The problems caused by piling through junctions. This one is mainly the junction itself.
My new video. The junction at Bounds Green just now was INSANE! Note a car and then a truck go through here on a green man, then the traffic gets stuck. These two people get stuck in the middle. … 1/3
Then loads more cars get stuck in the middle on a green man. Sound up for my reaction and swears … 2/3
London's Ringway Network - the epitome of road schemes scuppered by the epitome of Nimbyism, back in the 1970s!
The Nimbies they could have dealt with. I think the real death blow to the Ringways scheme was the gigantic cost - once the Treasury came out against, it was never going to happen, especially after the 73-76 economic crisis.
Not sure it was nimbyism as such. The Ringway network would have meant the destruction of hundreds of houses, rather than the odd playing field.
Seems fairly simple, all 4 drivers that drove through the pedestrian crossing on a green man with pedestrians waiting to cross should get points. This happens regularly at a town centre pedestrian crossing near me, on occasion with far more aggressive, dangerous behaviour by drivers towards pedestrians trying to use the crossing on a green man. Drivers need to lose their licenses, no "their livelihood might be affected" leniency towards people endangering the health/life of others.
Regarding the parties at the next GE, I think the Tories probably only really have one more roll of the dice or one black swan event to stand a chance of recovery. I do think that they are going to wither and decline unless something very significant happens.
The reason I say this is because a sustained position of sitting behind Reform in the polls will aid in the transfer of core voters over to Reform. This process has already started, and it looks to have sped up after the locals. And I know that not all Tories are going to vote Reform, but for those “of the right” who want to back a winner and feel instinctively comfortable voting for a right wing party with a chance of power, it will be becoming harder to justify remaining with a party that sits in the high teens in the polls. Unless something stops this osmosis, it is hard to see those votes trickling back.
The roll of the dice is a change of leader. The current situation is not all Badenoch’s fault, but it seems very unlikely she can move on from the last government in a meaningful and impactful way. Ideally they could do with someone not tied to the weight of the past government, but that person is very challenging to find in a very limited MP pool, if they even exist.
The black swan event is Reform imploding. This is, id suggest, the Tories’ best hope. Farage has a history of falling out with people, and not being particularly well disciplined.
Reform imploding is more of a known unknown, than a black swan.
We know there’s a non-trivial risk that it will happen, but we don’t know if it will, or when it will.
If it happened, then the Conservatives would be up to 30% +, and back in the game.
If not, they’ll go the way of Les Republicans, the Dutch Christian Democrats, the Whigs, and Never Trump Republicans.
Reform is already Farage Party v3. If they implode - lets say are put into significant financial difficulties - they'll just get replaced by Farage Party v4.
People Want Change. They're not going to go back to the Tories.
Without Farage Reform would be back to the 10-15% they were under when led by Tice
I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone's that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else. If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S. Thank your for your attention to this matter!
Does the prat not realise that it will still be cheaper for Apple to manufacture in India ?
The European Union, which was formed for the primary purpose of taking advantage of the United States on TRADE, has been very difficult to deal with. Their powerful Trade Barriers, Vat Taxes, ridiculous Corporate Penalties, Non-Monetary Trade Barriers, Monetary Manipulations, unfair and unjustified lawsuits against Americans Companies, and more, have led to a Trade Deficit with the U.S. of more than $250,000,000 a year, a number which is totally unacceptable. Our discussions with them are going nowhere! Therefore, I am recommending a straight 50% Tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1, 2025. There is no Tariff if the product is built or manufactured in the United States. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
The EU should offer the Mad King a brand new Airbus instead of a very old Boeing
Apparently Qatar has been trying to get rid of that old Boeing 747 for years and no-one wants to buy it even at a token price. The maintenance cost is just too high compared with other planes you might acquire. An act of genius to pass off an almost literal white elephant as a massive bribe, so as to appeal to Trump's vanity.
What's Trump doing - has he bought a whole bunch of Samsung shares or something ?
It's on the tip of my tongue, but it still eludes me...
