Listening to the news about the Coop hack and the BBC say that the Coop has 20 million members. I find this quite extraordinary that nearly 30% of the population, not just the adult population, are members of a shopping cooperative.
I had no idea it was such a huge organisation.
It was even bigger until the Crystal Methodist screwed up the banking part. But I believe the things like funeral service, insurance, legal are part of the Coop group.
They are, and you can become a member by holding accounts or policies from their other divisions, even if you’re not a shopper. Another reason why there are so many members.
Despite their good ethics, my practical experience is that everything non-shopping that they do is terribly managed and organised, hence customers get a poor service. Their energy was diabolical, their insurance little better. I am told their funeral service is OK but have no personal experience to offer.
Before my wife died, and when there was a local Coop store, she would do the main shop at ASDA but I would pick up "bits and pieces" as required from the Coop on my way home from work. I would diligently collect the Coop points, and my wife would tease me about the paltry £2 or so I earned every 6 months. When she died in 2011, the Coop did the funeral. When we were arranging it, they asked if I was a member and so I got points on the funeral! A few months later, the "divi" was enough to buy a bottle of whisky, each, for my son and I to toast her memory.
Like doesn't do justice to that, Alan. It is one of the sweetest stories i have ever read on PB.
I'll raise a glass to her later, if it's all the same to you.
The results surprised me. I’d have expected c.500 seats apiece for Reform and Conservatives.
Reform took most of its seats off the Conservatives, but many of those were historically Labour seats, won by the Conservatives in 2021.
The big correlation is with the Leave vote. The more Leave a place is the more likely it is to succumb to Reform. This is no surprise since the driving sentiment for voting Leave in 2016 and for Reform now is the same - "we want our country back".
It's a great base to have. The Referendum vote was a Leave landslide in terms of FPTP GE calculus. 408 seats voted for Brexit. Winning three quarters of them gets Nigel Farage into Downing St. Bet that's how he's looking at it. I don't think he'll do it but it IS doable.
He then said: "These people, who have to live somewhere, let's have them in a tent, in the middle of a field.
"Six o'clock every morning, let's have them up.
"Let's have them in the field, picking potatoes or any other seasonal vegetables, back in the tent, cold shower, lights out, six o'clock, same again the next day."
(It probably lost him some votes on the Carsic Estate, but the Lab Councillor for Carsic defected to Reform some time ago. Wearing my Active Travel Hat I need to go down and add a K to that sign for a photo op!)
He then said: "These people, who have to live somewhere, let's have them in a tent, in the middle of a field.
"Six o'clock every morning, let's have them up.
"Let's have them in the field, picking potatoes or any other seasonal vegetables, back in the tent, cold shower, lights out, six o'clock, same again the next day."
(It probably lost him some votes on the Carsic Estate - I need to go down at 3am and add a K to that sign !)
There are thousands of them. I've seen more nuns than non-nuns. They're from all over the world; they all have badges saying where they're from
There's also a load of men wearing black, military looking uniforms with berets, and badges with the Maltese cross. Like all the nuns have on their cloaks
They all look full of joy to be somewhere so spiritually important to them
There are thousands of them. I've seen more nuns than non-nuns. They're from all over the world; they all have badges saying where they're from
There's also a load of men wearing black, military looking uniforms with berets, and badges with the Maltese cross. Like all the nuns have on their cloaks
They all look full of joy to be somewhere so spiritually important to them
I'm rather enjoying the moment, too
You have obviously never been to Blackpool on a stag / hen do.....
A nice sunny day in Reform Central. Agent Anderson will be out jogging in his shorts *.
* Golfing would make more sense, since he is across the road from an excellent golf course **. ** That's not doxxing. We have lots of excellent golf courses here, and his new dwelling has been in the Daily Mirror.
Morning -
Not such a sunny day if you are Notts council employee waking up this morning!!
I'll be surprised if Reform councillors don't go in there in on Monday full of DOGE-inspired chainsaw juice and start the purges.
We shall see.
It's a win, win for Reform. When the bins don't get collected they can blame national government.
With Reform, it'll always be someone else's fault.
Now they're getting some semblance of power, they'll need to start taking responsibility for their actions and words. And that won't come easy for Nige's fellow travelers.
I have low expectations; I don't expect to see those expectations exceeded.
I expect Reform will blame central government funding when they start making cuts
What, like every other party in power in local govt ?
Labour did in Durham. So did the coalition.
They’re right too. The model is broken at the moment.
It’s not sustainable and more councils are going to go bankrupt .
Social Care costs will eventually eat all councils.
It's the sort of area where the 3 main parties need to hold a joint decision on how to fix the issue because it needs to be solved and without cross party support it's unsolvable.
if it's impossible politically to fix a trifle like the winter fuel allowance without getting a hammering, i don't see that there is any chance that the parties will work together to fix this
This. The country is unfixable. Still, lovely weather here in Devon this weekend.
A nice sunny day in Reform Central. Agent Anderson will be out jogging in his shorts *.
* Golfing would make more sense, since he is across the road from an excellent golf course **. ** That's not doxxing. We have lots of excellent golf courses here, and his new dwelling has been in the Daily Mirror.
Morning -
Not such a sunny day if you are Notts council employee waking up this morning!!
I'll be surprised if Reform councillors don't go in there in on Monday full of DOGE-inspired chainsaw juice and start the purges.
We shall see.
It's a win, win for Reform. When the bins don't get collected they can blame national government.
With Reform, it'll always be someone else's fault.
