The export of video game controllers from the UK to Russia has been banned as they can be repurposed to pilot drones used to launch attacks on Ukraine. The European Union enforced a similar ban on video games and joysticks earlier this year.
Heard him on R5 at the weekend and concluded that his time is done. He’s now become the bumbling old guy in the pub banging on about stuff from the old days. Loved him, but time to hang up the mic.
Heard him on R5 at the weekend and concluded that his time is done. He’s now become the bumbling old guy in the pub banging on about stuff from the old days. Loved him, but time to hang up the mic.
Become? He was like that when I first started following snooker in 1994.
Instead, Haaretz said, soldiers fired continuously at the vehicles for three and a half minutes from close range despite the aid workers’ attempts to identify themselves...
Heard him on R5 at the weekend and concluded that his time is done. He’s now become the bumbling old guy in the pub banging on about stuff from the old days. Loved him, but time to hang up the mic.
Heard him on R5 at the weekend and concluded that his time is done. He’s now become the bumbling old guy in the pub banging on about stuff from the old days. Loved him, but time to hang up the mic.
Become? He was like that when I first started following snooker in 1994.
After Rob Wanker's nickname introductions, Virgo is an improvement, although I would prefer him to stfu and leave it all to Shaun Murphy.
Taking it in turns to crash the economy is only fair.
The level of dislocation in our political class is bizarre. I suggested the Tories chose PR. They didn’t. Now I’m suggesting it to Labour.
Bet they don’t
They won't now that they know the voters are quite capable of doing their own PR. It's a simple 'who would you like least and how do I stop them'. it worked last time.
I had a damascene conversion at 1.20 today and realised that I don't really like Labour and am now a Lib Dem. I'd still vote Labour to stop Farage's mob but fortunately so would most sane voters. Sometimes Labour can be really dislikable and today was one of those days..
What's happened today, Rog?
I heard Yvette Cooper being interviewed and in content it could have been Kemi. She didn't even want to allow under 30's simple access to the EU for a short time even though the EU were willing. I found it extraordinary and embarrassing
Maybe she is running scared of Reform in her constituency
Labour have a choice: triangulate, or do what they believe and be out of office in 4 years.
I think they spent the first 6 months doing the latter, and then realised they were on a hiding to nothing, so pivoted.
But triangulating also means being out of office in 2029. The relative vote shares of Reform/Conservative and Lab/LD/Green are reasonably stable but while Reform are potentially moving ahead of the Tories, Labour are leaking support to the Lib Dems and the Greens.
I know I'm not in the market for whatever Starmer's offering but why would someone who wants Reform policies accept Labour's watered down version instead?
Well, precisely. You're not in the market for it and you struggle to understand anyone else who would be.
It will help Labour hang onto its key marginals, without sacrificing many safe seats, so it's the optimum political strategy for it retaining office.
By election time it will be: do you want us or the Tories/Reform? And they will point to some red meat, like VAT on school fees, to rally the base.
But Labour are losing twice as many voters to LDs and Greens than they are to Reform. They hope that the Reform switchers will be put off while the LD and Green switchers will return.
I don't think that the case. Their Reform-lite policies are not winning back voters but are accelerating the losses to the left. I expect this is exactly what we will see in the elections in May.
There is a point where a highly efficient vote such as Labour 24 becomes highly inefficient like the SDP in 1983, or Reform in 2024. We may well have passed that threshold and be looking at a Labour melt down.
I suspect you actually think the same and are cheerleeding Labour's suicide with no intention of voting for them.
I have no intention of voting for Labour, no - my April's fool was a joke - but I genuinely think they are following the right electoral strategy for them. We've seen time and time again a clothes peg on your nose approach come election time drives votes to them when the alternative is letting in the Tories or Reform into office.
Btw, you need to get over your contrarian need to reflexively disagree with or attempt to refute everything I say on the basis that if I said it, it must be false or I'm up to something and you must challenge it.
I usually call it as I see it.
Well, we will see shortly in the May elections if Labour's Reform-lite policy works and whether LD and Green voters "hold their noses".
I don't think they will. It will be e very bad night for Labour, and very bad for the Tories too.
It won't show up in the locals. They will be used as a protest vote.
We both know that.
Labour are defending so few potential losses and challenging in so many possible gains, both from the poor prior position of 2021, that the protest will barely register. -100 would be a horrible night for Labour, -250 a relief for the Tories.
I don't quite see with the rate of Reform gains in council by elections (about 10% of candidates in 2025), where the better part of 500 Reform gains will come about. I reckon 2-300 will be closer to the mark. Which suggests Labour may be close to Reform in seat count, whilst Tories may overperform predictions at least Vs Reform.
Of course, Runcorn could well take the media attention and that is tctc if Reform overperform proportional swing with some tactical Tory votes.
Given that we are less than a year from the last General Election, I am wondering whether there will be an extremely low turnout on 1st May, and whether voters will cast their votes based on their council’s performance, rather than on national issues. If so, there could be some unexpected results.
Unless there is a rush of by elections in redwall seats like Runcorn I can't see Reform getting 10 MPs.
Even the potential Somerset NE Hainham by elections looks more likely to go to Rees Mogg than Reform (albeit ideologically he is close to Farage anyway)
Is Mogg even standing in Hanham? That would be brave. I suspect the Labour collapse might go Green.
Of course he would if there is a by election and would comfortably win I suspect, Farage might not even put up a candidate as Mogg is basically Reform anyway
Other than Johnson what other Conservative politician embodies everything everyone despises about the Tories?
Johnson won the biggest Conservative majority since Thatcher and Mogg backed him to the end.
The people who despise Mogg and Johnson are voters like you who would mostly never vote Conservative anyway
And then Johnson spaffed all that goodwill up the wall. Both are parodies of ghosts of Conservative Parties past.
They are very much Conservative future for at least the next decade, if Kemi loses the next general election and assuming Farage isn't PM with Kemi his deputy then Jenrick and the Rees Mogg wing of the party will almost certainly take over the party leadership. Indeed Boris was a relative liberal compared to them or even Kemi
If that's all I have to look forward to in my twilight years I might as well take the flight to Dignitas.
Heard him on R5 at the weekend and concluded that his time is done. He’s now become the bumbling old guy in the pub banging on about stuff from the old days. Loved him, but time to hang up the mic.
Well, keep in mind a lot of the viewers are also bumbling old guys (and gals) who remember the old days and there should be someone there to cater to them, too.
Heard him on R5 at the weekend and concluded that his time is done. He’s now become the bumbling old guy in the pub banging on about stuff from the old days. Loved him, but time to hang up the mic.
Become? He was like that when I first started following snooker in 1994.
Heard him on R5 at the weekend and concluded that his time is done. He’s now become the bumbling old guy in the pub banging on about stuff from the old days. Loved him, but time to hang up the mic.
Become? He was like that when I first started following snooker in 1994.
After Rob Wanker's nickname introductions, Virgo is an improvement, although I would prefer him to stfu and leave it all to Shaun Murphy.
I used to like watching him on "Big Break" with Jim Davidson.
Heard him on R5 at the weekend and concluded that his time is done. He’s now become the bumbling old guy in the pub banging on about stuff from the old days. Loved him, but time to hang up the mic.
Become? He was like that when I first started following snooker in 1994.
The Tories’ biggest blunder is only now coming to light Michael Gove must apologise for giving councils free rein to extort property owners ... Thousands of people across Britain have been shocked to receive demands for double council tax on second properties under powers granted by Mr Gove that took effect in April. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/property/counting-cost-michael-gove-dreadful-mistake/ (£££)
I think the Telegraph is over-reaching a little here.
The claimed total of "chargeable properties" is 280k, which is about 1% of Housing Stock.
As the article puts it:
Dozens of readers have been in touch to complain of exorbitant bills being issued on inherited family homes or properties that are used every week for work.
Dozens? It's the end of the world.
Then they spiral off into "but but but empty homes", when the UK is actually very good at keeping these down.
Good evening
It is widely used across Wales and with considerable local support
Indeed local estate agents are reporting a considerable number of second homes are coming into the market
Instead, Haaretz said, soldiers fired continuously at the vehicles for three and a half minutes from close range despite the aid workers’ attempts to identify themselves...
Instead, Haaretz said, soldiers fired continuously at the vehicles for three and a half minutes from close range despite the aid workers’ attempts to identify themselves...
JD Vance visits India, the whole subcontinent is on the verge of war.
Remember when we used to think Gordon Broon had the reverse midas-touch?
Regarding Gordo, I think I have solved a minor mystery.
The strange gulping thing is possibly a result of vocal coaching.
I've been taking a few singing lessons .. and the technique for taking a breath is ideally with an open throat as though you were vocalising 'o'. He's just not very good at it.
Oooo.. will we be seeing you auditioning for the next season of The Voice?
No, just unlearning the bad vocal habits of the last fifty years. It's mildly fascinating.
Taking it in turns to crash the economy is only fair.