Who was the great economic thinker who argued that decisions about what individual companies should produce, in which factory, and where, were choices best made by the government as part of their central plan? https://x.com/JustinWolfers/status/1925893811684716798
25% tax on Apple products while singling out the CEO by name for retribution, 50% tax on European goods, expulsion of foreign students, bill passed with most debt in history, while hosting a dinner for people who gave you $300+ million. All in the last 24 hours.
My rant isn't about Chagos but Lidl - no, not another part of the old Empire we're paying someone else to take on...
Our local Lidl has decided to "take action" against shoplifting which, it appears, with security and barcode gates, is still a problem.
They've increased the number of self-service tills from 20 to 24 but the new ones are much smaller so if there's two or three of you with a basket you're basically blocking not only the area around you but opposite as well.
Now, you have (officially) to scan your receipt to get out of the self-service area. What was happening was the shoplifters were taking what they want, standing patiently in the queue to be called forward and then walking through, out the other side and out the store past the security guard who in my view couldn't win a 100m race against an arthritic snail.
Lidl's solution would be fine except of course the gate to allow you out of the self service area stays open so long the entire Reform Parliamentary Party could get through it before it closes so that won't stop the shoplifting at busy times. Lidl have probably spent thousands on this but it's a waste and actually makes the shopping experience worse. Kudos.
Transport for London are trying new stronger gates at East Ham station - they've obviously worked out the main evaders are aged and infirm Lidl security guards and against them the new gates are superb. My experience is evaders are much younger and still able to push their way through.
None of that nonsense at Waitrose, just saying.
Nor the Co-op or Marks and Spencers ....there's nothing on the shelves.
I don’t really have any interest in, nor pretend to have read up on or understood the Chagos deal
But I do trust John Rentoul not to be a reactionary critic of Keir Starmer. I like to read him because I think he is quite balanced, and…
This is a deal that will weigh Starmer down for the rest of his time in politics. It is like Gordon Brown “selling the gold”. Actually, it is worse, because selling the gold was a sensible decision: the government should not be speculating in precious metals on behalf of citizens – it was simply bad luck that the price went up afterwards.
The Chagos deal, though, looks like a bad deal, and nothing Starmer can say can persuade people otherwise.
This month, the prime minister has secured four international deals. The trade deals with India, the US and the EU were triumphs in the national interest that will make us better off; but they will be overshadowed by an indefensible deal with Mauritius.
Labour will be happy enough if it's like selling the gold. They won the next two GEs after that.
If the public were willing to return Tone with a Boris-esque majority after an issue like Iraq, I can't see Chagos having much of an impact. Sir Keir is no Tone of course, but equally Kemi is no Michael Howard.
2005 was a bit like 2024 as a bit of a lopsided victory (small popular vote share but large majority). I think Blair was flattered by the fact that the main opposition party had supported the war, and he was still riding relatively high on the benign economic circumstances.
Similarly if the economy is doing better under Starmer in 2029 then he may well get another go, and things like Chagos aren’t going to mean much. It means much more when a negative narrative sets in.
The EU should offer the Mad King a brand new Airbus instead of a very old Boeing
Apparently Qatar has been trying to get rid of that old Boeing 747 for years and no-one wants to buy it even at a token price. The maintenance cost is just too high compared with other planes you might acquire. An act of genius to pass off an almost literal white elephant as a massive bribe, so as to appeal to Trump's vanity.
Acquaintance of mine owns Gaddafi’s old 747 - been stuck in the hanger in Texas for years as too expensive to take out for a spin
The EU should offer the Mad King a brand new Airbus instead of a very old Boeing
Apparently Qatar has been trying to get rid of that old Boeing 747 for years and no-one wants to buy it even at a token price. The maintenance cost is just too high compared with other planes you might acquire. An act of genius to pass off an almost literal white elephant as a massive bribe, so as to appeal to Trump's vanity.
But Trump is going to spend many hundreds of millions fixing it before it gets handed on to his presidential library. Obviously.
That it's a rotten idea for the US, both financially and morally, doesn't bother him in the least
I don’t really have any interest in, nor pretend to have read up on or understood the Chagos deal
But I do trust John Rentoul not to be a reactionary critic of Keir Starmer. I like to read him because I think he is quite balanced, and…
This is a deal that will weigh Starmer down for the rest of his time in politics. It is like Gordon Brown “selling the gold”. Actually, it is worse, because selling the gold was a sensible decision: the government should not be speculating in precious metals on behalf of citizens – it was simply bad luck that the price went up afterwards.