Now they're getting some semblance of power, they'll need to start taking responsibility for their actions and words. And that won't come easy for Nige's fellow travelers.
I have low expectations; I don't expect to see those expectations exceeded.
I expect Reform will blame central government funding when they start making cuts
What, like every other party in power in local govt ?
Labour did in Durham. So did the coalition.
They’re right too. The model is broken at the moment.
It’s not sustainable and more councils are going to go bankrupt .
Social Care costs will eventually eat all councils.
It's the sort of area where the 3 main parties need to hold a joint decision on how to fix the issue because it needs to be solved and without cross party support it's unsolvable.
if it's impossible politically to fix a trifle like the winter fuel allowance without getting a hammering, i don't see that there is any chance that the parties will work together to fix this
This. The country is unfixable. Still, lovely weather here in Devon this weekend.
The only solution involves sustained growth running at above 2% a year. But other than the US nobody none of the legacy economies managed it for 15 years now and the US still isn't in a great shape.
What is intriguing to me is that supposedly it was the inheritance tax changes that were going to kill the government. This all seems to have gone quiet and hasn’t as far as I know been brought up much in focus groups?
Perhaps it’s only relevant in some constituencies not others but I wonder if that policy was actually not as bad as some of the more alarmist people said at the time.
Likewise on VAT on school fees.
It’s the WFA cut that seems to have done the most damage - whilst I personally think this was the right move and I’d also get rid of the triple lock
With pensions about to rise above the tax allowance I think we are about to get to the point where the triple lock can be sanely removed and replaced with tracking the standard tax allowance instead...
Now it's an incredibly creed way of removing the triple lock but it solves a whole set of very painful issues that would otherwise arise and make income tax for pensioners very easy to calculate..
The personal allowance is unchanged in five years and you want pensions to track it?
It would be an informal way of sharing both pain and sweeties between employees and pensioners. Not a bad idea.
A nice sunny day in Reform Central. Agent Anderson will be out jogging in his shorts *.
* Golfing would make more sense, since he is across the road from an excellent golf course **. ** That's not doxxing. We have lots of excellent golf courses here, and his new dwelling has been in the Daily Mirror.
Morning -
Not such a sunny day if you are Notts council employee waking up this morning!!
I'll be surprised if Reform councillors don't go in there in on Monday full of DOGE-inspired chainsaw juice and start the purges.
We shall see.
It's a win, win for Reform. When the bins don't get collected they can blame national government.
With Reform, it'll always be someone else's fault.
Now they're getting some semblance of power, they'll need to start taking responsibility for their actions and words. And that won't come easy for Nige's fellow travelers.
I have low expectations; I don't expect to see those expectations exceeded.
I expect Reform will blame central government funding when they start making cuts
What, like every other party in power in local govt ?
Labour did in Durham. So did the coalition.
They’re right too. The model is broken at the moment.
It’s not sustainable and more councils are going to go bankrupt .
Social Care costs will eventually eat all councils.
It's the sort of area where the 3 main parties need to hold a joint decision on how to fix the issue because it needs to be solved and without cross party support it's unsolvable.
if it's impossible politically to fix a trifle like the winter fuel allowance without getting a hammering, i don't see that there is any chance that the parties will work together to fix this
This. The country is unfixable. Still, lovely weather here in Devon this weekend.
*waves to fellow Devonian*
Yep. Who needs to be worrying about our politics, when probably the most clement climate on the planet right now is here on the south coast of England.
What is intriguing to me is that supposedly it was the inheritance tax changes that were going to kill the government. This all seems to have gone quiet and hasn’t as far as I know been brought up much in focus groups?
Perhaps it’s only relevant in some constituencies not others but I wonder if that policy was actually not as bad as some of the more alarmist people said at the time.
Likewise on VAT on school fees.
It’s the WFA cut that seems to have done the most damage - whilst I personally think this was the right move and I’d also get rid of the triple lock
With pensions about to rise above the tax allowance I think we are about to get to the point where the triple lock can be sanely removed and replaced with tracking the standard tax allowance instead...
Now it's an incredibly creed way of removing the triple lock but it solves a whole set of very painful issues that would otherwise arise and make income tax for pensioners very easy to calculate..
The personal allowance is unchanged in five years and you want pensions to track it?
It would be an informal way of sharing both pain and sweeties between employees and pensioners. Not a bad idea.
The part of the triple lock that rises with wages does that.
There are thousands of them. I've seen more nuns than non-nuns. They're from all over the world; they all have badges saying where they're from
There's also a load of men wearing black, military looking uniforms with berets, and badges with the Maltese cross. Like all the nuns have on their cloaks
They all look full of joy to be somewhere so spiritually important to them
I'm rather enjoying the moment, too
I almost booked a month in Lourdes during the pandemic. Out of peak periods there is a huge surplus of hotel rooms, so prices are rock bottom.
A nice sunny day in Reform Central. Agent Anderson will be out jogging in his shorts *.
* Golfing would make more sense, since he is across the road from an excellent golf course **. ** That's not doxxing. We have lots of excellent golf courses here, and his new dwelling has been in the Daily Mirror.
Morning -
Not such a sunny day if you are Notts council employee waking up this morning!!
I'll be surprised if Reform councillors don't go in there in on Monday full of DOGE-inspired chainsaw juice and start the purges.
We shall see.
It's a win, win for Reform. When the bins don't get collected they can blame national government.
With Reform, it'll always be someone else's fault.
