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I am now convinced Badenoch is safe in the short term at least – politicalbetting.com

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  • NEW THREAD

  • BattlebusBattlebus Posts: 623
    edited February 18
    About Richard Tice and all his FOI questions. Here is his latest

    "To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many staff in his Department are responsible for (a) processing and (b) responding to Freedom of Information Act requests; and if he will make an estimate of the annual cost to the public purse of this work."

    https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2025-01-29/27381
  • Sandpit said:

    The INEOS / Mercedes F1 deal is a bit more than sponsorship. They actually bought a 33% stake in the team, with Daimler Benz and Toto Wolff also having a third each.

    https://www.mercedesamgf1.com/news/the-team-welcomes-ineos-as-a-one-third-equal-shareholder-alongside-daimler-and-toto-wolff

    That investment will only have gone up considerably in value in the intervening years.

    Investing in a football club, on the other hand, has always been a good way to make a small fortune - so long as one starts with a large fortune! MU need to spend hundreds of millions on a crumbling stadium, and hundreds of millions more on some decent players.
    We could go down. Get one of the teams below on a run late season and it could happen.

    I agree with Amorim though - transform the team by playing a different style of football. And how I'd do that and manage the debts is promote youth, sell the old and expensive rubbish, and bring in a couple of sagey old hands to look after the kids.
  • TazTaz Posts: 17,181
    Nigelb said:

    You owe the "giant twat" an apology; he was talking about nine million.

    What does that make you ?
    All getting a bit cranky on here and it is not even 8 o'clock.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 56,022

    And you still believe that the Trump administration *are* acting in good faith? Trump is selling Ukraine down the river.
    The voices I’m listening to from the American side are Rubio and Kellogg, who are handling the Russian and Ukranian delegations respectively. Both are experienced diplomats, unlike Trump and Vance who are talking mostly to a domestic American audience in their unusual undiplomatic tone.

    Good local news from where I am, Zelensky was in UAE yesterday, and the two countries signed a trade agreement which will likely see food going one way and reconstruction/investment funds going the other way.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 62,090
    Sean_F said:

    Cynicism, and alienation of Western populations towards their governments, suits the purposes of the world’s dictators perfectly. If our leaders don’t think that their societies are worth defending, why should the masses?

    They just don't get it, Sean.
  • TazTaz Posts: 17,181

    We could go down. Get one of the teams below on a run late season and it could happen.

    I agree with Amorim though - transform the team by playing a different style of football. And how I'd do that and manage the debts is promote youth, sell the old and expensive rubbish, and bring in a couple of sagey old hands to look after the kids.
    Isn't that what Ferguson did ? Promote the youth with a few old hands.

    It will be "Come back Glaziers, all is forgiven" soon
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 75,892
    Nigelb said:

    You owe the "giant twat" an apology; he was talking about nine million.

    What does that make you ?
    Just to expand on that, the Robinson interview was predicated on how difficult it would be to find even an extra £8bn in funding, and the £9m was referred to as a "fiver" in that context.

    So he was saying pretty well the opposite of what boulet seems to have thought he was saying.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 26,195
    Sean_F said:

    I imagine that what Trump and his clique have in mind is a grand bargain whereby (a) Putin gets a free hand in Eastern Europe, so long as the US gets mineral rights (b) the US gets a free hand in the Arctic (c) The US and Israel get the green light to ethnically cleanse Gaza and (d) China gets Taiwan.
    That's one thing I've been speculating about.

    Perhaps Trump is trying to recreate a world like the 1890s, where big powers get to do what they want - eg foment the Spanish-American war or the earlier 1848 war that allowed the USA to take over half of Mexico *. He wants to be able to operate like Presidents McKinley or Teddy Roosevelt.

    That requires an understanding with Russia and China, and Europe with it's annoying belief in International Law etc to be taken out of the wider game - as I put it turned into a place to be quarried like South America used to be.

    The weaknesses in the position are that Russia is nothing like as powerful as he thinks, and neither relatively is the USA - bearing in mind the proportion of population and GDP compared to South America or Europe or the rest of the world.

    His thought framework is stuck in the past, and he's rolling the dice to create a new age of Usonian Imperialism.