The Chagos deal, though, looks like a bad deal, and nothing Starmer can say can persuade people otherwise.
This month, the prime minister has secured four international deals. The trade deals with India, the US and the EU were triumphs in the national interest that will make us better off; but they will be overshadowed by an indefensible deal with Mauritius.
I'd say that people who take an interest in foreign affairs tend to have two questions, regardless of the niceties of international law.
1. Is it in the national interest? 2. Is it morally right?
1. Most people can't really see what the national interest is in doing this deal
2. Most people who are worried about the morality of it, are concerned for the Chagossians, who neither the US, the UK, nor Mauritius care about in the slightest.
Those who think in terms of historic wrongs, think that a wrong was committed to the inhabitants, not to Mauritius.
I'd imagine 'most people' would exhaust their entire knowledge of the deal in about 12 seconds.
Selling the gold was a little more easy to imagine. Similarly why fishing is given out of proportion coverage in dealings with the EU - it's easier to visualise 'our fish/their fisherman', than issues that importers/exporters have with increased paperwork.
The amounts involved, and the actual consequences of the deal, will have approximately zero effect on anyone's lives in the UK, and I'd be amazed if the vast majority of voters even remember it by the time of the next election.
The lingering contempt for Gordon Brown in some quarters decades later for selling the gold baffles me. After ten years of gold prices flatlining Treasury officials recommended other investments might perform better, a recommendation Brown accepted. At which point the gold price soared. OK, he, or really his advisors as we shouldn't expect a Chancellor to be an expert in securities, got their timing wrong. Who hasn't in their life done the same?
I don’t really have any interest in, nor pretend to have read up on or understood the Chagos deal
But I do trust John Rentoul not to be a reactionary critic of Keir Starmer. I like to read him because I think he is quite balanced, and…
This is a deal that will weigh Starmer down for the rest of his time in politics. It is like Gordon Brown “selling the gold”. Actually, it is worse, because selling the gold was a sensible decision: the government should not be speculating in precious metals on behalf of citizens – it was simply bad luck that the price went up afterwards.
The Chagos deal, though, looks like a bad deal, and nothing Starmer can say can persuade people otherwise.
This month, the prime minister has secured four international deals. The trade deals with India, the US and the EU were triumphs in the national interest that will make us better off; but they will be overshadowed by an indefensible deal with Mauritius.
I'd say that people who take an interest in foreign affairs tend to have two questions, regardless of the niceties of international law.
1. Is it in the national interest? 2. Is it morally right?
1. Most people can't really see what the national interest is in doing this deal
2. Most people who are worried about the morality of it, are concerned for the Chagossians, who neither the US, the UK, nor Mauritius care about in the slightest.
Those who think in terms of historic wrongs, think that a wrong was committed to the inhabitants, not to Mauritius.
I'd imagine 'most people' would exhaust their entire knowledge of the deal in about 12 seconds.
Selling the gold was a little more easy to imagine. Similarly why fishing is given out of proportion coverage in dealings with the EU - it's easier to visualise 'our fish/their fisherman', than issues that importers/exporters have with increased paperwork.
The amounts involved, and the actual consequences of the deal, will have approximately zero effect on anyone's lives in the UK, and I'd be amazed if the vast majority of voters even remember it by the time of the next election.
The lingering contempt for Gordon Brown in some quarters decades later for selling the gold baffles me. After ten years of gold prices flatlining Treasury officials recommended other investments might perform better, a recommendation Brown accepted. At which point the gold price soared. OK, he, or really his advisors as we shouldn't expect a Chancellor to be an expert in securities, got their timing wrong. Who hasn't in their life done the same?
It's because gold is seen as something we should be acquiring rather than selling. See also 'selling the family silver'.
