progress and/or the Tories go full MAGA.
The next US presidential election, if it happens, is due before the likely next UK general election date. That’s 4 years of water under the bridge.
Even if it doesn't go well the GOP vote is still likely to be well over 40% even with Vance and even if the Democrats win the midterms and 2028 presidential election. The Tory and Reform combined vote in polls is over 40%, divided both are under 30%. The next GE will likely be in spring 2028 so just before the next US presidential election even if after the 2026 midterms
I’m watching Sky news. I don’t know who the speaker is, but she’s evil. I mean fully fucking evil. Right now she’s doing the whole climate NIMBYism thing. China USA blah blah blah.
But that’s not the evil thing. After commenting that Europe is so “sclerotic” (yawn) that we should do a deal with Trump where we kowtow to his highness in exchange for reduced tariffs, she then said, and I quote, “Zelenskyy is going to have to realise that this war needs a diplomatic solution, rather than a land grab”.
Rather than a land grab. I mean. Where do you start. Who’s doing the land grab? Angry goose meme. But of course she wasn’t challenged on this, because the West is terrified of those twats in the Kremlin.
Hence Zelensky is getting closer to developing a nuclear bomb
Her comments might be a bit offensive, but does she deserve to be nuked?
Probably. I don't see how getting a primitive nuclear device helps Ukraine, they need to deliver it as well and even if they do, Putin will retaliate either with full-blown nukes or by "accidentally" hitting a nuclear power station. The west left support for Ukraine far too late, in hindsight the time to have stopped Putin was right at the beginning when all his tanks were stuck in a convoy on the roads.
You don't build one, you build a dozen.
And you don't use it, you just ring up the White House and tell them "unless you continue to support us, we will detonate one of these on the Black Sea."
One single nuclear test like that and the entire world is in chaos. Stock markets down 50% overnight. People fighting each other in the shops for the last loo rolls and tinned beans. Half the population of western cities fleeing en masse to the countryside. Panic in the streets.
Ukraine need to play hardball now. It's the only way to prevent themselves being strongarmed into a deal that favours Russia.
Clearly some people on here are desperate for WW3 ..🥴🤨
It is somewhat hard to see how the situation above is better for the rest of the world than a suboptimal peace deal.
As I've pointed out many times, the west giving in to Putin's nuclear blackmail has made the world a much more dangerous place. Now every tinpot regime with expansionist ideas will realise that having nukes means the civilised world will just give in to whatever they wish. Why spend billions on a military that can often be defeated - and which can turn against you - and which puts you in hock to supplier countries, when you can build a nuke for less?
Of the many, many problems inflicted by an old fool's dithering, that's obviously not one. It's been blindingly obvious since the 40s that nuclear weapons have a powerful deterrent effect, and ghastly regimes haven't needed the Ukraine war to demonstrate that to them. Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea, South Africa are varying examples of tinpot regimes who realised this long before 2022.
What the war and Biden's dithering has done is demonstrate to democracies like Ukraine, but perhaps also South Korea, Taiwan, Poland, Japan and others, that they can't rely on the US shield. Again, some have been realising that since 2016 or before - Ukraine is not the only example of America's chronic unreliability as an ally. That is where the true damage to the nuclear proliferation framework lies.
“To be America’s enemy is dangerous. To be America’s friend is fatal.”
The original was better:
I would rather be the Englishman’s enemy than their friend. For they buy their enemies and sell their friends.
Who said/wrote that?
I tried Google but it doesn't seem to be able to pin it down. It references George Orwell but doesn't give the exact quote or even anything close to it.
Yep - me too.
I guess we'll have to wait for the wisdom of @StillWaters to enlighten us.
I am sure I have heard it before. So surprised it is not appearing anywhere.
AI tells me:
The quote "better to be the enemy of the English than their friend. for they buy their enemies and sell their friends" is attributed to Lord Palmerston, a British statesman and Prime Minister from 1855–8 and 1859–65.
Beginning to think it’s not fanciful that this Government might collapse. Rumours whirling around Starmer; allegations Rachel Reeve not even an economist; 100 days of Government so chaotic it was not even celebrated; furious farmers about to stop food and petrol; debt heading towards IMF visit levels; business up in arms; big taxpayers leaving country. The Opposition better get its act together. May not have years to think about it.
I bet he was getting contrary advice as well: that going sooner was better.
I really cannot see a delay as having improved things for the Tories - their problems were far more structural than just people feeling better off or not. The changes there would have been tiny, and would have been dwarfed by the fact that people simply wanted change.
So if he had delayed, we would see a threader with other stories about the contrary advice: that going earlier would have been better,
The Tories were doomed.
edit: and first with an on-topic post!
Perhaps Sunak also accepted that delaying the election would be bad for the country.
The last months of bedraggled governments are rarely good for anyone.
And given the rate that Conservative MPs were disgracing themselves the 'time for a change' feeling was only going to get stronger.
Given an election campaign Labour will be back up to where they were before.
Hardly given Labour began on over 40% and ended up on 33% in July.
Opinium not brilliant for Kemi but still a swing of just under 2% from Labour to the Tories since the GE so not great for Starmer either.
Brilliant poll for Farage whose Reform party is up 7% on the 14% they got at the GE to 21%. LDs and SNP basically unchanged since the GE like the Tories in voteshare, Greens up but by just 1%
Opposition parties flourish at this stage of a Parliament, and in local elections it can be any of them who do well. But it's hard to see the Conservative election win evolving from those figures.
I think Starmer is taking an interestingly honest approach to government.
A large part of the disillusionment that voters have for politics is down to their experience of populist politicians that promise loads, but fail to deliver. Often because their proposed solutions are undeliverable, and while those work to get elected they are a problem in government.
Starmer is staking his government on under-promising, but over-delivering, and gambling that voters are mature enough to recognise this in 2029.
Of course, he has to actually deliver for this to work, and voters to be grateful rather than just bank the gains and demand more.
Good comment.
However he doesn't have the "swat the Opposition BS-artists", and his own marketing, in place, I don't think, yet.
That concerns me a little - he could end up with a trajectory like Biden where much is achieved but is swallowed up in a fog of misleading, oppositionalist waffle.
In the USA, the people who fell for Trump's shtick are about to get bent over and Trumped good and proper, by the look of it so far. Afaics Trump is appointing some of the nutters to his own cabinet completely over the head of his Chief of Staff.
One thing that surprises me is how soft Mr Starmer is being on the previous not-a-Government, and not specifically identifying all the sticky-plaster things he is having to do to cover the gaping wounds they left.
An example are that Tuition fees were cut by inflation in real terms between 2018 and 2024 - that is, 13%. Another is the scores of local authorities in financial trouble, largely because an institutionalisation of significant funding cuts for year after year after year.
We see that latter in the public realm - even things as simple as white lines markings on roads which have not been maintained, or weeds growing across pavements compared with how it was on Streetview in 2009..
Plus obviously, unfunded tax breaks which fell straight through onto increasing the national debt.
Politically, I think they need far stronger on holding the Opposition responsible for the wreckage they created. Even though the Conservative itself is reduced to a collection of pygmies balanced atop a pile of rubble.
I think Starmer demonstrates a lot of political naivety in how he approaches things. I think his plan is broadly what I posted, but he has hamstrung himself via the Ming Vase strategy of promising no income tax, VAT or employee NI rises and to keep the Triple Lock.
Clearly money was going to be needed to repair the dilapidated public realm, and it would have been so much better to have more flexibility. Instead we had a budget of stealth taxes that distort economic activity.
The employer NI increase isn't a stealth tax (but then again given how I get paid I probably pay more attention to it than other people would) but I do question if the decision to charge NI on everyone working more than 8 hours is by design or whether they didn't realise / think about the consequences..
It’s a stealth tax in the sense of not being immediately apparent to the person in the street.
This is why it was picked as a tax to raise.
And, once again, we have the amusing populism of “they will just have to take it out of profits”.
Re taking it out of profits.... a company i work with has now implemented a policy of reducing pay rises from what they would otherwise have been to fully compensate for the employer NI increase over the next 2 years. I'm sure lots of other companies will do something similar or find other ways to cope.
It might not be an increase in employee NI but it has just the same effect in terms of reducing spending...
Public policy as a means to manage the psychological state of the PM. Imagine cancelling a decades-long infrastructure project in an attempt to gee up the Prime Minister.
The short answer then is that Sunak called an early election because he fundamentally doesn't understand politics.
I do have to give him credit for sticking around as Tory leader for an extended leadership election despite obviously being beyond sick of the whole thing.
It was done because as Chief Secretary and Chancellor often complained HS2 was a waste of money.
Which it is.
Why is creating the necessary capacity on the West Coast Mainline a problem that has existed since the 1980s a waste of money?
It’s the great British asset sweat-off isn’t it. Don’t build, and somehow they’ll come anyway. Or not.
We can't sweat it anymore and parts of it are now falling apart - see for example the current boarding problems at Euston...
That won’t stop some people being reflexively anti any kind of major infrastructure investment. Penny pinching is in the country’s genes.
Shouldn't really be though. What happened to the country of the industrial revolution? Lost an empire to pay for it I guess.
In response to @Leon 's enquiry yesterday about Bluesky.
I've just dropped a toe in the water for the last few weeks, and just tipped over 100 followers. For those familiar with the Twitter timeline, I'd say it is in roughly autumn 2007 by comparison. UK politicos going onto Twitter started in about spring 2007 with early adopters or media tarts, and the process was largely done by about autumn 2008.
I like there being an absence of deliberate manipulation by Musk and the Muskovites.
I have a decent Twitter community of a little under 5k followers, since I have been cross-partisan and cross-cutting by design since I started my blog in 2007, and I have maintained my community by trimming dormant follows and followers every year or so. It's going to take some effort to rebuild on Bluesky, but that is currently possible - with lots of new people around. I get follow backs from most.
On Twitter strategy-type people (eg Mark Pack) are putting in the plumbing interconnection and future influence for their communities. A different set of hub / distributor accounts will emerge from Twitter.
Automated and ease-of-use tools are not so available. Remember the difference made by Tweetdeck and Hootsuite? I'm not sure how this will go.
I'm also not sure about Bluesky's future business model.
One test will be what happens when people who have other platforms to cross-promote from start feeling they have to be on Bluesky, and take their followers with them.
For me, a couple of my current core niches are shifting to Bluesky - active travel and disabled. Which makes the decision to transfer more likely.
From my point of view, if I lose the "patriots" and the trolls I won't miss them. Nor the Pfaffers - people focused on football, autos, flags and the far right, which seem to go together, including the Usonian types who have never left Alabama and think their laws rule everywhere. Reform UK can have them.
An absence of drive by abuse artists posting "the pedestrian should have got out of the way" (tbf I don't get that many), every time someone is run down on a zebra crossing, will be welcome. And they are irrelevant in the UK for the next several years, as in my niche it is all about delivery not diversionary debates.
Equally, an account with a small number of followers is great for self-expression, just like a blog which only gets 100 readers a week.
