He's doing what public sector timeservers like him love doing, indeed fulfilling their raison d'etre - holding office and drawing a salary and its perks. The fact that few if any of his policies are working and most are actively harmful is irrelevant. When he almost quit after Hartlepool it was almost certainly because he looked unlikely ever to get the chance.
In the meantime, he has a huge majority where it counts and four more years till he needs to face the voters. Why would he quit?
There are reasons for Starmer to go and none for him to stay. Imo Starmer will retire early in the same way Harold Wilson did (and he will have seen Biden, Trump and Thatcher go on too long; Churchill too, as he will have seen on Netflix). He makes the odd verbal slip; he will not wish to lead Labour to a crunching defeat; in just a few weeks he will be our oldest prime minister since Mrs Thatcher; six of our last seven prime ministers served three years or less, which would take Starmer to 2027, two years out from a 2029 general election; he is not a natural politician and his ambition was to be Attorney General.
ETA none of the above involves Starmer being deposed. I imagine he will retire early but on his own terms.
It’s not a good thing or a thing to emulate that six of our last seven PMs served 3 years or less!
But when the focus of everything that has gone wrong with the nation since 2008 is Starmer shaped, he has to go. People are even floating the resurrection of Johnson.
F1: Briatore becoming team principal again (effectively) is not great to see.
Also suggests Colapinto's a done deal.
I don't give a fuck about any of the soap opera for men bollocks but Flavio seems like the tutelary deity of F1 to me. Coked up cheat with a massive yacht stowed to the cap rail with sorts.
Not being an expert, I don't think I can address this question, but it is bound to be in a lot of minds: On current polling and future possibilities, how many of the 650 seats in parliament can at this moment be regarded as 'safe' in 2029?
My guess is it isn't Zero but that the actual number is quite low.
Footnote: because the Labour mega majority is new and strange, less attention is being given to the fact that the great majority of seats in danger are Labour. Holding so few, the Tories can't lose more than 100 or so. Labour could lose over 300.
I wonder if in fact 500+ seats are now not 'safe'.
Curiously, currently about half the Lib Dem seats could be viewed as safe. Normally you could only claim that about Orkney and Shetland (and which is the only continuously held seat since 1997, 1950 in fact).
I feel that to be truly safe, the incumbent needs to exceed 50% of the vote. No Tory seat meets that criterion. It didn't help them much at the last GE either. I think the Tories could lose any seat on current polling, but they will not lose every seat as it will depend on the FPTP crapshoot locally and some will survive with a bit of luck and a split vote like IDS did last time.
I hadn't looked at Labour, they may be better placed in London and similar seats due to a lack of an obvious challenger from the left. But still not many, so yes, only 150 seats in total being 'safe' is probably an overestimate
Under a Conservative-Lib Dem coalition in 2012, the UK and Chile signed an agreement exempting temporary workers from social security contributions for *five* years
Not undercutting then, not undercutting now with India
That argument will just get a frosty reception from Reform. And they will use it to say "It is not enough to kick Labour out, you have to punish the Tories too, they started this nonsense".
Why the hullabaloo about this policy? It doesn't make sense for a worker on a temporary intracompany transfer to pay into two social security systems at the same time. This policy is designed to boost services trade with a large, fast growing economy. If there ever was a Brexit dividend, being able to negotiate these kinds of deal is it - remember the Brexiteers telling us we couldn't tie ourselves to sclerotic Europe, we needed deals with the Commonwealth, we needed to focus on our advantages in services... The fact that Farage lobbied for Brexit and is now up in arms about this is indicative of what a charlatan he is.
I don't agree with the hullabaloo, the deal sounds fine, at least before seeing the detail. But can you really not see why?
There is huge discontent with the government (not just Labour but the last two decades). The primary reason (there are many) is around immigration, especially foreigners getting a perceived better deal than Brits. Farage and Reform have just had a massive win and are currently easy headlines for the media whether social or traditional. This story plays into all three, fairly or unfairly. It is obviously going to create hullabaloo. Why were Labour, yet again, unprepared?
What Labour need urgently is a really good spin doctor, who can think like Reform/Farage, and help completely change their communication approach as well as influence policy if there are clear own goals coming up.
So many "Brexit politics are over" pieces from 2022 will look really stupid if UK politics ends up with Reform and LibDems at 25% and Conservatives and Labour fighting it out for 3rd place at 15% with the Greens at 10.
The Brexit wars will never end until everyone involved is dead. It’s the Whig/Tory split for the C21st.
Labour are most vulnerable to losing huge amounts of seats outside of the major cities .
Major cities have a firewall of sorts given the demographics.
Nonsense on stilts. This is what gives us London is a Labour city, despite Labour losing half the Mayoral elections (remember Boris?). Older PBers will recall the GLC (Greater London Council) was Tory-controlled before Ken took over and Mrs Thatcher abolished it in a fit of pique.
Or if by "the demographics" you mean Muslim voters, look at the rise of independent candidates. Sunil's MP, Wes Streeting, held on by just 500 votes.
It's tempting from my POV to think the number of safe seats is 'rather a lot'. No way Wythenshawe and Sale East isn't staying Lab. Nor Manchester Central. But just within Manchester: Withington could conceivably go Lib Dem; Rusholme might be vulnerable to the Islamogreenlefty extremes - though more likely this vote will splinter allowing Lab through the middle - and Blackley and Middleton South looks potentially Reformy. Seems a stretch, but Altrincham and Sale West could go back to the Tories. Stretford and Urmston will probably stay Lab for want of any obvious challenger. Like the Tories in 2024, they are fighting on a challenging number of fronts.
Under a Conservative-Lib Dem coalition in 2012, the UK and Chile signed an agreement exempting temporary workers from social security contributions for *five* years
Not undercutting then, not undercutting now with India
That argument will just get a frosty reception from Reform. And they will use it to say "It is not enough to kick Labour out, you have to punish the Tories too, they started this nonsense".
Why the hullabaloo about this policy? It doesn't make sense for a worker on a temporary intracompany transfer to pay into two social security systems at the same time. This policy is designed to boost services trade with a large, fast growing economy. If there ever was a Brexit dividend, being able to negotiate these kinds of deal is it - remember the Brexiteers telling us we couldn't tie ourselves to sclerotic Europe, we needed deals with the Commonwealth, we needed to focus on our advantages in services... The fact that Farage lobbied for Brexit and is now up in arms about this is indicative of what a charlatan he is.
If this is a Brexit dividend, how come we were signing such deals with loads of other countries when we were in the EU? @Scott_xP linked to one with Chile from 2012 upthread
Under a Conservative-Lib Dem coalition in 2012, the UK and Chile signed an agreement exempting temporary workers from social security contributions for *five* years
Not undercutting then, not undercutting now with India
That argument will just get a frosty reception from Reform. And they will use it to say "It is not enough to kick Labour out, you have to punish the Tories too, they started this nonsense".
Why the hullabaloo about this policy? It doesn't make sense for a worker on a temporary intracompany transfer to pay into two social security systems at the same time. This policy is designed to boost services trade with a large, fast growing economy. If there ever was a Brexit dividend, being able to negotiate these kinds of deal is it - remember the Brexiteers telling us we couldn't tie ourselves to sclerotic Europe, we needed deals with the Commonwealth, we needed to focus on our advantages in services... The fact that Farage lobbied for Brexit and is now up in arms about this is indicative of what a charlatan he is.
I don't agree with the hullabaloo, the deal sounds fine, at least before seeing the detail. But can you really not see why?
There is huge discontent with the government (not just Labour but the last two decades). The primary reason (there are many) is around immigration, especially foreigners getting a perceived better deal than Brits. Farage and Reform have just had a massive win and are currently easy headlines for the media whether social or traditional. This story plays into all three, fairly or unfairly. It is obviously going to create hullabaloo. Why were Labour, yet again, unprepared?
What Labour need urgently is a really good spin doctor, who can think like Reform/Farage, and help completely change their communication approach as well as influence policy if there are clear own goals coming up.
Yup. The policy is OK. The communications & the optics are absolutely terrible.
(Personally I think three years is to long for such a supposedly “temporary” arrangement - I’d be interested to know what the time limits are on our agreements with other countries.)
Before the year is out we shall see Reform on 35% and the Tories on 12%.
I'm not so sure. There are plenty of skeletons in RefUKs closet... Paper councilors are just the beginning of the problem. The problematic relationship with Russia and MAGA is still a question that has an answer that few will like. "Events" can still go very wrong indeed for Farage. So I don't see any value in jumping on NF Nigel's bandwagon just yet.
Chavs don't give a shit about Russia and, like almost everyone else, are bored of Ukraine. They also quite like DJT's flamboyant cruelty to minorities and general shithousery. Neither of things will hurt the Fukkers electorally.
What will is the bottomless pit of spite that Farage has where his soul should be causing the inevitable feuds, splits and banishments in the Fukker ranks. Also, he's quite fond of a get-rich-quick scheme marketed to gullible morons (remember his gold thing and 'The Brexit Club') and could come unstuck with one of those.
Before the year is out we shall see Reform on 35% and the Tories on 12%.
I'm not so sure. There are plenty of skeletons in RefUKs closet... Paper councilors are just the beginning of the problem. The problematic relationship with Russia and MAGA is still a question that has an answer that few will like. "Events" can still go very wrong indeed for Farage. So I don't see any value in jumping on NF Nigel's bandwagon just yet.
Chavs don't give a shit about Russia and, like almost everyone else, are bored of Ukraine. They also quite like DJT's flamboyant cruelty to minorities and general shithousery. Neither of things will hurt the Fukkers electorally.
What will is the bottomless pit of spite that Farage has where his soul should be causing the inevitable feuds, splits and banishments in the Fukker ranks. Also, he's quite fond of a get-rich-quick scheme marketed to gullible morons (remember his gold thing and 'The Brexit Club') and could come unstuck with one of those.
Labour are most vulnerable to losing huge amounts of seats outside of the major cities .
Major cities have a firewall of sorts given the demographics.
Talking of demographics, I presume that, as Commonwealth citizens, Indian temporary workers will be able to vote in the next GE.
As they will be predominantly Hindus isn't that historically good news for the Conservatives?
Starmer's political genius strikes again.
If we had remained in the EU, as both you and me had hoped, none of this old nonsense would be needed. The real villains of the Indian trade deal are Johnson and Farage.