Now they're getting some semblance of power, they'll need to start taking responsibility for their actions and words. And that won't come easy for Nige's fellow travelers.
I have low expectations; I don't expect to see those expectations exceeded.
I expect Reform will blame central government funding when they start making cuts
What, like every other party in power in local govt ?
Labour did in Durham. So did the coalition.
They’re right too. The model is broken at the moment.
It’s not sustainable and more councils are going to go bankrupt .
Social Care costs will eventually eat all councils.
It's the sort of area where the 3 main parties need to hold a joint decision on how to fix the issue because it needs to be solved and without cross party support it's unsolvable.
if it's impossible politically to fix a trifle like the winter fuel allowance without getting a hammering, i don't see that there is any chance that the parties will work together to fix this
This. The country is unfixable. Still, lovely weather here in Devon this weekend.
*waves to fellow Devonian*
Yep. Who needs to be worrying about our politics, when probably the most clement climate on the planet right now is here on the south coast of England.
Indeed kidnapping my father from the care home today to sit in a devon beer garden for a couple of hours
Is housing of migrants down to the Mayor, or is it central government?
As Trump has shown, and as Boris showed before Trump, there is a lot of power in just doing stuff and worrying about legal and constitutional niceties down the line, if at all.
A nice sunny day in Reform Central. Agent Anderson will be out jogging in his shorts *.
* Golfing would make more sense, since he is across the road from an excellent golf course **. ** That's not doxxing. We have lots of excellent golf courses here, and his new dwelling has been in the Daily Mirror.
Morning -
Not such a sunny day if you are Notts council employee waking up this morning!!
I'll be surprised if Reform councillors don't go in there in on Monday full of DOGE-inspired chainsaw juice and start the purges.
We shall see.
It's a win, win for Reform. When the bins don't get collected they can blame national government.
With Reform, it'll always be someone else's fault.
Now they're getting some semblance of power, they'll need to start taking responsibility for their actions and words. And that won't come easy for Nige's fellow travelers.
I have low expectations; I don't expect to see those expectations exceeded.
I expect Reform will blame central government funding when they start making cuts
What, like every other party in power in local govt ?
Labour did in Durham. So did the coalition.
They’re right too. The model is broken at the moment.
It’s not sustainable and more councils are going to go bankrupt .
Social Care costs will eventually eat all councils.
It's the sort of area where the 3 main parties need to hold a joint decision on how to fix the issue because it needs to be solved and without cross party support it's unsolvable.
if it's impossible politically to fix a trifle like the winter fuel allowance without getting a hammering, i don't see that there is any chance that the parties will work together to fix this
This. The country is unfixable. Still, lovely weather here in Devon this weekend.
The only solution involves sustained growth running at above 2% a year. But other than the US nobody none of the legacy economies managed it for 15 years now and the US still isn't in a great shape.
I own a manufacturing business in the UK that will grow at >2% a year. Looking at moving it, and me, to a more business friendly and tax friendly jurisdiction...
A nice sunny day in Reform Central. Agent Anderson will be out jogging in his shorts *.
* Golfing would make more sense, since he is across the road from an excellent golf course **. ** That's not doxxing. We have lots of excellent golf courses here, and his new dwelling has been in the Daily Mirror.
Morning -
Not such a sunny day if you are Notts council employee waking up this morning!!
I'll be surprised if Reform councillors don't go in there in on Monday full of DOGE-inspired chainsaw juice and start the purges.
We shall see.
It's a win, win for Reform. When the bins don't get collected they can blame national government.
With Reform, it'll always be someone else's fault.
Now they're getting some semblance of power, they'll need to start taking responsibility for their actions and words. And that won't come easy for Nige's fellow travelers.
I have low expectations; I don't expect to see those expectations exceeded.
I expect Reform will blame central government funding when they start making cuts
What, like every other party in power in local govt ?
Labour did in Durham. So did the coalition.
They’re right too. The model is broken at the moment.
It’s not sustainable and more councils are going to go bankrupt .
Social Care costs will eventually eat all councils.
It's the sort of area where the 3 main parties need to hold a joint decision on how to fix the issue because it needs to be solved and without cross party support it's unsolvable.
if it's impossible politically to fix a trifle like the winter fuel allowance without getting a hammering, i don't see that there is any chance that the parties will work together to fix this
This. The country is unfixable. Still, lovely weather here in Devon this weekend.
*waves to fellow Devonian*
Yep. Who needs to be worrying about our politics, when probably the most clement climate on the planet right now is here on the south coast of England.
Indeed kidnapping my father from the care home today to sit in a devon beer garden for a couple of hours
Well done you. He'll love you for it. (Unless the beer is shit - in which case you'll never hear the end of it!!)
What is intriguing to me is that supposedly it was the inheritance tax changes that were going to kill the government. This all seems to have gone quiet and hasn’t as far as I know been brought up much in focus groups?
Perhaps it’s only relevant in some constituencies not others but I wonder if that policy was actually not as bad as some of the more alarmist people said at the time.
Likewise on VAT on school fees.
It’s the WFA cut that seems to have done the most damage - whilst I personally think this was the right move and I’d also get rid of the triple lock
With pensions about to rise above the tax allowance I think we are about to get to the point where the triple lock can be sanely removed and replaced with tracking the standard tax allowance instead...
Now it's an incredibly creed way of removing the triple lock but it solves a whole set of very painful issues that would otherwise arise and make income tax for pensioners very easy to calculate..
The personal allowance is unchanged in five years and you want pensions to track it?
