Thanks for everybody's thoughts on the header. I would agree that a Parliamentary system does have a certain protection via leadership challenge or VONC, but on the other hand it is possible under FPTP to have a comfortable majority on only a third of the popular vote, far below what MAGA needed across the pond.
There is considerable ongoing risk though with the imbalance between an executive that rules via perogative powers, and stacked and truncated discussion in the Commons. The Lords is increasingly poor at scrutiny too, with new Lords being political henchmen and donors rather than able to revise poorly written legislation.
Thanks for the header, Foxy. A possible scenario is a majority Reform government, with red wall MPs (think many Lee Andersons) voting in a bloc to implement Trumpian policies. Would/could Farage stop them? It’s unlikely, but not impossible.
While Reform is the most likely party to go Trumpist it isn't the only possibility. We could envisage another massive clearout of experienced MPs happens at the next GE in favour of poorly vetted newbies, for example the new Independents caucusing with Corbyn.
Ed Davey and the 73 could go mad whilst camping in Somerset. Enid Blyton presages such things!
is very interesting. They are becoming a threat because the people starting to sympathise with it are not racists or extremes. It's mostly about the incompetence of all the others.
I expect Reform to continue its process of detoxifying, deTrumpifying and making it clear that it is an old fashioned 1950s centrist social democratic party + nationalist + low migration policy + firmly anti racist (sotto voce: who have eccentric members some of them extreme, uncosted Noddy economics and no core of leaders, and no actual evidence of competence).
Already all this 'Far Right wing' stuff loks very old fashioned.
Reform is Thatcherite on economics and nationalist on culture and immigration.
If you want social democracy or to rejoin the EU or single market or customs Union and a closer relationship with the EU you will vote Labour or LD. If you want socialism Green. If you want soft Brexit Thatcherism with a bit of anti woke for Badenoch’s Conservatives.
Reform is the party for hard Brexit anti woke hardline anti immigration types who are mostly Thatcherites too
Reform isn't Thatcherite on economics. It is proposing to provide lots of unfunded goodies including:
Raising personal allowance for income tax to £20K Raising stamp duty threshold to £750K Extra £17b for the NHS Tax relief on school fees Big tax cuts for small businesses IHT threshold raised to £2m
Very attractive shop window. But how's it going to be paid for? Where is the costed balanced budget?
If you want free goodies, vote Reform. But you'll be disappointed.
Farage is open to replacing the NHS with an insurance model and raising tax thresholds, tax relief on school fees and tax cuts for small businesses are Thatcherite policies too
Not if they are unfounded. Thatcher believed in sound money policies. Reform not so much. Reform would borrow the money. A bit like the last Tory Government.
Farage wants to fund healthcare with insurance, which could largely end taxpayer funds for the NHS and be a big saving
That's not in their policy document. This is what they say about the NHS. More unfunded goodies.
NHS have apparently (not sure if this is on Foxy's radar too) announced to staff that around 10-15% of admin jobs are to go at NHS England.
So whether Farage is right or wrong he's missed the bus on that.
Natural wastage or huge payoffs at the taxpayers expense ?
Usually it's the first, but as a general rule with hiring freezes etc it is the most talented and able people that leave. This is because they have skills in demand elsewhere, while the duffers and timeservers don't get head-hunted.
In particular the private outsourcing services will cherry pick the NHSE staff from contracting. They are pretty rubbish at running services, but very sharp at writing tight contracts that guarantee profits.
I’m sure the NHS with all its CIPS trained Supply Chain teams will be equally adept at negotiating contracts and ensuring there are tight performance clauses in them.
A contract is agreed by two parties not just imposed.
As for the duffers if they are so poor why are they still there why aren’t HR managing their poor performance and getting them on performance plans and managing them out if needed ?
I don't think that true. The widespread failures that we see in outsourcing companies are not just in the NHS. We seem them in prisons, PFI, schools, probation services, disability benefit assessments, children's homes, military recruitment and training and perhaps most spectacularly with the Post Office Counters scandal, yet the same companies repeatedly get new contracts and turn profits. The one thing that they are good at is writing contracts, and it's in large part because they pay more and devote more time to writing the contracts than the government quango signing them off.
My point still applies whatever the public sector entity entering the contract is and many of these contracts both parties willingly enter into are standard terms on standard templates with a few specific performance terms and statement of work attached to it.
To work in the public sector at a certain level when negotiating or managing contracts you have to be CIPS qualified.
In terms of signing off there will be an internal process where all stakeholders will review the contract and agree it.
There is nothing wrong with private companies making a profit.
Where I think contract management is weak, in my experience, is managing changes in scope. The old ‘dollar mods’ syndrome we used to talk about in engineering.
You can have any change you want but it will cost at least a dollar. Add a screw, that’s a dollar, remove a washer, another dollar.
@l_stone #BREAKING: Ontario Premier Doug Ford announces starting Tuesday, the province is removing American products from LCBO shelves & also from its catalogue so restaurants and retailers can’t order or restock U.S. products. #onpoli
That’s the third province in Canada to announce such retaliation to Trump’s tariffs (and two of the three premiers are Conservatives)
Imagine having a government Liquor Control Board decide what alcoholic drinks you can buy.
Deciding.
If that’s a grammatical correction, it’s unnecessary. Decide was fine.
Yes, Lucky is usually solid if rather 'trad' on grammar but here he errs.
The "decide" is actually better because of the preceding "having".
Without the "having" he'd have been correct to say "deciding" was the right word.
Though the sentence is ambigous, or at least has a double meaning. Does it mean imagine a person being in the postion of having it decided for them, or imagine being a goverment being the position of ordering such a situation.
Yes. William will say if I'm wrong but I think it was meant the first way.
'Mexico is considering carousel retaliation, which would periodically rotate the U.S. products subject to retaliatory tariffs. This generates uncertainty in U.S. export sectors and has a political impact - agriculture is likely to lobby Congress.'
"On October 2, 2019, a World Trade Organization (WTO) arbitrator rendered a decision that authorized the United States to apply retaliatory tariffs on as much as US$7.5 billion worth of European exports each year until WTO-illegal European subsidies to its aircraft industry were removed. In a press release issued that day, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced that beginning October 18, the United States would apply WTO-approved tariffs on a list of EU products. The list included 10 percent duties on civil aircraft, but also 25 percent duties on goods we consume directly including butter, various cheeses, clementines, clams, green olives and single-malt Irish and Scotch Whiskies."
@l_stone #BREAKING: Ontario Premier Doug Ford announces starting Tuesday, the province is removing American products from LCBO shelves & also from its catalogue so restaurants and retailers can’t order or restock U.S. products. #onpoli
That’s the third province in Canada to announce such retaliation to Trump’s tariffs (and two of the three premiers are Conservatives)
Imagine having a government Liquor Control Board decide what alcoholic drinks you can buy.
Deciding.
If that’s a grammatical correction, it’s unnecessary. Decide was fine.
Yes, Lucky is usually solid if rather 'trad' on grammar but here he errs.
The "decide" is actually better because of the preceding "having".
Without the "having" he'd have been correct to say "deciding" was the right word.
Though the sentence is ambigous, or at least has a double meaning. Does it mean imagine a person being in the postion of having it decided for them, or imagine being a goverment being the position of ordering such a situation.
Yes. William will say if I'm wrong but I think it was meant the first way.
Yes, it was meant the first way. I was implying that the Canadians might be in need of liberation.
@l_stone #BREAKING: Ontario Premier Doug Ford announces starting Tuesday, the province is removing American products from LCBO shelves & also from its catalogue so restaurants and retailers can’t order or restock U.S. products. #onpoli
@l_stone #BREAKING: Ontario Premier Doug Ford announces starting Tuesday, the province is removing American products from LCBO shelves & also from its catalogue so restaurants and retailers can’t order or restock U.S. products. #onpoli
That’s the third province in Canada to announce such retaliation to Trump’s tariffs (and two of the three premiers are Conservatives)
Imagine having a government Liquor Control Board decide what alcoholic drinks you can buy.
Deciding.
If that’s a grammatical correction, it’s unnecessary. Decide was fine.
Yes, Lucky is usually solid if rather 'trad' on grammar but here he errs.
The "decide" is actually better because of the preceding "having".
Without the "having" he'd have been correct to say "deciding" was the right word.
Though the sentence is ambigous, or at least has a double meaning. Does it mean imagine a person being in the postion of having it decided for them, or imagine being a goverment being the position of ordering such a situation.
Yes. William will say if I'm wrong but I think it was meant the first way.
Yes, it was meant the first way. I was implying that the Canadians might be in need of liberation.
Question for PB brains: Are all these tariffs flying around likely to stoke up inflation globally or will they have an overall dampening effect on economic activity?
Quite possibly both. Soaring prices of some goods, plus a global recession.
Wouldn’t that be fun?
NYT
“Analysts at Goldman Sachs have said that if Mr. Trump proceeds with across-the-board tariffs, it would both raise prices in the United States and slow economic growth.”
WSJ was more scathing.