What do you want from it ,and what do you want to put in?
Further note:
For people who feel somewhat marginal on Twitter, and want to build a community, now is probably a creative time to be starting on Bluesky; I have one friend working for a charity I support who has built her followers from 500 to nearly 2k+ in the time I have gone from 0 to 100+. She is well-respected with a platform, high quality material, and separate network via the small charity, but has clearly been doing some deliberate promotion to put herself in a position to get things into the more general debate beyond her niche more effectively. In 12 months time that will be more difficult to build die to the sheer number of accounts - if Bluesky gets traction.
If I were someone like @RochdalePioneers , who I think is trying to build himself up as a local influencer / community hub person (who also happens to be a LibDem) in order to be a 'semi-independent' local councillor with a strong personal mandate, I would take a careful look at this point. It's like people who created Internet Forums (Grant Shapps), Facebook Groups, Blogs, or Twitter Accounts early received some advantage from being a first mover; they get to help write the agenda.
On numbers, aiui Twitter is smaller than we might think - 300m to 400m monthly active users. Threads is about 250 million, driven by the Meta ecosystem. Bluesky is currently heading towards 20m, so has some way to go in weight. Compare those numbers again in a fortnight or on Christmas day.
There may also be differences by geographical territory, depending on what happens to Twitter. eg Twitter was clamped down on by Brazil. Could it happen in Europe?
HTH.
I met up with a friend of mine who is blind the other evening. He had to quit Twitter because Musk sacked all the accessibility staff who made Twitter work for blind people and then banned all the third party suppliers that tried to replicate the tools that got binned.
Beginning to think it’s not fanciful that this Government might collapse. Rumours whirling around Starmer; allegations Rachel Reeve not even an economist; 100 days of Government so chaotic it was not even celebrated; furious farmers about to stop food and petrol; debt heading towards IMF visit levels; business up in arms; big taxpayers leaving country. The Opposition better get its act together. May not have years to think about it.
It will stay in office given its vast majority, its approval rating though can still fall much further
Beginning to think it’s not fanciful that this Government might collapse. Rumours whirling around Starmer; allegations Rachel Reeve not even an economist; 100 days of Government so chaotic it was not even celebrated; furious farmers about to stop food and petrol; debt heading towards IMF visit levels; business up in arms; big taxpayers leaving country. The Opposition better get its act together. May not have years to think about it.
Getting a heavy 'move over Leon, there's a new hystericist in town' vibe.
I bet he was getting contrary advice as well: that going sooner was better.
I really cannot see a delay as having improved things for the Tories - their problems were far more structural than just people feeling better off or not. The changes there would have been tiny, and would have been dwarfed by the fact that people simply wanted change.
So if he had delayed, we would see a threader with other stories about the contrary advice: that going earlier would have been better,
The Tories were doomed.
edit: and first with an on-topic post!
I think it was pretty mad the Tories went in July rather than October, but I concede there may have been further drip-drip-drip by-elections and defections.
However, I don't think they'd have done worse than 120 seats had they waited another 3 months - and the economy would have certainly improved.
And if Rishi had waited another three months, or even till January, then Conservatives would have enjoyed an extra three or six months in office, with jobs and wages to pay their mortgages. That many Conservative colleagues are not very well off and depend on their salaries is often lost on millionaire Conservative leaders from Mrs Thatcher through David Cameron to Rishi Sunak.
That might be true, but I think a Prime Minister who decides the timing of the election based on what is most financially beneficial to their MPs is one who does not deserve to be running the country, because their priorities would be wildly out of line with what we the public expect.
My best guess is the current Labour government will last for 1 or 2 years before it collapses. It is incapable of dealing with the problems it is going to encounter and the only thing going for it is its large majority, but the latter will rapidly erode as MP's flake out.
My best guess is the current Labour government will last for 1 or 2 years before it collapses. It is incapable of dealing with the problems it is going to encounter and the only thing going for it is its large majority, but the latter will rapidly erode as MP's flake out.
Plenty of betting opportunities out there. My kneejerk response is that incapacity to deal with problems has rarely stopped other governments going the full term.
I bet he was getting contrary advice as well: that going sooner was better.
I really cannot see a delay as having improved things for the Tories - their problems were far more structural than just people feeling better off or not. The changes there would have been tiny, and would have been dwarfed by the fact that people simply wanted change.
So if he had delayed, we would see a threader with other stories about the contrary advice: that going earlier would have been better,
The Tories were doomed.
edit: and first with an on-topic post!
I think it was pretty mad the Tories went in July rather than October, but I concede there may have been further drip-drip-drip by-elections and defections.
However, I don't think they'd have done worse than 120 seats had they waited another 3 months - and the economy would have certainly improved.
And if Rishi had waited another three months, or even till January, then Conservatives would have enjoyed an extra three or six months in office, with jobs and wages to pay their mortgages. That many Conservative colleagues are not very well off and depend on their salaries is often lost on millionaire Conservative leaders from Mrs Thatcher through David Cameron to Rishi Sunak.
Less so Maggie, she did not grow up rich and while Dennis was a millionaire she wasn't
You could argue that Rishi didn’t grow up “rich” either. His parents made sacrifices to cover his school fees and he wouldn’t have been considered rich with a doctor father and pharmacist mother compared to his peers at school.
He had a privileged education but only became rich through his work and richer through his marriage.
His GP father would certainly have been richer than Thatcher's grocer father
Having grown up among grocers and doctors, and indeed pharmacists, I would say there's no certainty about that. The doctor and the pharmacist might have looked 'richer' but there it would have ended. AIUI Alderman Roberts had a successful business in Grantham.
Beginning to think it’s not fanciful that this Government might collapse. Rumours whirling around Starmer; allegations Rachel Reeve not even an economist; 100 days of Government so chaotic it was not even celebrated; furious farmers about to stop food and petrol; debt heading towards IMF visit levels; business up in arms; big taxpayers leaving country. The Opposition better get its act together. May not have years to think about it.
Getting a heavy 'move over Leon, there's a new hystericist in town' vibe.
"why not just say that APR only applies to estates left by individuals who can demonstrate at least a 10 or 15-year track record of active, daily engagement with agriculture."
Will Hutton makes a good argument for the changes to farming death duties in The Observer. I hadn't realised Thatcher had introduced it in 1984. So long as the wealthy prioritise and are incentivised to prioritise land ownership we will be a country in decline.
In response to @Leon 's enquiry yesterday about Bluesky.
I've just dropped a toe in the water for the last few weeks, and just tipped over 100 followers. For those familiar with the Twitter timeline, I'd say it is in roughly autumn 2007 by comparison. UK politicos going onto Twitter started in about spring 2007 with early adopters or media tarts, and the process was largely done by about autumn 2008.
I like there being an absence of deliberate manipulation by Musk and the Muskovites.
I have a decent Twitter community of a little under 5k followers, since I have been cross-partisan and cross-cutting by design since I started my blog in 2007, and I have maintained my community by trimming dormant follows and followers every year or so. It's going to take some effort to rebuild on Bluesky, but that is currently possible - with lots of new people around. I get follow backs from most.
On Twitter strategy-type people (eg Mark Pack) are putting in the plumbing interconnection and future influence for their communities. A different set of hub / distributor accounts will emerge from Twitter.
Automated and ease-of-use tools are not so available. Remember the difference made by Tweetdeck and Hootsuite? I'm not sure how this will go.
I'm also not sure about Bluesky's future business model.
One test will be what happens when people who have other platforms to cross-promote from start feeling they have to be on Bluesky, and take their followers with them.
For me, a couple of my current core niches are shifting to Bluesky - active travel and disabled. Which makes the decision to transfer more likely.
From my point of view, if I lose the "patriots" and the trolls I won't miss them. Nor the Pfaffers - people focused on football, autos, flags and the far right, which seem to go together, including the Usonian types who have never left Alabama and think their laws rule everywhere. Reform UK can have them.
An absence of drive by abuse artists posting "the pedestrian should have got out of the way" (tbf I don't get that many), every time someone is run down on a zebra crossing, will be welcome. And they are irrelevant in the UK for the next several years, as in my niche it is all about delivery not diversionary debates.
Equally, an account with a small number of followers is great for self-expression, just like a blog which only gets 100 readers a week.
What do you want from it ,and what do you want to put in?
Further note:
For people who feel somewhat marginal on Twitter, and want to build a community, now is probably a creative time to be starting on Bluesky; I have one friend working for a charity I support who has built her followers from 500 to nearly 2k+ in the time I have gone from 0 to 100+. She is well-respected with a platform, high quality material, and separate network via the small charity, but has clearly been doing some deliberate promotion to put herself in a position to get things into the more general debate beyond her niche more effectively. In 12 months time that will be more difficult to build die to the sheer number of accounts - if Bluesky gets traction.
If I were someone like @RochdalePioneers , who I think is trying to build himself up as a local influencer / community hub person (who also happens to be a LibDem) in order to be a 'semi-independent' local councillor with a strong personal mandate, I would take a careful look at this point. It's like people who created Internet Forums (Grant Shapps), Facebook Groups, Blogs, or Twitter Accounts early received some advantage from being a first mover; they get to help write the agenda.
On numbers, aiui Twitter is smaller than we might think - 300m to 400m monthly active users. Threads is about 250 million, driven by the Meta ecosystem. Bluesky is currently heading towards 20m, so has some way to go in weight. Compare those numbers again in a fortnight or on Christmas day.
There may also be differences by geographical territory, depending on what happens to Twitter. eg Twitter was clamped down on by Brazil. Could it happen in Europe?
HTH.
I met up with a friend of mine who is blind the other evening. He had to quit Twitter because Musk sacked all the accessibility staff who made Twitter work for blind people and then banned all the third party suppliers that tried to replicate the tools that got binned.
This really boils my piss. Accessibility matters.
And if you think it doesn't, it may to you one day. Or if not, one of your family or friends.
(Accessibility can also be *really* difficult to do, and impossible if you don't care about it.)
Public policy as a means to manage the psychological state of the PM. Imagine cancelling a decades-long infrastructure project in an attempt to gee up the Prime Minister.
The short answer then is that Sunak called an early election because he fundamentally doesn't understand politics.
I do have to give him credit for sticking around as Tory leader for an extended leadership election despite obviously being beyond sick of the whole thing.
It was done because as Chief Secretary and Chancellor often complained HS2 was a waste of money.
Which it is.
Why is creating the necessary capacity on the West Coast Mainline a problem that has existed since the 1980s a waste of money?
It’s the great British asset sweat-off isn’t it. Don’t build, and somehow they’ll come anyway. Or not.
We can't sweat it anymore and parts of it are now falling apart - see for example the current boarding problems at Euston...
That won’t stop some people being reflexively anti any kind of major infrastructure investment. Penny pinching is in the country’s genes.
Suggest building more roads.
And you'll see many of those demanding more infrastructure investment rapidly change their mind.