It would be an informal way of sharing both pain and sweeties between employees and pensioners. Not a bad idea.
The part of the triple lock that rises with wages does that.
I’ll tell you what happens with impossible promises. You start with far-fetched resolutions. They are then pickled into a rigid dogma, a code, and you go through the years sticking to that, out-dated, mis-placed, irrelevant to the real needs, and you end up in the grotesque chaos of a Reform council, a Reform council, hiring taxis to scuttle round a city handing out redundancy notices to its own workers.
Except handing out redundancy notices is what Reform have promised from day 1.
He then said: "These people, who have to live somewhere, let's have them in a tent, in the middle of a field.
"Six o'clock every morning, let's have them up.
"Let's have them in the field, picking potatoes or any other seasonal vegetables, back in the tent, cold shower, lights out, six o'clock, same again the next day."
(It probably lost him some votes on the Carsic Estate, but the Lab Councillor for Carsic defected to Reform some time ago. Wearing my Active Travel Hat I need to go down and add a K to that sign for a photo op!)
Isn't that basically what the Poles and Lithuanians were doing until Brexit got rid of them?
What is intriguing to me is that supposedly it was the inheritance tax changes that were going to kill the government. This all seems to have gone quiet and hasn’t as far as I know been brought up much in focus groups?
Perhaps it’s only relevant in some constituencies not others but I wonder if that policy was actually not as bad as some of the more alarmist people said at the time.
Likewise on VAT on school fees.
It’s the WFA cut that seems to have done the most damage - whilst I personally think this was the right move and I’d also get rid of the triple lock
With pensions about to rise above the tax allowance I think we are about to get to the point where the triple lock can be sanely removed and replaced with tracking the standard tax allowance instead...
Now it's an incredibly creed way of removing the triple lock but it solves a whole set of very painful issues that would otherwise arise and make income tax for pensioners very easy to calculate..
The personal allowance is unchanged in five years and you want pensions to track it?
It would be an informal way of sharing both pain and sweeties between employees and pensioners. Not a bad idea.
The part of the triple lock that rises with wages does that.
It clearly doesn't as you point out that the personal allowance is unchanged for five years, whilst the pension has seen big rises.
There are thousands of them. I've seen more nuns than non-nuns. They're from all over the world; they all have badges saying where they're from
There's also a load of men wearing black, military looking uniforms with berets, and badges with the Maltese cross. Like all the nuns have on their cloaks
They all look full of joy to be somewhere so spiritually important to them
There are thousands of them. I've seen more nuns than non-nuns. They're from all over the world; they all have badges saying where they're from
There's also a load of men wearing black, military looking uniforms with berets, and badges with the Maltese cross. Like all the nuns have on their cloaks
They all look full of joy to be somewhere so spiritually important to them
I'm rather enjoying the moment, too
You have obviously never been to Blackpool on a stag / hen do.....
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
You will end up with a LibDem council leader and a bunch of Reform councillors impotently contributing very little from opposition.
But won't it be fun watching them goose-step into the council offices
More of a waddle than a goose step from what I have seen!
There are thousands of them. I've seen more nuns than non-nuns. They're from all over the world; they all have badges saying where they're from
There's also a load of men wearing black, military looking uniforms with berets, and badges with the Maltese cross. Like all the nuns have on their cloaks
They all look full of joy to be somewhere so spiritually important to them
I'm rather enjoying the moment, too
You have obviously never been to Blackpool on a stag / hen do.....
Be a bold group who hit Lourdes for theirs...!
One of the best stag nights that I have been on was at a Dutch Reform mission in Malawi. We had a braai under a perfectly clear African sky at a mountain hut. We swapped tall tales and sipped red wine, then hiked to the summit to watch the dawn break over the rift valley.
One advantage of not being too hungover was being able to remember it all!
As the west moves right you can expect support for the monarchy to stubbornly endure, and even rise
European monarchies - especially the UK’s - are a source of Western European pride, culture and identity. And they are Christian. All these things are becoming more valued as they seem increasingly threatened (ironically we have a very Woke king - but it’s the institution not the individual that matters)
Time and again we’ve seen this in actual votes. The Irish rejecting woke bollocks in referendums. New Zealanders voting to retain the Union Jack
And so on
I agree, the Monarchy in this country and the Commonwealth realms is, surprisingly, secure. I don't agree that the King is 'very Woke'. A LibDem at most but probably more along the lines of his friend Nick Soames (who I think is still a Tory).
The ladies in his life who have been the most powerful influences on him, like the present Queen and the late Queen Mother are/were imho about as far from Woke as it is possible to be.
If he could vote the King would almost certainly vote LD (maybe Green sometimes locally too), whereas Queen Elizabeth II and Prince William are basically One Nation Tories, William a cross between that and New Labour.
The Queen Mother however was a staunch Thatcher fan and got on better with Maggie than her daughter and was very anti German so would probably have gone for Farage and Reform
Our Royal Family are in no credible position to be anti-German!
The Queen Mother was half Scottish and half English, her husband had German blood, she didn't
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
You will end up with a LibDem council leader and a bunch of Reform councillors impotently contributing very little from opposition.
But won't it be fun watching them goose-step into the council offices
More of a waddle than a goose step from what I have seen!
RefUK is a kind of Viagra for the politically impotent.
Early results show Dutton may struggle to hold his seat
Hey, Nigel, are you watching?
The dynamic is slightly different.
Last week: ..Australia's opposition leader has ditched an election promise to end work from home options for public servants after a backlash. Peter Dutton on Monday said his Liberal-National Coalition had "made a mistake" and apologised...