    It also involves overthrowing the current Usonian polity, which is what is happening now.

    * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican–American_War
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 14,232
    Chris said:

    And, of course, the Tories tried to deflect attention from the massive increase in legal immigration by demonising the relatively tiny number of illegal immigrants.
    One of the many things that SKS underwhelms at is hanging the Rishiwave around Badenoch's neck. The 2022 and 2023 immigration figures are so amazing they just look wrong when written down. While this was going on The Little Shit had a healthy if deteriorating majority and could have greatly curtailed legal migration with legislation. Instead he just wanked his baked bean sized knob over Rwanda as if that were the answer to anything. He was worse than Truss in some respects.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 62,090
    Chris said:

    And, of course, the Tories tried to deflect attention from the massive increase in legal immigration by demonising the relatively tiny number of illegal immigrants.
    To Libtards like you (no offence) we either shouldn't talk about immigration at all or, if we do, to be effusively positive about it and make it even easier.

    There is absolutely no place whatsoever where you would ever concede control of type and number. Because at some level that would imply an acceptance of borders.

    And that's your biggest problem.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 6,050
    Nigelb said:

    You owe the "giant twat" an apology; he was talking about nine million.

    What does that make you ?
    Ok - go and listen to it again at around 6.57am - he is talking about the £8b identified by the sun and refers to it dismissively as a fiver in gov spending.

    What does that make you? Maybe check before you embarrass yourself again.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 45,113
    Sandpit said:

    The voices I’m listening to from the American side are Rubio and Kellogg, who are handling the Russian and Ukranian delegations respectively. Both are experienced diplomats, unlike Trump and Vance who are talking mostly to a domestic American audience in their unusual undiplomatic tone.

    Good local news from where I am, Zelensky was in UAE yesterday, and the two countries signed a trade agreement which will likely see food going one way and reconstruction/investment funds going the other way.
    "Trump and Vance who are talking mostly to a domestic American audience in their unusual undiplomatic tone."

    Both of those are the bosses, and have repeatedly spread Russian misinformation lines.

    As has your hero Musk. How is spreading Russian propaganda to their bases helpful?

    What do you see that I don't?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 75,892
    Sandpit said:

    The voices I’m listening to from the American side are Rubio and Kellogg, who are handling the Russian and Ukranian delegations respectively. Both are experienced diplomats, unlike Trump and Vance who are talking mostly to a domestic American audience in their unusual undiplomatic tone.

    Good local news from where I am, Zelensky was in UAE yesterday, and the two countries signed a trade agreement which will likely see food going one way and reconstruction/investment funds going the other way.
    Neither of whom have any real say in the negotiation. Their job is to keep us quiet while Trump makes his deal with Putin.

    That's certainly how it appears to me, and the European leaders. And the Russians.
    We'll see who is right pretty soon.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 6,050
    Nigelb said:

    Just to expand on that, the Robinson interview was predicated on how difficult it would be to find even an extra £8bn in funding, and the £9m was referred to as a "fiver" in that context.

    So he was saying pretty well the opposite of what boulet seems to have thought he was saying.
    Absolute risible weaseling. I was angry about people dismissing amounts such as 8b as “a fiver” which is what Robinson was doing. The mere fact that he had been talking about the difficulty of finding 8b makes it even more ludicrous to dismiss such an amount as a mere fiver in spending.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 75,892
    edited February 18
    boulay said:

    Ok - go and listen to it again at around 6.57am - he is talking about the £8b identified by the sun and refers to it dismissively as a fiver in gov spending.

    What does that make you? Maybe check before you embarrass yourself again.
    He was talking about this:
    ...Another £8billion a year is earmarked for UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) grants — but The Sun can reveal ­millionswas frittered on woke projects...
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 14,232
    Sandpit said:

    The voices I’m listening to from the American side are Rubio and Kellogg, who are handling the Russian and Ukranian delegations respectively. Both are experienced diplomats, unlike Trump and Vance who are talking mostly to a domestic American audience in their unusual undiplomatic tone.
    How is Little Marco an experienced diplomat? He's been SoS for 4 weeks and before that was a career politician in the Senate and Florida HoR. That sneaky old fuck Lavrov will have him for zavtrak.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 6,050
    Nigelb said:

    He was talking about this:
    ...Another £8billion a year is earmarked for UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) grants — but The Sun can reveal ­millionswas frittered on woke projects...
    FFS his exact words are “£8 billion isn’t even a fiver in the national finances”.