I don’t really have any interest in, nor pretend to have read up on or understood the Chagos deal
But I do trust John Rentoul not to be a reactionary critic of Keir Starmer. I like to read him because I think he is quite balanced, and…
This is a deal that will weigh Starmer down for the rest of his time in politics. It is like Gordon Brown “selling the gold”. Actually, it is worse, because selling the gold was a sensible decision: the government should not be speculating in precious metals on behalf of citizens – it was simply bad luck that the price went up afterwards.
The Chagos deal, though, looks like a bad deal, and nothing Starmer can say can persuade people otherwise.
This month, the prime minister has secured four international deals. The trade deals with India, the US and the EU were triumphs in the national interest that will make us better off; but they will be overshadowed by an indefensible deal with Mauritius.
Labour will be happy enough if it's like selling the gold. They won the next two GEs after that.
Crikey, you have become the hardest working spinner since Muralitharan
Hardly. I'm unaligned like you.
Anyway, just back from swimming and I dropped into the club cafe afterwards. Chagos was being discussed there, so it looks like it has cut through. But not in quite the way you'd imagine from reading posts on here.
There was actually a lot of support for the deal down there. The sentiment I kept picking up, expressed in various ways, was "I trust Keir on these sorts of things". There were a couple of dissenting voices, but they were shouted down.
I don’t really have any interest in, nor pretend to have read up on or understood the Chagos deal
But I do trust John Rentoul not to be a reactionary critic of Keir Starmer. I like to read him because I think he is quite balanced, and…
This is a deal that will weigh Starmer down for the rest of his time in politics. It is like Gordon Brown “selling the gold”. Actually, it is worse, because selling the gold was a sensible decision: the government should not be speculating in precious metals on behalf of citizens – it was simply bad luck that the price went up afterwards.
The Chagos deal, though, looks like a bad deal, and nothing Starmer can say can persuade people otherwise.
This month, the prime minister has secured four international deals. The trade deals with India, the US and the EU were triumphs in the national interest that will make us better off; but they will be overshadowed by an indefensible deal with Mauritius.
I'd say that people who take an interest in foreign affairs tend to have two questions, regardless of the niceties of international law.
1. Is it in the national interest? 2. Is it morally right?
1. Most people can't really see what the national interest is in doing this deal
2. Most people who are worried about the morality of it, are concerned for the Chagossians, who neither the US, the UK, nor Mauritius care about in the slightest.
Those who think in terms of historic wrongs, think that a wrong was committed to the inhabitants, not to Mauritius.
I'd imagine 'most people' would exhaust their entire knowledge of the deal in about 12 seconds.
Selling the gold was a little more easy to imagine. Similarly why fishing is given out of proportion coverage in dealings with the EU - it's easier to visualise 'our fish/their fisherman', than issues that importers/exporters have with increased paperwork.
The amounts involved, and the actual consequences of the deal, will have approximately zero effect on anyone's lives in the UK, and I'd be amazed if the vast majority of voters even remember it by the time of the next election.
The lingering contempt for Gordon Brown in some quarters decades later for selling the gold baffles me. After ten years of gold prices flatlining Treasury officials recommended other investments might perform better, a recommendation Brown accepted. At which point the gold price soared. OK, he, or really his advisors as we shouldn't expect a Chancellor to be an expert in securities, got their timing wrong. Who hasn't in their life done the same?
The stupidity in the action was this - They pre-announced they were dumping tons of gold onto the market. Which crashed the market. They then sold at the bottom. As if they really, really wanted to lose money.
Some gold producing countries (such as South Africa) actually thought this was a deliberate attack on them. That’s how weird it was.
If I crashed a commodity on the exchange like that I would be investigated.
The reason that they did this was that Brown had shutdown the Bank Of England gold unit, that handled the nations gold reserve. They would buy and sell, making a small profit, for all the many years of their existence. When the bank decided they needed more or less gold, they handled it. Without crashing the market.
I don’t really have any interest in, nor pretend to have read up on or understood the Chagos deal
But I do trust John Rentoul not to be a reactionary critic of Keir Starmer. I like to read him because I think he is quite balanced, and…
This is a deal that will weigh Starmer down for the rest of his time in politics. It is like Gordon Brown “selling the gold”. Actually, it is worse, because selling the gold was a sensible decision: the government should not be speculating in precious metals on behalf of citizens – it was simply bad luck that the price went up afterwards.