So there's potential that Wales may once again be an action learning experiment in advance of England, as it has been for certain other policies - 20mph speed limits and more uniform increased Council Tax for second homes for two.
Do we have any information on Reform UK policies for Wales in 2026?
Looking at RefUK Welsh Manifesto for Senedd elections in 2021, this strikes me as interesting:
That pledge was preserved unchanged into the RefUK 2024 Election for the UK, so I think will come back. It will be interesting to see if that makes it back into RefUK's proposals for the Senedd in 2026.
I don't believe that the Senedd has the power to set tax thresholds ... unless I missed something.
In theory they could set a rate of 0% for the first £7500 above the UK’s default tax allowance - they won’t be able to afford it though
Of course we can afford it if something else goes up. The problem is our politicians have become too frit to ever put anything up to the extent that they declare they won't for full terms in advance.
That's why I also linked the economic policy evaluation, which interestingly for the Welsh Election 2021 was an evaluation of the UK Economy.
The proposal was for tax take to be reduced by £48 billion (out of £750 billion) per annum.
Here are the base year costings - it's £83 billion of tax cuts offset by ~£34bn of increases. The big increases are £3.5 billion of Internet Sales Tax (that sounds like anti-catnip for Trump), and £30 billion of something called "Pension Credit Write Back", which I think is clawing money back from (poorer?) pensioners. My photo quota:
Under a Conservative-Lib Dem coalition in 2012, the UK and Chile signed an agreement exempting temporary workers from social security contributions for *five* years
Not undercutting then, not undercutting now with India
That argument will just get a frosty reception from Reform. And they will use it to say "It is not enough to kick Labour out, you have to punish the Tories too, they started this nonsense".
Why the hullabaloo about this policy? It doesn't make sense for a worker on a temporary intracompany transfer to pay into two social security systems at the same time. This policy is designed to boost services trade with a large, fast growing economy. If there ever was a Brexit dividend, being able to negotiate these kinds of deal is it - remember the Brexiteers telling us we couldn't tie ourselves to sclerotic Europe, we needed deals with the Commonwealth, we needed to focus on our advantages in services... The fact that Farage lobbied for Brexit and is now up in arms about this is indicative of what a charlatan he is.
If this is a Brexit dividend, how come we were signing such deals with loads of other countries when we were in the EU? @Scott_xP linked to one with Chile from 2012 upthread
is this a remainer trying to claim a trade deal with India is a Brexit dividend, and a brexiter saying it isn't?
Before the year is out we shall see Reform on 35% and the Tories on 12%.
I'm not so sure. There are plenty of skeletons in RefUKs closet... Paper councilors are just the beginning of the problem. The problematic relationship with Russia and MAGA is still a question that has an answer that few will like. "Events" can still go very wrong indeed for Farage. So I don't see any value in jumping on NF Nigel's bandwagon just yet.
Chavs don't give a shit about Russia and, like almost everyone else, are bored of Ukraine. They also quite like DJT's flamboyant cruelty to minorities and general shithousery. Neither of things will hurt the Fukkers electorally.
What will is the bottomless pit of spite that Farage has where his soul should be causing the inevitable feuds, splits and banishments in the Fukker ranks. Also, he's quite fond of a get-rich-quick scheme marketed to gullible morons (remember his gold thing and 'The Brexit Club') and could come unstuck with one of those.
This post could form the basis of a political campaign to cut Farage's MEGA campaign off at the knees. Although a similar Charlatan made it over the line last November.
Labour are most vulnerable to losing huge amounts of seats outside of the major cities .
Major cities have a firewall of sorts given the demographics.
They're not invulnerable in the major cities as Ashworth, some of the Birmingham seats and Streeting's close call atest. Coventry south might be very interesting next GE, particularly if Sultana runs as an independent. Tories were close there in the Boris wave. I think big city MPs on Labour's left like Nadia Whittome are probably safest at the next GE tbh.
Labour are most vulnerable to losing huge amounts of seats outside of the major cities .
Major cities have a firewall of sorts given the demographics.
They're not invulnerable in the major cities as Ashworth, some of the Birmingham seats and Streeting's close call atest. Coventry south might be very interesting next GE, particularly if Sultana runs as an independent. Tories were close there in the Boris wave. I think big city MPs on Labour's left like Nadia Whittome are probably safest at the next GE tbh.
There's chunk of West Yorkshire up next year that might also prove to be tricky for Labour.
Under a Conservative-Lib Dem coalition in 2012, the UK and Chile signed an agreement exempting temporary workers from social security contributions for *five* years
Not undercutting then, not undercutting now with India
That argument will just get a frosty reception from Reform. And they will use it to say "It is not enough to kick Labour out, you have to punish the Tories too, they started this nonsense".
Why the hullabaloo about this policy? It doesn't make sense for a worker on a temporary intracompany transfer to pay into two social security systems at the same time. This policy is designed to boost services trade with a large, fast growing economy. If there ever was a Brexit dividend, being able to negotiate these kinds of deal is it - remember the Brexiteers telling us we couldn't tie ourselves to sclerotic Europe, we needed deals with the Commonwealth, we needed to focus on our advantages in services... The fact that Farage lobbied for Brexit and is now up in arms about this is indicative of what a charlatan he is.
I don't agree with the hullabaloo, the deal sounds fine, at least before seeing the detail. But can you really not see why?
There is huge discontent with the government (not just Labour but the last two decades). The primary reason (there are many) is around immigration, especially foreigners getting a perceived better deal than Brits. Farage and Reform have just had a massive win and are currently easy headlines for the media whether social or traditional. This story plays into all three, fairly or unfairly. It is obviously going to create hullabaloo. Why were Labour, yet again, unprepared?
What Labour need urgently is a really good spin doctor, who can think like Reform/Farage, and help completely change their communication approach as well as influence policy if there are clear own goals coming up.
Yup. The policy is OK. The communications & the optics are absolutely terrible.
(Personally I think three years is to long for such a supposedly “temporary” arrangement - I’d be interested to know what the time limits are on our agreements with other countries.)
NB. One valid criticism I think is that the other double taxation agreements seem to be with rich, first world countries - the USA, Switzerland, etc. I think South Africa is the poorest country we have such an agreement with.
India is a) huge (~20x our population) and b) much poorer than the UK (~1/20 our GDP/capita). It’s reasonable to ask whether the UK government has really thought through the consequences of this agreement given these imbalances.
Under a Conservative-Lib Dem coalition in 2012, the UK and Chile signed an agreement exempting temporary workers from social security contributions for *five* years
Not undercutting then, not undercutting now with India
That argument will just get a frosty reception from Reform. And they will use it to say "It is not enough to kick Labour out, you have to punish the Tories too, they started this nonsense".
Why the hullabaloo about this policy? It doesn't make sense for a worker on a temporary intracompany transfer to pay into two social security systems at the same time. This policy is designed to boost services trade with a large, fast growing economy. If there ever was a Brexit dividend, being able to negotiate these kinds of deal is it - remember the Brexiteers telling us we couldn't tie ourselves to sclerotic Europe, we needed deals with the Commonwealth, we needed to focus on our advantages in services... The fact that Farage lobbied for Brexit and is now up in arms about this is indicative of what a charlatan he is.
I don't agree with the hullabaloo, the deal sounds fine, at least before seeing the detail. But can you really not see why?
There is huge discontent with the government (not just Labour but the last two decades). The primary reason (there are many) is around immigration, especially foreigners getting a perceived better deal than Brits. Farage and Reform have just had a massive win and are currently easy headlines for the media whether social or traditional. This story plays into all three, fairly or unfairly. It is obviously going to create hullabaloo. Why were Labour, yet again, unprepared?
What Labour need urgently is a really good spin doctor, who can think like Reform/Farage, and help completely change their communication approach as well as influence policy if there are clear own goals coming up.
Oh sure, the deal can be spun that way and the argument will be lapped up by the terminally gullible, which these days seems to be a good chunk of the electorate. My point is that if you think the UK should be doing trade deals focusing on services and fast growing large economies like India then this is what such a deal looks like.
Starmer could say Welsh Labour is to blame not him. Anyway Plaid would still need Labour support in the Senedd for a majority. Reform making gains in Wales as well as England will boost Farage's path to No 10
WRT Labour in the cities, I was genuinely surprised to see Labour only lead Reform 27% to 24% in Exeter. Labour did not win a single division, despite coming first in votes.
Not being an expert, I don't think I can address this question, but it is bound to be in a lot of minds: On current polling and future possibilities, how many of the 650 seats in parliament can at this moment be regarded as 'safe' in 2029?
My guess is it isn't Zero but that the actual number is quite low.
Footnote: because the Labour mega majority is new and strange, less attention is being given to the fact that the great majority of seats in danger are Labour. Holding so few, the Tories can't lose more than 100 or so. Labour could lose over 300.
I wonder if in fact 500+ seats are now not 'safe'.
Curiously, currently about half the Lib Dem seats could be viewed as safe. Normally you could only claim that about Orkney and Shetland (and which is the only continuously held seat since 1997, 1950 in fact).
I feel that to be truly safe, the incumbent needs to exceed 50% of the vote. No Tory seat meets that criterion. It didn't help them much at the last GE either. I think the Tories could lose any seat on current polling, but they will not lose every seat as it will depend on the FPTP crapshoot locally and some will survive with a bit of luck and a split vote like IDS did last time.
Most of the Ashfield Independent held County seats from last Thursday had majorities of 30-50% the previous time around. That was why I thought they would hold most of them, despite Zadrozny's legal complications. In my estimate I thought they could hold on majorities of >30% .
They lost 9 out of 10.
The Lib Dems will all be singing "Let's twist again like Davey in '97", to dig themselves in locally.
Before the year is out we shall see Reform on 35% and the Tories on 12%.
The floor for the Tories is zero.
I'm not sure what constituency they speak to now. Maybe a praetorian guard of historical loyalists.
That's it.
Don't forget the people whose favourite colour is blue, they will be the last to leave.
The Tories will continue to exist in pockets, where local people still support local candidates. But outside of these warm glows its like the heat death of the Tory universe.
This new Deportation Bill they have published, with intellectual titans like Matt I Like Parmos Me Vickers banging the drum for it.
If you support these policies Matt then why didn't your government introduce them? They had long enough. And that seems to be the general response to the Badenoch I'm Tough Bill - meh. Too little too late.