    Stop twisting to avoid admitting that your attack was embarrassingly wrong.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 75,892
    boulay said:

    FFS his exact words are “£8 billion isn’t even a fiver in the national finances”.

    Stop twisting to avoid admitting that your attack was embarrassingly wrong.
    It's entirely clear from the context that the "woke robots" are the pittance.
    You're effectively defending the view that the government's research spend is entirely wasteful, when the truth is that it's one of the most productive things they spend money on.

    The entire interview is about how raising money for extra defence finding requires tough choices, not sons trivia the press have latched onto.

    You've talked about the same thing yourself.
    Grow up.
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 9,601
    pigeon said:

    I doubt that an accurate translation of "good faith" exists in Russian.
    российское доминирование
  • boulayboulay Posts: 6,050
    Nigelb said:

    It's entirely clear from the context that the "woke robots" are the pittance.
    You're effectively defending the view that the government's research spend is entirely wasteful, when the truth is that it's one of the most productive things they spend money on.

    The entire interview is about how raising money for extra defence finding requires tough choices, not sons trivia the press have latched onto.

    You've talked about the same thing yourself.
    Grow up.
    Jesus Christ - my rant was about the way people dismiss huge sums of money as noting in relation to overall government spending spending and Robinson’s was a live example - £8b is not a fiver - I was not judging the validity of the Sun article and even said I hadn’t read it - I’m imagining it’s a mix of questionable spending and things that have a long lead the journalist can’t or doesn’t want to admit is actually good spending.

    When there are tough choices it’s even more important not to be dismissing huge sums as “fivers” as people need to understand how every penny is vital.

    And thanks for telling me to “grow up”. Very grown up.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 126,534
    Andy_JS said:

    Grocery bills were already ridiculously high before so they probably won't care, even if they go higher. People were already annoyed by that problem a lot earlier.
    They will if they go significantly higher still
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 126,534
    Andy_JS said:

    They probably have a good idea how they might vote.
    You can't quote poll results for an age group unless you have asked them.

    It just so happens that their parents age group of 45-60 also happens to be that most likely to vote Reform
  • FishingFishing Posts: 5,459
    edited February 18
    Jonathan said:

    Er. Hitler won power through an election.
    That's a best a half-truth. Hitler didn't really "win" power, he was handed it through a backroom deal with von Papen, a man whose political judgement makes Liz Truss look like Tony Blair, and blessed by the President, Hindenburg, who by then made Biden last year look young and sprightly. Hindeburg had actually beaten Hitler quite handily (53-37) the year before. And there was considerable evidence that by early 1933 the Nazis' electoral appeal had peaked - they lost 34 of their 230 seats in the November 1932 Reichstag elections.

    Certainly before he could rig elections, Hitler never achieved anything like Trump's performance last year, winning the popular vote with his party getting a majority in both houses of the legislaure, though of course the Weimar political system was much more fragmented than America's is.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 73,082
    Whoops. Posted to old thread by mistake, so:

    Incidentally I would just like to thank several people, but especially PoodleInASlipstream a month ago for his sound advice on graphics card expansion. With slight modifications I followed his advice and the extra monitors all seem to be working.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 18,430

    Nobody is suggesting that Starmer is going to offer up Greenland.
    @pigeon did just now...

    " But if, for argument's sake, Keir Starmer goes to Washington to try to persuade Trump to provide logistical support and guarantees for any Ukrainian settlement, and he agrees on the condition that the Danes present him with Greenland as a present, would any of us be particularly surprised?"
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 22,124

    @pigeon did just now...

    " But if, for argument's sake, Keir Starmer goes to Washington to try to persuade Trump to provide logistical support and guarantees for any Ukrainian settlement, and he agrees on the condition that the Danes present him with Greenland as a present, would any of us be particularly surprised?"
    He was responding to your post.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 18,430

    He was responding to your post.
    Read the thread - he was the one who suggested it, not me.
This discussion has been closed.