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A dangerously illiberal idea – politicalbetting.com

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  • MikeLMikeL Posts: 7,711
    edited November 20
    CNN just called Ohio District 9 for the Dems.

    House position is now Reps 218, Dems 213.

    Four races still to call - Reps leading in three, Dems in one.

    In three the lead is under 1,000 votes and Dem position has been steadily improving in all three as late mail ballots come in.

    Other race is Alaska where Reps lead by 7,500 but here you need 50% to win and they will reallocate 2nd preference votes of minor candidates (an Ind and another Dem). It's Rep 48.6, Dem 46.2 so Rep clear favourite but Dem has a chance if can get most of the 2nd prefs.
  • MikeL said:

    CNN just called Ohio District 9 for the Dems.

    House position is now Reps 218, Dems 213.

    Four races still to call - Reps leading in three, Dems in one.

    In three the lead is under 1,000 votes and Dem position has been steadily improving in all three as late mail ballots come in.

    Other race is Alaska where Reps lead by 7,500 but here you need 50% to win and they will reallocate 2nd preference votes of minor candidates (an Ind and another Dem). It's Rep 48.6, Dem 46.2 so Rep clear favourite but Dem has a chance if can get most of the 2nd prefs.

    Are the slackers still counting after FIFTEEN days??
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,460
    rcs1000 said:

    In the last few weeks, two of my friends have been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and one with colon cancer.

    FUCK.

    Sympax. That's awful

    My friends have started to keel over, or get genuinely nasty ailments. It's a shock when you realise they won't be around forever, ready for a jar in the pub, or oysters in Sheekeys

    But must be even more shocking for you, as you are considerably younger than me! Best of British to all
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,992
    Wolf Hall is fantastic and takes you to a world, like Proust, that has its own points of reference which is wholly encompassing.

    And, also like Proust, it's not for everyone.

    I recommend the pedestrian types on here to steer clear of both and stick to insurance user manuals and military histories.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,460
    TOPPING said:

    Wolf Hall is fantastic and takes you to a world, like Proust, that has its own points of reference which is wholly encompassing.

    And, also like Proust, it's not for everyone.

    I recommend the pedestrian types on here to steer clear of both and stick to insurance user manuals and military histories.

    I'm hardly the pedestrian type and I too think Wolf Hall is hugely over-rated. And indeed I would switcheroo the argument. Wolf Hall is a stupid person's idea of what a really clever novel should be like

    Sorry
  • SandraMcSandraMc Posts: 694
    If anyone wants to see Simon Russell Beale act without leaving their house, then watch "London Assurance", available on National Theatre at Home. His love scenes with Fiona Shaw, who plays the memorably named Lady Gay Spanker, are hilarious.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,722

    rcs1000 said:

    The current situation is that there is assisted dying for people with money, but not for the poor.

    I'm not sure that's morally justifiable.
    Pain is for the poor.
    She said "Let them eat cake", not bread

  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,992
    edited November 20
    Best British Actors?

    Stephen Graham
    Jodie Comer
    Gary Oldman
    Papa Essiedu
    Jodie Turner-Smith
    Riz Ahmed
    Martin Freeman
    Kane Robinson
    Tilda Swinton
    Daniel Kaluuya
    Paul Bettany

    and yes, SRB.

    I've probably missed out one or two.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,460
    Does anyone else have irrational hatreds for certain types of social media?

    For me it is Facebook and Linkedin

    I still get notifications from old friends who are STILL posting shit on Facebook and I quietly want to punch them. It's a depressing hospice of a place, and I don't want to think about it

    Linkedin is far far worse. Everything about it makes me want to vomit

    Weirdly, that's it. TikTok is probably much more corrosive, likewise Instagram, but I just find them sightly irritating or merely boring
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 3,803

    Sean_F said:

    I wouldn't have a clue who Simon Russell Beale is..yet the Independent state he's "the greatest living stage actor of his generation" 🤔🥴

    I like him - he was superb as Falstaff in the Hollow Crown series - but I think that honour defiently goes to Mark Rylance. I have seen him several times in Shakespeare productions and he is remarkable. I think he is probably the best actor in all fields of his generation.
    Nah, the greatest living stage actor is Sir Patrick Stewart, Brian Blessed a close second.
    Brian Blessed's performance in Flash Gordon was the epitome of subtlety and nuance.
    He's been my inspiration on how to be subtle and nuanced.
    He was great as Augustus, along with Sian Philips as Livia. And Gimli as Macro.
    I think it was his 1978 Blakes7 appearance when Brian Blessed changed career from serious actor to national icon.
    1977 as 'Brod' in "Survivors" and his parts in The Day After Tomorrow and Space: 1999 gave us the foretaste.

    Not to mention his somewhat later part in Blackadder I.

    A true gem.
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 8,286
    rcs1000 said:

    In the last few weeks, two of my friends have been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and one with colon cancer.

    FUCK.

    Colon cancer is usually ok. Pancreatic less so.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,992
    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Wolf Hall is fantastic and takes you to a world, like Proust, that has its own points of reference which is wholly encompassing.

    And, also like Proust, it's not for everyone.

    I recommend the pedestrian types on here to steer clear of both and stick to insurance user manuals and military histories.

    I'm hardly the pedestrian type and I too think Wolf Hall is hugely over-rated. And indeed I would switcheroo the argument. Wolf Hall is a stupid person's idea of what a really clever novel should be like

    Sorry
    That's ok. As I said, it's not for everyone and you need to give it a chance (like Proust, and Joyce for that matter).

    I'm sure there are plenty of books which give you tremendous enjoyment.
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 8,286
    rcs1000 said:

    The current situation is that there is assisted dying for people with money, but not for the poor.

    I'm not sure that's morally justifiable.
    Don’t worry. After this government is finished with us no one is going to have any money
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,900

    MikeL said:

    CNN just called Ohio District 9 for the Dems.

    House position is now Reps 218, Dems 213.

    Four races still to call - Reps leading in three, Dems in one.

    In three the lead is under 1,000 votes and Dem position has been steadily improving in all three as late mail ballots come in.

    Other race is Alaska where Reps lead by 7,500 but here you need 50% to win and they will reallocate 2nd preference votes of minor candidates (an Ind and another Dem). It's Rep 48.6, Dem 46.2 so Rep clear favourite but Dem has a chance if can get most of the 2nd prefs.

    Are the slackers still counting after FIFTEEN days??
    The American system allows for the late receipt of votes if they are stamped as having been posted on election day. I presume the late count alslo includes votes from military serving overseas as well. It varies from State to State and some don't allow votes to be counted if received after Polling Day.

    Here, in 1945, it was three weeks between Polling Day (July 5th, for those who enjoy their symmetry) and the counting of votes on the 26th - this allowed for the large number of voters overseas serving in the armed forces to be able to cast their ballots and for the ballots to be got back to Britain.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,992
    edited November 20
    rcs1000 said:

    In the last few weeks, two of my friends have been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and one with colon cancer.

    FUCK.

    That is awful. Pancreatic cancer and MND are the ones that keep me awake. Plenty of friends have died of the former, scant weeks or months following diagnosis. It is symptomless and, the pancreas being where it is, by the time it is found it is everywhere.

    Survival rates of pancreatic cancer are the same as they were 50 years ago. It's not sexy and gets a very small proportion of overall cancer research budgets.
  • MattW said:

    Taz said:

    Here’s Trumps education Secretary pick, Linda McMahon taking a Tombstone Piledriver from Republican Mayor Glenn Jacobs no less.

    https://x.com/huberton/status/1859304678481330673?s=61

    Seriously - what's the setup there?

    She has, as a middelaged woman in her 50s (she's now 76?), presumably given consent before being laid out like that?

    Obvs "professional wrestling" is a slapstick stage act, but it also has risk.
    Wrestling is scripted but I respect the participants for their athleticism and what is essentially stunt work.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,460
    edited November 20
    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Wolf Hall is fantastic and takes you to a world, like Proust, that has its own points of reference which is wholly encompassing.

    And, also like Proust, it's not for everyone.

    I recommend the pedestrian types on here to steer clear of both and stick to insurance user manuals and military histories.

    I'm hardly the pedestrian type and I too think Wolf Hall is hugely over-rated. And indeed I would switcheroo the argument. Wolf Hall is a stupid person's idea of what a really clever novel should be like

    Sorry
    That's ok. As I said, it's not for everyone and you need to give it a chance (like Proust, and Joyce for that matter).

    I'm sure there are plenty of books which give you tremendous enjoyment.
    Ulysses is the only novel I have read twice, indeed possibly the only BOOK I have read twice, and with increasing pleasure the second time

    I've not read all of Proust. I really liked Swann's Way but these volumes are verrrrry long and verrrrrry slow and in my mind I have some weird retirement in Aquitaine which will mainly be spent drinking Chablis spritzers in the garden and reading the rest of A La Recherche

    Which is of course absurd, and never going to happen. At best I will die in a station toilet in Tirana, more likely a cancer ward in Wick

    Wolf Hall really cannot be mentioned in the same breath as Joyce or Proust. Wolf Hall is Georgette Heyer for poseurs

  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,617

    rcs1000 said:

    The current situation is that there is assisted dying for people with money, but not for the poor.

    I'm not sure that's morally justifiable.
    Don’t worry. After this government is finished with us no one is going to have any money
    But we'll welcome death....
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,451

    Carnyx said:

    Pre-woke era.

    I've been watching Gary W. Gallagher, a prominent historian, and his Great Courses lecture series on the American Civil War recently. It's comprehensive 48-lecture course that covers the political, social, and military aspects of the war all recorded in the year 2000.

    One thing he keeps saying in his lectures is how important it is not to apply the values and judgements of today to the people of the time, if we really want to understand what they did and why they did it, but to read what they actually said and actually did in the context of their own time. He does this repeatedly with analysis of the war, the roles played on the war front, home front, and civilian front and displays no judgement or bias in any analysis he delivers on any of it.

    Struck me as what an utterly radical point of view that would be today, simple academic objectiveness, and how we truly have gone backwards.