The Dumbest Trade War in History
...President Trump will fire his first tariff salvo on Saturday against those notorious American adversaries . . . Mexico and Canada. They’ll get hit with a 25% border tax, while China, a real adversary, will endure 10%. This reminds us of the old Bernard Lewis joke that it’s risky to be America’s enemy but it can be fatal to be its friend. Leaving China aside, Mr. Trump’s justification for this economic assault on the neighbors makes no sense...
Whenever "The Art of the Deal" is mentioned, I am reminded of a American athlete -- I think a Philadelphia baseball player -- who was asked about something in a book that had been ghost written for him. He said something like this: "I don't know. I haven't read that part yet."
Black Doves is very entertaining. Great script, some brilliant characters
However a lot of it demands serious suspension of disbelief. Most unbelievable of all: the idea a humble Minister for Defence could live in a spectacular Georgian house in central-ish London
I reviewed in a few weeks back: ‘absurd but entertaining’. It doesn’t make the mistake of taking itself at all seriously.
Yes. It also carries it all off in high style and makes you care - a bit - about the characters even tho it is basically a cartoon
Very enjoyable. Hope they do another series
Clearly intended, but will depend on the ratings (which look OK).
Via @BMGResearch, 28-29 Jan. Changes w/ 26-27 Nov.
Cmon Britain. We can do this. Get Reform to 40
If that happens and they get into government surely you'll pretty much be restricted to Bulgarian Hotels, and re-Education holidays on the Isle of Wight?
@l_stone #BREAKING: Ontario Premier Doug Ford announces starting Tuesday, the province is removing American products from LCBO shelves & also from its catalogue so restaurants and retailers can’t order or restock U.S. products. #onpoli
That’s the third province in Canada to announce such retaliation to Trump’s tariffs (and two of the three premiers are Conservatives)
Imagine having a government Liquor Control Board decide what alcoholic drinks you can buy.
We should do the same. No Bud Lite. No Oreo cookies. No McDonalds. No Jack Daniels. No Coca Cola. What an improvement in our diet!
For your insults to Mr John Daniels Esq. I declare you guilty.
{black cap}
You shall be taken hence to a place of punishment. There to be confined with Piers Corbyn, Piers Morgan and Julian Assange. In one cell. The TV will be set to GB News, with no volume control. Simultaneous, the worst Radiohead song will play on a loop. forever. A laptop will allow you to read the comments on Con Home, program in Python. And nothing else.
Wildly off topic. My wife and I have these little chats sometimes and this morning the main subject of it was Tony Martin (the farmer). We'd never discussed him before to my recollection. He wasn't in the news and hadn't been for ages. Now it's announced he's died. Incredible. The sort of thing that makes you believe in forces beyond our ken.
@l_stone #BREAKING: Ontario Premier Doug Ford announces starting Tuesday, the province is removing American products from LCBO shelves & also from its catalogue so restaurants and retailers can’t order or restock U.S. products. #onpoli
That’s the third province in Canada to announce such retaliation to Trump’s tariffs (and two of the three premiers are Conservatives)
Imagine having a government Liquor Control Board decide what alcoholic drinks you can buy.
We should do the same. No Bud Lite. No Oreo cookies. No McDonalds. No Jack Daniels. No Coca Cola. What an improvement in our diet!
For your insults to Mr John Daniels Esq. I declare you guilty.
{black cap}
You shall be taken hence to a place of punishment. There to be confined with Piers Corbyn, Piers Morgan and Julian Assange. In one cell. The TV will be set to GB News, with no volume control. Simultaneous, the worst Radiohead song will play on a loop. forever. A laptop will allow you to read the comments on Con Home, program in Python. And nothing else.
May The Lord Have No Mercy On Your Soul.
As long as you listen to the entire Radiohead playlist in order to choose the worst song, I accept the punishment.
Wildly off topic. My wife and I have these little chats sometimes and this morning the main subject of it was Tony Martin (the farmer). We'd never discussed him before to my recollection. He wasn't in the news and hadn't been for ages. Now it's announced he's died. Incredible. The sort of thing that makes you believe in forces beyond our ken.
Wildly off topic. My wife and I have these little chats sometimes and this morning the main subject of it was Tony Martin (the farmer). We'd never discussed him before to my recollection. He wasn't in the news and hadn't been for ages. Now it's announced he's died. Incredible. The sort of thing that makes you believe in forces beyond our ken.
Black Doves is very entertaining. Great script, some brilliant characters
However a lot of it demands serious suspension of disbelief. Most unbelievable of all: the idea a humble Minister for Defence could live in a spectacular Georgian house in central-ish London
I reviewed in a few weeks back: ‘absurd but entertaining’. It doesn’t make the mistake of taking itself at all seriously.
Yes. It also carries it all off in high style and makes you care - a bit - about the characters even tho it is basically a cartoon
Very enjoyable. Hope they do another series
Clearly intended, but will depend on the ratings (which look OK).
Apparently already underway. Season 2 due in 2026. Bit slow but 👍
I liked how they made london look glamorous. We could do with a bit more of that
London is a magical city - outside of November, January, February and early March - we need more image-makes to celebrate it
Wildly off topic. My wife and I have these little chats sometimes and this morning the main subject of it was Tony Martin (the farmer). We'd never discussed him before to my recollection. He wasn't in the news and hadn't been for ages. Now it's announced he's died. Incredible. The sort of thing that makes you believe in forces beyond our ken.
Thanks for everybody's thoughts on the header. I would agree that a Parliamentary system does have a certain protection via leadership challenge or VONC, but on the other hand it is possible under FPTP to have a comfortable majority on only a third of the popular vote, far below what MAGA needed across the pond.
There is considerable ongoing risk though with the imbalance between an executive that rules via perogative powers, and stacked and truncated discussion in the Commons. The Lords is increasingly poor at scrutiny too, with new Lords being political henchmen and donors rather than able to revise poorly written legislation.
Thanks for the header, Foxy. A possible scenario is a majority Reform government, with red wall MPs (think many Lee Andersons) voting in a bloc to implement Trumpian policies. Would/could Farage stop them? It’s unlikely, but not impossible.
But the Red Wall only returns a modest fraction of Parliament. The notion of any kind of Parliamentary majority for Reform rests either on mass defections by Labour voters in the core cities, or by both Conservative and Liberal Democrat voters in Southern England. Both scenarios are (a) highly improbable and (b) would require Reform to turn itself into a different party to attract such people.
They can become a substantial and very loud opposition group by steamrollering Labour MPs in poor white people places, but significant expansion beyond those boundaries looks like a Herculean task for them.
Wildly off topic. My wife and I have these little chats sometimes and this morning the main subject of it was Tony Martin (the farmer). We'd never discussed him before to my recollection. He wasn't in the news and hadn't been for ages. Now it's announced he's died. Incredible. The sort of thing that makes you believe in forces beyond our ken.
You should collect these little apercus and publish them as a comic diary. You’re a modern Grossmith.
Wildly off topic. My wife and I have these little chats sometimes and this morning the main subject of it was Tony Martin (the farmer). We'd never discussed him before to my recollection. He wasn't in the news and hadn't been for ages. Now it's announced he's died. Incredible. The sort of thing that makes you believe in forces beyond our ken.
You should collect these little apercus and publish them as a comic diary. You’re a modern Grossmith.
I sometimes wonder if @kinabalu is a great comic creation
Brexiteers before the vote" "This will be brilliant"
Remainers now: "This is shit"
Brexiteers now: "Waaaaaaaaaaaa. IT'S NOT OUR FAULT. Waaaaaaaaaaaa"
I can genuinely say the only impact Brexit has had on my life is that I now have to get a stamp in my passport when I go to Europe. Something I actually quite like. Admittedly, it seems to have impacted you more than most though.
Its had minimal impact on my life and where I work too. A couple of suppliers changed to FOB from DDP aside from that nothing much.
The biggest impact I’ve seen is online forums, like this, with the odd diehard FBPE Brexit obsessive ranting about it endlessly. FBPE and Brexit are two terms I muted on twitter ad my experience there is all the better for it.
I doubt it's had any impact upon Scott's life, either. People get worked up online about all sorts of things that don't impact upon them.
Yes, the secret truth of Brexit is that very few people have noticed any real difference.
This annoys some who were Brexiteers because it was not a cure all. It also annoys many who were Remainers because the world has not ended, so they keep looking for edge cases to get excited over.
In reality the impact is a bit of irritation in export focused sectors who had got used to not having to think of EU sales as exports, and a tiny impact on GDP; but we are now so far into the counterfactual no one knows by how much. Certainly, looking at EU economic performance it’s hard to argue that continued membership would have seen us do any better.
The continued tears are because those who know what the process of joining the EU would mean also know us doing so is now inconceivable.
Wittering on about it is a waste of everyone’s time.
It absorbed virtually all the political resource of the country for half a decade. That in itself is a huge cost. You'd expect big tangible benefits as a result. If the very best one can conclude is that the impact is no big deal either way the project can only be deemed a fail.
That wasn't intrinsic to a Leave vote - an awful lot of the bandwidth was consumed battling the sore losers, led, of course, by Starmer.
Yes. And the ERG nutters. But whatever, it was a 5 year shitshow.
Sure. But the ERG nutters in the end got cast as sane - or, at least, democratic - as they were the only people arguing to implement the referendum result come what may.