The level of dislocation in our political class is bizarre. I suggested the Tories chose PR. They didn’t. Now I’m suggesting it to Labour.
Bet they don’t
They won't now that they know the voters are quite capable of doing their own PR. It's a simple 'who would you like least and how do I stop them'. it worked last time.
I had a damascene conversion at 1.20 today and realised that I don't really like Labour and am now a Lib Dem. I'd still vote Labour to stop Farage's mob but fortunately so would most sane voters. Sometimes Labour can be really dislikable and today was one of those days..
What's happened today, Rog?
I heard Yvette Cooper being interviewed and in content it could have been Kemi. She didn't even want to allow under 30's simple access to the EU for a short time even though the EU were willing. I found it extraordinary and embarrassing
Maybe she is running scared of Reform in her constituency
Labour have a choice: triangulate, or do what they believe and be out of office in 4 years.
I think they spent the first 6 months doing the latter, and then realised they were on a hiding to nothing, so pivoted.
But triangulating also means being out of office in 2029. The relative vote shares of Reform/Conservative and Lab/LD/Green are reasonably stable but while Reform are potentially moving ahead of the Tories, Labour are leaking support to the Lib Dems and the Greens.
I know I'm not in the market for whatever Starmer's offering but why would someone who wants Reform policies accept Labour's watered down version instead?
Well, precisely. You're not in the market for it and you struggle to understand anyone else who would be.
It will help Labour hang onto its key marginals, without sacrificing many safe seats, so it's the optimum political strategy for it retaining office.
By election time it will be: do you want us or the Tories/Reform? And they will point to some red meat, like VAT on school fees, to rally the base.
But Labour are losing twice as many voters to LDs and Greens than they are to Reform. They hope that the Reform switchers will be put off while the LD and Green switchers will return.
I don't think that the case. Their Reform-lite policies are not winning back voters but are accelerating the losses to the left. I expect this is exactly what we will see in the elections in May.
There is a point where a highly efficient vote such as Labour 24 becomes highly inefficient like the SDP in 1983, or Reform in 2024. We may well have passed that threshold and be looking at a Labour melt down.
I suspect you actually think the same and are cheerleeding Labour's suicide with no intention of voting for them.
I have no intention of voting for Labour, no - my April's fool was a joke - but I genuinely think they are following the right electoral strategy for them. We've seen time and time again a clothes peg on your nose approach come election time drives votes to them when the alternative is letting in the Tories or Reform into office.
Btw, you need to get over your contrarian need to reflexively disagree with or attempt to refute everything I say on the basis that if I said it, it must be false or I'm up to something and you must challenge it.
I usually call it as I see it.
Well, we will see shortly in the May elections if Labour's Reform-lite policy works and whether LD and Green voters "hold their noses".
I don't think they will. It will be e very bad night for Labour, and very bad for the Tories too.
It won't show up in the locals. They will be used as a protest vote.
We both know that.
Labour are defending so few potential losses and challenging in so many possible gains, both from the poor prior position of 2021, that the protest will barely register. -100 would be a horrible night for Labour, -250 a relief for the Tories.
I don't quite see with the rate of Reform gains in council by elections (about 10% of candidates in 2025), where the better part of 500 Reform gains will come about. I reckon 2-300 will be closer to the mark. Which suggests Labour may be close to Reform in seat count, whilst Tories may overperform predictions at least Vs Reform.
Of course, Runcorn could well take the media attention and that is tctc if Reform overperform proportional swing with some tactical Tory votes.
Given that we are less than a year from the last General Election, I am wondering whether there will be an extremely low turnout on 1st May, and whether voters will cast their votes based on their council’s performance, rather than on national issues. If so, there could be some unexpected results.
Do you really believe County Council elections are EVER run on national issues? In 60 years of campaigning, I can't remember a single occasion when local elections were ever decided on anything other than local issues
Taking it in turns to crash the economy is only fair.
The level of dislocation in our political class is bizarre. I suggested the Tories chose PR. They didn’t. Now I’m suggesting it to Labour.
Bet they don’t
They won't now that they know the voters are quite capable of doing their own PR. It's a simple 'who would you like least and how do I stop them'. it worked last time.
I had a damascene conversion at 1.20 today and realised that I don't really like Labour and am now a Lib Dem. I'd still vote Labour to stop Farage's mob but fortunately so would most sane voters. Sometimes Labour can be really dislikable and today was one of those days..
What's happened today, Rog?
I heard Yvette Cooper being interviewed and in content it could have been Kemi. She didn't even want to allow under 30's simple access to the EU for a short time even though the EU were willing. I found it extraordinary and embarrassing.
So self defeating. If you were under 30 would you vote Labour now?
I think that's an indicator where the current Govt continue to make mistakes; they are still fighting on others' ground.
Taking it in turns to crash the economy is only fair.
The level of dislocation in our political class is bizarre. I suggested the Tories chose PR. They didn’t. Now I’m suggesting it to Labour.
Bet they don’t
They won't now that they know the voters are quite capable of doing their own PR. It's a simple 'who would you like least and how do I stop them'. it worked last time.
I had a damascene conversion at 1.20 today and realised that I don't really like Labour and am now a Lib Dem. I'd still vote Labour to stop Farage's mob but fortunately so would most sane voters. Sometimes Labour can be really dislikable and today was one of those days..
What's happened today, Rog?
I heard Yvette Cooper being interviewed and in content it could have been Kemi. She didn't even want to allow under 30's simple access to the EU for a short time even though the EU were willing. I found it extraordinary and embarrassing
Maybe she is running scared of Reform in her constituency
Labour have a choice: triangulate, or do what they believe and be out of office in 4 years.
I think they spent the first 6 months doing the latter, and then realised they were on a hiding to nothing, so pivoted.
But triangulating also means being out of office in 2029. The relative vote shares of Reform/Conservative and Lab/LD/Green are reasonably stable but while Reform are potentially moving ahead of the Tories, Labour are leaking support to the Lib Dems and the Greens.
I know I'm not in the market for whatever Starmer's offering but why would someone who wants Reform policies accept Labour's watered down version instead?
Well, precisely. You're not in the market for it and you struggle to understand anyone else who would be.
It will help Labour hang onto its key marginals, without sacrificing many safe seats, so it's the optimum political strategy for it retaining office.
By election time it will be: do you want us or the Tories/Reform? And they will point to some red meat, like VAT on school fees, to rally the base.
But Labour are losing twice as many voters to LDs and Greens than they are to Reform. They hope that the Reform switchers will be put off while the LD and Green switchers will return.
I don't think that the case. Their Reform-lite policies are not winning back voters but are accelerating the losses to the left. I expect this is exactly what we will see in the elections in May.
There is a point where a highly efficient vote such as Labour 24 becomes highly inefficient like the SDP in 1983, or Reform in 2024. We may well have passed that threshold and be looking at a Labour melt down.
I suspect you actually think the same and are cheerleeding Labour's suicide with no intention of voting for them.
I have no intention of voting for Labour, no - my April's fool was a joke - but I genuinely think they are following the right electoral strategy for them. We've seen time and time again a clothes peg on your nose approach come election time drives votes to them when the alternative is letting in the Tories or Reform into office.
Btw, you need to get over your contrarian need to reflexively disagree with or attempt to refute everything I say on the basis that if I said it, it must be false or I'm up to something and you must challenge it.
I usually call it as I see it.
Well, we will see shortly in the May elections if Labour's Reform-lite policy works and whether LD and Green voters "hold their noses".
I don't think they will. It will be e very bad night for Labour, and very bad for the Tories too.
It won't show up in the locals. They will be used as a protest vote.
We both know that.
Labour are defending so few potential losses and challenging in so many possible gains, both from the poor prior position of 2021, that the protest will barely register. -100 would be a horrible night for Labour, -250 a relief for the Tories.
I don't quite see with the rate of Reform gains in council by elections (about 10% of candidates in 2025), where the better part of 500 Reform gains will come about. I reckon 2-300 will be closer to the mark. Which suggests Labour may be close to Reform in seat count, whilst Tories may overperform predictions at least Vs Reform.
Of course, Runcorn could well take the media attention and that is tctc if Reform overperform proportional swing with some tactical Tory votes.
Given that we are less than a year from the last General Election, I am wondering whether there will be an extremely low turnout on 1st May, and whether voters will cast their votes based on their council’s performance, rather than on national issues. If so, there could be some unexpected results.
Do you really believe County Council elections are EVER run on national issues? In 60 years of campaigning, I can't remember a single occasion when local elections were ever decided on anything other than local issues
Only every single time.
Unless you think that all the Conservative-run county councils were simultaneously dreadful in the runup to the 1993 local elections, or that local Labour and Liberal councillors were doing a poor job just before 2021.
A good local record can help at the margins, but the national tide is the national tide.
Taking it in turns to crash the economy is only fair.
The level of dislocation in our political class is bizarre. I suggested the Tories chose PR. They didn’t. Now I’m suggesting it to Labour.