    Sorry, but that really is complete tosh. I've spent a lot of time listening to The Rest Is History podcasts by Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook recently (while exercising), and they repeatedly make exactly the same point.
    I was taught that before CR was even born, I suspect.
    But to defend CR’s point, they may say it’s best to do that, but do they actually practice it? And the US Civil War is I think the best example of something only seen these days through modern eyes. Lincoln’s always seen as the saviour, who freed blacks from slavery. But he wanted them all deported back to Africa once freed, didn’t he? Like that’s no different than Trumps position. 🤷‍♀️

    No, he didn’t.

    In his early years, he was an advocate of Colonisation - the *voluntary return* of freed slaves to Africa.

    After he met the leaders of free African Americans (such as Frederick Douglass) who were opposed to this, he changed his mind.
    I continually state that we should judge historical figures by the social mores of their time. Colston is seen as a demon now, judged by 21st century people. But at the time he would have been doing nothing out of the ordinary. Some people like to think that if they were born in previous times they would have the same sensibilities as they do today, but we are moulded by our upbringing.
    You've got to be careful with that because - at all times - social mores are a contested thing. Look at all the arguments we have today about affirmative action, hate speech and the like. We can't even agree - now - on how to judge contemporary figures.

    Often when people decided to erect statues of people in the past it was precisely to make a point in a contemporary dispute over what behaviours and actions to promote or censure.

    People say, "we should judge people by the moral standards of the time," and then it feels to me as though they make zero attempt to do so, and simply assume that nothing was judged immoral in the past, and everything went.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,392

    rcs1000 said:

    The current situation is that there is assisted dying for people with money, but not for the poor.

    I'm not sure that's morally justifiable.
    Don’t worry. After this government is finished with us no one is going to have any money
    As I have written about, when my mother was dying in hospital, a nurse openly wanted her dead. Because she was terminally ill.

    There’s a reason why people who’ve studied the history of ethics don’t want the same people treating patients and “assisting” suicides.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,617
    TOPPING said:

    Best British Actors?

    Stephen Graham
    Jodie Comer
    Gary Oldman
    Papa Essiedu
    Jodie Turner-Smith
    Riz Ahmed
    Martin Freeman
    Kane Robinson
    Tilda Swinton
    Daniel Kaluuya
    Paul Bettany

    and yes, SRB.

    I've probably missed out one or two.

    First became aware of SRB in 1988 in an RSC production of The Man of Mode. As Sir Foppling Flutter (complete with Mini-me page) he stole every scene he was in.

    Although arguably the finest actor I have ever seen on the stage was Ken Brannagh.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,460
    TOPPING said:

    rcs1000 said:

    In the last few weeks, two of my friends have been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and one with colon cancer.

    FUCK.

    That is awful. Pancreatic cancer and MND are the ones that keep me awake. Plenty of friends have died of the former, scant weeks or months following diagnosis. It is symptomless and, the pancreas being where it is, by the time it is found it is everywhere.

    Survival rates of pancreatic cancer are the same as they were 50 years ago. It's not sexy and gets a very small proportion of overall cancer research budgets.
    Cancer is indeed a piece of fucking shit and - if I may be briefly allowed to mention AI - one of the big hopes of AI - and a justified hope in my opinion - is that it will swiftly find cures for diseases like this. And much else, besides

    Also it may turn us all into goo, but at least it won't be cancerous goo
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,992
    edited November 20
    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Wolf Hall is fantastic and takes you to a world, like Proust, that has its own points of reference which is wholly encompassing.

    And, also like Proust, it's not for everyone.

    I recommend the pedestrian types on here to steer clear of both and stick to insurance user manuals and military histories.

    I'm hardly the pedestrian type and I too think Wolf Hall is hugely over-rated. And indeed I would switcheroo the argument. Wolf Hall is a stupid person's idea of what a really clever novel should be like

    Sorry
    That's ok. As I said, it's not for everyone and you need to give it a chance (like Proust, and Joyce for that matter).

    I'm sure there are plenty of books which give you tremendous enjoyment.
    Ulysses is the only novel I have read twice, indeed possibly the only BOOK I have read twice, and with increasing pleasure the second time

    I've not read all of Proust. I really liked Swann's Way but these volumes are verrrrry long and verrrrrry slow and in my mind I have some weird retirement in Aquitaine which will mainly be spent drinking Chablis spritzers in the garden and reading the rest of A La Recherche

    Which is of course absurd, and never going to happen. At best I will die in a station toilet in Tirana, more likely a cancer ward in Wick

    Wolf Hall really cannot be mentioned in the same breath as Joyce or Proust. Wolf Hall is Georgette Heyer for poseurs

    I disagree. I adored it because, like Proust, it is the world that you have to give yourself over to and it demands attention and persistence. Sounds like you didn't give it a chance. But it is rewarding for that reason because the quality is there once you submit. And if you really liked Swann's Way you will really like the rest of A La Recherche because it delves deeper into his world and the insecurities, revelations, and vulnerabilities. I can see much of you in him, for that matter, I suppose the only question being who's your Odette (assuming it's not the restaurant).
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,237
    TOPPING said:

    Best British Actors?

    Stephen Graham
    Jodie Comer
    Gary Oldman
    Papa Essiedu
    Jodie Turner-Smith
    Riz Ahmed
    Martin Freeman
    Kane Robinson
    Tilda Swinton
    Daniel Kaluuya
    Paul Bettany

    and yes, SRB.

    I've probably missed out one or two.

    Do you really have Martin Freeman on a list of best British actors? Are you high?
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 8,286
    geoffw said:

    rcs1000 said:

    The current situation is that there is assisted dying for people with money, but not for the poor.

    I'm not sure that's morally justifiable.
    Pain is for the poor.
    She said "Let them eat cake", not bread

    No - it was brioche, the sweet bread eaten in the palace at the time
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,992

    TOPPING said:

    Best British Actors?

    Stephen Graham
    Jodie Comer
    Gary Oldman
    Papa Essiedu
    Jodie Turner-Smith
    Riz Ahmed
    Martin Freeman
    Kane Robinson
    Tilda Swinton
    Daniel Kaluuya
    Paul Bettany

    and yes, SRB.

    I've probably missed out one or two.

    First became aware of SRB in 1988 in an RSC production of The Man of Mode. As Sir Foppling Flutter (complete with Mini-me page) he stole every scene he was in.

    Although arguably the finest actor I have ever seen on the stage was Ken Brannagh.
    Yes I suppose there is a different category for stage, for some reason, although having just seen Papa Essiedu twice in the same production - Death of England - I don't really see why!

    I mean James Corden was more than brilliant in both History Boys and One Man Two Guv'nors which just goes to show how talented he really is.
  • FairlieredFairliered Posts: 4,950
    Leon said:

    Does anyone else have irrational hatreds for certain types of social media?

    For me it is Facebook and Linkedin

    I still get notifications from old friends who are STILL posting shit on Facebook and I quietly want to punch them. It's a depressing hospice of a place, and I don't want to think about it

    Linkedin is far far worse. Everything about it makes me want to vomit

    Weirdly, that's it. TikTok is probably much more corrosive, likewise Instagram, but I just find them sightly irritating or merely boring

    Linkedin is for the sort of people who think they would be successful candidates in The Apprentice. Facebook is for their grandparents. Therefore, neither are suitable for you.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,722

    geoffw said:

    rcs1000 said:

    The current situation is that there is assisted dying for people with money, but not for the poor.

    I'm not sure that's morally justifiable.
    Pain is for the poor.
    She said "Let them eat cake", not bread

    No - it was brioche, the sweet bread eaten in the palace at the time
    Yes, indeed it was brioche, which you've cleverly linked to the emerging theme here of pancreatic cancer

  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,992
    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    Best British Actors?

    Stephen Graham
    Jodie Comer
    Gary Oldman
    Papa Essiedu
    Jodie Turner-Smith
    Riz Ahmed
    Martin Freeman
    Kane Robinson
    Tilda Swinton
    Daniel Kaluuya
    Paul Bettany

    and yes, SRB.

    I've probably missed out one or two.

    Do you really have Martin Freeman on a list of best British actors? Are you high?
    Perhaps you've been away too long. Check out The Responder. That is acting.
  • FairlieredFairliered Posts: 4,950

    rcs1000 said:

    The current situation is that there is assisted dying for people with money, but not for the poor.

    I'm not sure that's morally justifiable.
    Don’t worry. After this government is finished with us no one is going to have any money
    As I have written about, when my mother was dying in hospital, a nurse openly wanted her dead. Because she was terminally ill.

    There’s a reason why people who’ve studied the history of ethics don’t want the same people treating patients and “assisting” suicides.
    Hurry up and die, we need your bed.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,992

    rcs1000 said:

    The current situation is that there is assisted dying for people with money, but not for the poor.

    I'm not sure that's morally justifiable.
    Don’t worry. After this government is finished with us no one is going to have any money
    As I have written about, when my mother was dying in hospital, a nurse openly wanted her dead. Because she was terminally ill.

    There’s a reason why people who’ve studied the history of ethics don’t want the same people treating patients and “assisting” suicides.
    My experience was slightly different. When my mother was in hospital acting for all the world as though she had dementia (was water on the brain so "under" the symptoms her mind was pin sharp), they, the nurses and doctors, just couldn't care less and would happily have banished her to long term care without making any investigations into any potential underlying cause. Couldn't care less. Arseholes.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,617
    edited November 20

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Can't think who he might be thinking of.

    There really are a lot of people in the West who have been making it very clear for many years now that their preferred outcome in this war is to see Ukraine broken and subjugated, and I’m here to tell you that it’s absolutely morally justified to tell them to shut the fuck up...

    People are literally being slaughtered over here while the nasty jam man is arguing that they shouldn't be allowed to defend themselves. That's not an anti-war position, it's an appeasement of fascism position.

    https://nitter.poast.org/OzKaterji/status/1859286863250702742#m

    Sadly I do think we are not far off Ukraine having to move to a ceasefire which will become the de facto boundaries for some time. The world gets used to frozen conflicts.

    Ukraine needs to get its own nuclear weapons if it wants to secure its sovereignty

    One expert even says Trump will give Ukraine nuclear weapons if it stays out of NATO

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1978193/donald-trump-ukraine-nuclear-weapons-vladimir-putin
    The lesson, very sadly, that many countries will feel they have to learn from Ukraine, should it be allowed to lose, is that it never should have given its nukes up when Clinton was around in mid 90s.