Beginning to think it’s not fanciful that this Government might collapse. Rumours whirling around Starmer; allegations Rachel Reeve not even an economist; 100 days of Government so chaotic it was not even celebrated; furious farmers about to stop food and petrol; debt heading towards IMF visit levels; business up in arms; big taxpayers leaving country. The Opposition better get its act together. May not have years to think about it.
Getting a heavy 'move over Leon, there's a new hystericist in town' vibe.
I think I am right in the centre ground of politics, and it is everyone else who is out at the extremes. IE the position I took on the US election was an absolutely centrist position (Both very bad options, Trump very slightly preferable).
The assumption now that 'everything will carry on as normal, order will be restored' is flawed. We are going through structural change, and I think the likelihood that Labour (who I voted for, again evidence of my 'centrism') will be able to successfully deal with it is minimal. Not impossible but minimal. As cited in the quote above, they have done almost nothing in the first 100 days, despite its massive majority.
I bet he was getting contrary advice as well: that going sooner was better.
I really cannot see a delay as having improved things for the Tories - their problems were far more structural than just people feeling better off or not. The changes there would have been tiny, and would have been dwarfed by the fact that people simply wanted change.
So if he had delayed, we would see a threader with other stories about the contrary advice: that going earlier would have been better,
The Tories were doomed.
edit: and first with an on-topic post!
I think it was pretty mad the Tories went in July rather than October, but I concede there may have been further drip-drip-drip by-elections and defections.
However, I don't think they'd have done worse than 120 seats had they waited another 3 months - and the economy would have certainly improved.
And if Rishi had waited another three months, or even till January, then Conservatives would have enjoyed an extra three or six months in office, with jobs and wages to pay their mortgages. That many Conservative colleagues are not very well off and depend on their salaries is often lost on millionaire Conservative leaders from Mrs Thatcher through David Cameron to Rishi Sunak.
Less so Maggie, she did not grow up rich and while Dennis was a millionaire she wasn't
You could argue that Rishi didn’t grow up “rich” either. His parents made sacrifices to cover his school fees and he wouldn’t have been considered rich with a doctor father and pharmacist mother compared to his peers at school.
He had a privileged education but only became rich through his work and richer through his marriage.
His GP father would certainly have been richer than Thatcher's grocer father
Having grown up among grocers and doctors, and indeed pharmacists, I would say there's no certainty about that. The doctor and the pharmacist might have looked 'richer' but there it would have ended. AIUI Alderman Roberts had a successful business in Grantham.
They both had the good fortune of finding spouses who were considerably richer than them.
Public policy as a means to manage the psychological state of the PM. Imagine cancelling a decades-long infrastructure project in an attempt to gee up the Prime Minister.
The short answer then is that Sunak called an early election because he fundamentally doesn't understand politics.
I do have to give him credit for sticking around as Tory leader for an extended leadership election despite obviously being beyond sick of the whole thing.
It was done because as Chief Secretary and Chancellor often complained HS2 was a waste of money.
Which it is.
As designed, yes it was. Cancelling it at this late stage was an even bigger waste.
On the quote, this seems to be a fair explanation.
It was the "then" clause of a conditional statement:
Word should be gotten to Nixon that if Thieu meets the same fate as Diem, the word will go out to the nations of the world that it may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal.
Sources: Kissinger's War, 1957-1975 and United Nations Journal: A Delegate's Odyssey
Kissinger said this in late November 1968 after Nixon was elected president, but before Nixon was inaugurated.
It wasn't a public statement, just a statement to William F. Buckley Jr. in a phone call, with Buckley taking notes, so it isn't verifiable beyond Buckley (author of United Nations Journal: A Delegate's Odyssey).
Suggesting that it is based on the quote of a Russian fighting the British in the Boer War:
Kissinger was not the first who said this words, but he repeated them.
The author of this words was russian(Empire) general-major Aleksey Efimovich Vandam(Edrikhin), the intelligencer, the writer of strategic and geopolitical works. He was a participant in the Boer War on the opposite side to Britain Empire, after Russian-Soviet revolt he switched the side to German, not to Entente. He supported the politic course to an ally between Russian, German and France without Britain.
The citaite is from the book "Наше положение"(~Our circumstance) chap XXI(real XXVI-wrong dating) p. 123
Наконец наступает очередь и Китая, который после своих разнообразных опытов с англичанами и американцами смело мог бы сказать теперь — «плохо иметь англосакса врагом, но не дай Бог иметь его другом!».
Finally, it is the turn of China, which, after its various experiences with the British and Americans , could safely say now — "it is bad to have an Anglo-Saxon as an enemy, but God forbid to have him as a friend!".
My best guess is the current Labour government will last for 1 or 2 years before it collapses. It is incapable of dealing with the problems it is going to encounter and the only thing going for it is its large majority, but the latter will rapidly erode as MP's flake out.
Where on earth would 140 labour MPs decamp to..
I can see a whole set of problems while the MPs continue to just vote for everything the Government tells them to vote on...
My best guess is the current Labour government will last for 1 or 2 years before it collapses. It is incapable of dealing with the problems it is going to encounter and the only thing going for it is its large majority, but the latter will rapidly erode as MP's flake out.
So a guy who voted Labour thinks it's going to collapse within a couple of years seems as surreal/barmy a prediction as you could ever make..🤨🥴
Yup, imagine going into the election now rather than July. Petrol prices at the lowest for over a year, economy would be growing much faster than it is now, immigration numbers would be coming down and people would have had a relatively relaxing summer to reflect on their situation. It would still have been a loss but I think the Tories would have scraped 200 seats and Labour a much smaller majority. Holding it around now so that Nige would have had to split his time between Reform and Trump would have been very beneficial to the Tories as well.
Had the Tories had leaders capable of making better decisions, we wouldn't be where we are. So it's a pretty fruitless counterfactual.
In response to @Leon 's enquiry yesterday about Bluesky.
I've just dropped a toe in the water for the last few weeks, and just tipped over 100 followers. For those familiar with the Twitter timeline, I'd say it is in roughly autumn 2007 by comparison. UK politicos going onto Twitter started in about spring 2007 with early adopters or media tarts, and the process was largely done by about autumn 2008.
I like there being an absence of deliberate manipulation by Musk and the Muskovites.
I have a decent Twitter community of a little under 5k followers, since I have been cross-partisan and cross-cutting by design since I started my blog in 2007, and I have maintained my community by trimming dormant follows and followers every year or so. It's going to take some effort to rebuild on Bluesky, but that is currently possible - with lots of new people around. I get follow backs from most.
On Twitter strategy-type people (eg Mark Pack) are putting in the plumbing interconnection and future influence for their communities. A different set of hub / distributor accounts will emerge from Twitter.
Automated and ease-of-use tools are not so available. Remember the difference made by Tweetdeck and Hootsuite? I'm not sure how this will go.
I'm also not sure about Bluesky's future business model.
One test will be what happens when people who have other platforms to cross-promote from start feeling they have to be on Bluesky, and take their followers with them.
For me, a couple of my current core niches are shifting to Bluesky - active travel and disabled. Which makes the decision to transfer more likely.
From my point of view, if I lose the "patriots" and the trolls I won't miss them. Nor the Pfaffers - people focused on football, autos, flags and the far right, which seem to go together, including the Usonian types who have never left Alabama and think their laws rule everywhere. Reform UK can have them.
An absence of drive by abuse artists posting "the pedestrian should have got out of the way" (tbf I don't get that many), every time someone is run down on a zebra crossing, will be welcome. And they are irrelevant in the UK for the next several years, as in my niche it is all about delivery not diversionary debates.
Equally, an account with a small number of followers is great for self-expression, just like a blog which only gets 100 readers a week.
What do you want from it ,and what do you want to put in?
Further note:
For people who feel somewhat marginal on Twitter, and want to build a community, now is probably a creative time to be starting on Bluesky; I have one friend working for a charity I support who has built her followers from 500 to nearly 2k+ in the time I have gone from 0 to 100+. She is well-respected with a platform, high quality material, and separate network via the small charity, but has clearly been doing some deliberate promotion to put herself in a position to get things into the more general debate beyond her niche more effectively. In 12 months time that will be more difficult to build die to the sheer number of accounts - if Bluesky gets traction.
If I were someone like @RochdalePioneers , who I think is trying to build himself up as a local influencer / community hub person (who also happens to be a LibDem) in order to be a 'semi-independent' local councillor with a strong personal mandate, I would take a careful look at this point. It's like people who created Internet Forums (Grant Shapps), Facebook Groups, Blogs, or Twitter Accounts early received some advantage from being a first mover; they get to help write the agenda.
On numbers, aiui Twitter is smaller than we might think - 300m to 400m monthly active users. Threads is about 250 million, driven by the Meta ecosystem. Bluesky is currently heading towards 20m, so has some way to go in weight. Compare those numbers again in a fortnight or on Christmas day.
There may also be differences by geographical territory, depending on what happens to Twitter. eg Twitter was clamped down on by Brazil. Could it happen in Europe?
HTH.
I met up with a friend of mine who is blind the other evening. He had to quit Twitter because Musk sacked all the accessibility staff who made Twitter work for blind people and then banned all the third party suppliers that tried to replicate the tools that got binned.
This really boils my piss. Accessibility matters.
And if you think it doesn't, it may to you one day. Or if not, one of your family or friends.
(Accessibility can also be *really* difficult to do, and impossible if you don't care about it.)
It's also very expensive but I think Bluesky is arriving at the point when you can get an AI to describe a photo 49 times out of 50.
Will Hutton makes a good argument for the changes to farming death duties in The Observer. I hadn't realised Thatcher had introduced it in 1984. So long as the wealthy prioritise and are incentivised to prioritise land ownership we will be a country in decline.
The disaster of the 1974 changes to the Farming Industry were obvious within weeks, just as they are now. If allowed to continue they would have totally destroyed the rented sector. Mrs T had other fish to fry in her first term. Her actions in 1984 transformed agriculture for the better and allowed the wealth to improve Rural Britain as a whole.
The logical conclusion would have been to have abolished all wealth taxation by 1990 but the recession put an end to that possibility.
If Labour were wise they would withdraw all the IHT proposals now, sadly for the country but a godsend for their opponents they are not wise.
Yup, imagine going into the election now rather than July. Petrol prices at the lowest for over a year, economy would be growing much faster than it is now, immigration numbers would be coming down and people would have had a relatively relaxing summer to reflect on their situation. It would still have been a loss but I think the Tories would have scraped 200 seats and Labour a much smaller majority. Holding it around now so that Nige would have had to split his time between Reform and Trump would have been very beneficial to the Tories as well.
Whataboutary at its finest.
Firstly, if the US election has taught you anything it is that formal economic metrics count for zip when compared to the lived experience. Counterbalance petrol at £1.30 a litre with a four pint flagon of Cravendale at between £2.50 and three quid.
Secondly, the small boats issue has largely been ignored by the media. Sunak lit that touch paper with his five pledges, and has been horsewhipped with it ever since. The numbers are still enormous and one flight to Rwanda would have highlighted the Conservative Government were just taking the piss.