The Chagos deal, though, looks like a bad deal, and nothing Starmer can say can persuade people otherwise.
This month, the prime minister has secured four international deals. The trade deals with India, the US and the EU were triumphs in the national interest that will make us better off; but they will be overshadowed by an indefensible deal with Mauritius.
Labour will be happy enough if it's like selling the gold. They won the next two GEs after that.
Crikey, you have become the hardest working spinner since Muralitharan
Hardly. I'm unaligned like you.
Anyway, just back from swimming and I dropped into the club cafe afterwards. Chagos was being discussed there, so it looks like it has cut through. But not in quite the way you'd imagine from reading posts on here.
There was actually a lot of support for the deal down there. The sentiment I kept picking up, expressed in various ways, was "I trust Keir on these sorts of things". There were a couple of dissenting voices, but they were shouted down.
I hope you didn’t shout too loud, could come across as hectoring
25% tax on Apple products while singling out the CEO by name for retribution, 50% tax on European goods, expulsion of foreign students, bill passed with most debt in history, while hosting a dinner for people who gave you $300+ million. All in the last 24 hours.
Europe is stuck between a rock and a hard place at the moment. There is a real danger they decide to hedge their bets by increasing ties with China.
That would not turn out well for Europe (including us) - or the US.
China again asked the Netherlands to relax semiconductor export restrictions, said Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Caspar VeldKamp after a meeting in Beijing, Bloomberg reports. Semiconductors and "the policy regarding export controls and export licensing" are a "topic of continuous discussion," Veldkamp reportedly said. The Netherlands is home to ASML, the world’s only maker of key lithography equipment for advanced semiconductor production, as well as a number of other key firms... https://x.com/dnystedt/status/1925729626585784493
I don’t really have any interest in, nor pretend to have read up on or understood the Chagos deal
But I do trust John Rentoul not to be a reactionary critic of Keir Starmer. I like to read him because I think he is quite balanced, and…
This is a deal that will weigh Starmer down for the rest of his time in politics. It is like Gordon Brown “selling the gold”. Actually, it is worse, because selling the gold was a sensible decision: the government should not be speculating in precious metals on behalf of citizens – it was simply bad luck that the price went up afterwards.
The Chagos deal, though, looks like a bad deal, and nothing Starmer can say can persuade people otherwise.
This month, the prime minister has secured four international deals. The trade deals with India, the US and the EU were triumphs in the national interest that will make us better off; but they will be overshadowed by an indefensible deal with Mauritius.
I'd say that people who take an interest in foreign affairs tend to have two questions, regardless of the niceties of international law.
1. Is it in the national interest? 2. Is it morally right?
1. Most people can't really see what the national interest is in doing this deal
2. Most people who are worried about the morality of it, are concerned for the Chagossians, who neither the US, the UK, nor Mauritius care about in the slightest.
Those who think in terms of historic wrongs, think that a wrong was committed to the inhabitants, not to Mauritius.
I'd imagine 'most people' would exhaust their entire knowledge of the deal in about 12 seconds.
Selling the gold was a little more easy to imagine. Similarly why fishing is given out of proportion coverage in dealings with the EU - it's easier to visualise 'our fish/their fisherman', than issues that importers/exporters have with increased paperwork.
The amounts involved, and the actual consequences of the deal, will have approximately zero effect on anyone's lives in the UK, and I'd be amazed if the vast majority of voters even remember it by the time of the next election.
The lingering contempt for Gordon Brown in some quarters decades later for selling the gold baffles me. After ten years of gold prices flatlining Treasury officials recommended other investments might perform better, a recommendation Brown accepted. At which point the gold price soared. OK, he, or really his advisors as we shouldn't expect a Chancellor to be an expert in securities, got their timing wrong. Who hasn't in their life done the same?
It's because gold is seen as something we should be acquiring rather than selling. See also 'selling the family silver'.
Because the execution was terrible
And because the narrative stuck, fair or not (cf “black Wednesday was a disaster for the uk economy”)
The unknown for the next locals in my eyes is what happens on the Left.