    I think its time for realpolitik. Ukraine cannot defeat Russia. A wider war where its chunks of Nato + Ukraine vs Russia could defeat Russia, but it seems very likely that Putin would push the button with his back against the wall.

    So peace talks are inevitable as is a deal which will see chunks of Ukraine not won back. If they can keep them out of Russia's hands that would be something - a demilitarised buffer zone perhaps.

    Ukraine's nukes? Kept at the end of the USSR? Ukraine had Soviet ICBMs and a fleet of heavy bombers - all of which used warheads controlled by Russia. Even if that control had been got around, had Ukraine kept those nukes then what would they have done - fired an ICBM at Moscow? A long range strategic weapon used to settle a border dispute over a shorter distance?
    Everyone is clutching their pearls at the notion that Putin will fire an ICBM at Kyiv - a long range strategic weapon used to settle a land grab?
  • DopermeanDopermean Posts: 524

    Carnyx said:

    Pre-woke era.

    I've been watching Gary W. Gallagher, a prominent historian, and his Great Courses lecture series on the American Civil War recently. It's comprehensive 48-lecture course that covers the political, social, and military aspects of the war all recorded in the year 2000.

    One thing he keeps saying in his lectures is how important it is not to apply the values and judgements of today to the people of the time, if we really want to understand what they did and why they did it, but to read what they actually said and actually did in the context of their own time. He does this repeatedly with analysis of the war, the roles played on the war front, home front, and civilian front and displays no judgement or bias in any analysis he delivers on any of it.

    Struck me as what an utterly radical point of view that would be today, simple academic objectiveness, and how we truly have gone backwards.

    Sorry, but that really is complete tosh. I've spent a lot of time listening to The Rest Is History podcasts by Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook recently (while exercising), and they repeatedly make exactly the same point.
    I was taught that before CR was even born, I suspect.
    But to defend CR’s point, they may say it’s best to do that, but do they actually practice it? And the US Civil War is I think the best example of something only seen these days through modern eyes. Lincoln’s always seen as the saviour, who freed blacks from slavery. But he wanted them all deported back to Africa once freed, didn’t he? Like that’s no different than Trumps position. 🤷‍♀️

    No, he didn’t.

    In his early years, he was an advocate of Colonisation - the *voluntary return* of freed slaves to Africa.

    After he met the leaders of free African Americans (such as Frederick Douglass) who were opposed to this, he changed his mind.
    I continually state that we should judge historical figures by the social mores of their time. Colston is seen as a demon now, judged by 21st century people. But at the time he would have been doing nothing out of the ordinary. Some people like to think that if they were born in previous times they would have the same sensibilities as they do today, but we are moulded by our upbringing.
    You've got to be careful with that because - at all times - social mores are a contested thing. Look at all the arguments we have today about affirmative action, hate speech and the like. We can't even agree - now - on how to judge contemporary figures.

    Often when people decided to erect statues of people in the past it was precisely to make a point in a contemporary dispute over what behaviours and actions to promote or censure.

    People say, "we should judge people by the moral standards of the time," and then it feels to me as though they make zero attempt to do so, and simply assume that nothing was judged immoral in the past, and everything went.
    The

    Carnyx said:

    Pre-woke era.

    I've been watching Gary W. Gallagher, a prominent historian, and his Great Courses lecture series on the American Civil War recently. It's comprehensive 48-lecture course that covers the political, social, and military aspects of the war all recorded in the year 2000.

    One thing he keeps saying in his lectures is how important it is not to apply the values and judgements of today to the people of the time, if we really want to understand what they did and why they did it, but to read what they actually
    said and actually did in the context of their own time. He does this repeatedly with analysis of the war, the roles played on the war front, home front, and civilian front and displays no judgement or bias in any analysis he delivers on any of it.

    Struck me as what an utterly radical point of view that would be today, simple academic objectiveness, and how we truly have gone backwards.

    Sorry, but that really is complete tosh. I've spent a lot of time listening to The Rest Is History podcasts by Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook recently (while exercising), and they repeatedly make exactly the same point.
    I was taught that before CR was even born, I suspect.
    But to defend CR’s point, they may say it’s best to do that, but do they actually practice it? And the US Civil War is I think the best example of something only seen these days through modern eyes. Lincoln’s always seen as the saviour, who freed blacks from slavery. But he wanted them all deported back to Africa once freed, didn’t he? Like that’s no different than Trumps position. 🤷‍♀️

    No, he didn’t.

    In his early years, he was an advocate of Colonisation - the *voluntary return* of freed slaves to Africa.

    After he met the leaders of free African Americans (such as Frederick Douglass) who were opposed to this, he changed his mind.
    I continually state that we should judge historical figures by the social mores of their time. Colston is seen as a demon now, judged by 21st century people. But at the time he would have been doing nothing out of the ordinary. Some people like to think that if they were born in previous times they would have the same sensibilities as they do today, but we are moulded by our upbringing.
    You've got to be careful with that because - at all times - social mores are a contested thing. Look at all the arguments we have today about affirmative action, hate speech and the like. We can't even agree - now - on how to judge contemporary figures.

    Often when people decided to erect statues of people in the past it was precisely to make a point in a contemporary dispute over what behaviours and actions to promote or censure.

    People say, "we should judge people by the moral standards of the time," and then it feels to me as though they make zero attempt to do so, and simply assume that nothing was judged immoral in the past, and everything went.
    Colston died in 1721, the statue of was commissioned and installed in 1895. According to a local historian it was commissioned as a response to a statue of Edmund Burke who'd been critical of Bristol's involvement in the slave trade. So it's not a statue in tribute to Colston, it's a statue celebrating the slave trade.
    Context is everything, which exp
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,992

    Leon said:

    Does anyone else have irrational hatreds for certain types of social media?

    For me it is Facebook and Linkedin

    I still get notifications from old friends who are STILL posting shit on Facebook and I quietly want to punch them. It's a depressing hospice of a place, and I don't want to think about it

    Linkedin is far far worse. Everything about it makes me want to vomit

    Weirdly, that's it. TikTok is probably much more corrosive, likewise Instagram, but I just find them sightly irritating or merely boring

    Linkedin is for the sort of people who think they would be successful candidates in The Apprentice. Facebook is for their grandparents. Therefore, neither are suitable for you.
    I disagree. Linkedin is for people who want to try to impress their boss, and ick-making for that reason.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,392

    rcs1000 said:

    The current situation is that there is assisted dying for people with money, but not for the poor.

    I'm not sure that's morally justifiable.
    Don’t worry. After this government is finished with us no one is going to have any money
    As I have written about, when my mother was dying in hospital, a nurse openly wanted her dead. Because she was terminally ill.

    There’s a reason why people who’ve studied the history of ethics don’t want the same people treating patients and “assisting” suicides.
    Hurry up and die, we need your bed.
    I had an entertaining little chat with her and the senior consultant.

    She actually tried to justify her comments.

    I explained the Nazi doctrine of Ballast Existences. And a few other things.

    She did seem a bit upset about my response to her ethical position.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,163
    MikeL said:

    CNN just called Ohio District 9 for the Dems.

    House position is now Reps 218, Dems 213.

    Four races still to call - Reps leading in three, Dems in one.

    In three the lead is under 1,000 votes and Dem position has been steadily improving in all three as late mail ballots come in.

    Other race is Alaska where Reps lead by 7,500 but here you need 50% to win and they will reallocate 2nd preference votes of minor candidates (an Ind and another Dem). It's Rep 48.6, Dem 46.2 so Rep clear favourite but Dem has a chance if can get most of the 2nd prefs.

    Kind of them to keep things going for this long, helps with a steady drip of news.
  • Is there a new legal definition of Islamophobia approaching?

    If so, I look forward to equivalents for Hinduphobia, Sikhophobia, Buddhaphobia, Judephobia, and Christophobia

    Why would no other religion warrant an "irrational fear" in law?
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,868

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,992

    rcs1000 said:

    The current situation is that there is assisted dying for people with money, but not for the poor.

    I'm not sure that's morally justifiable.
    Don’t worry. After this government is finished with us no one is going to have any money
    As I have written about, when my mother was dying in hospital, a nurse openly wanted her dead. Because she was terminally ill.

    There’s a reason why people who’ve studied the history of ethics don’t want the same people treating patients and “assisting” suicides.
    Hurry up and die, we need your bed.
    I had an entertaining little chat with her and the senior consultant.

    She actually tried to justify her comments.

    I explained the Nazi doctrine of Ballast Existences. And a few other things.

    She did seem a bit upset about my response to her ethical position.
    I ended up, in the middle of the consultant's ward round, shouting at him that unless he treated my mother I would call the police. And I would have done just that. She was attended to the following day.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,868
    MattW said:

    Taz said:

    Here’s Trumps education Secretary pick, Linda McMahon taking a Tombstone Piledriver from Republican Mayor Glenn Jacobs no less.

    https://x.com/huberton/status/1859304678481330673?s=61

    Seriously - what's the setup there?

    She has, as a middelaged woman in her 50s (she's now 76?), presumably given consent before being laid out like that?

    Obvs "professional wrestling" is a slapstick stage act, but it also has risk.
    Watch the documentary about Vince McMahon on Netflix.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 9,879
    politicans are inaccurate, distort political debate and should be banned during the final weeks of an election campaign.

    there fixed the header
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,237

    TOPPING said:

    Best British Actors?

    Stephen Graham
    Jodie Comer
    Gary Oldman
    Papa Essiedu
    Jodie Turner-Smith
    Riz Ahmed
    Martin Freeman
    Kane Robinson
    Tilda Swinton
    Daniel Kaluuya
    Paul Bettany

    and yes, SRB.

    I've probably missed out one or two.

    First became aware of SRB in 1988 in an RSC production of The Man of Mode. As Sir Foppling Flutter (complete with Mini-me page) he stole every scene he was in.

    Although arguably the finest actor I have ever seen on the stage was Ken Brannagh.
    He was really quite something in the 1980s and 1990s.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,131
    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    Best British Actors?