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
I can imagine anyone saying that last July was met with "Get over it, loser" style jibes
The results surprised me. I’d have expected c.500 seats apiece for Reform and Conservatives.
Reform took most of its seats off the Conservatives, but many of those were historically Labour seats, won by the Conservatives in 2021.
The big correlation is with the Leave vote. The more Leave a place is the more likely it is to succumb to Reform. This is no surprise since the driving sentiment for voting Leave in 2016 and for Reform now is the same - "we want our country back".
It's a great base to have. The Referendum vote was a Leave landslide in terms of FPTP GE calculus. 408 seats voted for Brexit. Winning three quarters of them gets Nigel Farage into Downing St. Bet that's how he's looking at it. I don't think he'll do it but it IS doable.
Early results show Dutton may struggle to hold his seat
A terrrrrrrrrrrible night fo rthe Liberals?
It’s bizarre why they’re called Liberals .
Bizarre why the Liberal Democrats are called Liberal Democrats as the are neither Lib....
The Conservatives attacked our institutions and wrecked everything and Labour is doing nothing for the working man...so the chances of any meaningful reform from Reform would appear to be slim...
He then said: "These people, who have to live somewhere, let's have them in a tent, in the middle of a field.
"Six o'clock every morning, let's have them up.
"Let's have them in the field, picking potatoes or any other seasonal vegetables, back in the tent, cold shower, lights out, six o'clock, same again the next day."
(It probably lost him some votes on the Carsic Estate, but the Lab Councillor for Carsic defected to Reform some time ago. Wearing my Active Travel Hat I need to go down and add a K to that sign for a photo op!)
Isn't that basically what the Poles and Lithuanians were doing until Brexit got rid of them?
Training long term unemployed/people with kind of milky mental health excuses not to work, to be out in the fresh air all day working could be a way of killing two birds with one stone. The idea that these were "immigrants jobs" to be done while our kids were studying for a degree in corporate nonsense speak always seemed a bit privileged, bordering on xenophobic . Plenty of the under 25s with negative mental health would find it beneficial to be given this work, rather than medication and benefit payments
Peter Dutton loses his seat . So that’s two leaders of the two main opposition parties in Canada and Australia both being sent packing .
....by their association to Trump. Farage for the hat-trick?
To be fair to Poilevre and Dutton neither were as close to Trump as Farage.
Both are more traditional conservatives than MAGA, although still firmly rightwing. They also lack the charisma of Trump and Farage which has helped drive their election wins
He then said: "These people, who have to live somewhere, let's have them in a tent, in the middle of a field.
"Six o'clock every morning, let's have them up.
"Let's have them in the field, picking potatoes or any other seasonal vegetables, back in the tent, cold shower, lights out, six o'clock, same again the next day."
(It probably lost him some votes on the Carsic Estate, but the Lab Councillor for Carsic defected to Reform some time ago. Wearing my Active Travel Hat I need to go down and add a K to that sign for a photo op!)
Isn't that basically what the Poles and Lithuanians were doing until Brexit got rid of them?
Training long term unemployed/people with kind of milky mental health excuses not to work, to be out in the fresh air all day working could be a way of killing two birds with one stone. The idea that these were "immigrants jobs" to be done while our kids were studying for a degree in corporate nonsense speak always seemed a bit privileged, bordering on xenophobic . Plenty of the under 25s with negative mental health would find it beneficial to be given this work, rather than medication and benefit payments
He then said: "These people, who have to live somewhere, let's have them in a tent, in the middle of a field.
"Six o'clock every morning, let's have them up.
"Let's have them in the field, picking potatoes or any other seasonal vegetables, back in the tent, cold shower, lights out, six o'clock, same again the next day."
(It probably lost him some votes on the Carsic Estate, but the Lab Councillor for Carsic defected to Reform some time ago. Wearing my Active Travel Hat I need to go down and add a K to that sign for a photo op!)
Isn't that basically what the Poles and Lithuanians were doing until Brexit got rid of them?
Training long term unemployed/people with kind of milky mental health excuses not to work, to be out in the fresh air all day working could be a way of killing two birds with one stone. The idea that these were "immigrants jobs" to be done while our kids were studying for a degree in corporate nonsense speak always seemed a bit privileged, bordering on xenophobic . Plenty of the under 25s with negative mental health would find it beneficial to be given this work, rather than medication and benefit payments
Are we back to "Gulags for Slags"?
I actually went to a Gulag for Slags. Last week, on the frigid steppes of northern Kazakhstan
He then said: "These people, who have to live somewhere, let's have them in a tent, in the middle of a field.
"Six o'clock every morning, let's have them up.
"Let's have them in the field, picking potatoes or any other seasonal vegetables, back in the tent, cold shower, lights out, six o'clock, same again the next day."
(It probably lost him some votes on the Carsic Estate, but the Lab Councillor for Carsic defected to Reform some time ago. Wearing my Active Travel Hat I need to go down and add a K to that sign for a photo op!)
Isn't that basically what the Poles and Lithuanians were doing until Brexit got rid of them?
Training long term unemployed/people with kind of milky mental health excuses not to work, to be out in the fresh air all day working could be a way of killing two birds with one stone. The idea that these were "immigrants jobs" to be done while our kids were studying for a degree in corporate nonsense speak always seemed a bit privileged, bordering on xenophobic . Plenty of the under 25s with negative mental health would find it beneficial to be given this work, rather than medication and benefit payments
Are we back to "Gulags for Slags"?