Corbyn and the Gaza Independents were taking baby steps towards moving closer, but I don't know if there is a limit to how far that will go. If they seal the deal as a Momentum / Solidarity type party, it made no sense to do it this year with the upper tier counties majoring. A launch very early next year on the other hand ahead of London and the 16 all up metros would be the optimal moment.
The question then is how would the Greens react. I think there would be a lot of agreement over where candidates stand, but it would have to be pretty low key. The one way in which the delayed council elections did favour Labour is that the Green's will be going for Suffolk next year, and they cannot openly rock up with The Left and not get any kick back in the shires. And the remaining leader, Adrian Ramsay, is their Suffolk link - and in that occupying the facing the other way position that Liz Lynne used to occupy for the LDs.
I don’t really have any interest in, nor pretend to have read up on or understood the Chagos deal
But I do trust John Rentoul not to be a reactionary critic of Keir Starmer. I like to read him because I think he is quite balanced, and…
This is a deal that will weigh Starmer down for the rest of his time in politics. It is like Gordon Brown “selling the gold”. Actually, it is worse, because selling the gold was a sensible decision: the government should not be speculating in precious metals on behalf of citizens – it was simply bad luck that the price went up afterwards.
The Chagos deal, though, looks like a bad deal, and nothing Starmer can say can persuade people otherwise.
This month, the prime minister has secured four international deals. The trade deals with India, the US and the EU were triumphs in the national interest that will make us better off; but they will be overshadowed by an indefensible deal with Mauritius.
I'd say that people who take an interest in foreign affairs tend to have two questions, regardless of the niceties of international law.
1. Is it in the national interest? 2. Is it morally right?
1. Most people can't really see what the national interest is in doing this deal
2. Most people who are worried about the morality of it, are concerned for the Chagossians, who neither the US, the UK, nor Mauritius care about in the slightest.
Those who think in terms of historic wrongs, think that a wrong was committed to the inhabitants, not to Mauritius.
I'd imagine 'most people' would exhaust their entire knowledge of the deal in about 12 seconds.
Selling the gold was a little more easy to imagine. Similarly why fishing is given out of proportion coverage in dealings with the EU - it's easier to visualise 'our fish/their fisherman', than issues that importers/exporters have with increased paperwork.
The amounts involved, and the actual consequences of the deal, will have approximately zero effect on anyone's lives in the UK, and I'd be amazed if the vast majority of voters even remember it by the time of the next election.
The lingering contempt for Gordon Brown in some quarters decades later for selling the gold baffles me. After ten years of gold prices flatlining Treasury officials recommended other investments might perform better, a recommendation Brown accepted. At which point the gold price soared. OK, he, or really his advisors as we shouldn't expect a Chancellor to be an expert in securities, got their timing wrong. Who hasn't in their life done the same?
It chimes with and compliments his “no more boom and bust” declaration, which is that it perhaps was a bit too wilfully expectant of good times continuing to roll (which to be fair, a lot of politicians were guilty of, it’s far from only Brown who did that).
We had a flatlining gold market in part because everything was wonderfully stable at that point. Of course, Brown couldn’t foresee everything that would happen in the coming years, but his legacy has, rightly or wrongly, been connected with a bit of a failure to prepare for the future, which of course ultimately led to the troubles he had as PM.
I don’t really have any interest in, nor pretend to have read up on or understood the Chagos deal
But I do trust John Rentoul not to be a reactionary critic of Keir Starmer. I like to read him because I think he is quite balanced, and…
This is a deal that will weigh Starmer down for the rest of his time in politics. It is like Gordon Brown “selling the gold”. Actually, it is worse, because selling the gold was a sensible decision: the government should not be speculating in precious metals on behalf of citizens – it was simply bad luck that the price went up afterwards.
The Chagos deal, though, looks like a bad deal, and nothing Starmer can say can persuade people otherwise.
This month, the prime minister has secured four international deals. The trade deals with India, the US and the EU were triumphs in the national interest that will make us better off; but they will be overshadowed by an indefensible deal with Mauritius.
Labour will be happy enough if it's like selling the gold. They won the next two GEs after that.