    Stephen Graham
    Jodie Comer
    Gary Oldman
    Papa Essiedu
    Jodie Turner-Smith
    Riz Ahmed
    Martin Freeman
    Kane Robinson
    Tilda Swinton
    Daniel Kaluuya
    Paul Bettany

    and yes, SRB.

    I've probably missed out one or two.

    Do you really have Martin Freeman on a list of best British actors? Are you high?
    unknown. But I bet it involves a brief quizzical look at the camera, then slightly opening the mouth slightly as if to say something, then closing it and shrugging.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,460
    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 9,879
    rcs1000 said:

    The current situation is that there is assisted dying for people with money, but not for the poor.

    I'm not sure that's morally justifiable.
    I think you will find that will change and assisted dying will be means tested
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,868
    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,720
    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    The Tories need to track down a case of someone being fired by the Treasury for lying on their CV.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 9,879

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    The Tories need to track down a case of someone being fired by the Treasury for lying on their CV.
    Can they find someone in the treasury that hasn't?
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,527
    edited November 20
    'They've killed off North Sea oil, undermining our energy security - they are actively killing off the family farm and threatening our food security. And today they're scrapping key defence capabilities and weakening our National Security! Labour have made their choices they own the consequences.'

    It’s becoming razor sharp response by Kemi’s Shadow Cabinet is it not? showing crisis piling up day after day and not being dealt with. There’s full and strong coverage of Labours unstrategic muddled defence signals in the DM online. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14105651/labour-defence-cuts-royal-navy-chinook-putin-world-war-three.html

    PBer DarkAges prediction, of a full “Truss” style collapse of this Labour government within just 2 years is looking more likely all the time - you can’t have crisis stacking up like this not being dealt with without both the markets and voters quickly withdrawing confidence at amazing amounts. Just like what happened in 1970s when markets and everybody just didn’t believe what Labour Government was saying anymore. What support Labour got at the election from right and the centre, is rapidly abandoning this struggling government, is it not? It might not mean a General Election - but will mean Starmer, Reeves, and the rest of the top team Philpson, Streeting, Milliband, Lamy and Cooper will all have to go to the backbenches as the government collapses.

    No wonder PB lefties are now increasingly all hyped up and flailing around on here saying the governments not in trouble at all, and now only us offering hyperbole and “we got the support of the BBC” to defend all the governments policies.

    You only get “crisis? What crisis?” statements from Labour governments. Check that as a fact, BBC.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,393
    edited November 20
    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
  • I think its time for realpolitik. Ukraine cannot defeat Russia. A wider war where its chunks of Nato + Ukraine vs Russia could defeat Russia, but it seems very likely that Putin would push the button with his back against the wall.

    Ukraine doesn't have to defeat Russia, it just has to hold on militarily until the Russian economy collapses. No country can sustain spending 40%+ of GDP on war, particularly not one under severe sanctions and with deep-seated economic issues even in peacetime.

    The first signs are there now. Food prices jumping because farms cannot get labour or parts for the machines. An ever increasing percentage of the food that is grown never makes it to market because the railways have the same issues; no people, no spares, no new equipment. This is why Ukraine is expending so many of their drones hitting Russia's fuel infrastructure. Fuel shortages will dramatically these problems.

    Right now Russia is Germany in late 1917. Still functioning, still with a powerful army in the field, but with the economic and logistical situation in terminal decline. The Germans knew for some time the Royal Navy's blockade of the North Sea would evidentially strangle them, hence the do-or-die gamble of throwing the entire High Seas fleet at the RN in 1916.

    I remember many, many years ago reading an article written by a foreign journalist who was stationed in Berlin during the last months of the war. He went for a walk one day and recounted how all the restaurants he passed were closed, except one. He went in and looked at the menu, which contained only one meat dish; boiled crow.

    Russia is at the very most a year and a half away from boiled crow.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,096

    rcs1000 said:

    The current situation is that there is assisted dying for people with money, but not for the poor.

    I'm not sure that's morally justifiable.
    Don’t worry. After this government is finished with us no one is going to have any money
    As I have written about, when my mother was dying in hospital, a nurse openly wanted her dead. Because she was terminally ill.

    There’s a reason why people who’ve studied the history of ethics don’t want the same people treating patients and “assisting” suicides.
    Hurry up and die, we need your bed.
    I had an entertaining little chat with her and the senior consultant.

    She actually tried to justify her comments.

    I explained the Nazi doctrine of Ballast Existences. And a few other things.

    She did seem a bit upset about my response to her ethical position.
    I admire you for not responding to her ethical position but repositioning your boot into the same space as her arse.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 9,879
    FPT
    viewcode said:

    Pulpstar said:
    Is this really the time to be penny-pinching on Defence?
    God no. Is everybody in British politics secretly employed by the Russians/Americans/55 Tufton St/whoever? It's becoming increasingly difficult to believe they are on the side of the British.
    Think of politicians around the world, they have more in common with each other than the people they govern mostly. They are the nation of politician land....they govern in favour of that
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,460
    TOPPING said:

    rcs1000 said:

    The current situation is that there is assisted dying for people with money, but not for the poor.

    I'm not sure that's morally justifiable.
    Don’t worry. After this government is finished with us no one is going to have any money
    As I have written about, when my mother was dying in hospital, a nurse openly wanted her dead. Because she was terminally ill.

    There’s a reason why people who’ve studied the history of ethics don’t want the same people treating patients and “assisting” suicides.
    Hurry up and die, we need your bed.
    I had an entertaining little chat with her and the senior consultant.

    She actually tried to justify her comments.

    I explained the Nazi doctrine of Ballast Existences. And a few other things.

    She did seem a bit upset about my response to her ethical position.
    I ended up, in the middle of the consultant's ward round, shouting at him that unless he treated my mother I would call the police. And I would have done just that. She was attended to the following day.
    Good for you
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,617
    edited November 20

    I think its time for realpolitik. Ukraine cannot defeat Russia. A wider war where its chunks of Nato + Ukraine vs Russia could defeat Russia, but it seems very likely that Putin would push the button with his back against the wall.

    Ukraine doesn't have to defeat Russia, it just has to hold on militarily until the Russian economy collapses. No country can sustain spending 40%+ of GDP on war, particularly not one under severe sanctions and with deep-seated economic issues even in peacetime.

    The first signs are there now. Food prices jumping because farms cannot get labour or parts for the machines. An ever increasing percentage of the food that is grown never makes it to market because the railways have the same issues; no people, no spares, no new equipment. This is why Ukraine is expending so many of their drones hitting Russia's fuel infrastructure. Fuel shortages will dramatically these problems.

    Right now Russia is Germany in late 1917. Still functioning, still with a powerful army in the field, but with the economic and logistical situation in terminal decline. The Germans knew for some time the Royal Navy's blockade of the North Sea would evidentially strangle them, hence the do-or-die gamble of throwing the entire High Seas fleet at the RN in 1916.

    I remember many, many years ago reading an article written by a foreign journalist who was stationed in Berlin during the last months of the war. He went for a walk one day and recounted how all the restaurants he passed were closed, except one. He went in and looked at the menu, which contained only one meat dish; boiled crow.

    Russia is at the very most a year and a half away from boiled crow.
    Keeping the rouble below 100 = $1 seems to be totemic for Putin.

    Whether he has the FEX reserves to do so now looks unlikely. Who knows where it stops thereafter.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,096

    I think its time for realpolitik. Ukraine cannot defeat Russia. A wider war where its chunks of Nato + Ukraine vs Russia could defeat Russia, but it seems very likely that Putin would push the button with his back against the wall.

    Ukraine doesn't have to defeat Russia, it just has to hold on militarily until the Russian economy collapses. No country can sustain spending 40%+ of GDP on war, particularly not one under severe sanctions and with deep-seated economic issues even in peacetime.

    The first signs are there now. Food prices jumping because farms cannot get labour or parts for the machines. An ever increasing percentage of the food that is grown never makes it to market because the railways have the same issues; no people, no spares, no new equipment. This is why Ukraine is expending so many of their drones hitting Russia's fuel infrastructure. Fuel shortages will dramatically these problems.

    Right now Russia is Germany in late 1917. Still functioning, still with a powerful army in the field, but with the economic and logistical situation in terminal decline. The Germans knew for some time the Royal Navy's blockade of the North Sea would evidentially strangle them, hence the do-or-die gamble of throwing the entire High Seas fleet at the RN in 1916.

    I remember many, many years ago reading an article written by a foreign journalist who was stationed in Berlin during the last months of the war. He went for a walk one day and recounted how all the restaurants he passed were closed, except one. He went in and looked at the menu, which contained only one meat dish; boiled crow.

    Russia is at the very most a year and a half away from boiled crow.
    If you take a selfish view, Ukraine has done an amazing job of degrading Russia as a military power for a few years. The red army ain’t coming west for some years now without getting its arse kicked.

    It’s an interesting reversal of 80s assumptions actually. We always used to assume we would have to go (tactical) nuclear first as the Russian numbers told and they kept on coming. In a fight with NATO now, you have to guess the Russians would crumble and go nuclear.

    The myth of their kit or training being any good has been well and truly punctured. See also their failures in Africa, having promised their chums so much.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,868

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    It's easy the Tories will just keep hammering away at it and turn her into the fraud that she is in the public eye. Starmer needs to get rid, she's destroying the economy because she's absolutely fucking clueless. £150bn in additional borrowing and we're getting lower growth, no chancellor has ever delivered such an awful budget, even at the peak of austerity the borrowing was delivering additional growth and for that period we had the second highest growth in the G7 after the ONS deigned to record it properly. Rachel is sending us to the bottom of the pile, Jenrick should push harder to get her out along with the rest of the Tory front bench.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,460

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    They will care as polls show that half of their MPs - or more - are likely to lose at the next GE, unless this pathetic Labour government can actually do something. That's their careers going up in smoke

    I read a report in the FT that said "senior people in Labour are resigned to this being a one term government". Quite a remarkable statement given their enormous majority, and the fact we are only half a year in

  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,617
    edited November 20

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    Lying did for Boris.

    She holds one of the great offices of state.

    As did Boris.
  • DopermeanDopermean Posts: 524

    'They've killed off North Sea oil, undermining our energy security - they are actively killing off the family farm and threatening our food security. And today they're scrapping key defence capabilities and weakening our National Security! Labour have made their choices they own the consequences.'