I think fresh air and a hard days work would be beneficial for people who are suffering from mild mental health issues. Call it what you like
There are thousands of them. I've seen more nuns than non-nuns. They're from all over the world; they all have badges saying where they're from
There's also a load of men wearing black, military looking uniforms with berets, and badges with the Maltese cross. Like all the nuns have on their cloaks
They all look full of joy to be somewhere so spiritually important to them
I'm rather enjoying the moment, too
You have obviously never been to Blackpool on a stag / hen do.....
Be a bold group who hit Lourdes for theirs...!
One of the best stag nights that I have been on was at a Dutch Reform mission in Malawi.
Mine was in Cyprus and it was mental. My Russian best man stabbed a cop and my RM mate filled my bottle of sunscreen with white house paint. The same Bootie (who is now a very senior civil servant in the MoD) performed cunnilingus on the oldest prostitute I have ever seen and I've seen a few. His condition report on her vulva was "Tasted like a 9V battery, smelled like a damp stair carpet and was as yellow as a toad.". We also lost our apartment key so we broke into the apartment above and lowered ourselves on to the balcony using my belt. This was on the 9th and 8th floors. Loads more, and worse/better, happened. There is an entire chapter on it in the autobiography I will never publish. "Chapter 12: Disgrace and other Coetzee Novels".
I looked like fucking Data from TNG in the wedding photos from the unwitting and liberal application of paint. I had to doctor them in Photoshop to restore an approximately human pallor before Mrs DA did her nut and the marriage succumbed to infant mortality.
The results surprised me. I’d have expected c.500 seats apiece for Reform and Conservatives.
Reform took most of its seats off the Conservatives, but many of those were historically Labour seats, won by the Conservatives in 2021.
The big correlation is with the Leave vote. The more Leave a place is the more likely it is to succumb to Reform. This is no surprise since the driving sentiment for voting Leave in 2016 and for Reform now is the same - "we want our country back".
It's a great base to have. The Referendum vote was a Leave landslide in terms of FPTP GE calculus. 408 seats voted for Brexit. Winning three quarters of them gets Nigel Farage into Downing St. Bet that's how he's looking at it. I don't think he'll do it but it IS doable.
There are thousands of them. I've seen more nuns than non-nuns. They're from all over the world; they all have badges saying where they're from
There's also a load of men wearing black, military looking uniforms with berets, and badges with the Maltese cross. Like all the nuns have on their cloaks
They all look full of joy to be somewhere so spiritually important to them
I'm rather enjoying the moment, too
You have obviously never been to Blackpool on a stag / hen do.....
Be a bold group who hit Lourdes for theirs...!
One of the best stag nights that I have been on was at a Dutch Reform mission in Malawi.
Mine was in Cyprus and it was mental. My Russian best man stabbed a cop and my RM mate filled my bottle of sunscreen with white house paint. The same Bootie (who is now a very senior civil servant in the MoD) performed cunnilingus on the oldest prostitute I have ever seen and I've seen a few. His condition report on her vulva was "Tasted like a 9V battery, smelled like a damp stair carpet and was as yellow as a toad.". We also lost our apartment key so we broke into the apartment above and lowered ourselves on to the balcony using my belt. This was on the 9th and 8th floors. Loads more, and worse/better, happened. There is an entire chapter on it in the autobiography I will never publish. "Chapter 12: Disgrace and other Coetzee Novels".
I looked like fucking Data from TNG in the wedding photos from the unwitting and liberal application of paint. I had to doctor them in Photoshop to restore an approximately human pallor before Mrs DA did her nut and the marriage succumbed to infant mortality.
Reading that, my minds eye was envisioning a grotesque combination of David Mitchell, Lee Mack and Josh Widdicombe on Would I Lie To You
What is intriguing to me is that supposedly it was the inheritance tax changes that were going to kill the government. This all seems to have gone quiet and hasn’t as far as I know been brought up much in focus groups?
Perhaps it’s only relevant in some constituencies not others but I wonder if that policy was actually not as bad as some of the more alarmist people said at the time.
Likewise on VAT on school fees.
It’s the WFA cut that seems to have done the most damage - whilst I personally think this was the right move and I’d also get rid of the triple lock
With pensions about to rise above the tax allowance I think we are about to get to the point where the triple lock can be sanely removed and replaced with tracking the standard tax allowance instead...
Now it's an incredibly creed way of removing the triple lock but it solves a whole set of very painful issues that would otherwise arise and make income tax for pensioners very easy to calculate..
The personal allowance is unchanged in five years and you want pensions to track it?
It would be an informal way of sharing both pain and sweeties between employees and pensioners. Not a bad idea.
The part of the triple lock that rises with wages does that.
It clearly doesn't as you point out that the personal allowance is unchanged for five years, whilst the pension has seen big rises.
Wages go up, pension goes up. The personal allowance stays the same.
Labour will be looking at their Australian counterparts for strategy in 2029. There are a lot of similarities between Starmer and Albanese - a first term government that was quickly unpopular, with an uncharismatic and unloved front man, under attack from the populist right. But who won again when the crunch time came, essentially running against fear of his opponent and the US political scene.
There is a long time to run until our GE, and the global picture may have changed a lot. A trend in one country does not necessarily correlate to others. But there’s an interesting case study for Labour there - it gives them some hope, perhaps.
He then said: "These people, who have to live somewhere, let's have them in a tent, in the middle of a field.