This now becomes their problem. They can try and radiate heat and light. But they're so far away from the political mainstream that the voters barely notice.
Their only hope is to come up with something different. If they keep pushing further on immigration they may well persuade more people of their cause - but the logic of supporting that cause is now to vote Reform, not Conservative.
I am baffled that Conservative politicians cannot see the inevitability of this. Yes Jenrick will be better at the messaging than Badenoch, but that actually would lead to Reform gaining on the Conservatives faster than they are now!
Jenrick would be a brilliant leader of...Reform. I think the only way for the Conservatives to find some voters is to distinguish themselves from the MAGAism with someone affable and reasonable - Cleverly.
I don't think he can get them much more than 20%, but at least it's not extinction. My older relatives would be comfortable voting for him, even as a protest against Farage.
Cleverly is a nice guy but a big of an empty vessel.
There's no leader that can claw the Conservatives back right now, IMHO.
Boris would give the Tories the lead again More in Common found yesterday. Otherwise the Tories best bet may be PR ironically
Labour are most vulnerable to losing huge amounts of seats outside of the major cities .
Major cities have a firewall of sorts given the demographics.
Yes but look at what happened in Wes Streeting's seat at the last election, and in a lot of the B'ham constituencies.
I think Gaza will be a continued major issue next time around, if Israel's policies continue. It may become a core issue for a wider segment of the electorate.
So there's potential that Wales may once again be an action learning experiment in advance of England, as it has been for certain other policies - 20mph speed limits and more uniform increased Council Tax for second homes for two.
Do we have any information on Reform UK policies for Wales in 2026?
Looking at RefUK Welsh Manifesto for Senedd elections in 2021, this strikes me as interesting:
That pledge was preserved unchanged into the RefUK 2024 Election for the UK, so I think will come back. It will be interesting to see if that makes it back into RefUK's proposals for the Senedd in 2026.
I don't believe that the Senedd has the power to set tax thresholds ... unless I missed something.
In theory they could set a rate of 0% for the first £7500 above the UK’s default tax allowance - they won’t be able to afford it though
Of course we can afford it if something else goes up. The problem is our politicians have become too frit to ever put anything up to the extent that they declare they won't for full terms in advance.
That's why I also linked the economic policy evaluation, which interestingly for the Welsh Election 2021 was an evaluation of the UK Economy.
The proposal was for tax take to be reduced by £48 billion (out of £750 billion) per annum.
Here are the base year costings - it's £83 billion of tax cuts offset by ~£34bn of increases. The big increases are £3.5 billion of Internet Sales Tax (that sounds like anti-catnip for Trump), and £30 billion of something called "Pension Credit Write Back", which I think is clawing money back from (poorer?) pensioners. My photo quota:
I can't find out what the Pension Credit Write Back is either. Seems very strange to be taking £30bn off one of their stronger target audiences. Also pension credit is about £6bn a year.
By the size of it perhaps it is cutting tax relief on pensions, which imo would be a good policy.
Under a Conservative-Lib Dem coalition in 2012, the UK and Chile signed an agreement exempting temporary workers from social security contributions for *five* years
Not undercutting then, not undercutting now with India
That argument will just get a frosty reception from Reform. And they will use it to say "It is not enough to kick Labour out, you have to punish the Tories too, they started this nonsense".
Why the hullabaloo about this policy? It doesn't make sense for a worker on a temporary intracompany transfer to pay into two social security systems at the same time. This policy is designed to boost services trade with a large, fast growing economy. If there ever was a Brexit dividend, being able to negotiate these kinds of deal is it - remember the Brexiteers telling us we couldn't tie ourselves to sclerotic Europe, we needed deals with the Commonwealth, we needed to focus on our advantages in services... The fact that Farage lobbied for Brexit and is now up in arms about this is indicative of what a charlatan he is.
I don't agree with the hullabaloo, the deal sounds fine, at least before seeing the detail. But can you really not see why?
There is huge discontent with the government (not just Labour but the last two decades). The primary reason (there are many) is around immigration, especially foreigners getting a perceived better deal than Brits. Farage and Reform have just had a massive win and are currently easy headlines for the media whether social or traditional. This story plays into all three, fairly or unfairly. It is obviously going to create hullabaloo. Why were Labour, yet again, unprepared?
What Labour need urgently is a really good spin doctor, who can think like Reform/Farage, and help completely change their communication approach as well as influence policy if there are clear own goals coming up.
Yup. The policy is OK. The communications & the optics are absolutely terrible.
(Personally I think three years is to long for such a supposedly “temporary” arrangement - I’d be interested to know what the time limits are on our agreements with other countries.)
NB. One valid criticism I think is that the other double taxation agreements seem to be with rich, first world countries - the USA, Switzerland, etc. I think South Africa is the poorest country we have such an agreement with.
India is a) huge (~20x our population) and b) much poorer than the UK (~1/20 our GDP/capita). It’s reasonable to ask whether the UK government has really thought through the consequences of this agreement given these imbalances.
So there's potential that Wales may once again be an action learning experiment in advance of England, as it has been for certain other policies - 20mph speed limits and more uniform increased Council Tax for second homes for two.
Do we have any information on Reform UK policies for Wales in 2026?
Looking at RefUK Welsh Manifesto for Senedd elections in 2021, this strikes me as interesting:
That pledge was preserved unchanged into the RefUK 2024 Election for the UK, so I think will come back. It will be interesting to see if that makes it back into RefUK's proposals for the Senedd in 2026.
I don't believe that the Senedd has the power to set tax thresholds ... unless I missed something.
In theory they could set a rate of 0% for the first £7500 above the UK’s default tax allowance - they won’t be able to afford it though
Of course we can afford it if something else goes up. The problem is our politicians have become too frit to ever put anything up to the extent that they declare they won't for full terms in advance.
That's why I also linked the economic policy evaluation, which interestingly for the Welsh Election 2021 was an evaluation of the UK Economy.
The proposal was for tax take to be reduced by £48 billion (out of £750 billion) per annum.
Here are the base year costings - it's £83 billion of tax cuts offset by ~£34bn of increases. The big increases are £3.5 billion of Internet Sales Tax (that sounds like anti-catnip for Trump), and £30 billion of something called "Pension Credit Write Back", which I think is clawing money back from (poorer?) pensioners. My photo quota:
FFS, a competent Labour/Conservative operation would be ripping Reform to shreds on that.
"Farage's £30 billion pension raid".
The give them their due, the other tax proposals are by far the most interesting of the parties, and in line with the tentative PB consensus on how to alter the tax burden.
One of the funniest "Sanjeev as Mr India" sketches in Goodness Gracious Me was when he was a contestant on Mastermind, and got all his questions wrong.
"Congratulations, Mr India. You have zero points!"
So there's potential that Wales may once again be an action learning experiment in advance of England, as it has been for certain other policies - 20mph speed limits and more uniform increased Council Tax for second homes for two.
Do we have any information on Reform UK policies for Wales in 2026?
Looking at RefUK Welsh Manifesto for Senedd elections in 2021, this strikes me as interesting:
That pledge was preserved unchanged into the RefUK 2024 Election for the UK, so I think will come back. It will be interesting to see if that makes it back into RefUK's proposals for the Senedd in 2026.
I don't believe that the Senedd has the power to set tax thresholds ... unless I missed something.
In theory they could set a rate of 0% for the first £7500 above the UK’s default tax allowance - they won’t be able to afford it though
Of course we can afford it if something else goes up. The problem is our politicians have become too frit to ever put anything up to the extent that they declare they won't for full terms in advance.
That's why I also linked the economic policy evaluation, which interestingly for the Welsh Election 2021 was an evaluation of the UK Economy.
The proposal was for tax take to be reduced by £48 billion (out of £750 billion) per annum.
Here are the base year costings - it's £83 billion of tax cuts offset by ~£34bn of increases. The big increases are £3.5 billion of Internet Sales Tax (that sounds like anti-catnip for Trump), and £30 billion of something called "Pension Credit Write Back", which I think is clawing money back from (poorer?) pensioners. My photo quota:
I can't find out what the Pension Credit Write Back is either. Seems very strange to be taking £30bn off one of their stronger target audiences. Also pension credit is about £6bn a year.
By the size of it perhaps it is cutting tax relief on pensions, which imo would be a good policy.
Pension tax relief cost £50bn in 2021/22 so that ties in to a 75% reduction costing £30bn based on 2019-20 numbers.
Whilst I support cutting pension tax relief, 75% seems way too much to cut.
"The Conservative Party is nothing if not a party of power." Discuss with reference to the events of 2010-30.
(If nobody has said that, they should have. I would be happy to make up an attribution to go with it.)
But... have the Conservatives ever been so powerless? Mayors of Tees Valley and Cambridgeshire, some London boroughs, a few second-tier districts... and that's it.
I don't want Reform to succeed, and I still suspect that the anti-Reform vote is organised enough to beat them. But maybe the Conservatives need to die now so that the rest of politics can re-organise around them.
I don't like Farage or his policies but lets face reality, the issues with him and Reform are not very different to those of the current Conservative party and especially the Johnson era. Farage in policy reality is closer to Starmer than Trump or Orban.
And we are not going to get good government anyway, there is no centre right, pro business party full of wisdom and experience, nor a confident, reforming centre left party.
"The Conservative Party is nothing if not a party of power." Discuss with reference to the events of 2010-30.
(If nobody has said that, they should have. I would be happy to make up an attribution to go with it.)
But... have the Conservatives ever been so powerless? Mayors of Tees Valley and Cambridgeshire, some London boroughs, a few second-tier districts... and that's it.
I don't want Reform to succeed, and I still suspect that the anti-Reform vote is organised enough to beat them. But maybe the Conservatives need to die now so that the rest of politics can re-organise around them.
I don't like Farage or his policies but lets face reality, the issues with him and Reform are not very different to those of the current Conservative party and especially the Johnson era. Farage in policy reality is closer to Starmer than Trump or Orban.
And we are not going to get good government anyway, there is no centre right, pro business party full of wisdom and experience, nor a confident, reforming centre left party.
Farage is closer to Trump than Starmer
In language, sure. In policy, no. He is not going to threaten to invade Portugal for a cheap laugh either.
There is English (and Welsh) law. Scots Law. Northern Ireland, Isle of Man and the Channel Islands have their own laws which makes it reasonable(?) to have their own legislative bodies. But why Wales and the Senned? It's an outlier.