    It’s becoming razor sharp response by Kemi’s Shadow Cabinet is it not? showing crisis piling up day after day and not being dealt with. There’s full and strong coverage of Labours unstrategic muddled defence signals in the DM online. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14105651/labour-defence-cuts-royal-navy-chinook-putin-world-war-three.html

    PBer DarkAges prediction, of a full “Truss” style collapse of this Labour government within just 2 years is looking more likely all the time - you can’t have crisis stacking up like this not being dealt with without both the markets and voters quickly withdrawing confidence at amazing amounts. Just like what happened in 1970s when markets and everybody just didn’t believe what Labour Government was saying anymore. What support Labour got at the election from right and the centre, is rapidly abandoning this struggling government, is it not? It might not mean a General Election - but will mean Starmer, Reeves, and the rest of the top team Philpson, Streeting, Milliband, Lamy and Cooper will all have to go to the backbenches as the government collapses.

    No wonder PB lefties are now increasingly all hyped up and flailing around on here saying the governments not in trouble at all, and now only us offering hyperbole and “we got the support of the BBC” to defend all the governments policies.

    You only get “crisis? What crisis?” statements from Labour governments. Check that as a fact, BBC.

    North sea oil has run its course, the west of Shetland fields are in too harsh an environment to be financially viable at current oil prices. Rosebank is getting huge tax breaks. Time to move on and make sure we're competitive in the new technologies.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,096
    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    They will care as polls show that half of their MPs - or more - are likely to lose at the next GE, unless this pathetic Labour government can actually do something. That's their careers going up in smoke

    I read a report in the FT that said "senior people in Labour are resigned to this being a one term government". Quite a remarkable statement given their enormous majority, and the fact we are only half a year in

    If Farage gets the right pros in (but if, given his record) and broadens his team, he has a hell of a chance in some parts of the country.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,868
    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    They will care as polls show that half of their MPs - or more - are likely to lose at the next GE, unless this pathetic Labour government can actually do something. That's their careers going up in smoke

    I read a report in the FT that said "senior people in Labour are resigned to this being a one term government". Quite a remarkable statement given their enormous majority, and the fact we are only half a year in

    2029 can't come soon enough. Get rid of these economic vandals destroying businesses and jobs at the altar of the NHS. It's almost enough for me to consider a run at a seat, but then I think about the hassle of it all and decide it's not worth it.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,868

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    Lying did for Boris.

    She holds one of the great offices of state.

    As did Boris.
    It's fraud. She lied on her CV and said she was an economist at a major UK bank, it turns out she was in charge of a customer complaints team. She cultivated this image that she was a serious economist and had real private sector experience which landed her the position of chancellor, it's completely undeserved.
  • DopermeanDopermean Posts: 524
    On BBC2, the nuclear testing scandal. 70 years successive govts just delaying compensation until they've passed away.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,460

    I think its time for realpolitik. Ukraine cannot defeat Russia. A wider war where its chunks of Nato + Ukraine vs Russia could defeat Russia, but it seems very likely that Putin would push the button with his back against the wall.

    Ukraine doesn't have to defeat Russia, it just has to hold on militarily until the Russian economy collapses. No country can sustain spending 40%+ of GDP on war, particularly not one under severe sanctions and with deep-seated economic issues even in peacetime.

    The first signs are there now. Food prices jumping because farms cannot get labour or parts for the machines. An ever increasing percentage of the food that is grown never makes it to market because the railways have the same issues; no people, no spares, no new equipment. This is why Ukraine is expending so many of their drones hitting Russia's fuel infrastructure. Fuel shortages will dramatically these problems.

    Right now Russia is Germany in late 1917. Still functioning, still with a powerful army in the field, but with the economic and logistical situation in terminal decline. The Germans knew for some time the Royal Navy's blockade of the North Sea would evidentially strangle them, hence the do-or-die gamble of throwing the entire High Seas fleet at the RN in 1916.

    I remember many, many years ago reading an article written by a foreign journalist who was stationed in Berlin during the last months of the war. He went for a walk one day and recounted how all the restaurants he passed were closed, except one. He went in and looked at the menu, which contained only one meat dish; boiled crow.

    Russia is at the very most a year and a half away from boiled crow.
    But the analogy is entirely wrong

    Why? Because Russia has China to help. The biggest trading and manufacturing economy on the planet, right next door, and perhaps the single BIGGEST economy in the world (depending on GDP PPP arguments etc)

    China also has vast reserves of manpower and can chivvy tributary states into assisting Putin. NB North Korea suddenly coming up with 100,000 soldiers, what a coincidence

    This changes the equation entirely. Xi Jinping has made it clear he won't let Russia lose or Putin fall. That's it. To borrow your allegory it's like Germany in World War 1 having the USA on its side, rather than opposing, only this time America is right next door to Berlin and Britain cannot blockade any of their trade
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,096
    edited November 20
    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    Lying did for Boris.

    She holds one of the great offices of state.

    As did Boris.
    It's fraud. She lied on her CV and said she was an economist at a major UK bank, it turns out she was in charge of a customer complaints team. She cultivated this image that she was a serious economist and had real private sector experience which landed her the position of chancellor, it's completely undeserved.
    Come off it. I don’t think Starmer appointed her based on her LinkedIn profile or her CV!

    She looks a prat for doing this, but it’s hardly a resigning matter. I think it was a bad Budget but she’ll get her SR. When that falls over, and it will, I expect she’ll go in the following reshuffle.
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,606
    Via twitter, when RFK Jr was less crazy, Obama wanted him for Environment Secretary:

    https://www.politico.com/story/2008/11/obama-considers-stars-for-cabinet-015320

    Relatedly, the NYT had a bit of a mare vis a vis RFK:



    I mean he is a nutter, but that's desperate.
  • I wouldn't have a clue who Simon Russell Beale is..yet the Independent state he's "the greatest living stage actor of his generation" 🤔🥴

    I like him - he was superb as Falstaff in the Hollow Crown series - but I think that honour defiently goes to Mark Rylance. I have seen him several times in Shakespeare productions and he is remarkable. I think he is probably the best actor in all fields of his generation.
    Agree. Just been watching Rylance in Wolf Hall and he is absolutely mesmerising in an apparently effortless way. I can't quite put my finger on why he's so good, but even when he's silent you can't take your eyes off him.
    You actually have put your finger on it. His silence; a stillness that is utterly mesmerising.
    Is it any good?

    I tried reading Wolf Hall and found the artificiality of Mantel's style insufferable. I guess that's not an issue with the film production, so maybe I should try it?
    I would strongly recommend it. Both Damien Lewis and Mark Rylance are very believable as Henry and Cromwell.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,992
    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    Lying did for Boris.

    She holds one of the great offices of state.

    As did Boris.
    It's fraud. She lied on her CV and said she was an economist at a major UK bank, it turns out she was in charge of a customer complaints team. She cultivated this image that she was a serious economist and had real private sector experience which landed her the position of chancellor, it's completely undeserved.
    I cannot believe she was in the customer complaints dept. If her education is as stated then no way is she in customer complaints.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,868
    biggles said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    Lying did for Boris.

    She holds one of the great offices of state.

    As did Boris.
    It's fraud. She lied on her CV and said she was an economist at a major UK bank, it turns out she was in charge of a customer complaints team. She cultivated this image that she was a serious economist and had real private sector experience which landed her the position of chancellor, it's completely undeserved.
    Come off it. I don’t think Starmer appointed her based on her LinkedIn profile or her CV!

    She looks a prat for doing this, but it’s hardly a resigning matter. I think it was a bad Budget but she’ll get her SR. When that falls over, and it will, I expect she’ll go in the following reshuffle.
    So you don't think that her bigging herself up as an economist for a major private sector UK bank helped her get the shadow chancellor gig when Labour were at their lowest ebb after the 2019 election? It's a view.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,720
    TOPPING said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    Lying did for Boris.

    She holds one of the great offices of state.

    As did Boris.
    It's fraud. She lied on her CV and said she was an economist at a major UK bank, it turns out she was in charge of a customer complaints team. She cultivated this image that she was a serious economist and had real private sector experience which landed her the position of chancellor, it's completely undeserved.
    I cannot believe she was in the customer complaints dept. If her education is as stated then no way is she in customer complaints.
    There was some suggestion she took a job that would help her cultivate an image as a local candidate, so she’d probably given up on any corporate ambitions by then.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,868
    TOPPING said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    Lying did for Boris.

    She holds one of the great offices of state.

    As did Boris.
    It's fraud. She lied on her CV and said she was an economist at a major UK bank, it turns out she was in charge of a customer complaints team. She cultivated this image that she was a serious economist and had real private sector experience which landed her the position of chancellor, it's completely undeserved.
    I cannot believe she was in the customer complaints dept. If her education is as stated then no way is she in customer complaints.
    That's what the Halifax sources are all saying, she was a manager at a retail bank division that primarily handled customer issues.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,527
    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    They will care as polls show that half of their MPs - or more - are likely to lose at the next GE, unless this pathetic Labour government can actually do something. That's their careers going up in smoke

    I read a report in the FT that said "senior people in Labour are resigned to this being a one term government". Quite a remarkable statement given their enormous majority, and the fact we are only half a year in

    Starmer has been ordered back to Downing Street to deal with the crisis piling up.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-14105583/DAN-HODGES-Globetrotting-Keir-Starmer-return-Downing-Street-deal-crises.html

    You are right to point out the FT article, that Everyone is beginning to sense the writing is already on the wall. Four and a half long more years of what is already becoming a lame duck government.

    The Truss government era was quiet like this has been at first, whilst being stared at and assessed. Then it started to go just like it’s going now for Labour.
    Spraying ruinous policies around, killing energy security, killing food security, killing defence security, and a wholly hated budget where the numbers just don’t add up in any way, and just matter of time before both the voters and the markets will suddenly lurch for jugular of any government who are all over the place like this. 🤷‍♀️
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,096
    edited November 20
    TOPPING said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    Lying did for Boris.

    She holds one of the great offices of state.