Thirdly, riding on the crest of a Trump victory wave is more likely to have assisted Reform than the Tories.
Looking at the looming further farmer protests, I am now wondering whether Reeves will still even be CoE by the end of next year.
Unforced political error after unforced error.
And there is one group of people that everyone in the country agrees are worthy of being protected - farmers. They grow our food, often in almost impossible conditions. This tax feels vindictive coming from Labour. A punishment against the countryside who voted for Brexit.
The worst part is that it doesn't even raise very much money. It's a rounding error in the OBR report. The budget proposed £150bn of additional borrowing over 5 years, if they'd kept the exemption then it would be about £152bn over 5 years.
Public policy as a means to manage the psychological state of the PM. Imagine cancelling a decades-long infrastructure project in an attempt to gee up the Prime Minister.
The short answer then is that Sunak called an early election because he fundamentally doesn't understand politics.
I do have to give him credit for sticking around as Tory leader for an extended leadership election despite obviously being beyond sick of the whole thing.
It was done because as Chief Secretary and Chancellor often complained HS2 was a waste of money.
Which it is.
Why is creating the necessary capacity on the West Coast Mainline a problem that has existed since the 1980s a waste of money?
It’s the great British asset sweat-off isn’t it. Don’t build, and somehow they’ll come anyway. Or not.
We can't sweat it anymore and parts of it are now falling apart - see for example the current boarding problems at Euston...
That won’t stop some people being reflexively anti any kind of major infrastructure investment. Penny pinching is in the country’s genes.
Suggest building more roads.
And you'll see many of those demanding more infrastructure investment rapidly change their mind.
Oh God we’re not culture warring infrastructure now are we? Is that why people are anti HS2, because it’s woke?
Yup, imagine going into the election now rather than July. Petrol prices at the lowest for over a year, economy would be growing much faster than it is now, immigration numbers would be coming down and people would have had a relatively relaxing summer to reflect on their situation. It would still have been a loss but I think the Tories would have scraped 200 seats and Labour a much smaller majority. Holding it around now so that Nige would have had to split his time between Reform and Trump would have been very beneficial to the Tories as well.
Whataboutary at its finest.
Firstly, if the US election has taught you anything it is that formal economic metrics count for zip when compared to the lived experience. Counterbalance petrol at £1.30 a litre with a four pint flagon of Cravendale at between £2.50 and three quid.
Secondly, the small boats issue has largely been ignored by the media. Sunak lit that touch paper with his five pledges, and has been horsewhipped with it ever since. The numbers are still enormous and one flight to Rwanda would have highlighted the Conservative Government were just taking the piss.
Thirdly, riding on the crest of a Trump victory wave is more likely to have assisted Reform than the Tories.
Well Max used his own "lived experience" to demonstrate why Sunak should have waited. Cheap petrol prices since July indicate to Max, 200 and climbing Tory seats.
I thought the point of opposing HS2 was saying other infrastructure projects would be prioritised. Well what were they?
Um the money was going on pot holes in London wasn't it....
As someone who lives in London the money definitely hasn't been spent on fixing potholes.
Yep - because the money didn't exist - Rishi took non budgeted money (to be spent on infrastructure) and pretended it would be spent on pot holes and similar day to day spending without actually budgeting for it..
My best guess is the current Labour government will last for 1 or 2 years before it collapses. It is incapable of dealing with the problems it is going to encounter and the only thing going for it is its large majority, but the latter will rapidly erode as MP's flake out.
Where on earth would 140 labour MPs decamp to..
I can see a whole set of problems while the MPs continue to just vote for everything the Government tells them to vote on...
There are so many MP's - they have the critical mass to set up a new party that could hold the balance of power. There are many ways this can evolve.
Something that also bothers me at the moment is how Labour are using the treasury to protect Rachel Reeves against allegations of CV fluffing. This is nothing to do with the treasury, it's a political issue and the denials need to come from a Labour source, treasury officials should point people in the direction of the chancellor or the Labour party press office.
Something that also bothers me at the moment is how Labour are using the treasury to protect Rachel Reeves against allegations of CV fluffing. This is nothing to do with the treasury, it's a political issue and the denials need to come from a Labour source, treasury officials should point people in the direction of the chancellor or the Labour party press office.
The problem is she is guilty as charged - She claims to have been working in Halifax and the economists were London based..
My best guess is the current Labour government will last for 1 or 2 years before it collapses. It is incapable of dealing with the problems it is going to encounter and the only thing going for it is its large majority, but the latter will rapidly erode as MP's flake out.
So a guy who voted Labour thinks it's going to collapse within a couple of years seems as surreal/barmy a prediction as you could ever make..🤨🥴
Why? The vote was just a pragmatic one looking at the situation at the time. It is 4 months on and Labour have demonstrated that a) they are being completely led by the 'blob' and b) they are unlikely to be able to deal with Trump. Right now, if I was to vote, it would probably be for Conservative or Reform. If things seem surreal/barmy, that is because the world is rapidly changing.
In response to @Leon 's enquiry yesterday about Bluesky.
I've just dropped a toe in the water for the last few weeks, and just tipped over 100 followers. For those familiar with the Twitter timeline, I'd say it is in roughly autumn 2007 by comparison. UK politicos going onto Twitter started in about spring 2007 with early adopters or media tarts, and the process was largely done by about autumn 2008.
I like there being an absence of deliberate manipulation by Musk and the Muskovites.
I have a decent Twitter community of a little under 5k followers, since I have been cross-partisan and cross-cutting by design since I started my blog in 2007, and I have maintained my community by trimming dormant follows and followers every year or so. It's going to take some effort to rebuild on Bluesky, but that is currently possible - with lots of new people around. I get follow backs from most.
On Twitter strategy-type people (eg Mark Pack) are putting in the plumbing interconnection and future influence for their communities. A different set of hub / distributor accounts will emerge from Twitter.
Automated and ease-of-use tools are not so available. Remember the difference made by Tweetdeck and Hootsuite? I'm not sure how this will go.
I'm also not sure about Bluesky's future business model.
One test will be what happens when people who have other platforms to cross-promote from start feeling they have to be on Bluesky, and take their followers with them.
For me, a couple of my current core niches are shifting to Bluesky - active travel and disabled. Which makes the decision to transfer more likely.
From my point of view, if I lose the "patriots" and the trolls I won't miss them. Nor the Pfaffers - people focused on football, autos, flags and the far right, which seem to go together, including the Usonian types who have never left Alabama and think their laws rule everywhere. Reform UK can have them.
An absence of drive by abuse artists posting "the pedestrian should have got out of the way" (tbf I don't get that many), every time someone is run down on a zebra crossing, will be welcome. And they are irrelevant in the UK for the next several years, as in my niche it is all about delivery not diversionary debates.
Equally, an account with a small number of followers is great for self-expression, just like a blog which only gets 100 readers a week.
What do you want from it ,and what do you want to put in?
Further note:
For people who feel somewhat marginal on Twitter, and want to build a community, now is probably a creative time to be starting on Bluesky; I have one friend working for a charity I support who has built her followers from 500 to nearly 2k+ in the time I have gone from 0 to 100+. She is well-respected with a platform, high quality material, and separate network via the small charity, but has clearly been doing some deliberate promotion to put herself in a position to get things into the more general debate beyond her niche more effectively. In 12 months time that will be more difficult to build die to the sheer number of accounts - if Bluesky gets traction.
If I were someone like @RochdalePioneers , who I think is trying to build himself up as a local influencer / community hub person (who also happens to be a LibDem) in order to be a 'semi-independent' local councillor with a strong personal mandate, I would take a careful look at this point. It's like people who created Internet Forums (Grant Shapps), Facebook Groups, Blogs, or Twitter Accounts early received some advantage from being a first mover; they get to help write the agenda.
On numbers, aiui Twitter is smaller than we might think - 300m to 400m monthly active users. Threads is about 250 million, driven by the Meta ecosystem. Bluesky is currently heading towards 20m, so has some way to go in weight. Compare those numbers again in a fortnight or on Christmas day.
There may also be differences by geographical territory, depending on what happens to Twitter. eg Twitter was clamped down on by Brazil. Could it happen in Europe?
HTH.
What if Musk buys Bluesky ?
It's incorporated as a Public Benefit Corporation - I think a UK Company Limited by Guarantee is perhaps our closest comparison.
Something that also bothers me at the moment is how Labour are using the treasury to protect Rachel Reeves against allegations of CV fluffing. This is nothing to do with the treasury, it's a political issue and the denials need to come from a Labour source, treasury officials should point people in the direction of the chancellor or the Labour party press office.
If it were a Tory, it would be a big scandal. But it isn't so it isn't.
Looking at the looming further farmer protests, I am now wondering whether Reeves will still even be CoE by the end of next year.
Unforced political error after unforced error.
And there is one group of people that everyone in the country agrees are worthy of being protected - farmers. They grow our food, often in almost impossible conditions. This tax feels vindictive coming from Labour. A punishment against the countryside who voted for Brexit.
The worst part is that it doesn't even raise very much money. It's a rounding error in the OBR report. The budget proposed £150bn of additional borrowing over 5 years, if they'd kept the exemption then it would be about £152bn over 5 years.
Are most country folk mulitmillionaires? Notice how Ed Davey has also come out against the changes. Re-enforces the idea that his party are now just soft southern Tories. And it isn't about the money is it? It's about the incentives for investment. Do we want to be a declining country where wealthy people put the bulk of their resources into landownership? It might actually lead to lower land values, new entrants into farming and cheaper food. I'm starting to think this government has got something right.
Public policy as a means to manage the psychological state of the PM. Imagine cancelling a decades-long infrastructure project in an attempt to gee up the Prime Minister.
The short answer then is that Sunak called an early election because he fundamentally doesn't understand politics.
I do have to give him credit for sticking around as Tory leader for an extended leadership election despite obviously being beyond sick of the whole thing.
It was done because as Chief Secretary and Chancellor often complained HS2 was a waste of money.
Which it is.
Why is creating the necessary capacity on the West Coast Mainline a problem that has existed since the 1980s a waste of money?
It’s the great British asset sweat-off isn’t it. Don’t build, and somehow they’ll come anyway. Or not.
We can't sweat it anymore and parts of it are now falling apart - see for example the current boarding problems at Euston...
That won’t stop some people being reflexively anti any kind of major infrastructure investment. Penny pinching is in the country’s genes.
Suggest building more roads.
And you'll see many of those demanding more infrastructure investment rapidly change their mind.
Oh God we’re not culture warring infrastructure now are we? Is that why people are anti HS2, because it’s woke?
You mentioned culture wars and woke.
I mentioned building roads.
Roads are infrastructure, one of the few types of infrastructure this country can do pretty well.
And infrastructure which allows further investment in new housing, new industrial estates, new business parks, new leisure facilities.
So do you support building new roads or are you an example of the point I initially made.
Something that also bothers me at the moment is how Labour are using the treasury to protect Rachel Reeves against allegations of CV fluffing. This is nothing to do with the treasury, it's a political issue and the denials need to come from a Labour source, treasury officials should point people in the direction of the chancellor or the Labour party press office.