Crikey, you have become the hardest working spinner since Muralitharan
Hardly. I'm unaligned like you.
Anyway, just back from swimming and I dropped into the club cafe afterwards. Chagos was being discussed there, so it looks like it has cut through. But not in quite the way you'd imagine from reading posts on here.
There was actually a lot of support for the deal down there. The sentiment I kept picking up, expressed in various ways, was "I trust Keir on these sorts of things". There were a couple of dissenting voices, but they were shouted down.
I’ve not heard people in real life discussing Chagos, and that includes talking to a Mauritian friend!
I don’t really have any interest in, nor pretend to have read up on or understood the Chagos deal
But I do trust John Rentoul not to be a reactionary critic of Keir Starmer. I like to read him because I think he is quite balanced, and…
This is a deal that will weigh Starmer down for the rest of his time in politics. It is like Gordon Brown “selling the gold”. Actually, it is worse, because selling the gold was a sensible decision: the government should not be speculating in precious metals on behalf of citizens – it was simply bad luck that the price went up afterwards.
The Chagos deal, though, looks like a bad deal, and nothing Starmer can say can persuade people otherwise.
This month, the prime minister has secured four international deals. The trade deals with India, the US and the EU were triumphs in the national interest that will make us better off; but they will be overshadowed by an indefensible deal with Mauritius.
Labour will be happy enough if it's like selling the gold. They won the next two GEs after that.
Crikey, you have become the hardest working spinner since Muralitharan
Hardly. I'm unaligned like you.
Anyway, just back from swimming and I dropped into the club cafe afterwards. Chagos was being discussed there, so it looks like it has cut through. But not in quite the way you'd imagine from reading posts on here.
There was actually a lot of support for the deal down there. The sentiment I kept picking up, expressed in various ways, was "I trust Keir on these sorts of things". There were a couple of dissenting voices, but they were shouted down.
Yes, I experienced something similar last night at my local drinking hole. A reverential hush descended upon the gathered throng as the BBC News came on, but when Sir Keir was shown signing the deal there was an explosion of fist pumps and the applause was veritably Krakatoan.
The unknown for the next locals in my eyes is what happens on the Left.
Corbyn and the Gaza Independents were taking baby steps towards moving closer, but I don't know if there is a limit to how far that will go. If they seal the deal as a Momentum / Solidarity type party, it made no sense to do it this year with the upper tier counties majoring. A launch very early next year on the other hand ahead of London and the 16 all up metros would be the optimal moment.
The question then is how would the Greens react. I think there would be a lot of agreement over where candidates stand, but it would have to be pretty low key. The one way in which the delayed council elections did favour Labour is that the Green's will be going for Suffolk next year, and they cannot openly rock up with The Left and not get any kick back in the shires. And the remaining leader, Adrian Ramsay, is their Suffolk link - and in that occupying the facing the other way position that Liz Lynne used to occupy for the LDs.
Ramsay might not be Co-leader by next year’s locals.
I don’t really have any interest in, nor pretend to have read up on or understood the Chagos deal
But I do trust John Rentoul not to be a reactionary critic of Keir Starmer. I like to read him because I think he is quite balanced, and…
This is a deal that will weigh Starmer down for the rest of his time in politics. It is like Gordon Brown “selling the gold”. Actually, it is worse, because selling the gold was a sensible decision: the government should not be speculating in precious metals on behalf of citizens – it was simply bad luck that the price went up afterwards.
The Chagos deal, though, looks like a bad deal, and nothing Starmer can say can persuade people otherwise.
This month, the prime minister has secured four international deals. The trade deals with India, the US and the EU were triumphs in the national interest that will make us better off; but they will be overshadowed by an indefensible deal with Mauritius.
Labour will be happy enough if it's like selling the gold. They won the next two GEs after that.
Crikey, you have become the hardest working spinner since Muralitharan
Hardly. I'm unaligned like you.
Anyway, just back from swimming and I dropped into the club cafe afterwards. Chagos was being discussed there, so it looks like it has cut through. But not in quite the way you'd imagine from reading posts on here.