    As did Boris.
    It's fraud. She lied on her CV and said she was an economist at a major UK bank, it turns out she was in charge of a customer complaints team. She cultivated this image that she was a serious economist and had real private sector experience which landed her the position of chancellor, it's completely undeserved.
    I cannot believe she was in the customer complaints dept. If her education is as stated then no way is she in customer complaints.
    My guess, looking at the declared facts, is that she knew that she wanted to stand for Parliament, the Bank has rules against it, and she found a middle management position in a bank office where she needed to be. Very sensible and she did join the Bank as an economist, so is reasonable to say she was one once. She is in no way an expert, but then neither are most Chancellors.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,617
    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    Lying did for Boris.

    She holds one of the great offices of state.

    As did Boris.
    It's fraud. She lied on her CV and said she was an economist at a major UK bank, it turns out she was in charge of a customer complaints team. She cultivated this image that she was a serious economist and had real private sector experience which landed her the position of chancellor, it's completely undeserved.
    The cultivated image chickens have come home to roost.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,096
    MaxPB said:

    biggles said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    Lying did for Boris.

    She holds one of the great offices of state.

    As did Boris.
    It's fraud. She lied on her CV and said she was an economist at a major UK bank, it turns out she was in charge of a customer complaints team. She cultivated this image that she was a serious economist and had real private sector experience which landed her the position of chancellor, it's completely undeserved.
    Come off it. I don’t think Starmer appointed her based on her LinkedIn profile or her CV!

    She looks a prat for doing this, but it’s hardly a resigning matter. I think it was a bad Budget but she’ll get her SR. When that falls over, and it will, I expect she’ll go in the following reshuffle.
    So you don't think that her bigging herself up as an economist for a major private sector UK bank helped her get the shadow chancellor gig when Labour were at their lowest ebb after the 2019 election? It's a view.
    No. And nor would you if you were applying logic and rationality rather than partisan hate.

    You don’t get appointed Shadow CX because of what you did for a few years before you were an MP. To suggest you do is just silly.

    I yield to no one in my criticism of this Government, but based on facts rather than froth.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,406
    MaxPB said:

    TOPPING said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    Lying did for Boris.

    She holds one of the great offices of state.

    As did Boris.
    It's fraud. She lied on her CV and said she was an economist at a major UK bank, it turns out she was in charge of a customer complaints team. She cultivated this image that she was a serious economist and had real private sector experience which landed her the position of chancellor, it's completely undeserved.
    I cannot believe she was in the customer complaints dept. If her education is as stated then no way is she in customer complaints.
    That's what the Halifax sources are all saying, she was a manager at a retail bank division that primarily handled customer issues.
    Are we including the expenses fraud that resulted in a number of people resigning in December 2009 (well before the election) or not...
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,096

    I wouldn't have a clue who Simon Russell Beale is..yet the Independent state he's "the greatest living stage actor of his generation" 🤔🥴

    I like him - he was superb as Falstaff in the Hollow Crown series - but I think that honour defiently goes to Mark Rylance. I have seen him several times in Shakespeare productions and he is remarkable. I think he is probably the best actor in all fields of his generation.
    Agree. Just been watching Rylance in Wolf Hall and he is absolutely mesmerising in an apparently effortless way. I can't quite put my finger on why he's so good, but even when he's silent you can't take your eyes off him.
    You actually have put your finger on it. His silence; a stillness that is utterly mesmerising.
    Is it any good?

    I tried reading Wolf Hall and found the artificiality of Mantel's style insufferable. I guess that's not an issue with the film production, so maybe I should try it?
    I would strongly recommend it. Both Damien Lewis and Mark Rylance are very believable as Henry and Cromwell.
    Did you meet them? Were you a contemporary?
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,617

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    They will care as polls show that half of their MPs - or more - are likely to lose at the next GE, unless this pathetic Labour government can actually do something. That's their careers going up in smoke

    I read a report in the FT that said "senior people in Labour are resigned to this being a one term government". Quite a remarkable statement given their enormous majority, and the fact we are only half a year in

    Starmer has been ordered back to Downing Street to deal with the crisis piling up.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-14105583/DAN-HODGES-Globetrotting-Keir-Starmer-return-Downing-Street-deal-crises.html
    Crisis? What Crisis Redux.....
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,318
    Dopermean said:

    On BBC2, the nuclear testing scandal. 70 years successive govts just delaying compensation until they've passed away.

    Fuck me! Who could ever imagine British governments doing such a thing?! It can't surely be happening now ......?
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,868
    biggles said:

    MaxPB said:

    biggles said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    Lying did for Boris.

    She holds one of the great offices of state.

    As did Boris.
    It's fraud. She lied on her CV and said she was an economist at a major UK bank, it turns out she was in charge of a customer complaints team. She cultivated this image that she was a serious economist and had real private sector experience which landed her the position of chancellor, it's completely undeserved.
    Come off it. I don’t think Starmer appointed her based on her LinkedIn profile or her CV!

    She looks a prat for doing this, but it’s hardly a resigning matter. I think it was a bad Budget but she’ll get her SR. When that falls over, and it will, I expect she’ll go in the following reshuffle.
    So you don't think that her bigging herself up as an economist for a major private sector UK bank helped her get the shadow chancellor gig when Labour were at their lowest ebb after the 2019 election? It's a view.
    No. And nor would you if you were applying logic and rationality rather than partisan hate.

    You don’t get appointed Shadow CX because of what you did for a few years before you were an MP. To suggest you do is just silly.

    I yield to no one in my criticism of this Government, but based on facts rather than froth.
    You do when that job was supposedly being an economist at a major bank and the job in question is being the chief economist of the country. It can't be because of any innate talent because she's fucking useless.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,460
    biggles said:

    TOPPING said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    Lying did for Boris.

    She holds one of the great offices of state.

    As did Boris.
    It's fraud. She lied on her CV and said she was an economist at a major UK bank, it turns out she was in charge of a customer complaints team. She cultivated this image that she was a serious economist and had real private sector experience which landed her the position of chancellor, it's completely undeserved.
    I cannot believe she was in the customer complaints dept. If her education is as stated then no way is she in customer complaints.
    My guess, looking at the declared facts, is that she knew that she wanted to stand for Parliament, the Bank has rules against it, and she found a middle management position in a bank office where she needed to be. Very sensible and she did join the Bank as an economist, so is responsible to say she was one once. She is in no way an expert, but then neither are most Chancellors.
    But it means she does NOT have the experience of a senior national economist, that she claimed. It might not matter if she was Minister for Sports and Jazz Hands, but she is now Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the back of this, and she is also responsible for a Budget (as @MaxPB notes) which is looking increasingly terrible as the days go by, conjuring lower growth from higher taxes and borrowing (how do you even do that??) and deeply angering everyone from farmers to Big Retail

    No one is happy with her. THAT is why she dyed her hair orange after 3 weeks in the job, she knows she is an impostor, and that was a bad case of Impostor Syndrome working through her microbrain, so she tried to disguise herself as someone else. Lesbian Worzel Gummidge. Didn't work
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,163

    rcs1000 said:

    The current situation is that there is assisted dying for people with money, but not for the poor.

    I'm not sure that's morally justifiable.
    Don’t worry. After this government is finished with us no one is going to have any money
    As I have written about, when my mother was dying in hospital, a nurse openly wanted her dead. Because she was terminally ill.

    There’s a reason why people who’ve studied the history of ethics don’t want the same people treating patients and “assisting” suicides.
    Even silly comedies like Scrubs touched upon people in hospitals becoming callously desensitised to older, ill people taking up time and attention rather than just dying.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,096
    MaxPB said:

    biggles said:

    MaxPB said:

    biggles said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    Lying did for Boris.

    She holds one of the great offices of state.

    As did Boris.
    It's fraud. She lied on her CV and said she was an economist at a major UK bank, it turns out she was in charge of a customer complaints team. She cultivated this image that she was a serious economist and had real private sector experience which landed her the position of chancellor, it's completely undeserved.
    Come off it. I don’t think Starmer appointed her based on her LinkedIn profile or her CV!

    She looks a prat for doing this, but it’s hardly a resigning matter. I think it was a bad Budget but she’ll get her SR. When that falls over, and it will, I expect she’ll go in the following reshuffle.
    So you don't think that her bigging herself up as an economist for a major private sector UK bank helped her get the shadow chancellor gig when Labour were at their lowest ebb after the 2019 election? It's a view.
    No. And nor would you if you were applying logic and rationality rather than partisan hate.

    You don’t get appointed Shadow CX because of what you did for a few years before you were an MP. To suggest you do is just silly.

    I yield to no one in my criticism of this Government, but based on facts rather than froth.
    You do when that job was supposedly being an economist at a major bank and the job in question is being the chief economist of the country. It can't be because of any innate talent because she's fucking useless.
    She isn’t chief economist of the country though? You have no idea what the Chancellor does do you?
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,318
    MaxPB said:

    biggles said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    Lying did for Boris.

    She holds one of the great offices of state.

    As did Boris.
    It's fraud. She lied on her CV and said she was an economist at a major UK bank, it turns out she was in charge of a customer complaints team. She cultivated this image that she was a serious economist and had real private sector experience which landed her the position of chancellor, it's completely undeserved.
    Come off it. I don’t think Starmer appointed her based on her LinkedIn profile or her CV!

    She looks a prat for doing this, but it’s hardly a resigning matter. I think it was a bad Budget but she’ll get her SR. When that falls over, and it will, I expect she’ll go in the following reshuffle.
    So you don't think that her bigging herself up as an economist for a major private sector UK bank helped her get the shadow chancellor gig when Labour were at their lowest ebb after the 2019 election? It's a view.
    HBOS was a fucking disaster. Why you'd want to big up your role there - as an economist - when senior management gave every impression that they did not understand what money even was, God only knows.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,460
    biggles said:

    MaxPB said:

    biggles said:

    MaxPB said:

    biggles said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    Lying did for Boris.

    She holds one of the great offices of state.

    As did Boris.
    It's fraud. She lied on her CV and said she was an economist at a major UK bank, it turns out she was in charge of a customer complaints team. She cultivated this image that she was a serious economist and had real private sector experience which landed her the position of chancellor, it's completely undeserved.
    Come off it. I don’t think Starmer appointed her based on her LinkedIn profile or her CV!