CV fluffing? How absurd, she's been an MP since 2010. Do you think you have to submit a CV when being appointed to the cabinet?
Something that also bothers me at the moment is how Labour are using the treasury to protect Rachel Reeves against allegations of CV fluffing. This is nothing to do with the treasury, it's a political issue and the denials need to come from a Labour source, treasury officials should point people in the direction of the chancellor or the Labour party press office.
The problem is she is guilty as charged - She claims to have been working in Halifax and the economists were London based..
I have to say I personally have no interest at all in the fact Reeves CV is a slight misrepresentation of what she actually did. This is a highly trivial matter in the current circumstances.
Something that also bothers me at the moment is how Labour are using the treasury to protect Rachel Reeves against allegations of CV fluffing. This is nothing to do with the treasury, it's a political issue and the denials need to come from a Labour source, treasury officials should point people in the direction of the chancellor or the Labour party press office.
If it were a Tory, it would be a big scandal. But it isn't so it isn't.
Andrea Leadsom's CV fluffing should have been a big story but then she shat the bed in an even bigger level a few days later.
Public policy as a means to manage the psychological state of the PM. Imagine cancelling a decades-long infrastructure project in an attempt to gee up the Prime Minister.
The short answer then is that Sunak called an early election because he fundamentally doesn't understand politics.
I do have to give him credit for sticking around as Tory leader for an extended leadership election despite obviously being beyond sick of the whole thing.
It was done because as Chief Secretary and Chancellor often complained HS2 was a waste of money.
Which it is.
Why is creating the necessary capacity on the West Coast Mainline a problem that has existed since the 1980s a waste of money?
It’s the great British asset sweat-off isn’t it. Don’t build, and somehow they’ll come anyway. Or not.
We can't sweat it anymore and parts of it are now falling apart - see for example the current boarding problems at Euston...
That won’t stop some people being reflexively anti any kind of major infrastructure investment. Penny pinching is in the country’s genes.
Suggest building more roads.
And you'll see many of those demanding more infrastructure investment rapidly change their mind.
Oh God we’re not culture warring infrastructure now are we? Is that why people are anti HS2, because it’s woke?
You mentioned culture wars and woke.
I mentioned building roads.
Roads are infrastructure, one of the few types of infrastructure this country can do pretty well.
And infrastructure which allows further investment in new housing, new industrial estates, new business parks, new leisure facilities.
So do you support building new roads or are you an example of the point I initially made.
I absolutely support building roads. Roads, railways, houses, business parks, skyscrapers, trams, cycle lanes. Just bloody build them.
Beginning to think it’s not fanciful that this Government might collapse. Rumours whirling around Starmer; allegations Rachel Reeve not even an economist; 100 days of Government so chaotic it was not even celebrated; furious farmers about to stop food and petrol; debt heading towards IMF visit levels; business up in arms; big taxpayers leaving country. The Opposition better get its act together. May not have years to think about it.
You and the person who wrote that tweet don't understand how politics works.
Syed taking the art of banal, reductive observations to new, well they wouldn't be heights, plateaus?
Matthew Syed @matthewsyed The Tories - Johnson, Truss, etc - were not “right wing”. They increased welfare, tax, immigration & debt to new records and vastly expanded bailouts, regulations & money printing
I bet he was getting contrary advice as well: that going sooner was better.
I really cannot see a delay as having improved things for the Tories - their problems were far more structural than just people feeling better off or not. The changes there would have been tiny, and would have been dwarfed by the fact that people simply wanted change.
So if he had delayed, we would see a threader with other stories about the contrary advice: that going earlier would have been better,
The Tories were doomed.
edit: and first with an on-topic post!
I think it was pretty mad the Tories went in July rather than October, but I concede there may have been further drip-drip-drip by-elections and defections.
However, I don't think they'd have done worse than 120 seats had they waited another 3 months - and the economy would have certainly improved.
And if Rishi had waited another three months, or even till January, then Conservatives would have enjoyed an extra three or six months in office, with jobs and wages to pay their mortgages. That many Conservative colleagues are not very well off and depend on their salaries is often lost on millionaire Conservative leaders from Mrs Thatcher through David Cameron to Rishi Sunak.
Less so Maggie, she did not grow up rich and while Dennis was a millionaire she wasn't
You could argue that Rishi didn’t grow up “rich” either. His parents made sacrifices to cover his school fees and he wouldn’t have been considered rich with a doctor father and pharmacist mother compared to his peers at school.
He had a privileged education but only became rich through his work and richer through his marriage.
His GP father would certainly have been richer than Thatcher's grocer father
Thatcher's father did not even have a mobile phone. Her mother might have done: Mrs T never spoke much about her.
In response to @Leon 's enquiry yesterday about Bluesky.
I've just dropped a toe in the water for the last few weeks, and just tipped over 100 followers. For those familiar with the Twitter timeline, I'd say it is in roughly autumn 2007 by comparison. UK politicos going onto Twitter started in about spring 2007 with early adopters or media tarts, and the process was largely done by about autumn 2008.
I like there being an absence of deliberate manipulation by Musk and the Muskovites.
I have a decent Twitter community of a little under 5k followers, since I have been cross-partisan and cross-cutting by design since I started my blog in 2007, and I have maintained my community by trimming dormant follows and followers every year or so. It's going to take some effort to rebuild on Bluesky, but that is currently possible - with lots of new people around. I get follow backs from most.
On Twitter strategy-type people (eg Mark Pack) are putting in the plumbing interconnection and future influence for their communities. A different set of hub / distributor accounts will emerge from Twitter.
Automated and ease-of-use tools are not so available. Remember the difference made by Tweetdeck and Hootsuite? I'm not sure how this will go.
I'm also not sure about Bluesky's future business model.
One test will be what happens when people who have other platforms to cross-promote from start feeling they have to be on Bluesky, and take their followers with them.
For me, a couple of my current core niches are shifting to Bluesky - active travel and disabled. Which makes the decision to transfer more likely.
From my point of view, if I lose the "patriots" and the trolls I won't miss them. Nor the Pfaffers - people focused on football, autos, flags and the far right, which seem to go together, including the Usonian types who have never left Alabama and think their laws rule everywhere. Reform UK can have them.
An absence of drive by abuse artists posting "the pedestrian should have got out of the way" (tbf I don't get that many), every time someone is run down on a zebra crossing, will be welcome. And they are irrelevant in the UK for the next several years, as in my niche it is all about delivery not diversionary debates.
Equally, an account with a small number of followers is great for self-expression, just like a blog which only gets 100 readers a week.
What do you want from it ,and what do you want to put in?
Further note:
For people who feel somewhat marginal on Twitter, and want to build a community, now is probably a creative time to be starting on Bluesky; I have one friend working for a charity I support who has built her followers from 500 to nearly 2k+ in the time I have gone from 0 to 100+. She is well-respected with a platform, high quality material, and separate network via the small charity, but has clearly been doing some deliberate promotion to put herself in a position to get things into the more general debate beyond her niche more effectively. In 12 months time that will be more difficult to build die to the sheer number of accounts - if Bluesky gets traction.
If I were someone like @RochdalePioneers , who I think is trying to build himself up as a local influencer / community hub person (who also happens to be a LibDem) in order to be a 'semi-independent' local councillor with a strong personal mandate, I would take a careful look at this point. It's like people who created Internet Forums (Grant Shapps), Facebook Groups, Blogs, or Twitter Accounts early received some advantage from being a first mover; they get to help write the agenda.
On numbers, aiui Twitter is smaller than we might think - 300m to 400m monthly active users. Threads is about 250 million, driven by the Meta ecosystem. Bluesky is currently heading towards 20m, so has some way to go in weight. Compare those numbers again in a fortnight or on Christmas day.
There may also be differences by geographical territory, depending on what happens to Twitter. eg Twitter was clamped down on by Brazil. Could it happen in Europe?
HTH.
I met up with a friend of mine who is blind the other evening. He had to quit Twitter because Musk sacked all the accessibility staff who made Twitter work for blind people and then banned all the third party suppliers that tried to replicate the tools that got binned.
This really boils my piss. Accessibility matters.
And if you think it doesn't, it may to you one day. Or if not, one of your family or friends.
(Accessibility can also be *really* difficult to do, and impossible if you don't care about it.)
Probably a small but telling example of how Musk's DOGE will operate.
Syed taking the art of banal, reductive observations to new, well they wouldn't be heights, plateaus?
Matthew Syed @matthewsyed The Tories - Johnson, Truss, etc - were not “right wing”. They increased welfare, tax, immigration & debt to new records and vastly expanded bailouts, regulations & money printing
I thought the point of opposing HS2 was saying other infrastructure projects would be prioritised. Well what were they?
Um the money was going on pot holes in London wasn't it....
As someone who lives in London the money definitely hasn't been spent on fixing potholes.
I think its been spent on cycle lanes, wider pavements and 20mph markings in Yorkshire.
It would need some rabbit holing to find the exact numbers, however in England the amount spent on active travel from transport expenditure is around 2%, if that. And that's on everything not just your 3 items.
London may be slightly higher, but still a rounding error.
That's not where it's gone .
But if you find any cash they've lost, we can use it.
In response to @Leon 's enquiry yesterday about Bluesky.
I've just dropped a toe in the water for the last few weeks, and just tipped over 100 followers. For those familiar with the Twitter timeline, I'd say it is in roughly autumn 2007 by comparison. UK politicos going onto Twitter started in about spring 2007 with early adopters or media tarts, and the process was largely done by about autumn 2008.
I like there being an absence of deliberate manipulation by Musk and the Muskovites.
I have a decent Twitter community of a little under 5k followers, since I have been cross-partisan and cross-cutting by design since I started my blog in 2007, and I have maintained my community by trimming dormant follows and followers every year or so. It's going to take some effort to rebuild on Bluesky, but that is currently possible - with lots of new people around. I get follow backs from most.
On Twitter strategy-type people (eg Mark Pack) are putting in the plumbing interconnection and future influence for their communities. A different set of hub / distributor accounts will emerge from Twitter.
Automated and ease-of-use tools are not so available. Remember the difference made by Tweetdeck and Hootsuite? I'm not sure how this will go.
I'm also not sure about Bluesky's future business model.
One test will be what happens when people who have other platforms to cross-promote from start feeling they have to be on Bluesky, and take their followers with them.
For me, a couple of my current core niches are shifting to Bluesky - active travel and disabled. Which makes the decision to transfer more likely.
From my point of view, if I lose the "patriots" and the trolls I won't miss them. Nor the Pfaffers - people focused on football, autos, flags and the far right, which seem to go together, including the Usonian types who have never left Alabama and think their laws rule everywhere. Reform UK can have them.
An absence of drive by abuse artists posting "the pedestrian should have got out of the way" (tbf I don't get that many), every time someone is run down on a zebra crossing, will be welcome. And they are irrelevant in the UK for the next several years, as in my niche it is all about delivery not diversionary debates.