Bet they don’t
They won't now that they know the voters are quite capable of doing their own PR. It's a simple 'who would you like least and how do I stop them'. it worked last time.
I had a damascene conversion at 1.20 today and realised that I don't really like Labour and am now a Lib Dem. I'd still vote Labour to stop Farage's mob but fortunately so would most sane voters. Sometimes Labour can be really dislikable and today was one of those days..
What's happened today, Rog?
I heard Yvette Cooper being interviewed and in content it could have been Kemi. She didn't even want to allow under 30's simple access to the EU for a short time even though the EU were willing. I found it extraordinary and embarrassing
Maybe she is running scared of Reform in her constituency
Labour have a choice: triangulate, or do what they believe and be out of office in 4 years.
I think they spent the first 6 months doing the latter, and then realised they were on a hiding to nothing, so pivoted.
But triangulating also means being out of office in 2029. The relative vote shares of Reform/Conservative and Lab/LD/Green are reasonably stable but while Reform are potentially moving ahead of the Tories, Labour are leaking support to the Lib Dems and the Greens.
I know I'm not in the market for whatever Starmer's offering but why would someone who wants Reform policies accept Labour's watered down version instead?
Well, precisely. You're not in the market for it and you struggle to understand anyone else who would be.
It will help Labour hang onto its key marginals, without sacrificing many safe seats, so it's the optimum political strategy for it retaining office.
By election time it will be: do you want us or the Tories/Reform? And they will point to some red meat, like VAT on school fees, to rally the base.
But Labour are losing twice as many voters to LDs and Greens than they are to Reform. They hope that the Reform switchers will be put off while the LD and Green switchers will return.
I don't think that the case. Their Reform-lite policies are not winning back voters but are accelerating the losses to the left. I expect this is exactly what we will see in the elections in May.
There is a point where a highly efficient vote such as Labour 24 becomes highly inefficient like the SDP in 1983, or Reform in 2024. We may well have passed that threshold and be looking at a Labour melt down.
I suspect you actually think the same and are cheerleeding Labour's suicide with no intention of voting for them.
I have no intention of voting for Labour, no - my April's fool was a joke - but I genuinely think they are following the right electoral strategy for them. We've seen time and time again a clothes peg on your nose approach come election time drives votes to them when the alternative is letting in the Tories or Reform into office.
Btw, you need to get over your contrarian need to reflexively disagree with or attempt to refute everything I say on the basis that if I said it, it must be false or I'm up to something and you must challenge it.
I usually call it as I see it.
Well, we will see shortly in the May elections if Labour's Reform-lite policy works and whether LD and Green voters "hold their noses".
I don't think they will. It will be e very bad night for Labour, and very bad for the Tories too.
It won't show up in the locals. They will be used as a protest vote.
We both know that.
Labour are defending so few potential losses and challenging in so many possible gains, both from the poor prior position of 2021, that the protest will barely register. -100 would be a horrible night for Labour, -250 a relief for the Tories.
I don't quite see with the rate of Reform gains in council by elections (about 10% of candidates in 2025), where the better part of 500 Reform gains will come about. I reckon 2-300 will be closer to the mark. Which suggests Labour may be close to Reform in seat count, whilst Tories may overperform predictions at least Vs Reform.
Of course, Runcorn could well take the media attention and that is tctc if Reform overperform proportional swing with some tactical Tory votes.
Given that we are less than a year from the last General Election, I am wondering whether there will be an extremely low turnout on 1st May, and whether voters will cast their votes based on their council’s performance, rather than on national issues. If so, there could be some unexpected results.
Do you really believe County Council elections are EVER run on national issues? In 60 years of campaigning, I can't remember a single occasion when local elections were ever decided on anything other than local issues
"This is a LOCAL shop for LOCAL people! There's nothing for YOU here!"
'The Reform UK leader said "hundreds of people who applied to be candidates for the county council elections were rejected... often because of repeated use of words beginning with F and C on social media."...
But Hope Not Hate, an anti-racism campaign group which has clashed with Farage in the past, said the examples it had found undermined his vetting claims.
On Thursday last week, the group published details of social media posts it had found from 14 different current Reform UK candidates...
The posts seen by the BBC include:
A Reform UK candidate saying "one big nuke bomb" should be used to remove Islam from the world
Another saying Bradford has a large Muslim population and is a "shithole"
Others promoting the conspiracy theory that Muslims are seeking to "supplant the native population" in the UK'
It's quite a thing that we now live in a world where most people tend to believe that the President of China is more honest than the President of the USA.
Unless there is a rush of by elections in redwall seats like Runcorn I can't see Reform getting 10 MPs.
Even the potential Somerset NE Hainham by elections looks more likely to go to Rees Mogg than Reform (albeit ideologically he is close to Farage anyway)
Is Mogg even standing in Hanham? That would be brave. I suspect the Labour collapse might go Green.
Of course he would if there is a by election and would comfortably win I suspect, Farage might not even put up a candidate as Mogg is basically Reform anyway
Other than Johnson what other Conservative politician embodies everything everyone despises about the Tories?
Braverman and Patel deserve a mention
From my right-wing perspective, I despise the Tories for:
A sudden belief in the magic money tree. Mass migration lies. Rules for thee but not for me (party gate) Trying to change the rules to get your mate off (Owen Patterson)
So, it's hard to look past Boris to be honest. Truss is the one that puzzles me most though. How do you believe you are some kind of economic genius and not understand the simple concept that you need to retain the confidence of the people you are borrowing money from? Clever people can be so stupid.
What hurts us most it is own goals you listed. Farage, Labour and libdems dining out on those own goals. What worries, it’s not just “been in 13 years, time for a change” but those own goals have longevity, have shifted votes for a long time - the fact another right wing party is now ahead of Conservatives is likely a symptom of more than just a tired government thrown out, but it utterly lost people over party gate and mass migration.
A million people did not cross the channel in dingys in one year, so how on Earth all those years after vote for Brexit and a hard Brexit deal, was the last years of Conservative government running mass migration into Britain at a million a year? Was it all down to individuals interested only in being PM and the trappings of power, throwing one hundred years of cultivated competency onto a bonfire of their own vanity and ambition?
The part of Brexit where so many voters saw it as economically illiterate, might also have lost voters for the rest of their lives.
Conservatives being out of power just two terms depending on how utterly incompetent this Labour period of government can be, and how Conservatives squeeze the vote for Farage. On the first of those, contrary to everything being pushed about this Labour government being economically incompetent and Reeves an out of her depth joke, the things making them unpopular is being fiscally prudent, Thatcherite type cutting, the opposite of magic money tree type mistakes - playing an electoral cycle game, rather than popular right through the cycle where you don’t need it.
Hello from Sheffield. I've spent a couple of days in Ghent. Brilliant city! And the brilliance of Eurotunnel - makes getting to and from mainland Europe a doddle.
Taking it in turns to crash the economy is only fair.
The level of dislocation in our political class is bizarre. I suggested the Tories chose PR. They didn’t. Now I’m suggesting it to Labour.
Bet they don’t
They won't now that they know the voters are quite capable of doing their own PR. It's a simple 'who would you like least and how do I stop them'. it worked last time.
I had a damascene conversion at 1.20 today and realised that I don't really like Labour and am now a Lib Dem. I'd still vote Labour to stop Farage's mob but fortunately so would most sane voters. Sometimes Labour can be really dislikable and today was one of those days..
What's happened today, Rog?
I heard Yvette Cooper being interviewed and in content it could have been Kemi. She didn't even want to allow under 30's simple access to the EU for a short time even though the EU were willing. I found it extraordinary and embarrassing
Maybe she is running scared of Reform in her constituency
Labour have a choice: triangulate, or do what they believe and be out of office in 4 years.
I think they spent the first 6 months doing the latter, and then realised they were on a hiding to nothing, so pivoted.
But triangulating also means being out of office in 2029. The relative vote shares of Reform/Conservative and Lab/LD/Green are reasonably stable but while Reform are potentially moving ahead of the Tories, Labour are leaking support to the Lib Dems and the Greens.
I know I'm not in the market for whatever Starmer's offering but why would someone who wants Reform policies accept Labour's watered down version instead?
Well, precisely. You're not in the market for it and you struggle to understand anyone else who would be.
It will help Labour hang onto its key marginals, without sacrificing many safe seats, so it's the optimum political strategy for it retaining office.
By election time it will be: do you want us or the Tories/Reform? And they will point to some red meat, like VAT on school fees, to rally the base.
But Labour are losing twice as many voters to LDs and Greens than they are to Reform. They hope that the Reform switchers will be put off while the LD and Green switchers will return.
I don't think that the case. Their Reform-lite policies are not winning back voters but are accelerating the losses to the left. I expect this is exactly what we will see in the elections in May.
There is a point where a highly efficient vote such as Labour 24 becomes highly inefficient like the SDP in 1983, or Reform in 2024. We may well have passed that threshold and be looking at a Labour melt down.
I suspect you actually think the same and are cheerleeding Labour's suicide with no intention of voting for them.