    She looks a prat for doing this, but it’s hardly a resigning matter. I think it was a bad Budget but she’ll get her SR. When that falls over, and it will, I expect she’ll go in the following reshuffle.
    So you don't think that her bigging herself up as an economist for a major private sector UK bank helped her get the shadow chancellor gig when Labour were at their lowest ebb after the 2019 election? It's a view.
    No. And nor would you if you were applying logic and rationality rather than partisan hate.

    You don’t get appointed Shadow CX because of what you did for a few years before you were an MP. To suggest you do is just silly.

    I yield to no one in my criticism of this Government, but based on facts rather than froth.
    You do when that job was supposedly being an economist at a major bank and the job in question is being the chief economist of the country. It can't be because of any innate talent because she's fucking useless.
    She isn’t chief economist of the country though? You have no idea what the Chancellor does do you?
    Given his job, I have a vague sense that @MaxPB is acquainted with the daily role of the Chancellor of the Exchequer
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,868
    biggles said:

    MaxPB said:

    biggles said:

    MaxPB said:

    biggles said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    Lying did for Boris.

    She holds one of the great offices of state.

    As did Boris.
    It's fraud. She lied on her CV and said she was an economist at a major UK bank, it turns out she was in charge of a customer complaints team. She cultivated this image that she was a serious economist and had real private sector experience which landed her the position of chancellor, it's completely undeserved.
    Come off it. I don’t think Starmer appointed her based on her LinkedIn profile or her CV!

    She looks a prat for doing this, but it’s hardly a resigning matter. I think it was a bad Budget but she’ll get her SR. When that falls over, and it will, I expect she’ll go in the following reshuffle.
    So you don't think that her bigging herself up as an economist for a major private sector UK bank helped her get the shadow chancellor gig when Labour were at their lowest ebb after the 2019 election? It's a view.
    No. And nor would you if you were applying logic and rationality rather than partisan hate.

    You don’t get appointed Shadow CX because of what you did for a few years before you were an MP. To suggest you do is just silly.

    I yield to no one in my criticism of this Government, but based on facts rather than froth.
    You do when that job was supposedly being an economist at a major bank and the job in question is being the chief economist of the country. It can't be because of any innate talent because she's fucking useless.
    She isn’t chief economist of the country though? You have no idea what the Chancellor does do you?
    I mean it's short hand but, yes, I do know what the chancellor does, it's actually one of the reasons I prefer people who aren't formally educated as economists to do it, they tend to be bad at the job.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,868
    Leon said:

    biggles said:

    MaxPB said:

    biggles said:

    MaxPB said:

    biggles said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    Lying did for Boris.

    She holds one of the great offices of state.

    As did Boris.
    It's fraud. She lied on her CV and said she was an economist at a major UK bank, it turns out she was in charge of a customer complaints team. She cultivated this image that she was a serious economist and had real private sector experience which landed her the position of chancellor, it's completely undeserved.
    Come off it. I don’t think Starmer appointed her based on her LinkedIn profile or her CV!

    She looks a prat for doing this, but it’s hardly a resigning matter. I think it was a bad Budget but she’ll get her SR. When that falls over, and it will, I expect she’ll go in the following reshuffle.
    So you don't think that her bigging herself up as an economist for a major private sector UK bank helped her get the shadow chancellor gig when Labour were at their lowest ebb after the 2019 election? It's a view.
    No. And nor would you if you were applying logic and rationality rather than partisan hate.

    You don’t get appointed Shadow CX because of what you did for a few years before you were an MP. To suggest you do is just silly.

    I yield to no one in my criticism of this Government, but based on facts rather than froth.
    You do when that job was supposedly being an economist at a major bank and the job in question is being the chief economist of the country. It can't be because of any innate talent because she's fucking useless.
    She isn’t chief economist of the country though? You have no idea what the Chancellor does do you?
    Given his job, I have a vague sense that @MaxPB is acquainted with the daily role of the Chancellor of the Exchequer
    I'm (almost) unemployed these days...
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,096
    Leon said:

    biggles said:

    TOPPING said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    Lying did for Boris.

    She holds one of the great offices of state.

    As did Boris.
    It's fraud. She lied on her CV and said she was an economist at a major UK bank, it turns out she was in charge of a customer complaints team. She cultivated this image that she was a serious economist and had real private sector experience which landed her the position of chancellor, it's completely undeserved.
    I cannot believe she was in the customer complaints dept. If her education is as stated then no way is she in customer complaints.
    My guess, looking at the declared facts, is that she knew that she wanted to stand for Parliament, the Bank has rules against it, and she found a middle management position in a bank office where she needed to be. Very sensible and she did join the Bank as an economist, so is responsible to say she was one once. She is in no way an expert, but then neither are most Chancellors.
    But it means she does NOT have the experience of a senior national economist, that she claimed. It might not matter if she was Minister for Sports and Jazz Hands, but she is now Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the back of this, and she is also responsible for a Budget (as @MaxPB notes) which is looking increasingly terrible as the days go by, conjuring lower growth from higher taxes and borrowing (how do you even do that??) and deeply angering everyone from farmers to Big Retail

    No one is happy with her. THAT is why she dyed her hair orange after 3 weeks in the job, she knows she is an impostor, and that was a bad case of Impostor Syndrome working through her microbrain, so she tried to disguise herself as someone else. Lesbian Worzel Gummidge. Didn't work
    I can’t believe you lot have me defending her as I think she’s dreadful, but she probably understands economics better than most Chancellors I can remember. To the extent there is a lie, it was a trivial one.

    It’s a political role. Her job is to spot the politics, like Osborne did. That’s why she’s crap - the political errors. The Budget process is an exercise in picking options from hundreds presented to you by officials, and avoiding the political bear traps.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,491
    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    They will care as polls show that half of their MPs - or more - are likely to lose at the next GE, unless this pathetic Labour government can actually do something. That's their careers going up in smoke

    I read a report in the FT that said "senior people in Labour are resigned to this being a one term government". Quite a remarkable statement given their enormous majority, and the fact we are only half a year in

    We are barely 4 months in. They've tanked the British economy, British territory, British interests and British influence in that time.

    That's how shit they are.
  • Leon said:

    I think its time for realpolitik. Ukraine cannot defeat Russia. A wider war where its chunks of Nato + Ukraine vs Russia could defeat Russia, but it seems very likely that Putin would push the button with his back against the wall.

    Ukraine doesn't have to defeat Russia, it just has to hold on militarily until the Russian economy collapses. No country can sustain spending 40%+ of GDP on war, particularly not one under severe sanctions and with deep-seated economic issues even in peacetime.

    The first signs are there now. Food prices jumping because farms cannot get labour or parts for the machines. An ever increasing percentage of the food that is grown never makes it to market because the railways have the same issues; no people, no spares, no new equipment. This is why Ukraine is expending so many of their drones hitting Russia's fuel infrastructure. Fuel shortages will dramatically these problems.

    Right now Russia is Germany in late 1917. Still functioning, still with a powerful army in the field, but with the economic and logistical situation in terminal decline. The Germans knew for some time the Royal Navy's blockade of the North Sea would evidentially strangle them, hence the do-or-die gamble of throwing the entire High Seas fleet at the RN in 1916.

    I remember many, many years ago reading an article written by a foreign journalist who was stationed in Berlin during the last months of the war. He went for a walk one day and recounted how all the restaurants he passed were closed, except one. He went in and looked at the menu, which contained only one meat dish; boiled crow.

    Russia is at the very most a year and a half away from boiled crow.
    But the analogy is entirely wrong

    Why? Because Russia has China to help. The biggest trading and manufacturing economy on the planet, right next door, and perhaps the single BIGGEST economy in the world (depending on GDP PPP arguments etc)

    China also has vast reserves of manpower and can chivvy tributary states into assisting Putin. NB North Korea suddenly coming up with 100,000 soldiers, what a coincidence

    This changes the equation entirely. Xi Jinping has made it clear he won't let Russia lose or Putin fall. That's it. To borrow your allegory it's like Germany in World War 1 having the USA on its side, rather than opposing, only this time America is right next door to Berlin and Britain cannot blockade any of their trade
    I agree with most of this. As I mentioned a few days ago, Hitler was not a nuclear dictator supported by another nuclear-armed dictator.

    We need to think very carefully indeed, in this situation, before reaching for what can sometimes be tempting but ahistorical analogies.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,815
    Cyclefree said:



    Dopermean said:

    On BBC2, the nuclear testing scandal. 70 years successive govts just delaying compensation until they've passed away.

    Fuck me! Who could ever imagine British governments doing such a thing?! It can't surely be happening now ......?
    As you know I am campaigning on behalf of just such a scandal where the Govt is prevaricating over compensation. Most of those impacted are in their 80s and 90s and dying off and it is 12 years on since the scandal broke. I'm not going to provide the details here as it is far too complex, but needless to say I doubt if more than 1 or 2 of you will be aware of it, which makes you wonder how many such scandals exist.

    Every time I hear the words 'We must never let this happen again' and 'We must learn the lessons from this' I feel like punching a wall.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,163
    Bloody autumn

  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,096
    edited November 20
    Leon said:

    biggles said:

    MaxPB said:

    biggles said:

    MaxPB said:

    biggles said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    Lying did for Boris.

    She holds one of the great offices of state.

    As did Boris.
    It's fraud. She lied on her CV and said she was an economist at a major UK bank, it turns out she was in charge of a customer complaints team. She cultivated this image that she was a serious economist and had real private sector experience which landed her the position of chancellor, it's completely undeserved.
    Come off it. I don’t think Starmer appointed her based on her LinkedIn profile or her CV!

    She looks a prat for doing this, but it’s hardly a resigning matter. I think it was a bad Budget but she’ll get her SR. When that falls over, and it will, I expect she’ll go in the following reshuffle.
    So you don't think that her bigging herself up as an economist for a major private sector UK bank helped her get the shadow chancellor gig when Labour were at their lowest ebb after the 2019 election? It's a view.
    No. And nor would you if you were applying logic and rationality rather than partisan hate.

    You don’t get appointed Shadow CX because of what you did for a few years before you were an MP. To suggest you do is just silly.