Equally, an account with a small number of followers is great for self-expression, just like a blog which only gets 100 readers a week.
What do you want from it ,and what do you want to put in?
Further note:
For people who feel somewhat marginal on Twitter, and want to build a community, now is probably a creative time to be starting on Bluesky; I have one friend working for a charity I support who has built her followers from 500 to nearly 2k+ in the time I have gone from 0 to 100+. She is well-respected with a platform, high quality material, and separate network via the small charity, but has clearly been doing some deliberate promotion to put herself in a position to get things into the more general debate beyond her niche more effectively. In 12 months time that will be more difficult to build die to the sheer number of accounts - if Bluesky gets traction.
If I were someone like @RochdalePioneers , who I think is trying to build himself up as a local influencer / community hub person (who also happens to be a LibDem) in order to be a 'semi-independent' local councillor with a strong personal mandate, I would take a careful look at this point. It's like people who created Internet Forums (Grant Shapps), Facebook Groups, Blogs, or Twitter Accounts early received some advantage from being a first mover; they get to help write the agenda.
On numbers, aiui Twitter is smaller than we might think - 300m to 400m monthly active users. Threads is about 250 million, driven by the Meta ecosystem. Bluesky is currently heading towards 20m, so has some way to go in weight. Compare those numbers again in a fortnight or on Christmas day.
There may also be differences by geographical territory, depending on what happens to Twitter. eg Twitter was clamped down on by Brazil. Could it happen in Europe?
HTH.
I met up with a friend of mine who is blind the other evening. He had to quit Twitter because Musk sacked all the accessibility staff who made Twitter work for blind people and then banned all the third party suppliers that tried to replicate the tools that got binned.
This really boils my piss. Accessibility matters.
And if you think it doesn't, it may to you one day. Or if not, one of your family or friends.
(Accessibility can also be *really* difficult to do, and impossible if you don't care about it.)
Probably a small but telling example of how Musk's DOGE will operate.
It’s majoritarianism. A tool of despots through the ages.
I’m not sure it works so well when focused on things like disability rather than ethnic groups or sexuality, because there’s not the same ability to drive support through fear of the other.
Something that also bothers me at the moment is how Labour are using the treasury to protect Rachel Reeves against allegations of CV fluffing. This is nothing to do with the treasury, it's a political issue and the denials need to come from a Labour source, treasury officials should point people in the direction of the chancellor or the Labour party press office.
CV fluffing? How absurd, she's been an MP since 2010. Do you think you have to submit a CV when being appointed to the cabinet?
You do, as part of the enhanced vetting procedures.
In response to @Leon 's enquiry yesterday about Bluesky.
I've just dropped a toe in the water for the last few weeks, and just tipped over 100 followers. For those familiar with the Twitter timeline, I'd say it is in roughly autumn 2007 by comparison. UK politicos going onto Twitter started in about spring 2007 with early adopters or media tarts, and the process was largely done by about autumn 2008.
I like there being an absence of deliberate manipulation by Musk and the Muskovites.
I have a decent Twitter community of a little under 5k followers, since I have been cross-partisan and cross-cutting by design since I started my blog in 2007, and I have maintained my community by trimming dormant follows and followers every year or so. It's going to take some effort to rebuild on Bluesky, but that is currently possible - with lots of new people around. I get follow backs from most.
On Twitter strategy-type people (eg Mark Pack) are putting in the plumbing interconnection and future influence for their communities. A different set of hub / distributor accounts will emerge from Twitter.
Automated and ease-of-use tools are not so available. Remember the difference made by Tweetdeck and Hootsuite? I'm not sure how this will go.
I'm also not sure about Bluesky's future business model.
One test will be what happens when people who have other platforms to cross-promote from start feeling they have to be on Bluesky, and take their followers with them.
For me, a couple of my current core niches are shifting to Bluesky - active travel and disabled. Which makes the decision to transfer more likely.
From my point of view, if I lose the "patriots" and the trolls I won't miss them. Nor the Pfaffers - people focused on football, autos, flags and the far right, which seem to go together, including the Usonian types who have never left Alabama and think their laws rule everywhere. Reform UK can have them.
An absence of drive by abuse artists posting "the pedestrian should have got out of the way" (tbf I don't get that many), every time someone is run down on a zebra crossing, will be welcome. And they are irrelevant in the UK for the next several years, as in my niche it is all about delivery not diversionary debates.
Equally, an account with a small number of followers is great for self-expression, just like a blog which only gets 100 readers a week.
What do you want from it ,and what do you want to put in?
Further note:
For people who feel somewhat marginal on Twitter, and want to build a community, now is probably a creative time to be starting on Bluesky; I have one friend working for a charity I support who has built her followers from 500 to nearly 2k+ in the time I have gone from 0 to 100+. She is well-respected with a platform, high quality material, and separate network via the small charity, but has clearly been doing some deliberate promotion to put herself in a position to get things into the more general debate beyond her niche more effectively. In 12 months time that will be more difficult to build die to the sheer number of accounts - if Bluesky gets traction.
If I were someone like @RochdalePioneers , who I think is trying to build himself up as a local influencer / community hub person (who also happens to be a LibDem) in order to be a 'semi-independent' local councillor with a strong personal mandate, I would take a careful look at this point. It's like people who created Internet Forums (Grant Shapps), Facebook Groups, Blogs, or Twitter Accounts early received some advantage from being a first mover; they get to help write the agenda.
On numbers, aiui Twitter is smaller than we might think - 300m to 400m monthly active users. Threads is about 250 million, driven by the Meta ecosystem. Bluesky is currently heading towards 20m, so has some way to go in weight. Compare those numbers again in a fortnight or on Christmas day.
There may also be differences by geographical territory, depending on what happens to Twitter. eg Twitter was clamped down on by Brazil. Could it happen in Europe?
HTH.
I met up with a friend of mine who is blind the other evening. He had to quit Twitter because Musk sacked all the accessibility staff who made Twitter work for blind people and then banned all the third party suppliers that tried to replicate the tools that got binned.
This really boils my piss. Accessibility matters.
And if you think it doesn't, it may to you one day. Or if not, one of your family or friends.
(Accessibility can also be *really* difficult to do, and impossible if you don't care about it.)
Probably a small but telling example of how Musk's DOGE will operate.
Something that also bothers me at the moment is how Labour are using the treasury to protect Rachel Reeves against allegations of CV fluffing. This is nothing to do with the treasury, it's a political issue and the denials need to come from a Labour source, treasury officials should point people in the direction of the chancellor or the Labour party press office.
If it were a Tory, it would be a big scandal. But it isn't so it isn't.
Andrea Leadsom's CV fluffing should have been a big story but then she shat the bed in an even bigger level a few days later.
Something that also bothers me at the moment is how Labour are using the treasury to protect Rachel Reeves against allegations of CV fluffing. This is nothing to do with the treasury, it's a political issue and the denials need to come from a Labour source, treasury officials should point people in the direction of the chancellor or the Labour party press office.
If it were a Tory, it would be a big scandal. But it isn't so it isn't.
Define big scandal. CVgate has been all over the papers but so far no-one in the real world gives a damn (not even her Labour colleagues who want Reeves' job).
I thought the point of opposing HS2 was saying other infrastructure projects would be prioritised. Well what were they?
Um the money was going on pot holes in London wasn't it....
As someone who lives in London the money definitely hasn't been spent on fixing potholes.
I think its been spent on cycle lanes, wider pavements and 20mph markings in Yorkshire.
It would need some rabbit holing to find the exact numbers, however in England the amount spent on active travel from transport expenditure is around 2%, if that. And that's on everything not just your 3 items.
London may be slightly higher, but still a rounding error.
That's not where it's gone .
Of course it hasn't.
But the items in my comment are very noticeable and prompts the thought "what's that all about, I thought they had no money to spend".
I bet he was getting contrary advice as well: that going sooner was better.
I really cannot see a delay as having improved things for the Tories - their problems were far more structural than just people feeling better off or not. The changes there would have been tiny, and would have been dwarfed by the fact that people simply wanted change.
So if he had delayed, we would see a threader with other stories about the contrary advice: that going earlier would have been better,
The Tories were doomed.
edit: and first with an on-topic post!
I think it was pretty mad the Tories went in July rather than October, but I concede there may have been further drip-drip-drip by-elections and defections.
However, I don't think they'd have done worse than 120 seats had they waited another 3 months - and the economy would have certainly improved.
You are wrong.
Firstly, and to be fair to you, it’s hard to compute how having an election was a reset on the mood. Things like record boat crossings, covid reports, murders in kindergarten by terrorist, are a counterfactual how they would have been received by an electorate and played out by fever pitched media on war footing awaiting an imminent General Election. But it’s likely the election and government change a reset button was pressed on mood - meaning Labour didn’t get the degree of flak for these bad news stories Sunak’s government would have done.
To be unfair to you, you should realise the economy didn’t leap into election saving sunlit uplands, it was never going to, and the way people were going to vote the Tories down to 120 MPs was already baked in and decided a long time ago, regardless of little ticks in economic upturn.
Inflation in US is lower on November 1st 2024 was lower, nearly halved from what Trump left Biden, but people didn’t rejoice at that news. To laugh at the highly paid Spad who wrote that memo, if they couldn’t see there would be no second hand punching due to fantastic news in economy, then they shouldn’t have been highly paid in first place. Alternatively they created the memo simply to cover their own professional arse - we shouldn’t listen to it but know they were actually pleased to cash the cheque and move on from a shit hole that theoretically could still be in place this week and everyday since July 4th.
At turn of year it should have been obvious to all political bettors, the election was never going to be this side of the summer recess.
Gentle tip: I don't actually read your posts.
They are a lot of waffle, and an unstructured braindump from your head.
Maybe try brushing up on some basic comprehension skills first, and then I might find you interesting to engage with.
This is quite an interesting piece from BBC In Depth about Trump's appeal to American religious demographics, and his lack of appeal to other American religious demographics.
According to the PPRI’s survey, external of 5,027 adults, white evangelical Protestant voters were the strongest backers of Trump over Harris by 72% to 13%. White Catholic voters also backed Trump, with 55% supporting him and 34% aligned with Harris. White “mainline” non-evangelical Protestants showed a similar split.
By contrast 78% black Protestants supported Harris while just 9% backed Trump, according to the survey. Harris’s backers also included Jewish-Americans, the religiously unaffiliated and other non-Christian Americans, according to the PPRI.
In response to @Leon 's enquiry yesterday about Bluesky.
I've just dropped a toe in the water for the last few weeks, and just tipped over 100 followers. For those familiar with the Twitter timeline, I'd say it is in roughly autumn 2007 by comparison. UK politicos going onto Twitter started in about spring 2007 with early adopters or media tarts, and the process was largely done by about autumn 2008.
I like there being an absence of deliberate manipulation by Musk and the Muskovites.