They blocked the exit deal their own PM had negotiated. They (and the DUP) are no less to blame for the prolonged chaos than the opposition parties and the handful of hard Con Remainers.
Except that it should never have got to the point where they could have helped block the deal. There was always a natural majority for a soft Leave type deal, if only the Remainers hadn't been like the dog at the river,
Wildly off topic. My wife and I have these little chats sometimes and this morning the main subject of it was Tony Martin (the farmer). We'd never discussed him before to my recollection. He wasn't in the news and hadn't been for ages. Now it's announced he's died. Incredible. The sort of thing that makes you believe in forces beyond our ken.
I think he was very lucky to get off with manslaughter tbh.
Wildly off topic. My wife and I have these little chats sometimes and this morning the main subject of it was Tony Martin (the farmer). We'd never discussed him before to my recollection. He wasn't in the news and hadn't been for ages. Now it's announced he's died. Incredible. The sort of thing that makes you believe in forces beyond our ken.
You should collect these little apercus and publish them as a comic diary. You’re a modern Grossmith.
Via @BMGResearch, 28-29 Jan. Changes w/ 26-27 Nov.
Cmon Britain. We can do this. Get Reform to 40
If that happens and they get into government surely you'll pretty much be restricted to Bulgarian Hotels, and re-Education holidays on the Isle of Wight?
Each to his own.
Edit: I imagine I meant Hungarian
Didn't that 'gay donkey raped my horse guy' end up in Bulgaria?
Via @BMGResearch, 28-29 Jan. Changes w/ 26-27 Nov.
Cmon Britain. We can do this. Get Reform to 40
Nah, would be funnier to see them all drop a little and transfer to the LD and have them all on 22% each.
Maybe the Greens could join in and all tie at 19%?
It's quite nuts that a sensible party like the LDs are so held back by their leader that they can't make ground when all other parties are failing, and yet a 2nd bunch of the insane could come up on the rails.
Wildly off topic. My wife and I have these little chats sometimes and this morning the main subject of it was Tony Martin (the farmer). We'd never discussed him before to my recollection. He wasn't in the news and hadn't been for ages. Now it's announced he's died. Incredible. The sort of thing that makes you believe in forces beyond our ken.
You should collect these little apercus and publish them as a comic diary. You’re a modern Grossmith.
I sometimes wonder if @kinabalu is a great comic creation
Wildly off topic. My wife and I have these little chats sometimes and this morning the main subject of it was Tony Martin (the farmer). We'd never discussed him before to my recollection. He wasn't in the news and hadn't been for ages. Now it's announced he's died. Incredible. The sort of thing that makes you believe in forces beyond our ken.
I think he was very lucky to get off with manslaughter tbh.
Even the more… convivial American cops recommend making sure all the holes are in the front of your legally challenged acquaintances.
Even in Texas, shot in the back while running looks poor. Unsporting, frankly.
Via @BMGResearch, 28-29 Jan. Changes w/ 26-27 Nov.
Cmon Britain. We can do this. Get Reform to 40
If that happens and they get into government surely you'll pretty much be restricted to Bulgarian Hotels, and re-Education holidays on the Isle of Wight?
Each to his own.
Edit: I imagine I meant Hungarian
Didn't that 'gay donkey raped my horse guy' end up in Bulgaria?
That clearly has no connection whatsoever with Leon. None. Definitely not. Although he's not been to Bulgaria since.
Thanks for everybody's thoughts on the header. I would agree that a Parliamentary system does have a certain protection via leadership challenge or VONC, but on the other hand it is possible under FPTP to have a comfortable majority on only a third of the popular vote, far below what MAGA needed across the pond.
There is considerable ongoing risk though with the imbalance between an executive that rules via perogative powers, and stacked and truncated discussion in the Commons. The Lords is increasingly poor at scrutiny too, with new Lords being political henchmen and donors rather than able to revise poorly written legislation.
Thanks for the header, Foxy. A possible scenario is a majority Reform government, with red wall MPs (think many Lee Andersons) voting in a bloc to implement Trumpian policies. Would/could Farage stop them? It’s unlikely, but not impossible.
But the Red Wall only returns a modest fraction of Parliament. The notion of any kind of Parliamentary majority for Reform rests either on mass defections by Labour voters in the core cities, or by both Conservative and Liberal Democrat voters in Southern England. Both scenarios are (a) highly improbable and (b) would require Reform to turn itself into a different party to attract such people.
They can become a substantial and very loud opposition group by steamrollering Labour MPs in poor white people places, but significant expansion beyond those boundaries looks like a Herculean task for them.
Reform did rather well in the Shire counties across much of England too, often second or third. "Red Wall" type voters exist nationwide.
I agree though that getting a majority is a long shot even if the polling doesn't change in the next 4 years. If they did manage it, many of the gains would be from the Tories.
Via @BMGResearch, 28-29 Jan. Changes w/ 26-27 Nov.
Cmon Britain. We can do this. Get Reform to 40
Nah, would be funnier to see them all drop a little and transfer to the LD and have them all on 22% each.
Maybe the Greens could join in and all tie at 19%?
It's quite nuts that a sensible party like the LDs are so held back by their leader that they can't make ground when all other parties are failing, and yet a 2nd bunch of the insane could come up on the rails.
It’s not the leader.
Lab and Con are on core vote. Reform is the anti-Lib Dems. The Greens are Spare Labour - Corbynites if you are lucky.
Where are the Lib Dems going to get liberal democratic votes from?
I see the most-read article on the Spectator is a ridiculous Threnody for Empire
Written by one raddled old tart who used to post on here called @SeanT. Who knows what misadventures he is on? Well, an archive link is here: https://archive.is/SCjpE
Brexiteers before the vote" "This will be brilliant"
Remainers now: "This is shit"
Brexiteers now: "Waaaaaaaaaaaa. IT'S NOT OUR FAULT. Waaaaaaaaaaaa"
I can genuinely say the only impact Brexit has had on my life is that I now have to get a stamp in my passport when I go to Europe. Something I actually quite like. Admittedly, it seems to have impacted you more than most though.
Its had minimal impact on my life and where I work too. A couple of suppliers changed to FOB from DDP aside from that nothing much.
The biggest impact I’ve seen is online forums, like this, with the odd diehard FBPE Brexit obsessive ranting about it endlessly. FBPE and Brexit are two terms I muted on twitter ad my experience there is all the better for it.
I doubt it's had any impact upon Scott's life, either. People get worked up online about all sorts of things that don't impact upon them.
Yes, the secret truth of Brexit is that very few people have noticed any real difference.
This annoys some who were Brexiteers because it was not a cure all. It also annoys many who were Remainers because the world has not ended, so they keep looking for edge cases to get excited over.
In reality the impact is a bit of irritation in export focused sectors who had got used to not having to think of EU sales as exports, and a tiny impact on GDP; but we are now so far into the counterfactual no one knows by how much. Certainly, looking at EU economic performance it’s hard to argue that continued membership would have seen us do any better.
The continued tears are because those who know what the process of joining the EU would mean also know us doing so is now inconceivable.
Wittering on about it is a waste of everyone’s time.
It absorbed virtually all the political resource of the country for half a decade. That in itself is a huge cost. You'd expect big tangible benefits as a result. If the very best one can conclude is that the impact is no big deal either way the project can only be deemed a fail.
That wasn't intrinsic to a Leave vote - an awful lot of the bandwidth was consumed battling the sore losers, led, of course, by Starmer.
Yes. And the ERG nutters. But whatever, it was a 5 year shitshow.
Sure. But the ERG nutters in the end got cast as sane - or, at least, democratic - as they were the only people arguing to implement the referendum result come what may.
They blocked the exit deal their own PM had negotiated. They (and the DUP) are no less to blame for the prolonged chaos than the opposition parties and the handful of hard Con Remainers.
Except that it should never have got to the point where they could have helped block the deal. There was always a natural majority for a soft Leave type deal, if only the Remainers hadn't been like the dog at the river,
Etc etc. Most done to death debate ever. So let me just sum up and conclude. It was incumbent on the governing Conservative party to negotiate and conclude the best Brexit deal they could in a timely and efficient manner. They failed abjectly to do so.
Via @BMGResearch, 28-29 Jan. Changes w/ 26-27 Nov.
Cmon Britain. We can do this. Get Reform to 40
Nah, would be funnier to see them all drop a little and transfer to the LD and have them all on 22% each.
Maybe the Greens could join in and all tie at 19%?
It's quite nuts that a sensible party like the LDs are so held back by their leader that they can't make ground when all other parties are failing, and yet a 2nd bunch of the insane could come up on the rails.
It’s not the leader.
Lab and Con are on core vote. Reform is the anti-Lib Dems. The Greens are Spare Labour - Corbynites if you are lucky.
Where are the Lib Dems going to get liberal democratic votes from?
You may well be right. What did the 'Alliance' poll (opinion polls) in the 80s though - something like 45%?
Thanks for everybody's thoughts on the header. I would agree that a Parliamentary system does have a certain protection via leadership challenge or VONC, but on the other hand it is possible under FPTP to have a comfortable majority on only a third of the popular vote, far below what MAGA needed across the pond.