"Six o'clock every morning, let's have them up.
"Let's have them in the field, picking potatoes or any other seasonal vegetables, back in the tent, cold shower, lights out, six o'clock, same again the next day."
(It probably lost him some votes on the Carsic Estate, but the Lab Councillor for Carsic defected to Reform some time ago. Wearing my Active Travel Hat I need to go down and add a K to that sign for a photo op!)
Isn't that basically what the Poles and Lithuanians were doing until Brexit got rid of them?
Training long term unemployed/people with kind of milky mental health excuses not to work, to be out in the fresh air all day working could be a way of killing two birds with one stone. The idea that these were "immigrants jobs" to be done while our kids were studying for a degree in corporate nonsense speak always seemed a bit privileged, bordering on xenophobic . Plenty of the under 25s with negative mental health would find it beneficial to be given this work, rather than medication and benefit payments
Are we back to "Gulags for Slags"?
I think fresh air and a hard days work would be beneficial for people who are suffering from mild mental health issues. Call it what you like
There are various charities that do this because of the mental health benefits. It's an established process. However if it becomes politicised, there is a chance that the approach could be rejected simply because it has been politicised. Check your local area for 'health walks'.
If anyone takes the Telegraph there's a particularly good Matt cartoon today.
Personally it's the worst Matt cartoon I can remember...
Matt cartoon shows a television news reporter with the caption (no point wasting a photo): Reform won [Runcorn]. They've already imposed tariffs on other counties and given Manchester to Putin...
Regardless of its comedic or satirical merits, it might be a sign the Telegraph is allying itself with the Conservative Party against Reform.
There are thousands of them. I've seen more nuns than non-nuns. They're from all over the world; they all have badges saying where they're from
There's also a load of men wearing black, military looking uniforms with berets, and badges with the Maltese cross. Like all the nuns have on their cloaks
They all look full of joy to be somewhere so spiritually important to them
I'm rather enjoying the moment, too
For a while as a child I went to a Catholic boarding school. When back home during the school holidays I had to sell some raffle tickets to raise money to send people to Lourdes. I went door to door trying to these tickets with limited success. I assumed I was encountering anti-Catholic sentiment until one irate man pointed out to me that he couldn't see why he should pay for people to go and watch cricket!
If anyone takes the Telegraph there's a particularly good Matt cartoon today.
Personally it's the worst Matt cartoon I can remember...
Matt cartoon shows a television news reporter with the caption (no point wasting a photo): Reform won [Runcorn]. They've already imposed tariffs on other counties and given Manchester to Putin...
Regardless of its comedic or satirical merits, it might be a sign the Telegraph is allying itself with the Conservative Party against Reform.
I think you might be reading too much into it. I don't think Matt takes orders from anybody. I have never detected definite Tory bias in their cartoons despite it being in the Torygraph. They seem to have a pop at all sorts.
Listening to the news about the Coop hack and the BBC say that the Coop has 20 million members. I find this quite extraordinary that nearly 30% of the population, not just the adult population, are members of a shopping cooperative.
I had no idea it was such a huge organisation.
It was even bigger until the Crystal Methodist screwed up the banking part. But I believe the things like funeral service, insurance, legal are part of the Coop group.
They are, and you can become a member by holding accounts or policies from their other divisions, even if you’re not a shopper. Another reason why there are so many members.
Despite their good ethics, my practical experience is that everything non-shopping that they do is terribly managed and organised, hence customers get a poor service. Their energy was diabolical, their insurance little better. I am told their funeral service is OK but have no personal experience to offer.
The real contradiction with the Coop is in retail. They are socialist social cooperative set up without the need to distribute massive dividends to shareholders or owners in Dubai, mostly dealing in food for ordinary people many of whom are not wealthy.
But their pricing is enormously expensive when compared with Lidl, Aldi etc.
This makes no sense. As a social set up if they have proper priorities it would be to provide high quality product at less cost to poorer consumers. Instead their price policy sends them to the ruthless capitalists. This is exactly what happens in my immediate area.
There are thousands of them. I've seen more nuns than non-nuns. They're from all over the world; they all have badges saying where they're from
There's also a load of men wearing black, military looking uniforms with berets, and badges with the Maltese cross. Like all the nuns have on their cloaks
They all look full of joy to be somewhere so spiritually important to them
I'm rather enjoying the moment, too
You have obviously never been to Blackpool on a stag / hen do.....
Be a bold group who hit Lourdes for theirs...!
One of the best stag nights that I have been on was at a Dutch Reform mission in Malawi.
Mine was in Cyprus and it was mental. My Russian best man stabbed a cop and my RM mate filled my bottle of sunscreen with white house paint. The same Bootie (who is now a very senior civil servant in the MoD) performed cunnilingus on the oldest prostitute I have ever seen and I've seen a few. His condition report on her vulva was "Tasted like a 9V battery, smelled like a damp stair carpet and was as yellow as a toad.". We also lost our apartment key so we broke into the apartment above and lowered ourselves on to the balcony using my belt. This was on the 9th and 8th floors. Loads more, and worse/better, happened. There is an entire chapter on it in the autobiography I will never publish. "Chapter 12: Disgrace and other Coetzee Novels".
I looked like fucking Data from TNG in the wedding photos from the unwitting and liberal application of paint. I had to doctor them in Photoshop to restore an approximately human pallor before Mrs DA did her nut and the marriage succumbed to infant mortality.