I have a decent Twitter community of a little under 5k followers, since I have been cross-partisan and cross-cutting by design since I started my blog in 2007, and I have maintained my community by trimming dormant follows and followers every year or so. It's going to take some effort to rebuild on Bluesky, but that is currently possible - with lots of new people around. I get follow backs from most.
On Twitter strategy-type people (eg Mark Pack) are putting in the plumbing interconnection and future influence for their communities. A different set of hub / distributor accounts will emerge from Twitter.
Automated and ease-of-use tools are not so available. Remember the difference made by Tweetdeck and Hootsuite? I'm not sure how this will go.
I'm also not sure about Bluesky's future business model.
One test will be what happens when people who have other platforms to cross-promote from start feeling they have to be on Bluesky, and take their followers with them.
For me, a couple of my current core niches are shifting to Bluesky - active travel and disabled. Which makes the decision to transfer more likely.
From my point of view, if I lose the "patriots" and the trolls I won't miss them. Nor the Pfaffers - people focused on football, autos, flags and the far right, which seem to go together, including the Usonian types who have never left Alabama and think their laws rule everywhere. Reform UK can have them.
An absence of drive by abuse artists posting "the pedestrian should have got out of the way" (tbf I don't get that many), every time someone is run down on a zebra crossing, will be welcome. And they are irrelevant in the UK for the next several years, as in my niche it is all about delivery not diversionary debates.
Equally, an account with a small number of followers is great for self-expression, just like a blog which only gets 100 readers a week.
What do you want from it ,and what do you want to put in?
Further note:
For people who feel somewhat marginal on Twitter, and want to build a community, now is probably a creative time to be starting on Bluesky; I have one friend working for a charity I support who has built her followers from 500 to nearly 2k+ in the time I have gone from 0 to 100+. She is well-respected with a platform, high quality material, and separate network via the small charity, but has clearly been doing some deliberate promotion to put herself in a position to get things into the more general debate beyond her niche more effectively. In 12 months time that will be more difficult to build die to the sheer number of accounts - if Bluesky gets traction.
If I were someone like @RochdalePioneers , who I think is trying to build himself up as a local influencer / community hub person (who also happens to be a LibDem) in order to be a 'semi-independent' local councillor with a strong personal mandate, I would take a careful look at this point. It's like people who created Internet Forums (Grant Shapps), Facebook Groups, Blogs, or Twitter Accounts early received some advantage from being a first mover; they get to help write the agenda.
On numbers, aiui Twitter is smaller than we might think - 300m to 400m monthly active users. Threads is about 250 million, driven by the Meta ecosystem. Bluesky is currently heading towards 20m, so has some way to go in weight. Compare those numbers again in a fortnight or on Christmas day.
There may also be differences by geographical territory, depending on what happens to Twitter. eg Twitter was clamped down on by Brazil. Could it happen in Europe?
HTH.
I met up with a friend of mine who is blind the other evening. He had to quit Twitter because Musk sacked all the accessibility staff who made Twitter work for blind people and then banned all the third party suppliers that tried to replicate the tools that got binned.
This really boils my piss. Accessibility matters.
And if you think it doesn't, it may to you one day. Or if not, one of your family or friends.
(Accessibility can also be *really* difficult to do, and impossible if you don't care about it.)
Probably a small but telling example of how Musk's DOGE will operate.
But is making Twitter accessible to blind people a once-off coding task or a maintenance job for life? It's easy to see how employer and employee would see things differently.
I thought the point of opposing HS2 was saying other infrastructure projects would be prioritised. Well what were they?
Um the money was going on pot holes in London wasn't it....
As someone who lives in London the money definitely hasn't been spent on fixing potholes.
I think its been spent on cycle lanes, wider pavements and 20mph markings in Yorkshire.
It would need some rabbit holing to find the exact numbers, however in England the amount spent on active travel from transport expenditure is around 2%, if that. And that's on everything not just your 3 items.
London may be slightly higher, but still a rounding error.
That's not where it's gone .
Of course it hasn't.
But the items in my comment are very noticeable and prompts the thought "what's that all about, I thought they had no money to spend".
My best guess is the current Labour government will last for 1 or 2 years before it collapses. It is incapable of dealing with the problems it is going to encounter and the only thing going for it is its large majority, but the latter will rapidly erode as MP's flake out.
The first (only?) smart move I think it's done so far is to start to negotiate returns agreements with other countries. Offset by cancelling Rwanda so early, which I think was a mistake.
Sunak did it with Albania, and that's a big reason the boat numbers for 2024 were down on 2023. Why he didn't do it for Vietnam and other places I don't know.
If Labour do and crossings drop to just 10-15k a year the Conservatives will look incompetent.
Something that also bothers me at the moment is how Labour are using the treasury to protect Rachel Reeves against allegations of CV fluffing. This is nothing to do with the treasury, it's a political issue and the denials need to come from a Labour source, treasury officials should point people in the direction of the chancellor or the Labour party press office.
She was assistant to the Customer Complaints Manager.
Looking at the looming further farmer protests, I am now wondering whether Reeves will still even be CoE by the end of next year.
Unforced political error after unforced error.
And there is one group of people that everyone in the country agrees are worthy of being protected - farmers. They grow our food, often in almost impossible conditions. This tax feels vindictive coming from Labour. A punishment against the countryside who voted for Brexit.
The worst part is that it doesn't even raise very much money. It's a rounding error in the OBR report. The budget proposed £150bn of additional borrowing over 5 years, if they'd kept the exemption then it would be about £152bn over 5 years.
I can see the Government being forced into a humiliating reverse on it.
If protests start to hit transport and food supplies, and family farms start to be firesold to big agri-corporations, that isn't a battle the government will win.
I thought the point of opposing HS2 was saying other infrastructure projects would be prioritised. Well what were they?
Um the money was going on pot holes in London wasn't it....
As someone who lives in London the money definitely hasn't been spent on fixing potholes.
I think its been spent on cycle lanes, wider pavements and 20mph markings in Yorkshire.
It would need some rabbit holing to find the exact numbers, however in England the amount spent on active travel from transport expenditure is around 2%, if that. And that's on everything not just your 3 items.
London may be slightly higher, but still a rounding error.
That's not where it's gone .
Of course it hasn't.
But the items in my comment are very noticeable and prompts the thought "what's that all about, I thought they had no money to spend".
Yes, but have you found any of the missing? :
Well if money has been spent elsewhere its usually a pretty good bet that's its been spent for the benefit of oldies.
In fact I do wonder if the new wider pavements I've seen installed are for the benefit of oldies in wheelchairs.
My best guess is the current Labour government will last for 1 or 2 years before it collapses. It is incapable of dealing with the problems it is going to encounter and the only thing going for it is its large majority, but the latter will rapidly erode as MP's flake out.
Which 100 odd Labour MPs are going to vote against in the government in a confidence vote? Not even the Corbynite MPs would do it, nobody wants to unnecessarily lose their jobs.
Something that also bothers me at the moment is how Labour are using the treasury to protect Rachel Reeves against allegations of CV fluffing. This is nothing to do with the treasury, it's a political issue and the denials need to come from a Labour source, treasury officials should point people in the direction of the chancellor or the Labour party press office.
She was assistant to the Customer Complaints Manager.
I've been asking some people I know who worked at the Bank when she was there and the reports back of what she did vs what she says she did don't match either.
As for people saying it's not a big deal, maybe it wouldn't be if she was just a functionary but she's not. She's the chancellor and has previously lied about being an economist for a private sector bank and seemingly misrepresented what she did at the Bank of England. She has used that reputation she cultivated as an "Economist for a bank" to get the role of chancellor, if Starmer had any balls he'd sack her for gross misconduct and get a better chancellor in, she's clearly useless anyway and this gives him the right cover to do it.
A cabinet minister said Truss became “massively emboldened”, getting a “head rush” combining “dangerous levels of self-confidence and a nagging insecurity that she didn’t have much time”. Truss decided to abolish the cap on bankers’ bonuses and cut stamp duty.
One of Truss’s team suggested that what came over her was effectively the manic state of a mental breakdown: “She wasn’t depressed, but she had a breakdown. She was giddy with expectations. She developed a serious detachment from reality, she was more demanding and intolerant of people. She didn’t want to be challenged. Two things change people — power and money. Those are the two torches of life which tell you what a person is about. At the start of the leadership campaign, she listened to a lot of people because she was unsure of herself. When it dawned on her she was going to win, she jettisoned this approach and it made her psychologically unfit to be prime minister.”
All I get from this is that Truss's 'aides' were revolting little backbiters. She should have taken a lot more care to surround herself with better people.
Yup, imagine going into the election now rather than July. Petrol prices at the lowest for over a year, economy would be growing much faster than it is now, immigration numbers would be coming down and people would have had a relatively relaxing summer to reflect on their situation. It would still have been a loss but I think the Tories would have scraped 200 seats and Labour a much smaller majority. Holding it around now so that Nige would have had to split his time between Reform and Trump would have been very beneficial to the Tories as well.
Sunak could have made Farage the US Ambassador, completely neutralising Reform as a serious election threat.
The Tories' problem is that they had 14 years to do something about thought-non-crime and didn't.
So often, they were all talk and no action. Repeatedly, I’m left wondering what the Conservatives thought they were there for, other than enjoying the fruits of office.
I think many were secretly embarrassed at being Conservatives and couldn't bring themselves to act to deliver for their base; the fact their members and voters were not only increased the contempt.
In that sense, it's a bit similar to the difference between the CofE clergy and laity.
Wonder if the two organisations have something of the same underlying problem. Namely, the generation gap between the supporters (mostly retired in both cases) and the staff/leadership (mostly not retired). If you are a post-boomer, you tend to look at both institutions as fundamentally strange.
That leads to a couple of questions which neither institution seems to be answering convincingly. First is what to do about that- go all-in on serving the minority that you do get (red meat Conservatism, or full-on evangelism or traditional Anglo catholicism), or think about the ninety five percent who never darken your door?
The other is what's the right attitude to the future? Aim to pass on a functional institution or society, or spend it all on us now?
In the case of the Conservatives (unlike the C of E), there’s a big potential support base.
39% voted for right of centre parties in July, and polling suggests their support is about 45% now. Neither immigration, nor death, is destroying popular support for the right.
But, a lot of Conservative MP’s give the impression of being uneasy about trying to appeal to that body of support.
I think it’s mostly due to growing up in an era where upper middle class people and graduates still tended to vote right, and quite abruptly finding that is not the case. They find that many of their peers thoroughly disapprove of them and their supporters.
Political loyalty now runs vertically, through social classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
I think the Conservatives are in big trouble if Labour get a better grip of immigration than they did.
After Trump's victory, Labour ignore immigration (both legal and illegal) at their peril.
However successfully Labour handle the small boats it won't be good enough for Farage. Even if Labour bring arrival numbers down considerably that doesn't resolve the issue that vexes Farage and his racist chums, namely "foreigners" who are already here. Although that doesn't necessarily assist the Tories.