There is considerable ongoing risk though with the imbalance between an executive that rules via perogative powers, and stacked and truncated discussion in the Commons. The Lords is increasingly poor at scrutiny too, with new Lords being political henchmen and donors rather than able to revise poorly written legislation.
Thanks for the header, Foxy. A possible scenario is a majority Reform government, with red wall MPs (think many Lee Andersons) voting in a bloc to implement Trumpian policies. Would/could Farage stop them? It’s unlikely, but not impossible.
But the Red Wall only returns a modest fraction of Parliament. The notion of any kind of Parliamentary majority for Reform rests either on mass defections by Labour voters in the core cities, or by both Conservative and Liberal Democrat voters in Southern England. Both scenarios are (a) highly improbable and (b) would require Reform to turn itself into a different party to attract such people.
They can become a substantial and very loud opposition group by steamrollering Labour MPs in poor white people places, but significant expansion beyond those boundaries looks like a Herculean task for them.
Reform did rather well in the Shire counties across much of England too, often second or third. "Red Wall" type voters exist nationwide.
I agree though that getting a majority is a long shot even if the polling doesn't change in the next 4 years. If they did manage it, many of the gains would be from the Tories.
The Liberal Democrats used to stack up tonnes of useless second and third places before the Coalition, and much good it did them. Reform got 8,500 votes round my way but it hasn't a snowball's chance in Hades of coming from that position to win: if Labour faceplants the seat will just go straight back to the Tories.
Realistically, Reform probably only becomes a serious contender for Government if it can reassemble the Boris Johnson voter coalition. That's a huge ask.
The “Tariff Lobby,” headed by the Globalist, and always wrong, Wall Street Journal, is working hard to justify Countries like Canada, Mexico, China, and too many others to name, continue the decades long RIPOFF OF AMERICA, both with regard to TRADE, CRIME, AND POISONOUS DRUGS that are allowed to so freely flow into AMERICA. THOSE DAYS ARE OVER! The USA has major deficits with Canada, Mexico, and China (and almost all countries!), owes 36 Trillion Dollars, and we’re not going to be the “Stupid Country” any longer. MAKE YOUR PRODUCT IN THE USA AND THERE ARE NO TARIFFS! Why should the United States lose TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN SUBSIDIZING OTHER COUNTRIES, and why should these other countries pay a small fraction of the cost of what USA citizens pay for Drugs and Pharmaceuticals, as an example? THIS WILL BE THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICA! WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!). BUT WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, AND IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID. WE ARE A COUNTRY THAT IS NOW BEING RUN WITH COMMON SENSE — AND THE RESULTS WILL BE SPECTACULAR!!!
We pay hundreds of Billions of Dollars to SUBSIDIZE Canada. Why? There is no reason. We don’t need anything they have. We have unlimited Energy, should make our own Cars, and have more Lumber than we can ever use. Without this massive subsidy, Canada ceases to exist as a viable Country. Harsh but true! Therefore, Canada should become our Cherished 51st State. Much lower taxes, and far better military protection for the people of Canada — AND NO TARIFFS!
Absolutely raving nuts. Also dumb as a box of rocks.
Did he (Trump) actually post this?
If he was in any other position, the nurse would be wheeling him away with the comment, "Sure, sure grandad; now let's get your hot chocolate made and you tucked up into bed."
Wildly off topic. My wife and I have these little chats sometimes and this morning the main subject of it was Tony Martin (the farmer). We'd never discussed him before to my recollection. He wasn't in the news and hadn't been for ages. Now it's announced he's died. Incredible. The sort of thing that makes you believe in forces beyond our ken.
I think he was very lucky to get off with manslaughter tbh.
Brexiteers before the vote" "This will be brilliant"
Remainers now: "This is shit"
Brexiteers now: "Waaaaaaaaaaaa. IT'S NOT OUR FAULT. Waaaaaaaaaaaa"
I can genuinely say the only impact Brexit has had on my life is that I now have to get a stamp in my passport when I go to Europe. Something I actually quite like. Admittedly, it seems to have impacted you more than most though.
Its had minimal impact on my life and where I work too. A couple of suppliers changed to FOB from DDP aside from that nothing much.
The biggest impact I’ve seen is online forums, like this, with the odd diehard FBPE Brexit obsessive ranting about it endlessly. FBPE and Brexit are two terms I muted on twitter ad my experience there is all the better for it.
I doubt it's had any impact upon Scott's life, either. People get worked up online about all sorts of things that don't impact upon them.
Yes, the secret truth of Brexit is that very few people have noticed any real difference.
This annoys some who were Brexiteers because it was not a cure all. It also annoys many who were Remainers because the world has not ended, so they keep looking for edge cases to get excited over.
In reality the impact is a bit of irritation in export focused sectors who had got used to not having to think of EU sales as exports, and a tiny impact on GDP; but we are now so far into the counterfactual no one knows by how much. Certainly, looking at EU economic performance it’s hard to argue that continued membership would have seen us do any better.
The continued tears are because those who know what the process of joining the EU would mean also know us doing so is now inconceivable.
Wittering on about it is a waste of everyone’s time.
It absorbed virtually all the political resource of the country for half a decade. That in itself is a huge cost. You'd expect big tangible benefits as a result. If the very best one can conclude is that the impact is no big deal either way the project can only be deemed a fail.
That wasn't intrinsic to a Leave vote - an awful lot of the bandwidth was consumed battling the sore losers, led, of course, by Starmer.
Yes. And the ERG nutters. But whatever, it was a 5 year shitshow.
Sure. But the ERG nutters in the end got cast as sane - or, at least, democratic - as they were the only people arguing to implement the referendum result come what may.
They blocked the exit deal their own PM had negotiated. They (and the DUP) are no less to blame for the prolonged chaos than the opposition parties and the handful of hard Con Remainers.
Except that it should never have got to the point where they could have helped block the deal. There was always a natural majority for a soft Leave type deal, if only the Remainers hadn't been like the dog at the river,
Etc etc. Most done to death debate ever. So let me just sum up and conclude. It was incumbent on the governing Conservative party to negotiate and conclude the best Brexit deal they could in a timely and efficient manner. They failed abjectly to do so.
More than a whiff of X hasn’t been done properly because Y were a bit rubbish but mainly because they were impeded by Z. Sure I’ve heard a variation of that before.
Question for PB brains: Are all these tariffs flying around likely to stoke up inflation globally or will they have an overall dampening effect on economic activity?
Quite possibly both. Soaring prices of some goods, plus a global recession.
Wouldn’t that be fun?
NYT
“Analysts at Goldman Sachs have said that if Mr. Trump proceeds with across-the-board tariffs, it would both raise prices in the United States and slow economic growth.”
For the sake of balance, what do they predict would be the increase in GDP if Canada were annexed by the USA?
The United States. A trade war with China, trying to annex Canada (and Mexico).....
I'm sure this'll end well..... nothing to see here. Move along.
Thanks for everybody's thoughts on the header. I would agree that a Parliamentary system does have a certain protection via leadership challenge or VONC, but on the other hand it is possible under FPTP to have a comfortable majority on only a third of the popular vote, far below what MAGA needed across the pond.
There is considerable ongoing risk though with the imbalance between an executive that rules via perogative powers, and stacked and truncated discussion in the Commons. The Lords is increasingly poor at scrutiny too, with new Lords being political henchmen and donors rather than able to revise poorly written legislation.
Thanks for the header, Foxy. A possible scenario is a majority Reform government, with red wall MPs (think many Lee Andersons) voting in a bloc to implement Trumpian policies. Would/could Farage stop them? It’s unlikely, but not impossible.
But the Red Wall only returns a modest fraction of Parliament. The notion of any kind of Parliamentary majority for Reform rests either on mass defections by Labour voters in the core cities, or by both Conservative and Liberal Democrat voters in Southern England. Both scenarios are (a) highly improbable and (b) would require Reform to turn itself into a different party to attract such people.
They can become a substantial and very loud opposition group by steamrollering Labour MPs in poor white people places, but significant expansion beyond those boundaries looks like a Herculean task for them.
Reform did rather well in the Shire counties across much of England too, often second or third. "Red Wall" type voters exist nationwide.
I agree though that getting a majority is a long shot even if the polling doesn't change in the next 4 years. If they did manage it, many of the gains would be from the Tories.
The Liberal Democrats used to stack up tonnes of useless second and third places before the Coalition, and much good it did them. Reform got 8,500 votes round my way but it hasn't a snowball's chance in Hades of coming from that position to win: if Labour faceplants the seat will just go straight back to the Tories.
Realistically, Reform probably only becomes a serious contender for Government if it can reassemble the Boris Johnson voter coalition. That's a huge ask.
You are delusional
Reform are fast becoming the default option for a vast swathe of people
Why? Because we’ve tried everything else. Including the Lib Dems in the Coalition. And no party seems able to arrest British decay. Especially Labour and the Tories
On top of that, the whole western world is moving sharply to the hard right - to zero net migration and much fiercer defense of national interests
Reform thus benefit twice over
I’d have them as favourites to win a majority in 2028
@l_stone #BREAKING: Ontario Premier Doug Ford announces starting Tuesday, the province is removing American products from LCBO shelves & also from its catalogue so restaurants and retailers can’t order or restock U.S. products. #onpoli
Via @BMGResearch, 28-29 Jan. Changes w/ 26-27 Nov.