Off to find a tin hat.
Because Wales is part of England & Wales, which is a single state.
He's doing what public sector timeservers like him love doing, indeed fulfilling their raison d'etre - holding office and drawing a salary and its perks. The fact that few if any of his policies are working and most are actively harmful is irrelevant. When he almost quit after Hartlepool it was almost certainly because he looked unlikely ever to get the chance.
In the meantime, he has a huge majority where it counts and four more years till he needs to face the voters. Why would he quit?
There are reasons for Starmer to go and none for him to stay. Imo Starmer will retire early in the same way Harold Wilson did (and he will have seen Biden, Trump and Thatcher go on too long; Churchill too, as he will have seen on Netflix). He makes the odd verbal slip; he will not wish to lead Labour to a crunching defeat; in just a few weeks he will be our oldest prime minister since Mrs Thatcher; six of our last seven prime ministers served three years or less, which would take Starmer to 2027, two years out from a 2029 general election; he is not a natural politician and his ambition was to be Attorney General.
ETA none of the above involves Starmer being deposed. I imagine he will retire early but on his own terms.
Starmer is already the problem. I never thought I'd say this but gob on a stick Rayner might be the way to go. She could recover the left and attempt a coalition to defeat RefCon. Streeting takes the Labour Party to oblivion.
And for goodness sake find someone who has at least a fractional clue at communications.
So there's potential that Wales may once again be an action learning experiment in advance of England, as it has been for certain other policies - 20mph speed limits and more uniform increased Council Tax for second homes for two.
Do we have any information on Reform UK policies for Wales in 2026?
Looking at RefUK Welsh Manifesto for Senedd elections in 2021, this strikes me as interesting:
That pledge was preserved unchanged into the RefUK 2024 Election for the UK, so I think will come back. It will be interesting to see if that makes it back into RefUK's proposals for the Senedd in 2026.
I don't believe that the Senedd has the power to set tax thresholds ... unless I missed something.
In theory they could set a rate of 0% for the first £7500 above the UK’s default tax allowance - they won’t be able to afford it though
Of course we can afford it if something else goes up. The problem is our politicians have become too frit to ever put anything up to the extent that they declare they won't for full terms in advance.
That's why I also linked the economic policy evaluation, which interestingly for the Welsh Election 2021 was an evaluation of the UK Economy.
The proposal was for tax take to be reduced by £48 billion (out of £750 billion) per annum.
Here are the base year costings - it's £83 billion of tax cuts offset by ~£34bn of increases. The big increases are £3.5 billion of Internet Sales Tax (that sounds like anti-catnip for Trump), and £30 billion of something called "Pension Credit Write Back", which I think is clawing money back from (poorer?) pensioners. My photo quota:
I can't find out what the Pension Credit Write Back is either. Seems very strange to be taking £30bn off one of their stronger target audiences. Also pension credit is about £6bn a year.
By the size of it perhaps it is cutting tax relief on pensions, which imo would be a good policy.
Pension tax relief cost £50bn in 2021/22 so that ties in to a 75% reduction costing £30bn based on 2019-20 numbers.
Whilst I support cutting pension tax relief, 75% seems way too much to cut.
Also if Reform aggressively cut pension tax relief they need to fix the income tax tapers as that is the common get out for higher earner facing the 100% marginal effective tax rates.
"The Conservative Party is nothing if not a party of power." Discuss with reference to the events of 2010-30.
(If nobody has said that, they should have. I would be happy to make up an attribution to go with it.)
But... have the Conservatives ever been so powerless? Mayors of Tees Valley and Cambridgeshire, some London boroughs, a few second-tier districts... and that's it.
I don't want Reform to succeed, and I still suspect that the anti-Reform vote is organised enough to beat them. But maybe the Conservatives need to die now so that the rest of politics can re-organise around them.
I don't like Farage or his policies but lets face reality, the issues with him and Reform are not very different to those of the current Conservative party and especially the Johnson era. Farage in policy reality is closer to Starmer than Trump or Orban.
And we are not going to get good government anyway, there is no centre right, pro business party full of wisdom and experience, nor a confident, reforming centre left party.
Farage is closer to Trump than Starmer
Keep posting that every day and Reform will be dead on their arse by Christmas.
Before the year is out we shall see Reform on 35% and the Tories on 12%.
The floor for the Tories is zero.
I'm not sure what constituency they speak to now. Maybe a praetorian guard of historical loyalists.
That's it.
Don't forget the people whose favourite colour is blue, they will be the last to leave.
The Tories will continue to exist in pockets, where local people still support local candidates. But outside of these warm glows its like the heat death of the Tory universe.
This new Deportation Bill they have published, with intellectual titans like Matt I Like Parmos Me Vickers banging the drum for it.
If you support these policies Matt then why didn't your government introduce them? They had long enough. And that seems to be the general response to the Badenoch I'm Tough Bill - meh. Too little too late.
This now becomes their problem. They can try and radiate heat and light. But they're so far away from the political mainstream that the voters barely notice.
Their only hope is to come up with something different. If they keep pushing further on immigration they may well persuade more people of their cause - but the logic of supporting that cause is now to vote Reform, not Conservative.
I am baffled that Conservative politicians cannot see the inevitability of this. Yes Jenrick will be better at the messaging than Badenoch, but that actually would lead to Reform gaining on the Conservatives faster than they are now!
Jenrick would be a brilliant leader of...Reform. I think the only way for the Conservatives to find some voters is to distinguish themselves from the MAGAism with someone affable and reasonable - Cleverly.
I don't think he can get them much more than 20%, but at least it's not extinction. My older relatives would be comfortable voting for him, even as a protest against Farage.
Cleverly is a nice guy but a big of an empty vessel.
There's no leader that can claw the Conservatives back right now, IMHO.
Boris would give the Tories the lead again More in Common found yesterday. Otherwise the Tories best bet may be PR ironically
Has MiC seen him recently? Boris seems to have got very old very quickly.
There is English (and Welsh) law. Scots Law. Northern Ireland, Isle of Man and the Channel Islands have their own laws which makes it reasonable(?) to have their own legislative bodies. But why Wales and the Senned? It's an outlier.
Off to find a tin hat.
Because Wales is part of England & Wales, which is a single state.
E&W is not a state (well, not in 'nation or territory considered as an organized political community under one government' terms). I think jurisdiction is the official definition.
He's doing what public sector timeservers like him love doing, indeed fulfilling their raison d'etre - holding office and drawing a salary and its perks. The fact that few if any of his policies are working and most are actively harmful is irrelevant. When he almost quit after Hartlepool it was almost certainly because he looked unlikely ever to get the chance.
In the meantime, he has a huge majority where it counts and four more years till he needs to face the voters. Why would he quit?
There are reasons for Starmer to go and none for him to stay. Imo Starmer will retire early in the same way Harold Wilson did (and he will have seen Biden, Trump and Thatcher go on too long; Churchill too, as he will have seen on Netflix). He makes the odd verbal slip; he will not wish to lead Labour to a crunching defeat; in just a few weeks he will be our oldest prime minister since Mrs Thatcher; six of our last seven prime ministers served three years or less, which would take Starmer to 2027, two years out from a 2029 general election; he is not a natural politician and his ambition was to be Attorney General.
ETA none of the above involves Starmer being deposed. I imagine he will retire early but on his own terms.
Starmer is already the problem. I never thought I'd say this but gob on a stick Rayner might be the way to go. She could recover the left and attempt a coalition to defeat RefCon. Streeting takes the Labour Party to oblivion.
And for goodness sake find someone who has at least a fractional clue at communications.
Burnham?
He'd have to find a safe seat to stand in first. Might prove tricky!
Starmer could say Welsh Labour is to blame not him. Anyway Plaid would still need Labour support in the Senedd for a majority. Reform making gains in Wales as well as England will boost Farage's path to No 10
“Here in Wales the Welsh government is living proof of what Labour looks like in power” - Keir Starmer
Before the year is out we shall see Reform on 35% and the Tories on 12%.
I'm not so sure. There are plenty of skeletons in RefUKs closet... Paper councilors are just the beginning of the problem. The problematic relationship with Russia and MAGA is still a question that has an answer that few will like. "Events" can still go very wrong indeed for Farage. So I don't see any value in jumping on NF Nigel's bandwagon just yet.
Chavs don't give a shit about Russia and, like almost everyone else, are bored of Ukraine. They also quite like DJT's flamboyant cruelty to minorities and general shithousery. Neither of things will hurt the Fukkers electorally.
What will is the bottomless pit of spite that Farage has where his soul should be causing the inevitable feuds, splits and banishments in the Fukker ranks. Also, he's quite fond of a get-rich-quick scheme marketed to gullible morons (remember his gold thing and 'The Brexit Club') and could come unstuck with one of those.
One possibility I'm picking up is that Farage's desire to micromanage and control everything personally - see his fantasy claims about how "the Party now belongs to the members", whilst making the route to challenge him practically impossible.
It will be interesting to see how the Council leaders are appointed in RefUK controlled Councils. In Notts they seem to be going round in circles still.
These are organisations with tens of thousands of staff.
RefUK will need heavily to rely on the professional officers they have been demonising in their rhetoric.
Labour are most vulnerable to losing huge amounts of seats outside of the major cities .
Major cities have a firewall of sorts given the demographics.
Talking of demographics, I presume that, as Commonwealth citizens, Indian temporary workers will be able to vote in the next GE.
As they will be predominantly Hindus isn't that historically good news for the Conservatives?
Probably the Tories best demographic now as the Uxbridge by-election and particularly the Harrow East GE result atest.
When Sunak was leader
Hmm, I just can't see (Apologies for the stereotyping) the middle class Hindu family GP going anywhere else - certainly not to Reform. Though Blackman is a very good MP from all I've heard too, which probably helped.
There is English (and Welsh) law. Scots Law. Northern Ireland, Isle of Man and the Channel Islands have their own laws which makes it reasonable(?) to have their own legislative bodies. But why Wales and the Senned? It's an outlier.
Off to find a tin hat.
Because Wales is part of England & Wales, which is a single state.
I mean we have the same legal system but the law of Wales is slowly diverging. For example, I wouldn’t feel as confident advising in respect of a Welsh construction project.
Before the year is out we shall see Reform on 35% and the Tories on 12%.