I have no intention of voting for Labour, no - my April's fool was a joke - but I genuinely think they are following the right electoral strategy for them. We've seen time and time again a clothes peg on your nose approach come election time drives votes to them when the alternative is letting in the Tories or Reform into office.
Btw, you need to get over your contrarian need to reflexively disagree with or attempt to refute everything I say on the basis that if I said it, it must be false or I'm up to something and you must challenge it.
I usually call it as I see it.
Well, we will see shortly in the May elections if Labour's Reform-lite policy works and whether LD and Green voters "hold their noses".
I don't think they will. It will be e very bad night for Labour, and very bad for the Tories too.
It won't show up in the locals. They will be used as a protest vote.
We both know that.
Indeed and Electoral Calculus are forecasting Labour will come 4th winning even fewer council seats than the LDs next week.
Kemi will get some relief the Tories will still win most councillors despite losses (though if the councils which are postponing elections to become unitaries like Essex and Norfolk had held elections then Reform would have won most seats) https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_lepoll_20250314.html
The councils up this year are generally in Labour unfriended areas. Let's see what the National Equivalent Vote looks like.
SCOOP: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's controversial chief of staff, Joe Kasper is *OUT* and will leave DOD today.
Kasper is the *FIFTH* top DOD official to leave the agency in the past week, and was a central figure in a power struggle that cost three top aides their jobs.
Chattering about the anti-wheelchair barrier I mentioned the other day to the people from the allotments on one side of the road fixing their fence, they said:
"Please don't ask for bollards. We have people going through there with planks of wood balanced across wheelbarrows."
So it will be a request for removal of some of the blocks, or a route round the side using a single locking bollard where there is currently a decrepit gate.
Taking it in turns to crash the economy is only fair.
The level of dislocation in our political class is bizarre. I suggested the Tories chose PR. They didn’t. Now I’m suggesting it to Labour.
Bet they don’t
They won't now that they know the voters are quite capable of doing their own PR. It's a simple 'who would you like least and how do I stop them'. it worked last time.
I had a damascene conversion at 1.20 today and realised that I don't really like Labour and am now a Lib Dem. I'd still vote Labour to stop Farage's mob but fortunately so would most sane voters. Sometimes Labour can be really dislikable and today was one of those days..
What's happened today, Rog?
I heard Yvette Cooper being interviewed and in content it could have been Kemi. She didn't even want to allow under 30's simple access to the EU for a short time even though the EU were willing. I found it extraordinary and embarrassing.
So self defeating. If you were under 30 would you vote Labour now?
I think that's an indicator where the current Govt continue to make mistakes; they are still fighting on others' ground.
Labour only win elections these days by following Conservative policies.
NEW: Wes Streeting says that Labour politicians who used to argue “trans women are women” should have the “humility” to admit they were not right.
In what some may interpret as implied criticism of Keir Starmer, he tells @BenKentish: "Given some of the rough discourse we’ve had on these issues in recent years, I don’t think we lose anything by having a bit of humility to say, ‘Actually, I wish we’d listened.’"
Politicians who use the Supreme Court verdict to row back on a previous commitment to the concept that trans women are women are beneath contempt. If you supported that position then the honest reaction is to seek a change in the law to reflect what you thought the position was in the first place.
You seem to be advocating policies based on personal belief, convictions and principle.
As opposed to a focus group of the most pig ignorant fuckwits you can find, being the entirety of your moral compass.
Thaddeus Stevens: Shit on the people and what they want and what they're ready for. I don't give a goddamn about the people and what they want. This is the face of someone who has fought long and hard for the *good* of the people without caring much for any of 'em. And now I look a lot worse without my wig
Snatch thefts of mobile phones and bags rose by 70 per cent in a year to reach a 20-year high, official data has revealed.
The number of snatch thefts, where devices or personal items are grabbed from a person by a thief, rose from 58,000 in 2023 to 99,000 last year – the highest level since 2003, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales.
Thefts from people overall, including stealth snatches, where phones, bags or other personal items are stolen from under a table or locker – rose by 50 per cent to 483,000, the highest rate for a decade.
Police data also showed that the epidemic of theft extended to shoplifting, where the number of offences last year passed half a million for the first time.
A total of 516,971 shoplifting offences were logged by forces last year, up 20 per cent from 429,873 in 2023, and equivalent to more than two a minute based on average store opening hours of 10 a day.
Knife crime increased by two per cent to 54,587 offences, 600 short of the all-time high. Nine forces, including the Metropolitan Police, the biggest in England and Wales, reported record levels.
The BBC have checked the claims, as described in the article. Why are you so quick to presume Hope Not Hate are wrong? HNH generally show their evidence.
Whether or not that's a good thing, I'll let you know.
Blimey.
That's a call and a half.
Primaries are at least two years away and that's if there's actually going to be normal POTUS election.
But yeh AOC is making the running and maybe that will be enough to keep a primary lead from now until March 2028.
Fair play to her, at least someone is taking the fight to the subtards.
Kamala lost because she was seen as extreme. Surely they're not going to.go for AOC?
MAGA Republicans think all Dems are extreme, Hell, they think RINOS are extreme.
The Dems need someone who can get the vote out and infuse some passion. The soft centrists are toast. It takes a left populist to beat a right populist.
SCOOP: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's controversial chief of staff, Joe Kasper is *OUT* and will leave DOD today.
Kasper is the *FIFTH* top DOD official to leave the agency in the past week, and was a central figure in a power struggle that cost three top aides their jobs.
Heard him on R5 at the weekend and concluded that his time is done. He’s now become the bumbling old guy in the pub banging on about stuff from the old days. Loved him, but time to hang up the mic.
Become? He was like that when I first started following snooker in 1994.
After Rob Wanker's nickname introductions, Virgo is an improvement, although I would prefer him to stfu and leave it all to Shaun Murphy.
I like Rob Walker a lot. I'd say there's no-one like him I can think of in sport. It's a niche job and I wonder how you get it. I met him once - on my way to the Crucible, natch. But I was so excited to meet one of the few celebrities I particularly wanted to meet that I forgot to ask him the one question I wanted to. Still, he was a nive fella.
Also met Steve Davis but I couldn't think of anything interesting to ask him.
I don't mind John Virgo.
I'm going on Saturday (to see, it turns out, two Chinese fellas I've never heard of). Anyone else there in person this year?
Whether or not that's a good thing, I'll let you know.
Blimey.
That's a call and a half.
Primaries are at least two years away and that's if there's actually going to be normal POTUS election.
But yeh AOC is making the running and maybe that will be enough to keep a primary lead from now until March 2028.
Fair play to her, at least someone is taking the fight to the subtards.
Kamala lost because she was seen as extreme. Surely they're not going to.go for AOC?
No she didn't. She lost because Biden hung on instead of deciding to step down the year before (as he'd 90% promised when elected). No one else would have done any better ... in the circumstances, I think.
Had there been a primary on the normal timetable, it's fairly likely the outcome would have been different. Whoever the candidate.
Whether or not that's a good thing, I'll let you know.
Blimey.
That's a call and a half.
Primaries are at least two years away and that's if there's actually going to be normal POTUS election.
But yeh AOC is making the running and maybe that will be enough to keep a primary lead from now until March 2028.
Fair play to her, at least someone is taking the fight to the subtards.
Kamala lost because she was seen as extreme. Surely they're not going to.go for AOC?
Harris lost because of high inflation. Whoever the Democrats put up, the Republicans will claim they are extreme. All the Democrat candidate has to be (and it’s clearly too soon to call that race!) is less extreme than Trump, and voters are increasingly seeing how extreme he is (extremely incompetent, extremely corrupt…).
Hello from Sheffield. I've spent a couple of days in Ghent. Brilliant city! And the brilliance of Eurotunnel - makes getting to and from mainland Europe a doddle.
Whether or not that's a good thing, I'll let you know.
Blimey.
That's a call and a half.
Primaries are at least two years away and that's if there's actually going to be normal POTUS election.
But yeh AOC is making the running and maybe that will be enough to keep a primary lead from now until March 2028.
Fair play to her, at least someone is taking the fight to the subtards.
Kamala lost because she was seen as extreme. Surely they're not going to.go for AOC?
MAGA Republicans think all Dems are extreme, Hell, they think RINOS are extreme.
The Dems need someone who can get the vote out and infuse some passion. The soft centrists are toast. It takes a left populist to beat a right populist.
There are still two plausible paths for 2028. One is still that America will need someone a bit like Carter; a transparently decent nobody who can heal the long national nightmare to come. The other is that they will need a revolutionary to tear down the evils of the Capitol.
The worse things get, the more likely it is that the second will be necessary, and AOC fits that bill pretty well.
My concern is that the worse things get, the less the incumbent administration will dare risk losing office. Because they will have a lot of questions to answer.
Snatch thefts of mobile phones and bags rose by 70 per cent in a year to reach a 20-year high, official data has revealed.