Cmon Britain. We can do this. Get Reform to 40
Nah, would be funnier to see them all drop a little and transfer to the LD and have them all on 22% each.
Maybe the Greens could join in and all tie at 19%?
It's quite nuts that a sensible party like the LDs are so held back by their leader that they can't make ground when all other parties are failing, and yet a 2nd bunch of the insane could come up on the rails.
It’s not the leader.
Lab and Con are on core vote. Reform is the anti-Lib Dems. The Greens are Spare Labour - Corbynites if you are lucky.
Where are the Lib Dems going to get liberal democratic votes from?
Especially given that most voters are old enough to remember that they've been in government recently.
@l_stone #BREAKING: Ontario Premier Doug Ford announces starting Tuesday, the province is removing American products from LCBO shelves & also from its catalogue so restaurants and retailers can’t order or restock U.S. products. #onpoli
Brexiteers before the vote" "This will be brilliant"
Remainers now: "This is shit"
Brexiteers now: "Waaaaaaaaaaaa. IT'S NOT OUR FAULT. Waaaaaaaaaaaa"
I can genuinely say the only impact Brexit has had on my life is that I now have to get a stamp in my passport when I go to Europe. Something I actually quite like. Admittedly, it seems to have impacted you more than most though.
Its had minimal impact on my life and where I work too. A couple of suppliers changed to FOB from DDP aside from that nothing much.
The biggest impact I’ve seen is online forums, like this, with the odd diehard FBPE Brexit obsessive ranting about it endlessly. FBPE and Brexit are two terms I muted on twitter ad my experience there is all the better for it.
I doubt it's had any impact upon Scott's life, either. People get worked up online about all sorts of things that don't impact upon them.
Yes, the secret truth of Brexit is that very few people have noticed any real difference.
This annoys some who were Brexiteers because it was not a cure all. It also annoys many who were Remainers because the world has not ended, so they keep looking for edge cases to get excited over.
In reality the impact is a bit of irritation in export focused sectors who had got used to not having to think of EU sales as exports, and a tiny impact on GDP; but we are now so far into the counterfactual no one knows by how much. Certainly, looking at EU economic performance it’s hard to argue that continued membership would have seen us do any better.
The continued tears are because those who know what the process of joining the EU would mean also know us doing so is now inconceivable.
Wittering on about it is a waste of everyone’s time.
It absorbed virtually all the political resource of the country for half a decade. That in itself is a huge cost. You'd expect big tangible benefits as a result. If the very best one can conclude is that the impact is no big deal either way the project can only be deemed a fail.
That wasn't intrinsic to a Leave vote - an awful lot of the bandwidth was consumed battling the sore losers, led, of course, by Starmer.
Yes. And the ERG nutters. But whatever, it was a 5 year shitshow.
Sure. But the ERG nutters in the end got cast as sane - or, at least, democratic - as they were the only people arguing to implement the referendum result come what may.
They blocked the exit deal their own PM had negotiated. They (and the DUP) are no less to blame for the prolonged chaos than the opposition parties and the handful of hard Con Remainers.
Except that it should never have got to the point where they could have helped block the deal. There was always a natural majority for a soft Leave type deal, if only the Remainers hadn't been like the dog at the river,
Etc etc. Most done to death debate ever. So let me just sum up and conclude. It was incumbent on the governing Conservative party to negotiate and conclude the best Brexit deal they could in a timely and efficient manner. They failed abjectly to do so.
I disagree. They got the best deal they could when in the crucial years, a majority in parliament and the Speaker of the House of Commons and the judges of the supreme court were all trying as hard as they could to prevent any deal at all.
Via @BMGResearch, 28-29 Jan. Changes w/ 26-27 Nov.
Cmon Britain. We can do this. Get Reform to 40
Nah, would be funnier to see them all drop a little and transfer to the LD and have them all on 22% each.
Maybe the Greens could join in and all tie at 19%?
It's quite nuts that a sensible party like the LDs are so held back by their leader that they can't make ground when all other parties are failing, and yet a 2nd bunch of the insane could come up on the rails.
It’s not the leader.
Lab and Con are on core vote. Reform is the anti-Lib Dems. The Greens are Spare Labour - Corbynites if you are lucky.
Where are the Lib Dems going to get liberal democratic votes from?
Do we know how many in the poll were don't know or won't say?
@l_stone #BREAKING: Ontario Premier Doug Ford announces starting Tuesday, the province is removing American products from LCBO shelves & also from its catalogue so restaurants and retailers can’t order or restock U.S. products. #onpoli
@l_stone #BREAKING: Ontario Premier Doug Ford announces starting Tuesday, the province is removing American products from LCBO shelves & also from its catalogue so restaurants and retailers can’t order or restock U.S. products. #onpoli
That’s the third province in Canada to announce such retaliation to Trump’s tariffs (and two of the three premiers are Conservatives)
Imagine having a government Liquor Control Board decide what alcoholic drinks you can buy.
Deciding.
It's the subjunctive.
It was ugly.
All doubts could have been avoided with better, punchier writing
“Imagine. A government Liquor Control Board decides what alcoholic drinks you can buy! 🫣”
Better. And no dispute over grammar
That would have been clearer. As it was, one couldn't tell whether WilliamGlen meant to write 'deciding', or 'to decide', which would have altered the meaning. I presume he meant 'deciding', so that's why I wrote what I did.
Via @BMGResearch, 28-29 Jan. Changes w/ 26-27 Nov.
Cmon Britain. We can do this. Get Reform to 40
Nah, would be funnier to see them all drop a little and transfer to the LD and have them all on 22% each.
Maybe the Greens could join in and all tie at 19%?
It's quite nuts that a sensible party like the LDs are so held back by their leader that they can't make ground when all other parties are failing, and yet a 2nd bunch of the insane could come up on the rails.
It’s not the leader.
Lab and Con are on core vote. Reform is the anti-Lib Dems. The Greens are Spare Labour - Corbynites if you are lucky.
Where are the Lib Dems going to get liberal democratic votes from?
I am not sure there really exists a core vote for any party. Even @HYUFD, the only Tory in the PB village, is now flirting with Reform.
LDs are the most transfer friendly of parties and can squeeze Labour, Green and One Nation Tories fairly readily, hence the formidable by-election machine, though can get similarly squeezed elsewhere. Further gains at the next GE are not easy, but not unlikely either. Voters know now who is the challenger in their seat.
Wildly off topic. My wife and I have these little chats sometimes and this morning the main subject of it was Tony Martin (the farmer). We'd never discussed him before to my recollection. He wasn't in the news and hadn't been for ages. Now it's announced he's died. Incredible. The sort of thing that makes you believe in forces beyond our ken.
Ok. If this keeps happening - let me know and I'll give you a list of people to have little chats with your wife about.
Wildly off topic. My wife and I have these little chats sometimes and this morning the main subject of it was Tony Martin (the farmer). We'd never discussed him before to my recollection. He wasn't in the news and hadn't been for ages. Now it's announced he's died. Incredible. The sort of thing that makes you believe in forces beyond our ken.
An academic bloke who researched this sort of stuff fairly rigorously is the late Ian Stevenson, University of Virginia. His apparently robust data, much about reincarnation and also weird cognitions and precognitions like this one (this one is fairly mild by his standards, I think he would it put down as interesting coincidence) is bizarre and extraordinary. Personally i find his stuff uncomfortable because I would mostly prefer him to be wrong.
@l_stone #BREAKING: Ontario Premier Doug Ford announces starting Tuesday, the province is removing American products from LCBO shelves & also from its catalogue so restaurants and retailers can’t order or restock U.S. products. #onpoli
That’s the third province in Canada to announce such retaliation to Trump’s tariffs (and two of the three premiers are Conservatives)
Imagine having a government Liquor Control Board decide what alcoholic drinks you can buy.
Deciding.
It's the subjunctive.
It was ugly.
All doubts could have been avoided with better, punchier writing
“Imagine. A government Liquor Control Board decides what alcoholic drinks you can buy! 🫣”
Better. And no dispute over grammar
That would have been clearer. As it was, one couldn't tell whether WilliamGlen meant to write 'deciding', or 'to decide', which would have altered the meaning. I presume he meant 'deciding', so that's why I wrote what I did.
Who gives a toss? We knew what @williamglenn meant and we aren't school children.
@l_stone #BREAKING: Ontario Premier Doug Ford announces starting Tuesday, the province is removing American products from LCBO shelves & also from its catalogue so restaurants and retailers can’t order or restock U.S. products. #onpoli
That’s the third province in Canada to announce such retaliation to Trump’s tariffs (and two of the three premiers are Conservatives)
Imagine having a government Liquor Control Board decide what alcoholic drinks you can buy.
Deciding.
It's the subjunctive.
It was ugly.
All doubts could have been avoided with better, punchier writing
“Imagine. A government Liquor Control Board decides what alcoholic drinks you can buy! 🫣”
Better. And no dispute over grammar
That would have been clearer. As it was, one couldn't tell whether WilliamGlen meant to write 'deciding', or 'to decide', which would have altered the meaning. I presume he meant 'deciding', so that's why I wrote what I did.