Reading that, my minds eye was envisioning a grotesque combination of David Mitchell, Lee Mack and Josh Widdicombe on Would I Lie To You
Sounds like a role for 77 year-old Ann Widdecombe too...
I've watched the Prince Harry interview. I quite like him and have some sympathy for his situation. But what do we think of his argument? Is it true that other VIPs who have served this country in a significant capacity and are now retired are provided with a level of protection by the state equivalent to the protection that he feels he and his family deserves - or not?
Listening to the news about the Coop hack and the BBC say that the Coop has 20 million members. I find this quite extraordinary that nearly 30% of the population, not just the adult population, are members of a shopping cooperative.
I had no idea it was such a huge organisation.
It was even bigger until the Crystal Methodist screwed up the banking part. But I believe the things like funeral service, insurance, legal are part of the Coop group.
They are, and you can become a member by holding accounts or policies from their other divisions, even if you’re not a shopper. Another reason why there are so many members.
Despite their good ethics, my practical experience is that everything non-shopping that they do is terribly managed and organised, hence customers get a poor service. Their energy was diabolical, their insurance little better. I am told their funeral service is OK but have no personal experience to offer.
The real contradiction with the Coop is in retail. They are socialist social cooperative set up without the need to distribute massive dividends to shareholders or owners in Dubai, mostly dealing in food for ordinary people many of whom are not wealthy.
But their pricing is enormously expensive when compared with Lidl, Aldi etc.
This makes no sense. As a social set up if they have proper priorities it would be to provide high quality product at less cost to poorer consumers. Instead their price policy sends them to the ruthless capitalists. This is exactly what happens in my immediate area.
Isn't the answer quite simple, they don't have the vast scale of the big boys along with their principles stops them competing on price, so instead they have forged a path of using their do gooder image to move to increasingly being the middle class corner shop where people aren't as price sensitive.
Comments
This is why Farage is doing well. Starmer has nothing but politician-speak, trying to pretend that he’s not speaking like a politician.
Nobody is fooled.
I'll raise a glass to her later, if it's all the same to you.
It's a great base to have. The Referendum vote was a Leave landslide in terms of FPTP GE calculus. 408 seats voted for Brexit. Winning three quarters of them gets Nigel Farage into Downing St. Bet that's how he's looking at it. I don't think he'll do it but it IS doable.
It may have come from Agent Anderson.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50474572
The work regime fits Lincolnshire:
He then said: "These people, who have to live somewhere, let's have them in a tent, in the middle of a field.
"Six o'clock every morning, let's have them up.
"Let's have them in the field, picking potatoes or any other seasonal vegetables, back in the tent, cold shower, lights out, six o'clock, same again the next day."
(It probably lost him some votes on the Carsic Estate, but the Lab Councillor for Carsic defected to Reform some time ago. Wearing my Active Travel Hat I need to go down and add a K to that sign for a photo op!)
I have never seen so many nuns
There are thousands of them. I've seen more nuns than non-nuns. They're from all over the world; they all have badges saying where they're from
There's also a load of men wearing black, military looking uniforms with berets, and badges with the Maltese cross. Like all the nuns have on their cloaks
They all look full of joy to be somewhere so spiritually important to them
I'm rather enjoying the moment, too
Yep. Who needs to be worrying about our politics, when probably the most clement climate on the planet right now is here on the south coast of England.
https://youtu.be/ZFmoRk8DTWc?t=796
https://www.orderofmalta.int/about-the-order-of-malta/knights-of-malta/
You're making good progress.
Just seen this
https://www.orderofmalta.int/news/order-of-malta-67th-international-pilgrimage-lourdes-underway/
Peter Dutton’s divisive campaign is getting the response it deserves . Good riddance to the Trump arselickers .
Only question is whether it will be big or not.
One advantage of not being too hungover was being able to remember it all!
Trump marks 100 days in office with Biden blame game
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5280246-trump-biden-economic-issues/
https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/tennessee-man-stranded-guatemala-green-card-tattoo
Last week:
..Australia's opposition leader has ditched an election promise to end work from home options for public servants after a backlash.
Peter Dutton on Monday said his Liberal-National Coalition had "made a mistake" and apologised...
I prefer the one for May 1st.
Both are more traditional conservatives than MAGA, although still firmly rightwing. They also lack the charisma of Trump and Farage which has helped drive their election wins
Called ALZHiR
An actual gulag. For slags
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALZhIR
I looked like fucking Data from TNG in the wedding photos from the unwitting and liberal application of paint. I had to doctor them in Photoshop to restore an approximately human pallor before Mrs DA did her nut and the marriage succumbed to infant mortality.
https://x.com/basil_tgmd/status/1918553504039284798?s=48&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
Her idea of a “gotcha” question was “do you, er, do you, er, do you not think you’re trying to create divisions?”
“No.”
There is a long time to run until our GE, and the global picture may have changed a lot. A trend in one country does not necessarily correlate to others. But there’s an interesting case study for Labour there - it gives them some hope, perhaps.
So in case you never hear from me again, I wish you all well.
He must be a little worried that the Tories will install Jenrick. I can’t see anyone on the Labour front bench who could trouble him. Streeting?
Regardless of its comedic or satirical merits, it might be a sign the Telegraph is allying itself with the Conservative Party against Reform.
But their pricing is enormously expensive when compared with Lidl, Aldi etc.
This makes no sense. As a social set up if they have proper priorities it would be to provide high quality product at less cost to poorer consumers. Instead their price policy sends them to the ruthless capitalists. This is exactly what happens in my immediate area.