The number of snatch thefts, where devices or personal items are grabbed from a person by a thief, rose from 58,000 in 2023 to 99,000 last year – the highest level since 2003, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales.
Thefts from people overall, including stealth snatches, where phones, bags or other personal items are stolen from under a table or locker – rose by 50 per cent to 483,000, the highest rate for a decade.
Police data also showed that the epidemic of theft extended to shoplifting, where the number of offences last year passed half a million for the first time.
A total of 516,971 shoplifting offences were logged by forces last year, up 20 per cent from 429,873 in 2023, and equivalent to more than two a minute based on average store opening hours of 10 a day.
Knife crime increased by two per cent to 54,587 offences, 600 short of the all-time high. Nine forces, including the Metropolitan Police, the biggest in England and Wales, reported record levels.
This is made worse by the fact detection rates for these sort of crimes is down to low single digit for things like phone thefts.
Shoplifting is exacerbated by social media, with people on, e.g., TikTok glorifying it. Yet again big tech companies and their algorithms cause us harm.
Taking it in turns to crash the economy is only fair.
The level of dislocation in our political class is bizarre. I suggested the Tories chose PR. They didn’t. Now I’m suggesting it to Labour.
Bet they don’t
They won't now that they know the voters are quite capable of doing their own PR. It's a simple 'who would you like least and how do I stop them'. it worked last time.
I had a damascene conversion at 1.20 today and realised that I don't really like Labour and am now a Lib Dem. I'd still vote Labour to stop Farage's mob but fortunately so would most sane voters. Sometimes Labour can be really dislikable and today was one of those days..
What's happened today, Rog?
I heard Yvette Cooper being interviewed and in content it could have been Kemi. She didn't even want to allow under 30's simple access to the EU for a short time even though the EU were willing. I found it extraordinary and embarrassing
Maybe she is running scared of Reform in her constituency
Labour have a choice: triangulate, or do what they believe and be out of office in 4 years.
I think they spent the first 6 months doing the latter, and then realised they were on a hiding to nothing, so pivoted.
But triangulating also means being out of office in 2029. The relative vote shares of Reform/Conservative and Lab/LD/Green are reasonably stable but while Reform are potentially moving ahead of the Tories, Labour are leaking support to the Lib Dems and the Greens.
I know I'm not in the market for whatever Starmer's offering but why would someone who wants Reform policies accept Labour's watered down version instead?
Well, precisely. You're not in the market for it and you struggle to understand anyone else who would be.
It will help Labour hang onto its key marginals, without sacrificing many safe seats, so it's the optimum political strategy for it retaining office.
By election time it will be: do you want us or the Tories/Reform? And they will point to some red meat, like VAT on school fees, to rally the base.
But Labour are losing twice as many voters to LDs and Greens than they are to Reform. They hope that the Reform switchers will be put off while the LD and Green switchers will return.
I don't think that the case. Their Reform-lite policies are not winning back voters but are accelerating the losses to the left. I expect this is exactly what we will see in the elections in May.
There is a point where a highly efficient vote such as Labour 24 becomes highly inefficient like the SDP in 1983, or Reform in 2024. We may well have passed that threshold and be looking at a Labour melt down.
I suspect you actually think the same and are cheerleeding Labour's suicide with no intention of voting for them.
I have no intention of voting for Labour, no - my April's fool was a joke - but I genuinely think they are following the right electoral strategy for them. We've seen time and time again a clothes peg on your nose approach come election time drives votes to them when the alternative is letting in the Tories or Reform into office.
Btw, you need to get over your contrarian need to reflexively disagree with or attempt to refute everything I say on the basis that if I said it, it must be false or I'm up to something and you must challenge it.
I usually call it as I see it.
Well, we will see shortly in the May elections if Labour's Reform-lite policy works and whether LD and Green voters "hold their noses".
I don't think they will. It will be e very bad night for Labour, and very bad for the Tories too.
The problem with tacking towards the Libs/Greens is that in places like Greater Manchester (outside Manchester itself) and County Durham, there aren't nearly enough of that sort of voter to overcome the Reform vote, and doing so drives up the Reform vote. From where I'm sitting, Labour's strategy, half-arsed though it is, seems the best bet.
Voters in Greater Manchester have further choices, including the obvious one of not voting. I think we will see very low turnout there, even compared to most local elections.
I think you misunderstamd me. In outer GM, Lab have dozens of councillors who habe previously been unshiftable because neither Con nor Lib could garner enough votes there. Lab councillors therefore had a very low bar to success. But there ARE enough voters in places like Longdendale interested in voting Reform thay Lab habr to try a bit harder to get voters. They don't do this by tacking to Green or Lib Dem - there simply aren't enough voters in that market in outer GM to shift the dial.
Snatch thefts of mobile phones and bags rose by 70 per cent in a year to reach a 20-year high, official data has revealed.
The number of snatch thefts, where devices or personal items are grabbed from a person by a thief, rose from 58,000 in 2023 to 99,000 last year – the highest level since 2003, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales.
Thefts from people overall, including stealth snatches, where phones, bags or other personal items are stolen from under a table or locker – rose by 50 per cent to 483,000, the highest rate for a decade.
Police data also showed that the epidemic of theft extended to shoplifting, where the number of offences last year passed half a million for the first time.
A total of 516,971 shoplifting offences were logged by forces last year, up 20 per cent from 429,873 in 2023, and equivalent to more than two a minute based on average store opening hours of 10 a day.
Knife crime increased by two per cent to 54,587 offences, 600 short of the all-time high. Nine forces, including the Metropolitan Police, the biggest in England and Wales, reported record levels.
This is made worse by the fact detection rates for these sort of crimes is down to low single digit for things like phone thefts.
Shoplifting is exacerbated by social media, with people on, e.g., TikTok glorifying it. Yet again big tech companies and their algorithms cause us harm.
The initial problem was the decision by the Tories to downgrade it as an offence, and once things start to tick up rapidly, it snowballs and then rocket boosters can be put under it via social media. We saw the same in US cities. Turning that around is difficult task.
Whether or not that's a good thing, I'll let you know.
Blimey.
That's a call and a half.
Primaries are at least two years away and that's if there's actually going to be normal POTUS election.
But yeh AOC is making the running and maybe that will be enough to keep a primary lead from now until March 2028.
Fair play to her, at least someone is taking the fight to the subtards.
Kamala lost because she was seen as extreme. Surely they're not going to.go for AOC?
MAGA Republicans think all Dems are extreme, Hell, they think RINOS are extreme.
The Dems need someone who can get the vote out and infuse some passion. The soft centrists are toast. It takes a left populist to beat a right populist.
That is absolute madness and a recipe for.more MAGA.
Snatch thefts of mobile phones and bags rose by 70 per cent in a year to reach a 20-year high, official data has revealed.
The number of snatch thefts, where devices or personal items are grabbed from a person by a thief, rose from 58,000 in 2023 to 99,000 last year – the highest level since 2003, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales.
Thefts from people overall, including stealth snatches, where phones, bags or other personal items are stolen from under a table or locker – rose by 50 per cent to 483,000, the highest rate for a decade.
Police data also showed that the epidemic of theft extended to shoplifting, where the number of offences last year passed half a million for the first time.
A total of 516,971 shoplifting offences were logged by forces last year, up 20 per cent from 429,873 in 2023, and equivalent to more than two a minute based on average store opening hours of 10 a day.
Knife crime increased by two per cent to 54,587 offences, 600 short of the all-time high. Nine forces, including the Metropolitan Police, the biggest in England and Wales, reported record levels.
This is made worse by the fact detection rates for these sort of crimes is down to low single digit for things like phone thefts.
Shoplifting is exacerbated by social media, with people on, e.g., TikTok glorifying it. Yet again big tech companies and their algorithms cause us harm.
The initial problem was the decision by the Tories to downgrade it as an offence, and once things start to tick up rapidly, it snowballs and then rocket boosters can be put under it via social media. We saw the same in US cities. Turning that around is difficult task.
Big tech companies showing more social responsibility would help.
Hello from Sheffield. I've spent a couple of days in Ghent. Brilliant city! And the brilliance of Eurotunnel - makes getting to and from mainland Europe a doddle.
The Channel Tunnel has never really lived up to its potential though. We should have had local trains that go from places like Canterbury and end up in Amiens.
Snatch thefts of mobile phones and bags rose by 70 per cent in a year to reach a 20-year high, official data has revealed.
The number of snatch thefts, where devices or personal items are grabbed from a person by a thief, rose from 58,000 in 2023 to 99,000 last year – the highest level since 2003, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales.
Thefts from people overall, including stealth snatches, where phones, bags or other personal items are stolen from under a table or locker – rose by 50 per cent to 483,000, the highest rate for a decade.
Police data also showed that the epidemic of theft extended to shoplifting, where the number of offences last year passed half a million for the first time.
A total of 516,971 shoplifting offences were logged by forces last year, up 20 per cent from 429,873 in 2023, and equivalent to more than two a minute based on average store opening hours of 10 a day.