Who gives a toss? We knew what @williamglenn meant and we aren't school children.
Just as we all knew what he meant when he said this yesterday:
One small example, should we really now believe air safety investigations? Another - will anyone really care about the ~5,000 transgender military personnel set to lose their jobs?
Tariffs announced overnight are set to cost the average American household roughly $2,000 per annum.
Supporters of the German Democratic Republic felt the same way about the wall coming down.
@l_stone #BREAKING: Ontario Premier Doug Ford announces starting Tuesday, the province is removing American products from LCBO shelves & also from its catalogue so restaurants and retailers can’t order or restock U.S. products. #onpoli
That’s the third province in Canada to announce such retaliation to Trump’s tariffs (and two of the three premiers are Conservatives)
Imagine having a government Liquor Control Board decide what alcoholic drinks you can buy.
Deciding.
It's the subjunctive.
It was ugly.
All doubts could have been avoided with better, punchier writing
“Imagine. A government Liquor Control Board decides what alcoholic drinks you can buy! 🫣”
Better. And no dispute over grammar
That would have been clearer. As it was, one couldn't tell whether WilliamGlen meant to write 'deciding', or 'to decide', which would have altered the meaning. I presume he meant 'deciding', so that's why I wrote what I did.
Who gives a toss? We knew what @williamglenn meant and we aren't school children.
Who gives a toss about what any of us posts here? He can choose to give what I said consideration of not.
Via @BMGResearch, 28-29 Jan. Changes w/ 26-27 Nov.
Cmon Britain. We can do this. Get Reform to 40
Nah, would be funnier to see them all drop a little and transfer to the LD and have them all on 22% each.
Maybe the Greens could join in and all tie at 19%?
It's quite nuts that a sensible party like the LDs are so held back by their leader that they can't make ground when all other parties are failing, and yet a 2nd bunch of the insane could come up on the rails.
It’s not the leader.
Lab and Con are on core vote. Reform is the anti-Lib Dems. The Greens are Spare Labour - Corbynites if you are lucky.
Where are the Lib Dems going to get liberal democratic votes from?
I am not sure there really exists a core vote for any party. Even @HYUFD, the only Tory in the PB village, is now flirting with Reform.
LDs are the most transfer friendly of parties and can squeeze Labour, Green and One Nation Tories fairly readily, hence the formidable by-election machine, though can get similarly squeezed elsewhere. Further gains at the next GE are not easy, but not unlikely either. Voters know now who is the challenger in their seat.
They know who's the challenger in their seat when Reform are on 14% - not when they're on 24%!
Wildly off topic. My wife and I have these little chats sometimes and this morning the main subject of it was Tony Martin (the farmer). We'd never discussed him before to my recollection. He wasn't in the news and hadn't been for ages. Now it's announced he's died. Incredible. The sort of thing that makes you believe in forces beyond our ken.
Ok. If this keeps happening - let me know and I'll give you a list of people to have little chats with your wife about.
Can we have Vance, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mike Johnson, Trump, Musk in that order please?
Wildly off topic. My wife and I have these little chats sometimes and this morning the main subject of it was Tony Martin (the farmer). We'd never discussed him before to my recollection. He wasn't in the news and hadn't been for ages. Now it's announced he's died. Incredible. The sort of thing that makes you believe in forces beyond our ken.
I'm guessing you know the maths about this sort of stuff and therefore when these things happen you shouldn't be surprised, but one always is.
The favourite of mine was dealing with an architect for an extension. She told us she wouldn't be available for a couple of weeks. We said no problem as we were going on holiday. We stayed for 1 night in a hotel on our way down to the Dordogne. Sitting in the restaurant I saw her on a nearby table. I snuck up behind her and said 'Now about the extension plans....'. She was gobsmacked.
Wildly off topic. My wife and I have these little chats sometimes and this morning the main subject of it was Tony Martin (the farmer). We'd never discussed him before to my recollection. He wasn't in the news and hadn't been for ages. Now it's announced he's died. Incredible. The sort of thing that makes you believe in forces beyond our ken.
Ok. If this keeps happening - let me know and I'll give you a list of people to have little chats with your wife about.
Can we have Vance, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mike Johnson, Trump, Musk in that order please?
Biden and Trump not old enough for you, you want a president over the age of 90?
@l_stone #BREAKING: Ontario Premier Doug Ford announces starting Tuesday, the province is removing American products from LCBO shelves & also from its catalogue so restaurants and retailers can’t order or restock U.S. products. #onpoli
@l_stone #BREAKING: Ontario Premier Doug Ford announces starting Tuesday, the province is removing American products from LCBO shelves & also from its catalogue so restaurants and retailers can’t order or restock U.S. products. #onpoli
That’s the third province in Canada to announce such retaliation to Trump’s tariffs (and two of the three premiers are Conservatives)
Imagine having a government Liquor Control Board decide what alcoholic drinks you can buy.
Deciding.
It's the subjunctive.
It was ugly.
All doubts could have been avoided with better, punchier writing
“Imagine. A government Liquor Control Board decides what alcoholic drinks you can buy! 🫣”
Better. And no dispute over grammar
That would have been clearer. As it was, one couldn't tell whether WilliamGlen meant to write 'deciding', or 'to decide', which would have altered the meaning. I presume he meant 'deciding', so that's why I wrote what I did.
Who gives a toss? We knew what @williamglenn meant and we aren't school children.
Who gives a toss about what any of us posts here? He can choose to give what I said consideration of not.
But it is arrogant and you were taken down a peg or two a few months ago when you did this and were wrong. I mean why bother? It seems very childish unless there is a good pun in it.
@l_stone #BREAKING: Ontario Premier Doug Ford announces starting Tuesday, the province is removing American products from LCBO shelves & also from its catalogue so restaurants and retailers can’t order or restock U.S. products. #onpoli
That’s the third province in Canada to announce such retaliation to Trump’s tariffs (and two of the three premiers are Conservatives)
Imagine having a government Liquor Control Board decide what alcoholic drinks you can buy.
Deciding.
It's the subjunctive.
It was ugly.
All doubts could have been avoided with better, punchier writing
“Imagine. A government Liquor Control Board decides what alcoholic drinks you can buy! 🫣”
Better. And no dispute over grammar
That would have been clearer. As it was, one couldn't tell whether WilliamGlen meant to write 'deciding', or 'to decide', which would have altered the meaning. I presume he meant 'deciding', so that's why I wrote what I did.
Who gives a toss? We knew what @williamglenn meant and we aren't school children.
Who gives a toss about what any of us posts here? He can choose to give what I said consideration of not.
Wildly off topic. My wife and I have these little chats sometimes and this morning the main subject of it was Tony Martin (the farmer). We'd never discussed him before to my recollection. He wasn't in the news and hadn't been for ages. Now it's announced he's died. Incredible. The sort of thing that makes you believe in forces beyond our ken.
Ok. If this keeps happening - let me know and I'll give you a list of people to have little chats with your wife about.
Can we have Vance, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mike Johnson, Trump, Musk in that order please?
Biden and Trump not old enough for you, you want a president over the age of 90?
I think if Greene and Johnson both snuff it then control of the House passes to the Dems, although I could have miscounted.
But even a 90 year old who could pass for sane would be an improvement on Trump and Vance.
Black Doves is very entertaining. Great script, some brilliant characters
However a lot of it demands serious suspension of disbelief. Most unbelievable of all: the idea a humble Minister for Defence could live in a spectacular Georgian house in central-ish London
I reviewed in a few weeks back: ‘absurd but entertaining’. It doesn’t make the mistake of taking itself at all seriously.
Yes. It also carries it all off in high style and makes you care - a bit - about the characters even tho it is basically a cartoon
Very enjoyable. Hope they do another series
Clearly intended, but will depend on the ratings (which look OK).
Apparently already underway. Season 2 due in 2026. Bit slow but 👍
I liked how they made london look glamorous. We could do with a bit more of that
London is a magical city - outside of November, January, February and early March - we need more image-makes to celebrate it
Black Doves is still shitter than pyramids, and Keira Knightley is hopeless in it. The other characters have less depth than the cast of Whacky Races, except any sentient viewer cares a lot more about what happens to Penelope Pitstop than about any of these cartoon figures.
I must have missed this. .. Badenoch has previously said she does not make gaffes, telling the Chopper’s Politics podcast last September: “I never have gaffes, or apologising for something that I said, [saying] ‘oh that’s not what I meant’, I never have to clarify, because I think very carefully about what I say….
That’s either a pretty leaden joke, or just bonkers.
I must have missed this. .. Badenoch has previously said she does not make gaffes, telling the Chopper’s Politics podcast last September: “I never have gaffes, or apologising for something that I said, [saying] ‘oh that’s not what I meant’, I never have to clarify, because I think very carefully about what I say….
That’s either a pretty leaden joke, or just bonkers.
Wildly off topic. My wife and I have these little chats sometimes and this morning the main subject of it was Tony Martin (the farmer). We'd never discussed him before to my recollection. He wasn't in the news and hadn't been for ages. Now it's announced he's died. Incredible. The sort of thing that makes you believe in forces beyond our ken.