I'm not so sure. There are plenty of skeletons in RefUKs closet... Paper councilors are just the beginning of the problem. The problematic relationship with Russia and MAGA is still a question that has an answer that few will like. "Events" can still go very wrong indeed for Farage. So I don't see any value in jumping on NF Nigel's bandwagon just yet.
Chavs don't give a shit about Russia and, like almost everyone else, are bored of Ukraine. They also quite like DJT's flamboyant cruelty to minorities and general shithousery. Neither of things will hurt the Fukkers electorally.
What will is the bottomless pit of spite that Farage has where his soul should be causing the inevitable feuds, splits and banishments in the Fukker ranks. Also, he's quite fond of a get-rich-quick scheme marketed to gullible morons (remember his gold thing and 'The Brexit Club') and could come unstuck with one of those.
Yup, talking about chavs is definitely the way to go.
So there's potential that Wales may once again be an action learning experiment in advance of England, as it has been for certain other policies - 20mph speed limits and more uniform increased Council Tax for second homes for two.
Do we have any information on Reform UK policies for Wales in 2026?
Looking at RefUK Welsh Manifesto for Senedd elections in 2021, this strikes me as interesting:
That pledge was preserved unchanged into the RefUK 2024 Election for the UK, so I think will come back. It will be interesting to see if that makes it back into RefUK's proposals for the Senedd in 2026.
I don't believe that the Senedd has the power to set tax thresholds ... unless I missed something.
In theory they could set a rate of 0% for the first £7500 above the UK’s default tax allowance - they won’t be able to afford it though
Of course we can afford it if something else goes up. The problem is our politicians have become too frit to ever put anything up to the extent that they declare they won't for full terms in advance.
That's why I also linked the economic policy evaluation, which interestingly for the Welsh Election 2021 was an evaluation of the UK Economy.
The proposal was for tax take to be reduced by £48 billion (out of £750 billion) per annum.
Here are the base year costings - it's £83 billion of tax cuts offset by ~£34bn of increases. The big increases are £3.5 billion of Internet Sales Tax (that sounds like anti-catnip for Trump), and £30 billion of something called "Pension Credit Write Back", which I think is clawing money back from (poorer?) pensioners. My photo quota:
I can't find out what the Pension Credit Write Back is either. Seems very strange to be taking £30bn off one of their stronger target audiences. Also pension credit is about £6bn a year.
By the size of it perhaps it is cutting tax relief on pensions, which imo would be a good policy.
Pension tax relief cost £50bn in 2021/22 so that ties in to a 75% reduction costing £30bn based on 2019-20 numbers.
Whilst I support cutting pension tax relief, 75% seems way too much to cut.
Also if Reform aggressively cut pension tax relief they need to fix the income tax tapers as that is the common get out for higher earner facing the 100% marginal effective tax rates.
Thanks for helping clarify that.
It's worth remembering that that 2021 document was a Tice production, not Farage, and it started with paean to continuity:
Reform UK is not a new political party, rather we are the next phase in the evolution of what started as The Brexit Party. We are here because we see that there is a need to change. If Wales does not move forwards, we will move backwards on the world stage. Many of you put your trust in us in 2019, we are now asking you to do the same.
Before the year is out we shall see Reform on 35% and the Tories on 12%.
I'm not so sure. There are plenty of skeletons in RefUKs closet... Paper councilors are just the beginning of the problem. The problematic relationship with Russia and MAGA is still a question that has an answer that few will like. "Events" can still go very wrong indeed for Farage. So I don't see any value in jumping on NF Nigel's bandwagon just yet.
Chavs don't give a shit about Russia and, like almost everyone else, are bored of Ukraine. They also quite like DJT's flamboyant cruelty to minorities and general shithousery. Neither of things will hurt the Fukkers electorally.
What will is the bottomless pit of spite that Farage has where his soul should be causing the inevitable feuds, splits and banishments in the Fukker ranks. Also, he's quite fond of a get-rich-quick scheme marketed to gullible morons (remember his gold thing and 'The Brexit Club') and could come unstuck with one of those.
Yup, talking about chavs is definitely the way to go.
Before the year is out we shall see Reform on 35% and the Tories on 12%.
I'm not so sure. There are plenty of skeletons in RefUKs closet... Paper councilors are just the beginning of the problem. The problematic relationship with Russia and MAGA is still a question that has an answer that few will like. "Events" can still go very wrong indeed for Farage. So I don't see any value in jumping on NF Nigel's bandwagon just yet.
Chavs don't give a shit about Russia and, like almost everyone else, are bored of Ukraine. They also quite like DJT's flamboyant cruelty to minorities and general shithousery. Neither of things will hurt the Fukkers electorally.
What will is the bottomless pit of spite that Farage has where his soul should be causing the inevitable feuds, splits and banishments in the Fukker ranks. Also, he's quite fond of a get-rich-quick scheme marketed to gullible morons (remember his gold thing and 'The Brexit Club') and could come unstuck with one of those.
One possibility I'm picking up is that Farage's desire to micromanage and control everything personally - see his fantasy claims about how "the Party now belongs to the members", whilst making the route to challenge him practically impossible.
It will be interesting to see how the Council leaders are appointed in RefUK controlled Councils. In Notts they seem to be going round in circles still.
These are organisations with tens of thousands of staff.
RefUK will need heavily to rely on the professional officers they have been demonising in their rhetoric.
Missed a bit: "... control everything personally may make it tricky with 677 Councillors and 10 Councils"
There is English (and Welsh) law. Scots Law. Northern Ireland, Isle of Man and the Channel Islands have their own laws which makes it reasonable(?) to have their own legislative bodies. But why Wales and the Senned? It's an outlier.
Off to find a tin hat.
Because Wales is part of England & Wales, which is a single state.
I mean we have the same legal system but the law of Wales is slowly diverging. For example, I wouldn’t feel as confident advising in respect of a Welsh construction project.
I know of a good size (£0.4 Bn) Welsh project that's been err "indefinitely held up" cancelled due to our current planning system/high electricity prices.
Before the year is out we shall see Reform on 35% and the Tories on 12%.
I'm not so sure. There are plenty of skeletons in RefUKs closet... Paper councilors are just the beginning of the problem. The problematic relationship with Russia and MAGA is still a question that has an answer that few will like. "Events" can still go very wrong indeed for Farage. So I don't see any value in jumping on NF Nigel's bandwagon just yet.
Chavs don't give a shit about Russia and, like almost everyone else, are bored of Ukraine. They also quite like DJT's flamboyant cruelty to minorities and general shithousery. Neither of things will hurt the Fukkers electorally.
What will is the bottomless pit of spite that Farage has where his soul should be causing the inevitable feuds, splits and banishments in the Fukker ranks. Also, he's quite fond of a get-rich-quick scheme marketed to gullible morons (remember his gold thing and 'The Brexit Club') and could come unstuck with one of those.
One possibility I'm picking up is that Farage's desire to micromanage and control everything personally - see his fantasy claims about how "the Party now belongs to the members", whilst making the route to challenge him practically impossible.
It will be interesting to see how the Council leaders are appointed in RefUK controlled Councils. In Notts they seem to be going round in circles still.
These are organisations with tens of thousands of staff.
RefUK will need heavily to rely on the professional officers they have been demonising in their rhetoric.
Missed a bit: "... control everything personally may make it tricky with 677 Councillors and 10 Councils"
"In Notts they seem to be going round in circles still."
They've barely got their feet under the table here. My new Reform local councillor posted a vid saying she got her email address the other day and was doing induction.
Before the year is out we shall see Reform on 35% and the Tories on 12%.
I'm not so sure. There are plenty of skeletons in RefUKs closet... Paper councilors are just the beginning of the problem. The problematic relationship with Russia and MAGA is still a question that has an answer that few will like. "Events" can still go very wrong indeed for Farage. So I don't see any value in jumping on NF Nigel's bandwagon just yet.
Chavs don't give a shit about Russia and, like almost everyone else, are bored of Ukraine. They also quite like DJT's flamboyant cruelty to minorities and general shithousery. Neither of things will hurt the Fukkers electorally.
What will is the bottomless pit of spite that Farage has where his soul should be causing the inevitable feuds, splits and banishments in the Fukker ranks. Also, he's quite fond of a get-rich-quick scheme marketed to gullible morons (remember his gold thing and 'The Brexit Club') and could come unstuck with one of those.
One possibility I'm picking up is that Farage's desire to micromanage and control everything personally - see his fantasy claims about how "the Party now belongs to the members", whilst making the route to challenge him practically impossible.
It will be interesting to see how the Council leaders are appointed in RefUK controlled Councils. In Notts they seem to be going round in circles still.
These are organisations with tens of thousands of staff.
RefUK will need heavily to rely on the professional officers they have been demonising in their rhetoric.
Missed a bit: "... control everything personally may make it tricky with 677 Councillors and 10 Councils"
Reform are on an upswing, like Labour in 1918-23. Their record in local government/policies are not going to matter for some time.
Relegate Dirty Leeds, their team is as classy as their fans who are the worst fans in the world after the Welsh rugby team.
Leeds United midfielder Ethan Ampadu could face a Football Association investigation after leading a notorious chant about team-mate Wilfried Gnonto’s “massive” manhood during the club’s Championship-winning open-top bus parade.
Manager Daniel Farke was also caught on camera appearing to mime snorting cocaine as around 150,000 Leeds fans took to the streets on Bank Holiday Monday to celebrate the team’s Premier League return.
Footage of the two incidents were posted online, with Ampadu shown holding a microphone and singing to the tune of La Bamba, “Willy Gnonto, Willy Gnonto. He eats spaghetti, he drinks Moretti, his c---’s f------ massive.” He then added: “And I tell you what, it f------ is!”
Telegraph Sport has been told the FA is aware of the videos and will look into the matter.
Before the year is out we shall see Reform on 35% and the Tories on 12%.
The floor for the Tories is zero.
I'm not sure what constituency they speak to now. Maybe a praetorian guard of historical loyalists.
That's it.
Don't forget the people whose favourite colour is blue, they will be the last to leave.
The Tories will continue to exist in pockets, where local people still support local candidates. But outside of these warm glows its like the heat death of the Tory universe.
This new Deportation Bill they have published, with intellectual titans like Matt I Like Parmos Me Vickers banging the drum for it.
If you support these policies Matt then why didn't your government introduce them? They had long enough. And that seems to be the general response to the Badenoch I'm Tough Bill - meh. Too little too late.