    I yield to no one in my criticism of this Government, but based on facts rather than froth.
    You do when that job was supposedly being an economist at a major bank and the job in question is being the chief economist of the country. It can't be because of any innate talent because she's fucking useless.
    She isn’t chief economist of the country though? You have no idea what the Chancellor does do you?
    Given his job, I have a vague sense that @MaxPB is acquainted with the daily role of the Chancellor of the Exchequer
    He works in Financial services doesn’t he? A tiny part of the portfolio which barely bothers CX. It’s like saying a footballer understands the role of Minister of Sport.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,460
    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    biggles said:

    MaxPB said:

    biggles said:

    MaxPB said:

    biggles said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    Lying did for Boris.

    She holds one of the great offices of state.

    As did Boris.
    It's fraud. She lied on her CV and said she was an economist at a major UK bank, it turns out she was in charge of a customer complaints team. She cultivated this image that she was a serious economist and had real private sector experience which landed her the position of chancellor, it's completely undeserved.
    Come off it. I don’t think Starmer appointed her based on her LinkedIn profile or her CV!

    She looks a prat for doing this, but it’s hardly a resigning matter. I think it was a bad Budget but she’ll get her SR. When that falls over, and it will, I expect she’ll go in the following reshuffle.
    So you don't think that her bigging herself up as an economist for a major private sector UK bank helped her get the shadow chancellor gig when Labour were at their lowest ebb after the 2019 election? It's a view.
    No. And nor would you if you were applying logic and rationality rather than partisan hate.

    You don’t get appointed Shadow CX because of what you did for a few years before you were an MP. To suggest you do is just silly.

    I yield to no one in my criticism of this Government, but based on facts rather than froth.
    You do when that job was supposedly being an economist at a major bank and the job in question is being the chief economist of the country. It can't be because of any innate talent because she's fucking useless.
    She isn’t chief economist of the country though? You have no idea what the Chancellor does do you?
    Given his job, I have a vague sense that @MaxPB is acquainted with the daily role of the Chancellor of the Exchequer
    I'm (almost) unemployed these days...
    Then you should do it. Go into politics

    You have a good brain, you're politically astute, you're affluent, and you're articulate. Allez!

    Britain NEEDS smart competent people like you - not these Labour fools - to go into parliament, You have real time career experience and you could surely land a nice safe Tory seat

    Also 2028-9 is gonna be carnage for Labour. I genuinely believe they could lose half or 2/3 of their seats. They are clearly clueless and have no idea how to solve any of Britain's big ongoing problems. The Budget was final proof of that. They did zero thinking in opposition. They are like students, constantly calling wanky votes about Palestine
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,720
    Andrew Marr interviews Elon Musk’s dad who says Starmer should resign.

    https://x.com/lbc/status/1859306260534796309
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,163

    Leon said:

    I think its time for realpolitik. Ukraine cannot defeat Russia. A wider war where its chunks of Nato + Ukraine vs Russia could defeat Russia, but it seems very likely that Putin would push the button with his back against the wall.

    Ukraine doesn't have to defeat Russia, it just has to hold on militarily until the Russian economy collapses. No country can sustain spending 40%+ of GDP on war, particularly not one under severe sanctions and with deep-seated economic issues even in peacetime.

    The first signs are there now. Food prices jumping because farms cannot get labour or parts for the machines. An ever increasing percentage of the food that is grown never makes it to market because the railways have the same issues; no people, no spares, no new equipment. This is why Ukraine is expending so many of their drones hitting Russia's fuel infrastructure. Fuel shortages will dramatically these problems.

    Right now Russia is Germany in late 1917. Still functioning, still with a powerful army in the field, but with the economic and logistical situation in terminal decline. The Germans knew for some time the Royal Navy's blockade of the North Sea would evidentially strangle them, hence the do-or-die gamble of throwing the entire High Seas fleet at the RN in 1916.

    I remember many, many years ago reading an article written by a foreign journalist who was stationed in Berlin during the last months of the war. He went for a walk one day and recounted how all the restaurants he passed were closed, except one. He went in and looked at the menu, which contained only one meat dish; boiled crow.

    Russia is at the very most a year and a half away from boiled crow.
    But the analogy is entirely wrong

    Why? Because Russia has China to help. The biggest trading and manufacturing economy on the planet, right next door, and perhaps the single BIGGEST economy in the world (depending on GDP PPP arguments etc)

    China also has vast reserves of manpower and can chivvy tributary states into assisting Putin. NB North Korea suddenly coming up with 100,000 soldiers, what a coincidence

    This changes the equation entirely. Xi Jinping has made it clear he won't let Russia lose or Putin fall. That's it. To borrow your allegory it's like Germany in World War 1 having the USA on its side, rather than opposing, only this time America is right next door to Berlin and Britain cannot blockade any of their trade
    I agree with most of this. As I mentioned a few days ago, Hitler was not a nuclear dictator supported by another nuclear-armed dictator.

    We need to think very carefully indeed, in this situation, before reaching for what can sometimes be tempting but ahistorical analogies.
    I think anyone using historical analogies should be forced to use only ones between 1AD to 1000AD, to screw over those whose only reference is WW2, and upper class Classics types.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,163
    Leon said:

    I think its time for realpolitik. Ukraine cannot defeat Russia. A wider war where its chunks of Nato + Ukraine vs Russia could defeat Russia, but it seems very likely that Putin would push the button with his back against the wall.

    Ukraine doesn't have to defeat Russia, it just has to hold on militarily until the Russian economy collapses. No country can sustain spending 40%+ of GDP on war, particularly not one under severe sanctions and with deep-seated economic issues even in peacetime.

    The first signs are there now. Food prices jumping because farms cannot get labour or parts for the machines. An ever increasing percentage of the food that is grown never makes it to market because the railways have the same issues; no people, no spares, no new equipment. This is why Ukraine is expending so many of their drones hitting Russia's fuel infrastructure. Fuel shortages will dramatically these problems.

    Right now Russia is Germany in late 1917. Still functioning, still with a powerful army in the field, but with the economic and logistical situation in terminal decline. The Germans knew for some time the Royal Navy's blockade of the North Sea would evidentially strangle them, hence the do-or-die gamble of throwing the entire High Seas fleet at the RN in 1916.

    I remember many, many years ago reading an article written by a foreign journalist who was stationed in Berlin during the last months of the war. He went for a walk one day and recounted how all the restaurants he passed were closed, except one. He went in and looked at the menu, which contained only one meat dish; boiled crow.

    Russia is at the very most a year and a half away from boiled crow.
    But the analogy is entirely wrong

    Why? Because Russia has China to help. The biggest trading and manufacturing economy on the planet, right next door, and perhaps the single BIGGEST economy in the world (depending on GDP PPP arguments etc)

    China also has vast reserves of manpower and can chivvy tributary states into assisting Putin. NB North Korea suddenly coming up with 100,000 soldiers, what a coincidence

    This changes the equation entirely. Xi Jinping has made it clear he won't let Russia lose or Putin fall. That's it. To borrow your allegory it's like Germany in World War 1 having the USA on its side, rather than opposing, only this time America is right next door to Berlin and Britain cannot blockade any of their trade
    I believe that was a big point in the book Autocracy Inc, about how in the globalised world autocratic regimes, even with ostensibly differing ideologies and ultimate goals, have a lot of incentive to provide assistance to one another, and overcome the sporadic efforts of competing democratic regimes.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,868
    biggles said:

    Leon said:

    biggles said:

    MaxPB said:

    biggles said:

    MaxPB said:

    biggles said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the shadow Lord Chancellor.




    Robert Jenrick
    @RobertJenrick

    The Reeves guide to conning the public:

    1. Fake your CV
    2. Tell working people you won’t raise their taxes
    3. Squeeze them to the pips and give their money to your union paymasters

    You can’t trust a word she says👇

    https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1859298630512889988

    Where's the lie?
    Yep. Seems fair to me

    Bruising, but that's politics

    Also Reeves IS a ridiculously incompent wanker who lied on her CV and is barely qualified to be a backbench MP let alone Chancellor of the Exchequer. That's simply the case. Is Jenrick meant to pretend this isn't true?
    It's also a matter of public record now because her LinkedIn page doesn't match the CV she gave to the Labour selection panel. She lied on her CV to get selected, there's now no disputing it so Jenrick is well within his rights to say that and force Labour into a response.
    Yes, Jenrick is well within his rights. However, as for forcing Labour into a response, I'm not sure that Labour will give a flying fuck what a dodgy Tory MP tweets.
    Lying did for Boris.

    She holds one of the great offices of state.

    As did Boris.
    It's fraud. She lied on her CV and said she was an economist at a major UK bank, it turns out she was in charge of a customer complaints team. She cultivated this image that she was a serious economist and had real private sector experience which landed her the position of chancellor, it's completely undeserved.
    Come off it. I don’t think Starmer appointed her based on her LinkedIn profile or her CV!

    She looks a prat for doing this, but it’s hardly a resigning matter. I think it was a bad Budget but she’ll get her SR. When that falls over, and it will, I expect she’ll go in the following reshuffle.
    So you don't think that her bigging herself up as an economist for a major private sector UK bank helped her get the shadow chancellor gig when Labour were at their lowest ebb after the 2019 election? It's a view.
    No. And nor would you if you were applying logic and rationality rather than partisan hate.

    You don’t get appointed Shadow CX because of what you did for a few years before you were an MP. To suggest you do is just silly.

    I yield to no one in my criticism of this Government, but based on facts rather than froth.
    You do when that job was supposedly being an economist at a major bank and the job in question is being the chief economist of the country. It can't be because of any innate talent because she's fucking useless.
    She isn’t chief economist of the country though? You have no idea what the Chancellor does do you?
    Given his job, I have a vague sense that @MaxPB is acquainted with the daily role of the Chancellor of the Exchequer
    He works in Financial services doesn’t he? A tiny part of the portfolio which barely bothers CX. It’s like saying a footballer understands the role of Minister of Sport.
    Fund management for a while but then I moved into startup funding and consulting. As you say I'm not sure it's that relevant other than understanding the basis of why her policies are shite. I still don't understand how she's managed to borrow £150bn extra and produce less growth than before, it implies the rest of her budget measures have hugely negative multipliers which makes her a bad chancellor.
This discussion has been closed.