Knife crime increased by two per cent to 54,587 offences, 600 short of the all-time high. Nine forces, including the Metropolitan Police, the biggest in England and Wales, reported record levels.
This is made worse by the fact detection rates for these sort of crimes is down to low single digit for things like phone thefts.
Shoplifting is exacerbated by social media, with people on, e.g., TikTok glorifying it. Yet again big tech companies and their algorithms cause us harm.
The initial problem was the decision by the Tories to downgrade it as an offence, and once things start to tick up rapidly, it snowballs and then rocket boosters can be put under it via social media. We saw the same in US cities. Turning that around is difficult task.
Big tech companies showing more social responsibility would help.
I find it interesting that when the discussion comes up about social media harm, the conversation in the media is overwhelming X and Meta*, but TikTok is the platform the youth are on and the Chinese state have their fingerprints all over it.
* BBC yesterday and today ran stories about how kids aren't being protected and the examples were all Meta.
Hello from Sheffield. I've spent a couple of days in Ghent. Brilliant city! And the brilliance of Eurotunnel - makes getting to and from mainland Europe a doddle.
The Channel Tunnel has never really lived up to its potential though. We should have had local trains that go from places like Canterbury and end up in Amiens.
Ashford, you mean. Still has "International" in its station name.
Hello from Sheffield. I've spent a couple of days in Ghent. Brilliant city! And the brilliance of Eurotunnel - makes getting to and from mainland Europe a doddle.
The Channel Tunnel has never really lived up to its potential though. We should have had local trains that go from places like Canterbury and end up in Amiens.
Ashford, you mean. Still has "International" in its station name.
From there as well, and to other places across the Channel.
Whether or not that's a good thing, I'll let you know.
Blimey.
That's a call and a half.
Primaries are at least two years away and that's if there's actually going to be normal POTUS election.
But yeh AOC is making the running and maybe that will be enough to keep a primary lead from now until March 2028.
Fair play to her, at least someone is taking the fight to the subtards.
Kamala lost because she was seen as extreme. Surely they're not going to.go for AOC?
Ed Miliband was replaced by Jeremy Corbyn. Who nearly won. And I contend that if John McDonnell had won the leadership in 2015 and Bernie had won the Dem nomination in 2016, they would both have won the upcoming elections. When centrist politicians lose elections, the only thing left is the crazies.
Hello from Sheffield. I've spent a couple of days in Ghent. Brilliant city! And the brilliance of Eurotunnel - makes getting to and from mainland Europe a doddle.
Ghent looks amazing.
The Steak I had for dinner last night also looked amazing...
NEW: Wes Streeting says that Labour politicians who used to argue “trans women are women” should have the “humility” to admit they were not right.
In what some may interpret as implied criticism of Keir Starmer, he tells @BenKentish: "Given some of the rough discourse we’ve had on these issues in recent years, I don’t think we lose anything by having a bit of humility to say, ‘Actually, I wish we’d listened.’"
Politicians who use the Supreme Court verdict to row back on a previous commitment to the concept that trans women are women are beneath contempt. If you supported that position then the honest reaction is to seek a change in the law to reflect what you thought the position was in the first place.
You seem to be advocating policies based on personal belief, convictions and principle.
As opposed to a focus group of the most pig ignorant fuckwits you can find, being the entirety of your moral compass.
Thaddeus Stevens: Shit on the people and what they want and what they're ready for. I don't give a goddamn about the people and what they want. This is the face of someone who has fought long and hard for the *good* of the people without caring much for any of 'em. And now I look a lot worse without my wig
I'd settle for politicians understanding their role as legislators.
Whether or not that's a good thing, I'll let you know.
Blimey.
That's a call and a half.
Primaries are at least two years away and that's if there's actually going to be normal POTUS election.
But yeh AOC is making the running and maybe that will be enough to keep a primary lead from now until March 2028.
Fair play to her, at least someone is taking the fight to the subtards.
Kamala lost because she was seen as extreme. Surely they're not going to.go for AOC?
MAGA Republicans think all Dems are extreme, Hell, they think RINOS are extreme.
The Dems need someone who can get the vote out and infuse some passion. The soft centrists are toast. It takes a left populist to beat a right populist.
That is absolute madness and a recipe for.more MAGA.
Wars are won by those who turn up. Who is turning up for the Dems?
I did have to chuckle at a story the BBC ran today where they interviewed some teenage girl and she said well yeah like Meta should be doing more to protect us, my mate Jay at school, the other day he opened his Instanta and a fully naked woman showed up on it....I think it was the alhorithmic thing that caused it.
Not sure how to break this to you...your mate Jay like most teenage boys been looking up nudie ladies on the tinterweb.
Whether or not that's a good thing, I'll let you know.
Blimey.
That's a call and a half.
Primaries are at least two years away and that's if there's actually going to be normal POTUS election.
But yeh AOC is making the running and maybe that will be enough to keep a primary lead from now until March 2028.
Fair play to her, at least someone is taking the fight to the subtards.
Kamala lost because she was seen as extreme. Surely they're not going to.go for AOC?
Harris lost because of high inflation. Whoever the Democrats put up, the Republicans will claim they are extreme. All the Democrat candidate has to be (and it’s clearly too soon to call that race!) is less extreme than Trump, and voters are increasingly seeing how extreme he is (extremely incompetent, extremely corrupt…).
Well yes, the Republicans will claim they are extreme, because that's politics - but it's a much easier charge to make stick with AOC. Because she is extreme.
So often in politics a side falls into a trap of 'I really dislike person X - so we must support candidate Y, who is the political opposite' - rather than 'how might we find a candidate who might ne attractive to the widest electorate?'
Whether or not that's a good thing, I'll let you know.
Blimey.
That's a call and a half.
Primaries are at least two years away and that's if there's actually going to be normal POTUS election.
But yeh AOC is making the running and maybe that will be enough to keep a primary lead from now until March 2028.
Fair play to her, at least someone is taking the fight to the subtards.
Kamala lost because she was seen as extreme. Surely they're not going to.go for AOC?
MAGA Republicans think all Dems are extreme, Hell, they think RINOS are extreme.
The Dems need someone who can get the vote out and infuse some passion. The soft centrists are toast. It takes a left populist to beat a right populist.
That is absolute madness and a recipe for.more MAGA.
Wars are won by those who turn up. Who is turning up for the Dems?
95% of them are huddled with their analysts and pollsters trying to read the runes as to whether a swing voter in Penn has changed their minds or not yet and whether that will effect their fundraising in late 2027.
Meanwhile the caravan has moved well and truly on.
Snatch thefts of mobile phones and bags rose by 70 per cent in a year to reach a 20-year high, official data has revealed.
The number of snatch thefts, where devices or personal items are grabbed from a person by a thief, rose from 58,000 in 2023 to 99,000 last year – the highest level since 2003, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales.
Thefts from people overall, including stealth snatches, where phones, bags or other personal items are stolen from under a table or locker – rose by 50 per cent to 483,000, the highest rate for a decade.
Police data also showed that the epidemic of theft extended to shoplifting, where the number of offences last year passed half a million for the first time.
A total of 516,971 shoplifting offences were logged by forces last year, up 20 per cent from 429,873 in 2023, and equivalent to more than two a minute based on average store opening hours of 10 a day.
Knife crime increased by two per cent to 54,587 offences, 600 short of the all-time high. Nine forces, including the Metropolitan Police, the biggest in England and Wales, reported record levels.
This is made worse by the fact detection rates for these sort of crimes is down to low single digit for things like phone thefts.
Shoplifting is exacerbated by social media, with people on, e.g., TikTok glorifying it. Yet again big tech companies and their algorithms cause us harm.
The initial problem was the decision by the Tories to downgrade it as an offence, and once things start to tick up rapidly, it snowballs and then rocket boosters can be put under it via social media. We saw the same in US cities. Turning that around is difficult task.
Big tech companies showing more social responsibility would help.
I find it interesting that when the discussion comes up about social media harm, the conversation in the media is overwhelming X and Meta*, but TikTok is the platform the youth are on and the Chinese state have their fingerprints all over it.
* BBC yesterday and today ran stories about how kids aren't being protected and the examples were all Meta.
That’s not been my impression. Recent stories about TikTok:
Hello from Sheffield. I've spent a couple of days in Ghent. Brilliant city! And the brilliance of Eurotunnel - makes getting to and from mainland Europe a doddle.
The Channel Tunnel has never really lived up to its potential though. We should have had local trains that go from places like Canterbury and end up in Amiens.
Long distance trains from cities other than London would also be useful, particularly from places like Birmingham, Manchester and York that would allow people from further afield to change trains without having to change stations.
Whether or not that's a good thing, I'll let you know.
Blimey.
That's a call and a half.
Primaries are at least two years away and that's if there's actually going to be normal POTUS election.
But yeh AOC is making the running and maybe that will be enough to keep a primary lead from now until March 2028.
Fair play to her, at least someone is taking the fight to the subtards.