Perhaps when it comes down to immigration ("foreigners") the Tories need to out Farage, Farage. Is Badenoch capable of such performative cruelty? If she is not we have Jenrick, who would be quite comfortable with rounding "foreigners" up and packing them on buses to Dundalk, patiently waiting for his moment.
Probably neither are. Opinium confirms Badenoch is just treading water and holding the Tory vote which voted for Rishi in July while it is Farage who is eating into the wwc Labour vote. Jenrick might have made a bit more progress winning back Boris voters now voting Reform but he was an ex Remainer Cameroon which put a ceiling on that.
The only Tory leader who could really squeeze the Reform vote and reunite the Right is probably now Jacob Rees Mogg if he wins back his Somerset seat at the next GE (or moves to a more winnable prospect like the seat Liam Fox only just lost which is also in North Somerset). Assuming Boris doesn't return of course given he was the man who put Farage back in his box in the first place in 2019 when May was leaking voters massively to him
I don’t think Jenrick was disqualified by his past, any more than Boris would be by his comments on immigration (and indeed his policies on immigration). The electorate is interested in the future.
Looking at the looming further farmer protests, I am now wondering whether Reeves will still even be CoE by the end of next year.
Unforced political error after unforced error.
And there is one group of people that everyone in the country agrees are worthy of being protected - farmers. They grow our food, often in almost impossible conditions. This tax feels vindictive coming from Labour. A punishment against the countryside who voted for Brexit.
The worst part is that it doesn't even raise very much money. It's a rounding error in the OBR report. The budget proposed £150bn of additional borrowing over 5 years, if they'd kept the exemption then it would be about £152bn over 5 years.
I can see the Government being forced into a humiliating reverse on it.
If protests start to hit transport and food supplies, and family farms start to be firesold to big agri-corporations, that isn't a battle the government will win.
The downside is that the purchasing of agricultural land for inheritance tax avoidance purposes is a known tax avoidance issue.
And that needs to be sorted as it rightly annoys other people who aren't in the position to buy agricultural land
Comments
The only Tory leader who could really squeeze the Reform vote and reunite the Right is probably now Jacob Rees Mogg if he wins back his Somerset seat at the next GE (or moves to a more winnable prospect like the seat Liam Fox only just lost which is also in North Somerset). Assuming Boris doesn't return of course given he was the man who put Farage back in his box in the first place in 2019 when May was leaking voters massively to him
Firstly, if the US election has taught you anything it is that formal economic metrics count for zip when compared to the lived experience. Counterbalance petrol at £1.30 a litre with a four pint flagon of Cravendale at between £2.50 and three quid.
Secondly, the small boats issue has largely been ignored by the media. Sunak lit that touch paper with his five pledges, and has been horsewhipped with it ever since. The numbers are still enormous and one flight to Rwanda would have highlighted the Conservative Government were just taking the piss.
Thirdly, riding on the crest of a Trump victory wave is more likely to have assisted Reform than the Tories.
He had a privileged education but only became rich through his work and richer through his marriage.
The quote "better to be the enemy of the English than their friend. for they buy their enemies and sell their friends" is attributed to Lord Palmerston, a British statesman and Prime Minister from 1855–8 and 1859–65.
What Lord Palmerston is actually known for is "No eternal allies, no perpetual enemies" i.e. your interests can change...
Firstly, the next General Election date I am 100% certain is May 3rd 2029. And it will be dominated by Brexit.
May 3rd 2029 The Conservative Party will be United around, and comfortably way ahead in the polls, thanks to Brexit 2.0.
Brexit 2 - now let’s use Brexit Freedoms & Opportunities to diverge from the failed European Socialist model, and make UK Great Again! The EU model the failed Labour government clearly tied themselves to, as they failed to provide growth, better incomes, lower taxes, economic productivity, and better living standards. Now, by embracing our Brexit Freedoms and Opportunities, run down area’s of UK will be rejuvenated, and £XXXM of investment will flow into the NHS.
And the boats issue definitely hasn't been fixed - Farage would have been equally happy to highlight it every day.
I can easily see alternative histories where the Tories got 200 seats and ones where they got 70...
So maybe your time is yet to come...
The next US presidential election, if it happens, is due before the likely next UK general election date. That’s 4 years of water under the bridge.
Google - turns round and says Googlewhack - but here are some alternatives.
AI - says has to be someone so let's guess and pretend we are correct.
One is the answer of an librarian the other that of a 4 year old child trying to please mummy / daddy..
Beginning to think it’s not fanciful that this Government might collapse. Rumours whirling around Starmer; allegations Rachel Reeve not even an economist; 100 days of Government so chaotic it was not even celebrated; furious farmers about to stop food and petrol; debt heading towards IMF visit levels; business up in arms; big taxpayers leaving country. The Opposition better get its act together. May not have years to think about it.
The last months of bedraggled governments are rarely good for anyone.
And given the rate that Conservative MPs were disgracing themselves the 'time for a change' feeling was only going to get stronger.
It might not be an increase in employee NI but it has just the same effect in terms of reducing spending...
AIUI Alderman Roberts had a successful business in Grantham.
Maybe he is a lurker???
"why not just say that APR only applies to estates left by individuals who can demonstrate at least a 10 or 15-year track record of active, daily engagement with agriculture."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/11/17/reevess-tax-on-farmers-carries-a-strong-whiff-of-class/
And if you think it doesn't, it may to you one day. Or if not, one of your family or friends.
(Accessibility can also be *really* difficult to do, and impossible if you don't care about it.)
And you'll see many of those demanding more infrastructure investment rapidly change their mind.
The assumption now that 'everything will carry on as normal, order will be restored' is flawed. We are going through structural change, and I think the likelihood that Labour (who I voted for, again evidence of my 'centrism') will be able to successfully deal with it is minimal. Not impossible but minimal. As cited in the quote above, they have done almost nothing in the first 100 days, despite its massive majority.
Unforced political error after unforced error.
Cancelling it at this late stage was an even bigger waste.
It was the "then" clause of a conditional statement:
Word should be gotten to Nixon that if Thieu meets the same fate as Diem, the word will go out to the nations of the world that it may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal.
Sources: Kissinger's War, 1957-1975 and United Nations Journal: A Delegate's Odyssey
Kissinger said this in late November 1968 after Nixon was elected president, but before Nixon was inaugurated.
It wasn't a public statement, just a statement to William F. Buckley Jr. in a phone call, with Buckley taking notes, so it isn't verifiable beyond Buckley (author of United Nations Journal: A Delegate's Odyssey).
Source and fuller conversation:
https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/56470/did-henry-kissinger-say-it-may-be-dangerous-to-be-americas-enemy-but-to-be-am
Suggesting that it is based on the quote of a Russian fighting the British in the Boer War:
Kissinger was not the first who said this words, but he repeated them.
The author of this words was russian(Empire) general-major Aleksey Efimovich Vandam(Edrikhin), the intelligencer, the writer of strategic and geopolitical works. He was a participant in the Boer War on the opposite side to Britain Empire, after Russian-Soviet revolt he switched the side to German, not to Entente. He supported the politic course to an ally between Russian, German and France without Britain.
The citaite is from the book "Наше положение"(~Our circumstance) chap XXI(real XXVI-wrong dating) p. 123
Наконец наступает очередь и Китая, который после своих разнообразных опытов с англичанами и американцами смело мог бы сказать теперь — «плохо иметь англосакса врагом, но не дай Бог иметь его другом!».
Finally, it is the turn of China, which, after its various experiences with the British and Americans , could safely say now — "it is bad to have an Anglo-Saxon as an enemy, but God forbid to have him as a friend!".
I can see a whole set of problems while the MPs continue to just vote for everything the Government tells them to vote on...
So it's a pretty fruitless counterfactual.
The logical conclusion would have been to have abolished all wealth taxation by 1990 but the recession put an end to that possibility.
If Labour were wise they would withdraw all the IHT proposals now, sadly for the country but a godsend for their opponents they are not wise.
Palpitations incoming for @MaxPB
The worst part is that it doesn't even raise very much money. It's a rounding error in the OBR report. The budget proposed £150bn of additional borrowing over 5 years, if they'd kept the exemption then it would be about £152bn over 5 years.
Of course he may be right.
I mentioned building roads.
Roads are infrastructure, one of the few types of infrastructure this country can do pretty well.
And infrastructure which allows further investment in new housing, new industrial estates, new business parks, new leisure facilities.
So do you support building new roads or are you an example of the point I initially made.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/andrea-leadsom-accused-of-misleading-claims-on-her-cv-a7122296.html
Leadsom admits ‘misleading’ claims on CV for top job
https://www.thetimes.com/article/leadsom-admits-misleading-claims-on-cv-for-top-job-n80lgc2rj
Potholes are 99% a heavier car problem.
So you are culture warring infrastructure then.
Matthew Syed
@matthewsyed
The Tories - Johnson, Truss, etc - were not “right wing”. They increased welfare, tax, immigration & debt to new records and vastly expanded bailouts, regulations & money printing
Isn’t this called socialism?
https://x.com/matthewsyed/status/1858064615881470040
But few voters and even fewer politicians are.
London may be slightly higher, but still a rounding error.
That's not where it's gone
But if you find any cash they've lost, we can use it.
I’m not sure it works so well when focused on things like disability rather than ethnic groups or sexuality, because there’s not the same ability to drive support through fear of the other.
It needs to be Borgia.
But the items in my comment are very noticeable and prompts the thought "what's that all about, I thought they had no money to spend".
They are a lot of waffle, and an unstructured braindump from your head.
Maybe try brushing up on some basic comprehension skills first, and then I might find you interesting to engage with.
According to the PPRI’s survey, external of 5,027 adults, white evangelical Protestant voters were the strongest backers of Trump over Harris by 72% to 13%. White Catholic voters also backed Trump, with 55% supporting him and 34% aligned with Harris. White “mainline” non-evangelical Protestants showed a similar split.
By contrast 78% black Protestants supported Harris while just 9% backed Trump, according to the survey. Harris’s backers also included Jewish-Americans, the religiously unaffiliated and other non-Christian Americans, according to the PPRI.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20g1zvgj4do
Sunak did it with Albania, and that's a big reason the boat numbers for 2024 were down on 2023. Why he didn't do it for Vietnam and other places I don't know.
If Labour do and crossings drop to just 10-15k a year the Conservatives will look incompetent.
If protests start to hit transport and food supplies, and family farms start to be firesold to big agri-corporations, that isn't a battle the government will win.
In fact I do wonder if the new wider pavements I've seen installed are for the benefit of oldies in wheelchairs.
As for people saying it's not a big deal, maybe it wouldn't be if she was just a functionary but she's not. She's the chancellor and has previously lied about being an economist for a private sector bank and seemingly misrepresented what she did at the Bank of England. She has used that reputation she cultivated as an "Economist for a bank" to get the role of chancellor, if Starmer had any balls he'd sack her for gross misconduct and get a better chancellor in, she's clearly useless anyway and this gives him the right cover to do it.
And that needs to be sorted as it rightly annoys other people who aren't in the position to buy agricultural land