This now becomes their problem. They can try and radiate heat and light. But they're so far away from the political mainstream that the voters barely notice.
Their only hope is to come up with something different. If they keep pushing further on immigration they may well persuade more people of their cause - but the logic of supporting that cause is now to vote Reform, not Conservative.
I am baffled that Conservative politicians cannot see the inevitability of this. Yes Jenrick will be better at the messaging than Badenoch, but that actually would lead to Reform gaining on the Conservatives faster than they are now!
Jenrick would be a brilliant leader of...Reform. I think the only way for the Conservatives to find some voters is to distinguish themselves from the MAGAism with someone affable and reasonable - Cleverly.
I don't think he can get them much more than 20%, but at least it's not extinction. My older relatives would be comfortable voting for him, even as a protest against Farage.
Cleverly is a nice guy but a big of an empty vessel.
There's no leader that can claw the Conservatives back right now, IMHO.
The one advantage that the Conservatives have is that, from the point of view of voters, despite everything, they remain a credible party of government. Many will struggle to see Farage/Reform in that light and will, ultimately, recoil from putting Nige into Number 10. Do we want our own version of Trump?
However, in order to leverage that, the Tories need a leader who looks "prime ministerial". Kemi simply doesn't. And that's why the MPs made a monumental blunder when they tried to game the leadership election and excluded Cleverly.
Their best bet now is to let Kemi take the heat for the next couple of years, as per IDS in 2001-3, and then have a coronation of Cleverly. What they can't do is have another leadership election as the members will vote for Jenrick in the mistaken belief that they can see off Reform by going rightwards. He will need to be talked out of standing by the men in grey suits.
The Tories require a reassuring, experienced leader, who contrasts with Farage and provides their core vote - centre right middle classes - with someone they feel comfortable with. That way they retain a parliamentary party and secure a future for themselves. Struggling to see an alternative path.
Relegate Dirty Leeds, their team is as classy as their fans who are the worst fans in the world after the Welsh rugby team.
Leeds United midfielder Ethan Ampadu could face a Football Association investigation after leading a notorious chant about team-mate Wilfried Gnonto’s “massive” manhood during the club’s Championship-winning open-top bus parade.
Manager Daniel Farke was also caught on camera appearing to mime snorting cocaine as around 150,000 Leeds fans took to the streets on Bank Holiday Monday to celebrate the team’s Premier League return.
Footage of the two incidents were posted online, with Ampadu shown holding a microphone and singing to the tune of La Bamba, “Willy Gnonto, Willy Gnonto. He eats spaghetti, he drinks Moretti, his c---’s f------ massive.” He then added: “And I tell you what, it f------ is!”
Telegraph Sport has been told the FA is aware of the videos and will look into the matter.
Relegate Dirty Leeds, their team is as classy as their fans who are the worst fans in the world after the Welsh rugby team.
Leeds United midfielder Ethan Ampadu could face a Football Association investigation after leading a notorious chant about team-mate Wilfried Gnonto’s “massive” manhood during the club’s Championship-winning open-top bus parade.
Manager Daniel Farke was also caught on camera appearing to mime snorting cocaine as around 150,000 Leeds fans took to the streets on Bank Holiday Monday to celebrate the team’s Premier League return.
Footage of the two incidents were posted online, with Ampadu shown holding a microphone and singing to the tune of La Bamba, “Willy Gnonto, Willy Gnonto. He eats spaghetti, he drinks Moretti, his c---’s f------ massive.” He then added: “And I tell you what, it f------ is!”
Telegraph Sport has been told the FA is aware of the videos and will look into the matter.
This perfectly encapsulates the problem with Keir Starmer. A couple of weeks ago he was proudly announcing the end of globalisation. This week he's proudly announcing tax cuts that will make it easier for Indian workers to take British jobs. It's utterly irrational politics."
Relegate Dirty Leeds, their team is as classy as their fans who are the worst fans in the world after the Welsh rugby team.
Leeds United midfielder Ethan Ampadu could face a Football Association investigation after leading a notorious chant about team-mate Wilfried Gnonto’s “massive” manhood during the club’s Championship-winning open-top bus parade.
Manager Daniel Farke was also caught on camera appearing to mime snorting cocaine as around 150,000 Leeds fans took to the streets on Bank Holiday Monday to celebrate the team’s Premier League return.
Footage of the two incidents were posted online, with Ampadu shown holding a microphone and singing to the tune of La Bamba, “Willy Gnonto, Willy Gnonto. He eats spaghetti, he drinks Moretti, his c---’s f------ massive.” He then added: “And I tell you what, it f------ is!”
Telegraph Sport has been told the FA is aware of the videos and will look into the matter.
Bitter angry nationalist scum, or Reform. What a choice.
Still the plan of changing the voting system will work on these numbers. Labour/ Plaid coalition.
Scum eh? You seem a tad bitter & angry yersel.
So long as RefCon are not running the show, I'm fine with a PC led Senedd.
But plaid offer the same sort of politics as reform. Insular, simple minded solutions to complicated problems. People may have come of some sort of false sense of security that they are kind and fluffy. But at the end of the day they are anti-english nationalists and not a lot of good will come from them
He's doing what public sector timeservers like him love doing, indeed fulfilling their raison d'etre - holding office and drawing a salary and its perks. The fact that few if any of his policies are working and most are actively harmful is irrelevant. When he almost quit after Hartlepool it was almost certainly because he looked unlikely ever to get the chance.
In the meantime, he has a huge majority where it counts and four more years till he needs to face the voters. Why would he quit?
There are reasons for Starmer to go and none for him to stay. Imo Starmer will retire early in the same way Harold Wilson did (and he will have seen Biden, Trump and Thatcher go on too long; Churchill too, as he will have seen on Netflix). He makes the odd verbal slip; he will not wish to lead Labour to a crunching defeat; in just a few weeks he will be our oldest prime minister since Mrs Thatcher; six of our last seven prime ministers served three years or less, which would take Starmer to 2027, two years out from a 2029 general election; he is not a natural politician and his ambition was to be Attorney General.
ETA none of the above involves Starmer being deposed. I imagine he will retire early but on his own terms.
Starmer is already the problem. I never thought I'd say this but gob on a stick Rayner might be the way to go. She could recover the left and attempt a coalition to defeat RefCon. Streeting takes the Labour Party to oblivion.
And for goodness sake find someone who has at least a fractional clue at communications.
Rayner has some things going for her. She is a woman, something that Labour have never tried before in a permanent leader. She is from a working class background and has made something of herself. In the negative column she is resolutely tribal. Hatred of Tories is fine but the best Labour leader of all time embraced the centre and built a coalition. He made it ok to vote labour for those Tories who happily voted for John Major in 1992. Its possible that she wouldn't need that many votes (see the splintered political landscape) but in truth I think she would be too divisive.
Bitter angry nationalist scum, or Reform. What a choice.
Still the plan of changing the voting system will work on these numbers. Labour/ Plaid coalition.
Scum eh? You seem a tad bitter & angry yersel.
So long as RefCon are not running the show, I'm fine with a PC led Senedd.
But plaid offer the same sort of politics as reform. Insular, simple minded solutions to complicated problems. People may have come of some sort of false sense of security that they are kind and fluffy. But at the end of the day they are anti-english nationalists and not a lot of good will come from them
Last time I voted PC they attempted a rainbow coalition with UKIP and the Tories, so you have a point.
He's doing what public sector timeservers like him love doing, indeed fulfilling their raison d'etre - holding office and drawing a salary and its perks. The fact that few if any of his policies are working and most are actively harmful is irrelevant. When he almost quit after Hartlepool it was almost certainly because he looked unlikely ever to get the chance.
In the meantime, he has a huge majority where it counts and four more years till he needs to face the voters. Why would he quit?
There are reasons for Starmer to go and none for him to stay. Imo Starmer will retire early in the same way Harold Wilson did (and he will have seen Biden, Trump and Thatcher go on too long; Churchill too, as he will have seen on Netflix). He makes the odd verbal slip; he will not wish to lead Labour to a crunching defeat; in just a few weeks he will be our oldest prime minister since Mrs Thatcher; six of our last seven prime ministers served three years or less, which would take Starmer to 2027, two years out from a 2029 general election; he is not a natural politician and his ambition was to be Attorney General.
ETA none of the above involves Starmer being deposed. I imagine he will retire early but on his own terms.
Starmer is already the problem. I never thought I'd say this but gob on a stick Rayner might be the way to go. She could recover the left and attempt a coalition to defeat RefCon. Streeting takes the Labour Party to oblivion.
And for goodness sake find someone who has at least a fractional clue at communications.
Rayner has some things going for her. She is a woman, something that Labour have never tried before in a permanent leader. She is from a working class background and has made something of herself. In the negative column she is resolutely tribal. Hatred of Tories is fine but the best Labour leader of all time embraced the centre and built a coalition. He made it ok to vote labour for those Tories who happily voted for John Major in 1992. Its possible that she wouldn't need that many votes (see the splintered political landscape) but in truth I think she would be too divisive.
Labour need to save their left flank to avoid extinction against a high flying RefCon.
So the Brexiters were saying we can make new trade deals and as soon as one arrives they don’t like it .
And of course the media has failed to report what the deal actually means and that we have the same social security arrangements with a host of countries .
So really why bother with new trade deals , it’s just not worth it .
One of the funniest "Sanjeev as Mr India" sketches in Goodness Gracious Me was when he was a contestant on Mastermind, and got all his questions wrong.
"Congratulations, Mr India. You have zero points!"
And then he replies:
"Zero = invented in India!"
What has India given to the world - a big fat Zero.
Before the year is out we shall see Reform on 35% and the Tories on 12%.
I'm not so sure. There are plenty of skeletons in RefUKs closet... Paper councilors are just the beginning of the problem. The problematic relationship with Russia and MAGA is still a question that has an answer that few will like. "Events" can still go very wrong indeed for Farage. So I don't see any value in jumping on NF Nigel's bandwagon just yet.
Chavs don't give a shit about Russia and, like almost everyone else, are bored of Ukraine. They also quite like DJT's flamboyant cruelty to minorities and general shithousery. Neither of things will hurt the Fukkers electorally.
What will is the bottomless pit of spite that Farage has where his soul should be causing the inevitable feuds, splits and banishments in the Fukker ranks. Also, he's quite fond of a get-rich-quick scheme marketed to gullible morons (remember his gold thing and 'The Brexit Club') and could come unstuck with one of those.