An academic bloke who researched this sort of stuff fairly rigorously is the late Ian Stevenson, University of Virginia. His apparently robust data, much about reincarnation and also weird cognitions and precognitions like this one (this one is fairly mild by his standards, I think he would it put down as interesting coincidence) is bizarre and extraordinary. Personally i find his stuff uncomfortable because I would mostly prefer him to be wrong.
Co-incidences are far more common than lay people think.
Badenoch has previously said she does not make gaffes, telling the Chopper’s Politics podcast last September: “I never have gaffes, or apologising for something that I said, [saying] ‘oh that’s not what I meant’, I never have to clarify, because I think very carefully about what I say.”
Wildly off topic. My wife and I have these little chats sometimes and this morning the main subject of it was Tony Martin (the farmer). We'd never discussed him before to my recollection. He wasn't in the news and hadn't been for ages. Now it's announced he's died. Incredible. The sort of thing that makes you believe in forces beyond our ken.
Ok. If this keeps happening - let me know and I'll give you a list of people to have little chats with your wife about.
Lol, yes.
But we've done Trump and Musk a few times and nothing so far ...
Brexiteers before the vote" "This will be brilliant"
Remainers now: "This is shit"
Brexiteers now: "Waaaaaaaaaaaa. IT'S NOT OUR FAULT. Waaaaaaaaaaaa"
I can genuinely say the only impact Brexit has had on my life is that I now have to get a stamp in my passport when I go to Europe. Something I actually quite like. Admittedly, it seems to have impacted you more than most though.
Its had minimal impact on my life and where I work too. A couple of suppliers changed to FOB from DDP aside from that nothing much.
The biggest impact I’ve seen is online forums, like this, with the odd diehard FBPE Brexit obsessive ranting about it endlessly. FBPE and Brexit are two terms I muted on twitter ad my experience there is all the better for it.
I doubt it's had any impact upon Scott's life, either. People get worked up online about all sorts of things that don't impact upon them.
Yes, the secret truth of Brexit is that very few people have noticed any real difference.
This annoys some who were Brexiteers because it was not a cure all. It also annoys many who were Remainers because the world has not ended, so they keep looking for edge cases to get excited over.
In reality the impact is a bit of irritation in export focused sectors who had got used to not having to think of EU sales as exports, and a tiny impact on GDP; but we are now so far into the counterfactual no one knows by how much. Certainly, looking at EU economic performance it’s hard to argue that continued membership would have seen us do any better.
The continued tears are because those who know what the process of joining the EU would mean also know us doing so is now inconceivable.
Wittering on about it is a waste of everyone’s time.
It absorbed virtually all the political resource of the country for half a decade. That in itself is a huge cost. You'd expect big tangible benefits as a result. If the very best one can conclude is that the impact is no big deal either way the project can only be deemed a fail.
That wasn't intrinsic to a Leave vote - an awful lot of the bandwidth was consumed battling the sore losers, led, of course, by Starmer.
Yes. And the ERG nutters. But whatever, it was a 5 year shitshow.
Sure. But the ERG nutters in the end got cast as sane - or, at least, democratic - as they were the only people arguing to implement the referendum result come what may.
They blocked the exit deal their own PM had negotiated. They (and the DUP) are no less to blame for the prolonged chaos than the opposition parties and the handful of hard Con Remainers.
Except that it should never have got to the point where they could have helped block the deal. There was always a natural majority for a soft Leave type deal, if only the Remainers hadn't been like the dog at the river,
Etc etc. Most done to death debate ever. So let me just sum up and conclude. It was incumbent on the governing Conservative party to negotiate and conclude the best Brexit deal they could in a timely and efficient manner. They failed abjectly to do so.
I disagree. They got the best deal they could when in the crucial years, a majority in parliament and the Speaker of the House of Commons and the judges of the supreme court were all trying as hard as they could to prevent any deal at all.
We've moved on, Driver. I did the summary and conclusion.
Wildly off topic. My wife and I have these little chats sometimes and this morning the main subject of it was Tony Martin (the farmer). We'd never discussed him before to my recollection. He wasn't in the news and hadn't been for ages. Now it's announced he's died. Incredible. The sort of thing that makes you believe in forces beyond our ken.
An academic bloke who researched this sort of stuff fairly rigorously is the late Ian Stevenson, University of Virginia. His apparently robust data, much about reincarnation and also weird cognitions and precognitions like this one (this one is fairly mild by his standards, I think he would it put down as interesting coincidence) is bizarre and extraordinary. Personally i find his stuff uncomfortable because I would mostly prefer him to be wrong.
I have had premonitions in dreams in the past, strange vivid dreams that come true a few days later. Mostly these have been personal matters to do with family. I wonder myself if there is something supernatural, or merely my subconscious assembling a story from pieces that my conscious has not.
Although that could be used to make the opposite point that much of what is written about foreign countries is ignorant rubbish.
More like: much of what is written about foreign countries is a touch exaggerated here and there but is mostly pretty accurate
Much of what is written about anything is a touch exaggerated here and there, or has flaws in the factual details, but is mostly pretty accurate.
If a story is about something you know about, you can recognise the bits they got wrong. That only partially detracts from the overall sense.
(Caveat: this works for writing that is trying to describe rather than persuade. For all sorts of reasons, that is thinner on the ground than it used to be.)
Wildly off topic. My wife and I have these little chats sometimes and this morning the main subject of it was Tony Martin (the farmer). We'd never discussed him before to my recollection. He wasn't in the news and hadn't been for ages. Now it's announced he's died. Incredible. The sort of thing that makes you believe in forces beyond our ken.
An academic bloke who researched this sort of stuff fairly rigorously is the late Ian Stevenson, University of Virginia. His apparently robust data, much about reincarnation and also weird cognitions and precognitions like this one (this one is fairly mild by his standards, I think he would it put down as interesting coincidence) is bizarre and extraordinary. Personally i find his stuff uncomfortable because I would mostly prefer him to be wrong.
Co-incidences are far more common than lay people think.
"But there's a lab there in that very city!"
🤔
Maybe also sometimes less common. I find it hard to believe, though I think it must be true, that it is highly unlikely that two identical hands from 52 cards have ever been dealt in the whole of history.
Badenoch had updated her entry in the register of MPs’ interests to say she was in control of C&UCO Management Ltd, C&UCO Services Ltd, C&UCO Properties Ltd and the Conservative Party Foundation from 2 November onwards but this was not reflected on the official company register.
Brexiteers before the vote" "This will be brilliant"
Remainers now: "This is shit"
Brexiteers now: "Waaaaaaaaaaaa. IT'S NOT OUR FAULT. Waaaaaaaaaaaa"
I can genuinely say the only impact Brexit has had on my life is that I now have to get a stamp in my passport when I go to Europe. Something I actually quite like. Admittedly, it seems to have impacted you more than most though.
Its had minimal impact on my life and where I work too. A couple of suppliers changed to FOB from DDP aside from that nothing much.
The biggest impact I’ve seen is online forums, like this, with the odd diehard FBPE Brexit obsessive ranting about it endlessly. FBPE and Brexit are two terms I muted on twitter ad my experience there is all the better for it.
I doubt it's had any impact upon Scott's life, either. People get worked up online about all sorts of things that don't impact upon them.
Yes, the secret truth of Brexit is that very few people have noticed any real difference.
This annoys some who were Brexiteers because it was not a cure all. It also annoys many who were Remainers because the world has not ended, so they keep looking for edge cases to get excited over.
In reality the impact is a bit of irritation in export focused sectors who had got used to not having to think of EU sales as exports, and a tiny impact on GDP; but we are now so far into the counterfactual no one knows by how much. Certainly, looking at EU economic performance it’s hard to argue that continued membership would have seen us do any better.
The continued tears are because those who know what the process of joining the EU would mean also know us doing so is now inconceivable.
Wittering on about it is a waste of everyone’s time.
It absorbed virtually all the political resource of the country for half a decade. That in itself is a huge cost. You'd expect big tangible benefits as a result. If the very best one can conclude is that the impact is no big deal either way the project can only be deemed a fail.
That wasn't intrinsic to a Leave vote - an awful lot of the bandwidth was consumed battling the sore losers, led, of course, by Starmer.
Yes. And the ERG nutters. But whatever, it was a 5 year shitshow.
Sure. But the ERG nutters in the end got cast as sane - or, at least, democratic - as they were the only people arguing to implement the referendum result come what may.
They blocked the exit deal their own PM had negotiated. They (and the DUP) are no less to blame for the prolonged chaos than the opposition parties and the handful of hard Con Remainers.
Except that it should never have got to the point where they could have helped block the deal. There was always a natural majority for a soft Leave type deal, if only the Remainers hadn't been like the dog at the river,
Etc etc. Most done to death debate ever. So let me just sum up and conclude. It was incumbent on the governing Conservative party to negotiate and conclude the best Brexit deal they could in a timely and efficient manner. They failed abjectly to do so.
I disagree. They got the best deal they could when in the crucial years, a majority in parliament and the Speaker of the House of Commons and the judges of the supreme court were all trying as hard as they could to prevent any deal at all.
We've moved on, Driver. I did the summary and conclusion.