Kamala lost because she was seen as extreme. Surely they're not going to.go for AOC?
MAGA Republicans think all Dems are extreme, Hell, they think RINOS are extreme.
The Dems need someone who can get the vote out and infuse some passion. The soft centrists are toast. It takes a left populist to beat a right populist.
It is independents who decide elections, not the fanatics at either end.
And after four years of Trump people might prefer some competent moderation rather than another form of populism.
Hello from Sheffield. I've spent a couple of days in Ghent. Brilliant city! And the brilliance of Eurotunnel - makes getting to and from mainland Europe a doddle.
The Channel Tunnel has never really lived up to its potential though. We should have had local trains that go from places like Canterbury and end up in Amiens.
Long before Brexit we sniffily looked at open borders and said "no thanks".
Having been through UK and French passport control I can drive off the train in northern France and then drive into Belgium without anyone caring. At the Brugge supercharger we had cars wearing UK, FR, BE, NL and DE plates.
You can't have commuter trains from Canterbury to Calais because of the passport stupidity. I've been on Eurostar quite a few times but this trip was my first time taking the car. And it's brilliant!
Whether or not that's a good thing, I'll let you know.
Blimey.
That's a call and a half.
Primaries are at least two years away and that's if there's actually going to be normal POTUS election.
But yeh AOC is making the running and maybe that will be enough to keep a primary lead from now until March 2028.
Fair play to her, at least someone is taking the fight to the subtards.
Kamala lost because she was seen as extreme. Surely they're not going to.go for AOC?
Harris lost because of high inflation. Whoever the Democrats put up, the Republicans will claim they are extreme. All the Democrat candidate has to be (and it’s clearly too soon to call that race!) is less extreme than Trump, and voters are increasingly seeing how extreme he is (extremely incompetent, extremely corrupt…).
Well yes, the Republicans will claim they are extreme, because that's politics - but it's a much easier charge to make stick with AOC. Because she is extreme.
So often in politics a side falls into a trap of 'I really dislike person X - so we must support candidate Y, who is the political opposite' - rather than 'how might we find a candidate who might ne attractive to the widest electorate?'
It is a long time to 2028. We don’t know what the political climate is going to be like or what Democrat candidates will be standing. We can, however, hazard a guess that it won’t be a typical election. It will probably be an election about Trump/MAGA. It will be a referendum on the previous 4 years. Who’s the best candidate to win that? It might be more about who can deliver the message best rather than about their policies.
In 2028, maybe the Democrats need a centrist with an attractive policy offer, maybe it’s an orator, maybe it’s John Connor. I don’t know.
Heard him on R5 at the weekend and concluded that his time is done. He’s now become the bumbling old guy in the pub banging on about stuff from the old days. Loved him, but time to hang up the mic.
Become? He was like that when I first started following snooker in 1994.
Whether or not that's a good thing, I'll let you know.
Blimey.
That's a call and a half.
Primaries are at least two years away and that's if there's actually going to be normal POTUS election.
But yeh AOC is making the running and maybe that will be enough to keep a primary lead from now until March 2028.
Fair play to her, at least someone is taking the fight to the subtards.
Kamala lost because she was seen as extreme. Surely they're not going to.go for AOC?
Harris lost because of high inflation. Whoever the Democrats put up, the Republicans will claim they are extreme. All the Democrat candidate has to be (and it’s clearly too soon to call that race!) is less extreme than Trump, and voters are increasingly seeing how extreme he is (extremely incompetent, extremely corrupt…).
Well yes, the Republicans will claim they are extreme, because that's politics - but it's a much easier charge to make stick with AOC. Because she is extreme.
So often in politics a side falls into a trap of 'I really dislike person X - so we must support candidate Y, who is the political opposite' - rather than 'how might we find a candidate who might ne attractive to the widest electorate?'
She's left wing, not an extremist. ..she favors policies that "most closely resemble what we see in the UK, in Norway, in Finland, in Sweden", not those in the "Soviet Union, Cuba, Venezuela"...
Whether that works electorally in the general election is an interesting question. But not what I was predicting - which is the outcome of the primaries.
Hello from Sheffield. I've spent a couple of days in Ghent. Brilliant city! And the brilliance of Eurotunnel - makes getting to and from mainland Europe a doddle.
The Channel Tunnel has never really lived up to its potential though. We should have had local trains that go from places like Canterbury and end up in Amiens.
Long before Brexit we sniffily looked at open borders and said "no thanks".
Having been through UK and French passport control I can drive off the train in northern France and then drive into Belgium without anyone caring. At the Brugge supercharger we had cars wearing UK, FR, BE, NL and DE plates.
You can't have commuter trains from Canterbury to Calais because of the passport stupidity. I've been on Eurostar quite a few times but this trip was my first time taking the car. And it's brilliant!
If you don't like our politics now, wait until we join Schengen and there are 500,000 asylum seekers a year instead of 100,000.
Whether or not that's a good thing, I'll let you know.
Blimey.
That's a call and a half.
Primaries are at least two years away and that's if there's actually going to be normal POTUS election.
But yeh AOC is making the running and maybe that will be enough to keep a primary lead from now until March 2028.
Fair play to her, at least someone is taking the fight to the subtards.
Kamala lost because she was seen as extreme. Surely they're not going to.go for AOC?
MAGA Republicans think all Dems are extreme, Hell, they think RINOS are extreme.
The Dems need someone who can get the vote out and infuse some passion. The soft centrists are toast. It takes a left populist to beat a right populist.
There are still two plausible paths for 2028. One is still that America will need someone a bit like Carter; a transparently decent nobody who can heal the long national nightmare to come. The other is that they will need a revolutionary to tear down the evils of the Capitol.
The worse things get, the more likely it is that the second will be necessary, and AOC fits that bill pretty well.
My concern is that the worse things get, the less the incumbent administration will dare risk losing office. Because they will have a lot of questions to answer.
I think the carnage of Trump2 will be such that any DEM candidate will win next time if the election isn't rigged.
Whether or not that's a good thing, I'll let you know.
Blimey.
That's a call and a half.
Primaries are at least two years away and that's if there's actually going to be normal POTUS election.
But yeh AOC is making the running and maybe that will be enough to keep a primary lead from now until March 2028.
Fair play to her, at least someone is taking the fight to the subtards.
Kamala lost because she was seen as extreme. Surely they're not going to.go for AOC?
Ed Miliband was replaced by Jeremy Corbyn. Who nearly won. And I contend that if John McDonnell had won the leadership in 2015 and Bernie had won the Dem nomination in 2016, they would both have won the upcoming elections. When centrist politicians lose elections, the only thing left is the crazies.
If by "nearly won", you mean JC was 2 million votes and 55 seats behind Theresa May?
Whether or not that's a good thing, I'll let you know.
Blimey.
That's a call and a half.
Primaries are at least two years away and that's if there's actually going to be normal POTUS election.
But yeh AOC is making the running and maybe that will be enough to keep a primary lead from now until March 2028.
Fair play to her, at least someone is taking the fight to the subtards.
Kamala lost because she was seen as extreme. Surely they're not going to.go for AOC?
Ed Miliband was replaced by Jeremy Corbyn. Who nearly won. And I contend that if John McDonnell had won the leadership in 2015 and Bernie had won the Dem nomination in 2016, they would both have won the upcoming elections. When centrist politicians lose elections, the only thing left is the crazies.
If by "nearly won", you mean JC was 2 million votes and 55 seats behind Theresa May?
WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 @WarMonitor3 Fighting has erupted between Indian and Pakistani forces in the Leepa Valley of the Kashmir region light and heavy weaponry is used.
Hello from Sheffield. I've spent a couple of days in Ghent. Brilliant city! And the brilliance of Eurotunnel - makes getting to and from mainland Europe a doddle.
Ghent looks amazing.
The Steak I had for dinner last night also looked amazing...
I have been a few times when small as the Belgian bit of my family lives there. It is the first time I've seen anyone derive so much excitement from a visit there.
Whether or not that's a good thing, I'll let you know.
Blimey.
That's a call and a half.
Primaries are at least two years away and that's if there's actually going to be normal POTUS election.
But yeh AOC is making the running and maybe that will be enough to keep a primary lead from now until March 2028.
Fair play to her, at least someone is taking the fight to the subtards.
Kamala lost because she was seen as extreme. Surely they're not going to.go for AOC?
Ed Miliband was replaced by Jeremy Corbyn. Who nearly won. And I contend that if John McDonnell had won the leadership in 2015 and Bernie had won the Dem nomination in 2016, they would both have won the upcoming elections. When centrist politicians lose elections, the only thing left is the crazies.
If by "nearly won", you mean JC was 2 million votes and 55 seats behind Theresa May?
758,000 votes, another 1% swing would have made Labour largest party and 2% a majority. McDonnell wouldn't have had the baggage that JC had but a) would he have won the leadership and b) would May have made the same bonkers decision to go to the country.
WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 @WarMonitor3 Fighting has erupted between Indian and Pakistani forces in the Leepa Valley of the Kashmir region light and heavy weaponry is used.
Comments
Moreover, he will not STFU.
New details on killing of paramedics in Gaza appear to contradict IDF’s account
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/24/new-details-on-killing-of-paramedics-in-gaza-appear-to-contradict-idf-account
..The Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Wednesday that its analysis of the IDF’s own materials collected as part of an internal investigation into the incident contradicted the army’s claim that soldiers did not shoot indiscriminately at Palestinian ambulances and a fire engine in the early hours of 23 March.
Instead, Haaretz said, soldiers fired continuously at the vehicles for three and a half minutes from close range despite the aid workers’ attempts to identify themselves...
No one else - other than perhaps Pete B - is even making the effort right now.
Do not let them trick you into thinking we are enemies.
Do not let them trick you into thinking that we can be separated into rural and urban, Black and white and Latino.
We are one.
https://x.com/TeamAOC/status/1915081171513286942
Whether or not that's a good thing, I'll let you know.
It might be time to cut his hours down though.
You never saw Fred Davis on Pot Black?
Virgo was doing impersonations of the others in 1984 !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA2FDYNulg8
It is widely used across Wales and with considerable local support
Indeed local estate agents are reporting a considerable number of second homes are coming into the market
I see the official Trump site is selling Trump 2028 caps.
https://bsky.app/profile/patriottakes.bsky.social/post/3lnl57e333k22
That's a call and a half.
Primaries are at least two years away and that's if there's actually going to be normal POTUS election.
But yeh AOC is making the running and maybe that will be enough to keep a primary lead from now until March 2028.
Fair play to her, at least someone is taking the fight to the subtards.
Unless you think that all the Conservative-run county councils were simultaneously dreadful in the runup to the 1993 local elections, or that local Labour and Liberal councillors were doing a poor job just before 2021.
A good local record can help at the margins, but the national tide is the national tide.
https://x.com/wearewst/status/1909162352492052495?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
A million people did not cross the channel in dingys in one year, so how on Earth all those years after vote for Brexit and a hard Brexit deal, was the last years of Conservative government running mass migration into Britain at a million a year? Was it all down to individuals interested only in being PM and the trappings of power, throwing one hundred years of cultivated competency onto a bonfire of their own vanity and ambition?
The part of Brexit where so many voters saw it as economically illiterate, might also have lost voters for the rest of their lives.
Conservatives being out of power just two terms depending on how utterly incompetent this Labour period of government can be, and how Conservatives squeeze the vote for Farage. On the first of those, contrary to everything being pushed about this Labour government being economically incompetent and Reeves an out of her depth joke, the things making them unpopular is being fiscally prudent, Thatcherite type cutting, the opposite of magic money tree type mistakes - playing an electoral cycle game, rather than popular right through the cycle where you don’t need it.
SCOOP: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's controversial chief of staff, Joe Kasper is *OUT* and will leave DOD today.
Kasper is the *FIFTH* top DOD official to leave the agency in the past week, and was a central figure in a power struggle that cost three top aides their jobs.
https://x.com/JackDetsch/status/1915505578366869838
Chattering about the anti-wheelchair barrier I mentioned the other day to the people from the allotments on one side of the road fixing their fence, they said:
"Please don't ask for bollards. We have people going through there with planks of wood balanced across wheelbarrows."
So it will be a request for removal of some of the blocks, or a route round the side using a single locking bollard where there is currently a decrepit gate.
Original post excerpt:
MattW said:Brains Trust.
... it blocks anyone using a mobility aid from reaching their closest small supermarket. The throughway is 2ft wide.
Link: https://maps.app.goo.gl/aDrpZi3Lfv1Kjv3u9
As opposed to a focus group of the most pig ignorant fuckwits you can find, being the entirety of your moral compass.
Thaddeus Stevens: Shit on the people and what they want and what they're ready for. I don't give a goddamn about the people and what they want. This is the face of someone who has fought long and hard for the *good* of the people without caring much for any of 'em. And now I look a lot worse without my wig
https://bsky.app/profile/marklemley.bsky.social/post/3lnl4wsqras2g
16% have a positive view of the Inquisition too. That would be the ICE lobby.
£50 billion ought to cover it.
The number of snatch thefts, where devices or personal items are grabbed from a person by a thief, rose from 58,000 in 2023 to 99,000 last year – the highest level since 2003, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales.
Thefts from people overall, including stealth snatches, where phones, bags or other personal items are stolen from under a table or locker – rose by 50 per cent to 483,000, the highest rate for a decade.
Police data also showed that the epidemic of theft extended to shoplifting, where the number of offences last year passed half a million for the first time.
A total of 516,971 shoplifting offences were logged by forces last year, up 20 per cent from 429,873 in 2023, and equivalent to more than two a minute based on average store opening hours of 10 a day.
Knife crime increased by two per cent to 54,587 offences, 600 short of the all-time high. Nine forces, including the Metropolitan Police, the biggest in England and Wales, reported record levels.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/24/mobile-phone-and-bag-snatches-up-70pc-in-a-year/
This is made worse by the fact detection rates for these sort of crimes is down to low single digit for things like phone thefts.
The Dems need someone who can get the vote out and infuse some passion. The soft centrists are toast. It takes a left populist to beat a right populist.
I'd say there's no-one like him I can think of in sport. It's a niche job and I wonder how you get it.
I met him once - on my way to the Crucible, natch. But I was so excited to meet one of the few celebrities I particularly wanted to meet that I forgot to ask him the one question I wanted to. Still, he was a nive fella.
Also met Steve Davis but I couldn't think of anything interesting to ask him.
I don't mind John Virgo.
I'm going on Saturday (to see, it turns out, two Chinese fellas I've never heard of). Anyone else there in person this year?
She lost because Biden hung on instead of deciding to step down the year before (as he'd 90% promised when elected). No one else would have done any better ... in the circumstances, I think.
Had there been a primary on the normal timetable, it's fairly likely the outcome would have been different. Whoever the candidate.
Poilievre seems worried about his own seat.
The worse things get, the more likely it is that the second will be necessary, and AOC fits that bill pretty well.
My concern is that the worse things get, the less the incumbent administration will dare risk losing office. Because they will have a lot of questions to answer.
Exclusive: Keir Starmer challenges Trump’s Ukraine peace plan in an interview with
@Telegraph
:: PM contradicts US president by saying Zelensky is not to blame for lack of a deal
:: Starmer declines to endorse the US plan to declare Crimea is Russian
:: PM is still pushing Trump for security guarantees to ‘coalition of the willing’
:: Western allies seeking text changes to US peace deal. Crimea a big standoff.
:: Starmer says a ceasefire could come by summer. But Kyiv must be the decider.
https://x.com/benrileysmith/status/1915510477611794656
In outer GM, Lab have dozens of councillors who habe previously been unshiftable because neither Con nor Lib could garner enough votes there. Lab councillors therefore had a very low bar to success. But there ARE enough voters in places like Longdendale interested in voting Reform thay Lab habr to try a bit harder to get voters. They don't do this by tacking to Green or Lib Dem - there simply aren't enough voters in that market in outer GM to shift the dial.
That's not going to happen.
* BBC yesterday and today ran stories about how kids aren't being protected and the examples were all Meta.
Fuck me. He is Metternich reborn. A diplomat for the ages.
https://x.com/SmashingUrFort/status/1915511756069199908
Not sure how to break this to you...your mate Jay like most teenage boys been looking up nudie ladies on the tinterweb.
So often in politics a side falls into a trap of 'I really dislike person X - so we must support candidate Y, who is the political opposite' - rather than 'how might we find a candidate who might ne attractive to the widest electorate?'
Meanwhile the caravan has moved well and truly on.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c86p89d099jo
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0zr933pndo
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gmvjvv6vjo
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/cx2xjdgdemlo
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62xxz141plo
For example, those are all from this or last month.
And after four years of Trump people might prefer some competent moderation rather than another form of populism.
Having been through UK and French passport control I can drive off the train in northern France and then drive into Belgium without anyone caring. At the Brugge supercharger we had cars wearing UK, FR, BE, NL and DE plates.
You can't have commuter trains from Canterbury to Calais because of the passport stupidity. I've been on Eurostar quite a few times but this trip was my first time taking the car. And it's brilliant!
In 2028, maybe the Democrats need a centrist with an attractive policy offer, maybe it’s an orator, maybe it’s John Connor. I don’t know.
..she favors policies that "most closely resemble what we see in the UK, in Norway, in Finland, in Sweden", not those in the "Soviet Union, Cuba, Venezuela"...
Whether that works electorally in the general election is an interesting question.
But not what I was predicting - which is the outcome of the primaries.
https://x.com/nigel_farage/status/1915481710667468823
@WarMonitor3
Fighting has erupted between Indian and Pakistani forces in the Leepa Valley of the Kashmir region light and heavy weaponry is used.
"Stop attacking Ukraine. Because if you don't we'll walk away and stop helping them fight back."