Yup, talking about chavs is definitely the way to go.
He's doing what public sector timeservers like him love doing, indeed fulfilling their raison d'etre - holding office and drawing a salary and its perks. The fact that few if any of his policies are working and most are actively harmful is irrelevant. When he almost quit after Hartlepool it was almost certainly because he looked unlikely ever to get the chance.
In the meantime, he has a huge majority where it counts and four more years till he needs to face the voters. Why would he quit?
There are reasons for Starmer to go and none for him to stay. Imo Starmer will retire early in the same way Harold Wilson did (and he will have seen Biden, Trump and Thatcher go on too long; Churchill too, as he will have seen on Netflix). He makes the odd verbal slip; he will not wish to lead Labour to a crunching defeat; in just a few weeks he will be our oldest prime minister since Mrs Thatcher; six of our last seven prime ministers served three years or less, which would take Starmer to 2027, two years out from a 2029 general election; he is not a natural politician and his ambition was to be Attorney General.
ETA none of the above involves Starmer being deposed. I imagine he will retire early but on his own terms.
Starmer is already the problem. I never thought I'd say this but gob on a stick Rayner might be the way to go. She could recover the left and attempt a coalition to defeat RefCon. Streeting takes the Labour Party to oblivion.
And for goodness sake find someone who has at least a fractional clue at communications.
Rayner has some things going for her. She is a woman, something that Labour have never tried before in a permanent leader. She is from a working class background and has made something of herself. In the negative column she is resolutely tribal. Hatred of Tories is fine but the best Labour leader of all time embraced the centre and built a coalition. He made it ok to vote labour for those Tories who happily voted for John Major in 1992. Its possible that she wouldn't need that many votes (see the splintered political landscape) but in truth I think she would be too divisive.
Labour need to save their left flank to avoid extinction against a high flying RefCon.
You don't do that by turning hard. Its the same mistake the tories will make if they try to out reform reform.
There is English (and Welsh) law. Scots Law. Northern Ireland, Isle of Man and the Channel Islands have their own laws which makes it reasonable(?) to have their own legislative bodies. But why Wales and the Senned? It's an outlier.
Off to find a tin hat.
Because Wales is part of England & Wales, which is a single state.
E&W is not a state (well, not in 'nation or territory considered as an organized political community under one government' terms). I think jurisdiction is the official definition.
You’re right - the UK is the state and E&W, S and NI are all components thereof
Under a Conservative-Lib Dem coalition in 2012, the UK and Chile signed an agreement exempting temporary workers from social security contributions for *five* years
Not undercutting then, not undercutting now with India
He's doing what public sector timeservers like him love doing, indeed fulfilling their raison d'etre - holding office and drawing a salary and its perks. The fact that few if any of his policies are working and most are actively harmful is irrelevant. When he almost quit after Hartlepool it was almost certainly because he looked unlikely ever to get the chance.
In the meantime, he has a huge majority where it counts and four more years till he needs to face the voters. Why would he quit?
There are reasons for Starmer to go and none for him to stay. Imo Starmer will retire early in the same way Harold Wilson did (and he will have seen Biden, Trump and Thatcher go on too long; Churchill too, as he will have seen on Netflix). He makes the odd verbal slip; he will not wish to lead Labour to a crunching defeat; in just a few weeks he will be our oldest prime minister since Mrs Thatcher; six of our last seven prime ministers served three years or less, which would take Starmer to 2027, two years out from a 2029 general election; he is not a natural politician and his ambition was to be Attorney General.
ETA none of the above involves Starmer being deposed. I imagine he will retire early but on his own terms.
Starmer is already the problem. I never thought I'd say this but gob on a stick Rayner might be the way to go. She could recover the left and attempt a coalition to defeat RefCon. Streeting takes the Labour Party to oblivion.
And for goodness sake find someone who has at least a fractional clue at communications.
Rayner has some things going for her. She is a woman, something that Labour have never tried before in a permanent leader. She is from a working class background and has made something of herself. In the negative column she is resolutely tribal. Hatred of Tories is fine but the best Labour leader of all time embraced the centre and built a coalition. He made it ok to vote labour for those Tories who happily voted for John Major in 1992. Its possible that she wouldn't need that many votes (see the splintered political landscape) but in truth I think she would be too divisive.
Labour need to save their left flank to avoid extinction against a high flying RefCon.
You don't do that by turning hard. Its the same mistake the tories will make if they try to out reform reform.
I don't believe Ange is particularly left wing these days, but she has an appeal to LD and Green switchers.
Irony is the Conservative Party ought to be joining Steve Baker, Dan Hannan in a victory lap. Conventional wisdom in 2016 was that an FTA with India and accession to CPTPP were pipe-dreams. They won!
The only version of Brexit which has turned out to be remotely coherent is shabby, autarkic decline with the young used as a trapped peon class to provide taxes and services for those in comfortable retirement.
Absolutely spot-on. Brexit has not been a roll of the dice by the desperate with nothing to lose. It has been a decision by those - the old with triple-locked pensions - with secure income able to indulge their luxury beliefs.
Under a Conservative-Lib Dem coalition in 2012, the UK and Chile signed an agreement exempting temporary workers from social security contributions for *five* years
Not undercutting then, not undercutting now with India
That argument will just get a frosty reception from Reform. And they will use it to say "It is not enough to kick Labour out, you have to punish the Tories too, they started this nonsense".
Why the hullabaloo about this policy? It doesn't make sense for a worker on a temporary intracompany transfer to pay into two social security systems at the same time. This policy is designed to boost services trade with a large, fast growing economy. If there ever was a Brexit dividend, being able to negotiate these kinds of deal is it - remember the Brexiteers telling us we couldn't tie ourselves to sclerotic Europe, we needed deals with the Commonwealth, we needed to focus on our advantages in services... The fact that Farage lobbied for Brexit and is now up in arms about this is indicative of what a charlatan he is.
If this is a Brexit dividend, how come we were signing such deals with loads of other countries when we were in the EU? @Scott_xP linked to one with Chile from 2012 upthread
is this a remainer trying to claim a trade deal with India is a Brexit dividend, and a brexiter saying it isn't?
world turned upside down
Hah. I’ve noticed similar weirdness. The people cheering on this deal are either hardcore Labour Remainers or hardcore Tory brexiteers - Hannan and Lilico etc
Quite bizarre
After a decent night’s sleep, despite my cold, I reckon the deal is potentially bad for British workers - but it’s hard to work out HOW bad. So much is still vague - I see no sign of these numerical caps. Does anyone?
At the same time it is clearly very very bad - potentially - for Labour. However they might just be saved by other bigger news - not least war in Kashmir - drowning it out. Or they might not
So the Brexiters were saying we can make new trade deals and as soon as one arrives they don’t like it .
And of course the media has failed to report what the deal actually means and that we have the same social security arrangements with a host of countries .
So really why bother with new trade deals , it’s just not worth it .
Dowden, Hannan and the Daily Telegraph leader are all on board.
However Farage isn't and that is all that matters on broadcast media.
He's doing what public sector timeservers like him love doing, indeed fulfilling their raison d'etre - holding office and drawing a salary and its perks. The fact that few if any of his policies are working and most are actively harmful is irrelevant. When he almost quit after Hartlepool it was almost certainly because he looked unlikely ever to get the chance.
In the meantime, he has a huge majority where it counts and four more years till he needs to face the voters. Why would he quit?
There are reasons for Starmer to go and none for him to stay. Imo Starmer will retire early in the same way Harold Wilson did (and he will have seen Biden, Trump and Thatcher go on too long; Churchill too, as he will have seen on Netflix). He makes the odd verbal slip; he will not wish to lead Labour to a crunching defeat; in just a few weeks he will be our oldest prime minister since Mrs Thatcher; six of our last seven prime ministers served three years or less, which would take Starmer to 2027, two years out from a 2029 general election; he is not a natural politician and his ambition was to be Attorney General.
ETA none of the above involves Starmer being deposed. I imagine he will retire early but on his own terms.
Starmer is already the problem. I never thought I'd say this but gob on a stick Rayner might be the way to go. She could recover the left and attempt a coalition to defeat RefCon. Streeting takes the Labour Party to oblivion.
And for goodness sake find someone who has at least a fractional clue at communications.
Rayner has some things going for her. She is a woman, something that Labour have never tried before in a permanent leader. She is from a working class background and has made something of herself. In the negative column she is resolutely tribal. Hatred of Tories is fine but the best Labour leader of all time embraced the centre and built a coalition. He made it ok to vote labour for those Tories who happily voted for John Major in 1992. Its possible that she wouldn't need that many votes (see the splintered political landscape) but in truth I think she would be too divisive.
Labour need to save their left flank to avoid extinction against a high flying RefCon.
I don't want Rayner but there's a definite point here. If we're fracturing into multi parties between 10/30% it could become mainly about getting a base out for you rather than the tried and tested 'winning from the centre'.
He's doing what public sector timeservers like him love doing, indeed fulfilling their raison d'etre - holding office and drawing a salary and its perks. The fact that few if any of his policies are working and most are actively harmful is irrelevant. When he almost quit after Hartlepool it was almost certainly because he looked unlikely ever to get the chance.
In the meantime, he has a huge majority where it counts and four more years till he needs to face the voters. Why would he quit?
There are reasons for Starmer to go and none for him to stay. Imo Starmer will retire early in the same way Harold Wilson did (and he will have seen Biden, Trump and Thatcher go on too long; Churchill too, as he will have seen on Netflix). He makes the odd verbal slip; he will not wish to lead Labour to a crunching defeat; in just a few weeks he will be our oldest prime minister since Mrs Thatcher; six of our last seven prime ministers served three years or less, which would take Starmer to 2027, two years out from a 2029 general election; he is not a natural politician and his ambition was to be Attorney General.
ETA none of the above involves Starmer being deposed. I imagine he will retire early but on his own terms.
Starmer is already the problem. I never thought I'd say this but gob on a stick Rayner might be the way to go. She could recover the left and attempt a coalition to defeat RefCon. Streeting takes the Labour Party to oblivion.
And for goodness sake find someone who has at least a fractional clue at communications.