You did a summary and conclusion, but it was complete BSlacking in the required accuracy.
I must have missed this. .. Badenoch has previously said she does not make gaffes, telling the Chopper’s Politics podcast last September: “I never have gaffes, or apologising for something that I said, [saying] ‘oh that’s not what I meant’, I never have to clarify, because I think very carefully about what I say….
That’s either a pretty leaden joke, or just bonkers.
Looks like the Triple Lock really is on the chopping block then.
I must have missed this. .. Badenoch has previously said she does not make gaffes, telling the Chopper’s Politics podcast last September: “I never have gaffes, or apologising for something that I said, [saying] ‘oh that’s not what I meant’, I never have to clarify, because I think very carefully about what I say….
That’s either a pretty leaden joke, or just bonkers.
Looks like the Triple Lock really is on the chopping block then.
Via @BMGResearch, 28-29 Jan. Changes w/ 26-27 Nov.
Cmon Britain. We can do this. Get Reform to 40
Nah, would be funnier to see them all drop a little and transfer to the LD and have them all on 22% each.
Maybe the Greens could join in and all tie at 19%?
It's quite nuts that a sensible party like the LDs are so held back by their leader that they can't make ground when all other parties are failing, and yet a 2nd bunch of the insane could come up on the rails.
It’s not the leader.
Lab and Con are on core vote. Reform is the anti-Lib Dems. The Greens are Spare Labour - Corbynites if you are lucky.
Where are the Lib Dems going to get liberal democratic votes from?
I am not sure there really exists a core vote for any party. Even @HYUFD, the only Tory in the PB village, is now flirting with Reform.
LDs are the most transfer friendly of parties and can squeeze Labour, Green and One Nation Tories fairly readily, hence the formidable by-election machine, though can get similarly squeezed elsewhere. Further gains at the next GE are not easy, but not unlikely either. Voters know now who is the challenger in their seat.
No I will be Tory until the party goes extinct. Only if it does would I go Reform, which it would likely merge with anyway or LD
Wildly off topic. My wife and I have these little chats sometimes and this morning the main subject of it was Tony Martin (the farmer). We'd never discussed him before to my recollection. He wasn't in the news and hadn't been for ages. Now it's announced he's died. Incredible. The sort of thing that makes you believe in forces beyond our ken.
Ok. If this keeps happening - let me know and I'll give you a list of people to have little chats with your wife about.
Many, many years ago, long before I met the girl who is now Mrs Cole, I had a girl-friend who I then thought likely to be Mrs Cole. And we discussed the possibility and she thought so too. However as romances at that stage often do, it collapsed. She met someone else at Uni and .....many of us have been there. At our somewhat emotional parting I promised, as one does, that if she ever needed me, I'd be there. Which got a scornful reply. Fifty or so years later I suddenly started to see her, "just round the corner"; to have visions of her. I couldn't get her out of my my mind. Went on for a couple of months. Then she vanished. Later I went on one of the genealogical research sites, checked on her and found that when she'd 'appeared to me' she'd been dying in Canada, divorced from the chap she left me for. Weird.
Comments
To work in the public sector at a certain level when negotiating or managing contracts you have to be CIPS qualified.
In terms of signing off there will be an internal process where all stakeholders will review the contract and agree it.
There is nothing wrong with private companies making a profit.
Where I think contract management is weak, in my experience, is managing changes in scope. The old ‘dollar mods’ syndrome we used to talk about in engineering.
You can have any change you want but it will cost at least a dollar. Add a screw, that’s a dollar, remove a washer, another dollar.
It was the same with bondezegou’s link to Wikipedia about pandemics.
BOOM BOOM
The Dumbest Trade War in History
...President Trump will fire his first tariff salvo on Saturday against those notorious American adversaries . . . Mexico and Canada. They’ll get hit with a 25% border tax, while China, a real adversary, will endure 10%. This reminds us of the old Bernard Lewis joke that it’s risky to be America’s enemy but it can be fatal to be its friend.
Leaving China aside, Mr. Trump’s justification for this economic assault on the neighbors makes no sense...
LAB: 25% (-4)
CON: 25% (-2)
RFM: 24% (+4)
LDM: 14% (+2)
GRN: 8% (+1)
SNP: 3% (=)
Via @BMGResearch, 28-29 Jan.
Changes w/ 26-27 Nov.
Cmon Britain. We can do this. Get Reform to 40
https://www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/musk-s-junta-establishes-him-as-head-of-government
From
https://bsky.app/profile/vermontgmg.bsky.social/post/3lh4uoe3gkk2s
Each to his own.
Edit: I imagine I meant Hungarian
{black cap}
You shall be taken hence to a place of punishment. There to be confined with Piers Corbyn, Piers Morgan and Julian Assange. In one cell. The TV will be set to GB News, with no volume control. Simultaneous, the worst Radiohead song will play on a loop. forever. A laptop will allow you to read the comments on Con Home, program in Python. And nothing else.
May The Lord Have No Mercy On Your Soul.
I liked how they made london look glamorous. We could do with a bit more of that
London is a magical city - outside of November, January, February and early March - we need more image-makes to celebrate it
(He was a one, that Ken!)
They can become a substantial and very loud opposition group by steamrollering Labour MPs in poor white people places, but significant expansion beyond those boundaries looks like a Herculean task for them.
If so 👏👏👏
It's quite nuts that a sensible party like the LDs are so held back by their leader that they can't make ground when all other parties are failing, and yet a 2nd bunch of the insane could come up on the rails.
Even in Texas, shot in the back while running looks poor. Unsporting, frankly.
I agree though that getting a majority is a long shot even if the polling doesn't change in the next 4 years. If they did manage it, many of the gains would be from the Tories.
Lab and Con are on core vote. Reform is the anti-Lib Dems. The Greens are Spare Labour - Corbynites if you are lucky.
Where are the Lib Dems going to get liberal democratic votes from?
Realistically, Reform probably only becomes a serious contender for Government if it can reassemble the Boris Johnson voter coalition. That's a huge ask.
If he was in any other position, the nurse would be wheeling him away with the comment, "Sure, sure grandad; now let's get your hot chocolate made and you tucked up into bed."
That's one less Reform vote anyway.
Sure I’ve heard a variation of that before.
I'm sure this'll end well..... nothing to see here. Move along.
Reform are fast becoming the default option for a vast swathe of people
Why? Because we’ve tried everything else. Including the Lib Dems in the Coalition. And no party seems able to arrest British decay. Especially Labour and the Tories
On top of that, the whole western world is moving sharply to the hard right - to zero net migration and much fiercer defense of national interests
Reform thus benefit twice over
I’d have them as favourites to win a majority in 2028
“Imagine. A government Liquor Control Board decides what alcoholic drinks you can buy! 🫣”
Better. And no dispute over grammar
LDs are the most transfer friendly of parties and can squeeze Labour, Green and One Nation Tories fairly readily, hence the formidable by-election machine, though can get similarly squeezed elsewhere. Further gains at the next GE are not easy, but not unlikely either. Voters know now who is the challenger in their seat.
What does Jos Buttler have to do to get the sack?
The favourite of mine was dealing with an architect for an extension. She told us she wouldn't be available for a couple of weeks. We said no problem as we were going on holiday. We stayed for 1 night in a hotel on our way down to the Dordogne. Sitting in the restaurant I saw her on a nearby table. I snuck up behind her and said 'Now about the extension plans....'. She was gobsmacked.
But even a 90 year old who could pass for sane would be an improvement on Trump and Vance.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/feb/02/labour-conservatives-badenoch-shambles-breach-of-corporate-rules
.. Badenoch has previously said she does not make gaffes, telling the Chopper’s Politics podcast last September: “I never have gaffes, or apologising for something that I said, [saying] ‘oh that’s not what I meant’, I never have to clarify, because I think very carefully about what I say….
That’s either a pretty leaden joke, or just bonkers.
"But there's a lab there in that very city!"
🤔
The self-belief of Truss.
But we've done Trump and Musk a few times and nothing so far ...
If a story is about something you know about, you can recognise the bits they got wrong. That only partially detracts from the overall sense.
(Caveat: this works for writing that is trying to describe rather than persuade. For all sorts of reasons, that is thinner on the ground than it used to be.)
Makes you wonder why it wasn't done at the same time as the other changes on 26th November (and who made those changes): https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/00464224/filing-history
complete BSlacking in the required accuracy.https://x.com/rebeleconprof/status/1886065413592666590
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=N&CON=25&LAB=25&LIB=14&Reform=24&Green=8&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVReform=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=&SCOTLAB=&SCOTLIB=&SCOTReform=&SCOTGreen=&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2024
However as romances at that stage often do, it collapsed. She met someone else at Uni and .....many of us have been there.
At our somewhat emotional parting I promised, as one does, that if she ever needed me, I'd be there. Which got a scornful reply.
Fifty or so years later I suddenly started to see her, "just round the corner"; to have visions of her. I couldn't get her out of my my mind. Went on for a couple of months. Then she vanished.
Later I went on one of the genealogical research sites, checked on her and found that when she'd 'appeared to me' she'd been dying in Canada, divorced from the chap she left me for.
Weird.
It's not going to do much for my winter mood though.