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The first poll in the Runcorn & Helsby by-election – politicalbetting.com
The first poll in the Runcorn & Helsby by-election – politicalbetting.com
As Lord Ashcroft can attest by-election polling can be very challenging so I always remain sceptical about all by-election polling but there are some hope for both Reform and Labour in the supplementaries.
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Gold Cup.
I have gone Inotherwayurthinkin to win and EW on Corbetts Cross.
I haven't a clue about horses though.
* I agree with abolishing NHS England.
Donald was blissfully unaware he hadn't spoken to Putin.
Unless all his acolytes are emanations, which is possible I suppose. (Otherwise where would you get that cast of grotesques from independently?).
Still we Brexited and the foreigners all went home. So all is good.
In 2021, there were approximately 4 million EU-born residents in the UK, according to Census data from England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and survey-based data from Scotland (see Understanding the Evidence). The number of EU-born residents in the UK increased by around 50% between the 2011 and 2021 Census (from 2.7 million), reflecting a decade of positive net migration.
Cabinet Office documents reveal the man worked for both the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) between 2022 and 2024.
It added that the official held three jobs at the same time on two separate occasions and was only identified when a government fraud squad stepped in.
The case, first reported by the i newspaper, showed the senior civil servant, who held higher security clearances in two government departments, was able to avoid initial detection by lying about his employment history.
Haven't we brexited since then?
A more useful graph. Census 2031 will be interesting.
It's a corker, and the Elon Musk "tear it all down" unit has been quite significantly disembowelled, subject to Appeal.
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/-a-sham-federal-judge-blasts-trump-admin-on-improper-firings-of-federal-workers-orders-rehiring-234398789993
This is beyond taking the piss; it's outright contempt for government, regulator (who merits it), and customers.
Why the fuck should we bail them out again ?
Thames Water begs to be spared fines and costs warning bidders will walk away
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/mar/14/thames-water-asks-ofwat-to-be-spared-fines-costs
Thames Water is asking to be spared billions of pounds of costs and fines over the next five years and heap more on to bills so it can attract new investors, the Guardian can reveal.
The struggling water company is racing to find a buyer over the next eight weeks and is trying to persuade the regulator Ofwat to grant it significant leniency on penalties and extra costs, to attract bidders. That would mean customer bills rising by far more than the 35% it has been allowed...
Only non-executive directors are allowed to have multiple jobs paying a fortune for sod all.
As I see it, that's one of the things Tories are also doing.
Gah.
Inothewayurthinkin!!!!
(There must be a point where you look at your compensation package and need some way of stangling Jiminy Cricket before he says "that's really rather a lot, isn't it?")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VItBlmlWE4U
I am sure Chinese officials watch all the 80s / 90s US sci-fi movies as an instruction manual.
I will definitely be getting a burner phone with nothing on it though....
'Highly unusual': White House halts FBI background checks for senior staff, shifts them to Pentagon: Sources
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/white-house-orders-halt-fbi-background-checks-senior/story?id=119735530
The White House has quietly directed the FBI to halt the background check process for dozens of President Donald Trump's top staffers, and has transferred the process to the Pentagon, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
The directive came last month after agents tasked with completing the background investigations had conducted interviews with a handful of top White House aides -- a standard part of the background check process.
White House officials took the unusual step of ordering a stop to the background check investigations after they deemed the process too intrusive, sources said....
ITV will show all of England’s games under the new deal, making Saturday’s match between Wales and England the last shown on BBC until at least 2030.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2025/03/14/six-nations-to-stay-on-free-to-air-as-bbc-and-itv-agree-new/
A new coronavirus feared to be able to spread to humans has been discovered by a China-linked scientist.
Researchers from Brazil and colleagues affiliated with the University of Hong Kong detected the new strain after swabbing the mouths and rectums of bats.
The novel strain is closely related to MERS — a disease that kills about 35 percent of the people it infects.
The makeup of the virus' spike protein, which it uses to trigger an infection, means it can probably infect human cells, the researchers warned.
The virus is now being transported to China, along with six other viruses discovered during the expedition.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-14499027/new-coronavirus-discovery-bats-chinese-scientist.html
He's sacked the top military lawyers of the JAG offices, and is appointing Trump's own loyalists.
https://newrepublic.com/post/192695/pete-hegseth-replace-military-lawyers
Has anyone seen HYUFD and Mohammed Amersi in the same room?
I hope they’ve sent the sequences to some vaccine companies.
The leadership of the main parties is utterly uninspired and seems to have no idea what they want (other than to be in power). Reeves is a shockingly poor Chancellor whose initial budget has killed off growth in the UK, growth that is essential to make her numbers work. They Tories failed to address the real and substantial problems that we have in investment, excess consumption, balance of payments, debt and skills. Modest efforts such as Hunt's policy of allowing 100% write offs for investment were welcome but not even close to sufficient.
I personally find Reform repugnant. There is a deep underlying strand of racism, a determination to live on "alternative facts" and a reluctance to engage with real world problems. I will never vote for them.
The Lib Dems are teetering on the verge of total irrelevance and show no signs of any kind of breakthrough. The Greens are even worse. As for the SNP up here, words simply fail me.
I am now 63. I just missed voting in 1979. I cannot recall a time in my adult life where we had such a range of problems and no real hints of any solutions from anyone. We are not attracting people of the requisite talent into politics. Reform thrive on the None of the Above ticket. I personally put them at the top of the list for None of the Above but you can begin to understand peoples' frustration and irritation with what they are being offered. I am struggling to see how we fix this.
If we need tax rises to pay for it (of course we do) then so be it. Same goes for cuts in other departments. We have a lot of catching up to do,
We are nearly a quarter of the way through this century. To me its big characteristic has been that particular mega problems have come one after the other so that there has never been time to draw breath, consolidate, regroup, and in fiscal terms, reach a bit of boring balance, and stop borrowing and getting into impossible debt
Consider:
2001 9/11,ff by Afgahistan and Iraq
2007/8 Financial meltdown
2010 Arab Spring
2016 Brexit, Trump Mk I
2020 Covid
2022 Ukraine
2023 Gaza
2024 Trump Mk II
That's a lot of rough beasts slouching towards Bethlehem as Yeats would put it.
I wasn't a Thatcher fan, but she had a vision, mistaken though I thought it to be. And she was wise enough to have a 'critical friend' close to her. As well as able lieutenants.
As far as the LibDems are concerned, one cannot, absolutely cannot, realistically equate Ed Davey with Jo Gromond, David Steel or Paddy Ashdown. Jeremy Thorpe had massive clay feet but he was an inspirational speaker.
Reform scares me, to be honest.
Name one person other than me that is not working for a company and paying rent? Morris dancer maybe
Pam Bondi: "If you're gonna touch a Tesla, go to a dealership, do anything, you better watch out, because we're coming after you."
Rachel Reeves is still the weakest chancellor of my lifetime by a country mile, mind you.
"And previous generations didn't have to contend with social media or 24hr news."
I paid rent/ a mortgage for 45 years before I retired.
The quarter of a pensioners are millionaires line is based on their assets, so House and pension pot. It fails to take into account that pension pot has to pay their wages for the rest of their lives.