Rayner has some things going for her. She is a woman, something that Labour have never tried before in a permanent leader. She is from a working class background and has made something of herself. In the negative column she is resolutely tribal. Hatred of Tories is fine but the best Labour leader of all time embraced the centre and built a coalition. He made it ok to vote labour for those Tories who happily voted for John Major in 1992. Its possible that she wouldn't need that many votes (see the splintered political landscape) but in truth I think she would be too divisive.
Labour need to save their left flank to avoid extinction against a high flying RefCon.
You don't do that by turning hard. Its the same mistake the tories will make if they try to out reform reform.
I don't believe Ange is particularly left wing these days, but she has an appeal to LD and Green switchers.
Both the last MoreInCommon and ElectoralCalculus MRPs currently have Rayner loosing her seat. She'd have to fight a rearguard action for her seat as well as fighting for the country.
Under a Conservative-Lib Dem coalition in 2012, the UK and Chile signed an agreement exempting temporary workers from social security contributions for *five* years
Not undercutting then, not undercutting now with India
5 years seems a very elastic definition of "temporary".
If you live and work in another country why shouldn't you pay the same taxes as everyone else?
Because if you’re a temporary worker you don’t want to lose out on contributions in your home country as that affects your pension entitlement. This type of arrangement is common but the media have decided to just regurgitate Farage and Kemi’s lies .
Irony is the Conservative Party ought to be joining Steve Baker, Dan Hannan in a victory lap. Conventional wisdom in 2016 was that an FTA with India and accession to CPTPP were pipe-dreams. They won!
The only version of Brexit which has turned out to be remotely coherent is shabby, autarkic decline with the young used as a trapped peon class to provide taxes and services for those in comfortable retirement.
Absolutely spot-on. Brexit has not been a roll of the dice by the desperate with nothing to lose. It has been a decision by those - the old with triple-locked pensions - with secure income able to indulge their luxury beliefs.
Yep, special place in hell for affluent old leave voters. They're the pits.
Under a Conservative-Lib Dem coalition in 2012, the UK and Chile signed an agreement exempting temporary workers from social security contributions for *five* years
Not undercutting then, not undercutting now with India
5 years seems a very elastic definition of "temporary".
If you live and work in another country why shouldn't you pay the same taxes as everyone else?
If I go to France and work one day there, would it be sensible to have a system where I have to pay taxes while there? No. It's clearly silly taxing short visits. On the other hand, 5 years, as you say, seems very long. So what's a sensible intermediate time period?
Under a Conservative-Lib Dem coalition in 2012, the UK and Chile signed an agreement exempting temporary workers from social security contributions for *five* years
Not undercutting then, not undercutting now with India
Comments
Major cities have a firewall of sorts given the demographics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHb52ditx-4&t=2194s
I feel that to be truly safe, the incumbent needs to exceed 50% of the vote. No Tory seat meets that criterion. It didn't help them much at the last GE either. I think the Tories could lose any seat on current polling, but they will not lose every seat as it will depend on the FPTP crapshoot locally and some will survive with a bit of luck and a split vote like IDS did last time.
I hadn't looked at Labour, they may be better placed in London and similar seats due to a lack of an obvious challenger from the left. But still not many, so yes, only 150 seats in total being 'safe' is probably an overestimate
There is huge discontent with the government (not just Labour but the last two decades).
The primary reason (there are many) is around immigration, especially foreigners getting a perceived better deal than Brits.
Farage and Reform have just had a massive win and are currently easy headlines for the media whether social or traditional.
This story plays into all three, fairly or unfairly. It is obviously going to create hullabaloo. Why were Labour, yet again, unprepared?
What Labour need urgently is a really good spin doctor, who can think like Reform/Farage, and help completely change their communication approach as well as influence policy if there are clear own goals coming up.
Or if by "the demographics" you mean Muslim voters, look at the rise of independent candidates. Sunil's MP, Wes Streeting, held on by just 500 votes.
It's tempting from my POV to think the number of safe seats is 'rather a lot'. No way Wythenshawe and Sale East isn't staying Lab. Nor Manchester Central. But just within Manchester: Withington could conceivably go Lib Dem; Rusholme might be vulnerable to the Islamogreenlefty extremes - though more likely this vote will splinter allowing Lab through the middle - and Blackley and Middleton South looks potentially Reformy. Seems a stretch, but Altrincham and Sale West could go back to the Tories. Stretford and Urmston will probably stay Lab for want of any obvious
challenger.
Like the Tories in 2024, they are fighting on a challenging number of fronts.
(Personally I think three years is to long for such a supposedly “temporary” arrangement - I’d be interested to know what the time limits are on our agreements with other countries.)
What will is the bottomless pit of spite that Farage has where his soul should be causing the inevitable feuds, splits and banishments in the Fukker ranks. Also, he's quite fond of a get-rich-quick scheme marketed to gullible morons (remember his gold thing and 'The Brexit Club') and could come unstuck with one of those.
The proposal was for tax take to be reduced by £48 billion (out of £750 billion) per annum.
Here are the base year costings - it's £83 billion of tax cuts offset by ~£34bn of increases. The big increases are £3.5 billion of Internet Sales Tax (that sounds like anti-catnip for Trump), and £30 billion of something called "Pension Credit Write Back", which I think is clawing money back from (poorer?) pensioners. My photo quota:
https://web.archive.org/web/20210614082024/https://www.reformparty.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/ReformUK-Economic-Plan.pdf
world turned upside down
I think big city MPs on Labour's left like Nadia Whittome are probably safest at the next GE tbh.
By Henry Hill"
https://unherd.com/newsroom/why-is-keir-starmer-giving-tax-breaks-to-indian-workers/
India is a) huge (~20x our population) and b) much poorer than the UK (~1/20 our GDP/capita). It’s reasonable to ask whether the UK government has really thought through the consequences of this agreement given these imbalances.
Reform making gains in Wales as well as England will boost Farage's path to No 10
They lost 9 out of 10.
The Lib Dems will all be singing "Let's twist again like Davey in '97", to dig themselves in locally.
Otherwise the Tories best bet may be PR ironically
By the size of it perhaps it is cutting tax relief on pensions, which imo would be a good policy.
"Farage's £30 billion pension raid".
The give them their due, the other tax proposals are by far the most interesting of the parties, and in line with the tentative PB consensus on how to alter the tax burden.
"Congratulations, Mr India. You have zero points!"
And then he replies:
"Zero = invented in India!"
Whilst I support cutting pension tax relief, 75% seems way too much to cut.
https://x.com/timmyvoe/status/1857833731337211929?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
It will be interesting to see how the Council leaders are appointed in RefUK controlled Councils. In Notts they seem to be going round in circles still.
These are organisations with tens of thousands of staff.
RefUK will need heavily to rely on the professional officers they have been demonising in their rhetoric.
It's worth remembering that that 2021 document was a Tice production, not Farage, and it started with paean to continuity:
Reform UK is not a new political party, rather we are the next phase in the evolution of what started as The Brexit Party. We are here because we see that there is a need to change. If Wales does not move forwards, we will move backwards on the world stage. Many of you put your trust in us in 2019, we are now asking you to do the same.
Details in private message to yourself
They've barely got their feet under the table here. My new Reform local councillor posted a vid saying she got her email address the other day and was doing induction.
What specific hold ups have you heard about >?
Still the plan of changing the voting system will work on these numbers. Labour/ Plaid coalition.
Leeds United midfielder Ethan Ampadu could face a Football Association investigation after leading a notorious chant about team-mate Wilfried Gnonto’s “massive” manhood during the club’s Championship-winning open-top bus parade.
Manager Daniel Farke was also caught on camera appearing to mime snorting cocaine as around 150,000 Leeds fans took to the streets on Bank Holiday Monday to celebrate the team’s Premier League return.
Footage of the two incidents were posted online, with Ampadu shown holding a microphone and singing to the tune of La Bamba, “Willy Gnonto, Willy Gnonto. He eats spaghetti, he drinks Moretti, his c---’s f------ massive.” He then added: “And I tell you what, it f------ is!”
Telegraph Sport has been told the FA is aware of the videos and will look into the matter.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2025/05/06/ethan-ampadu-chant-leeds-celebrations-farke-gnonto/
However, in order to leverage that, the Tories need a leader who looks "prime ministerial". Kemi simply doesn't. And that's why the MPs made a monumental blunder when they tried to game the leadership election and excluded Cleverly.
Their best bet now is to let Kemi take the heat for the next couple of years, as per IDS in 2001-3, and then have a coronation of Cleverly. What they can't do is have another leadership election as the members will vote for Jenrick in the mistaken belief that they can see off Reform by going rightwards. He will need to be talked out of standing by the men in grey suits.
The Tories require a reassuring, experienced leader, who contrasts with Farage and provides their core vote - centre right middle classes - with someone they feel comfortable with. That way they retain a parliamentary party and secure a future for themselves. Struggling to see an alternative path.
You seem a tad bitter & angry yersel.
If Kemi had said nothing and Farage had gone on the attack you would have criticised her for being invisible
Good morning, everybody.
And of course the media has failed to report what the deal actually means and that we have the same social security arrangements with a host of countries .
So really why bother with new trade deals , it’s just not worth it .
Up the Reform!
If you live and work in another country why shouldn't you pay the same taxes as everyone else?
Irony is the Conservative Party ought to be joining Steve Baker, Dan Hannan in a victory lap. Conventional wisdom in 2016 was that an FTA with India and accession to CPTPP were pipe-dreams. They won!
@duncanrobinson.bsky.social
story of British politics for the past decade is people getting what they want and then fucking *hating* it
@gabrielmilland.bsky.social
The only version of Brexit which has turned out to be remotely coherent is shabby, autarkic decline with the young used as a trapped peon class to provide taxes and services for those in comfortable retirement.
@alastairmeeks.bsky.social
Absolutely spot-on. Brexit has not been a roll of the dice by the desperate with nothing to lose. It has been a decision by those - the old with triple-locked pensions - with secure income able to indulge their luxury beliefs.
Quite bizarre
After a decent night’s sleep, despite my cold, I reckon the deal is potentially bad for British workers - but it’s hard to work out HOW bad. So much is still vague - I see no sign of these numerical caps. Does anyone?
At the same time it is clearly very very bad - potentially - for Labour. However they might just be saved by other bigger news - not least war in Kashmir - drowning it out. Or they might not
However Farage isn't and that is all that matters on broadcast media.
Someone will stand up from govt and say along the lines of oh actually we have lots of these deals, and many foreign workers are exempted from tax.
And British workers will get even more annoyed.....