There was actually a lot of support for the deal down there. The sentiment I kept picking up, expressed in various ways, was "I trust Keir on these sorts of things". There were a couple of dissenting voices, but they were shouted down.
Yes, I experienced something similar last night at my local drinking hole. A reverential hush descended upon the gathered throng as the BBC News came on, but when Sir Keir was shown signing the deal there was an explosion of fist pumps and the applause was veritably Krakatoan.
The unknown for the next locals in my eyes is what happens on the Left.
Corbyn and the Gaza Independents were taking baby steps towards moving closer, but I don't know if there is a limit to how far that will go. If they seal the deal as a Momentum / Solidarity type party, it made no sense to do it this year with the upper tier counties majoring. A launch very early next year on the other hand ahead of London and the 16 all up metros would be the optimal moment.
The question then is how would the Greens react. I think there would be a lot of agreement over where candidates stand, but it would have to be pretty low key. The one way in which the delayed council elections did favour Labour is that the Green's will be going for Suffolk next year, and they cannot openly rock up with The Left and not get any kick back in the shires. And the remaining leader, Adrian Ramsay, is their Suffolk link - and in that occupying the facing the other way position that Liz Lynne used to occupy for the LDs.
Ramsay might not be Co-leader by next year’s locals.
Yes, I think the Green leadership election implicitly has this as an elephant in the room, and a Ramsay/Chowns rural ticket loss would indicate a higher chance of closer alignment with a future Left party.
I don’t really have any interest in, nor pretend to have read up on or understood the Chagos deal
But I do trust John Rentoul not to be a reactionary critic of Keir Starmer. I like to read him because I think he is quite balanced, and…
This is a deal that will weigh Starmer down for the rest of his time in politics. It is like Gordon Brown “selling the gold”. Actually, it is worse, because selling the gold was a sensible decision: the government should not be speculating in precious metals on behalf of citizens – it was simply bad luck that the price went up afterwards.
The Chagos deal, though, looks like a bad deal, and nothing Starmer can say can persuade people otherwise.
This month, the prime minister has secured four international deals. The trade deals with India, the US and the EU were triumphs in the national interest that will make us better off; but they will be overshadowed by an indefensible deal with Mauritius.
Labour will be happy enough if it's like selling the gold. They won the next two GEs after that.
Crikey, you have become the hardest working spinner since Muralitharan
Hardly. I'm unaligned like you.
Anyway, just back from swimming and I dropped into the club cafe afterwards. Chagos was being discussed there, so it looks like it has cut through. But not in quite the way you'd imagine from reading posts on here.
There was actually a lot of support for the deal down there. The sentiment I kept picking up, expressed in various ways, was "I trust Keir on these sorts of things". There were a couple of dissenting voices, but they were shouted down.
Yes, I experienced something similar last night at my local drinking hole. A reverential hush descended upon the gathered throng as the BBC News came on, but when Sir Keir was shown signing the deal there was an explosion of fist pumps and the applause was veritably Krakatoan.
The public can surprise sometimes, can't they. All this "nobody will bother with the nuance, it just looks bad, end of" ... absolute nonsense.
I don’t really have any interest in, nor pretend to have read up on or understood the Chagos deal
But I do trust John Rentoul not to be a reactionary critic of Keir Starmer. I like to read him because I think he is quite balanced, and…
This is a deal that will weigh Starmer down for the rest of his time in politics. It is like Gordon Brown “selling the gold”. Actually, it is worse, because selling the gold was a sensible decision: the government should not be speculating in precious metals on behalf of citizens – it was simply bad luck that the price went up afterwards.
The Chagos deal, though, looks like a bad deal, and nothing Starmer can say can persuade people otherwise.
This month, the prime minister has secured four international deals. The trade deals with India, the US and the EU were triumphs in the national interest that will make us better off; but they will be overshadowed by an indefensible deal with Mauritius.
Labour will be happy enough if it's like selling the gold. They won the next two GEs after that.
Crikey, you have become the hardest working spinner since Muralitharan
Hardly. I'm unaligned like you.
Anyway, just back from swimming and I dropped into the club cafe afterwards. Chagos was being discussed there, so it looks like it has cut through. But not in quite the way you'd imagine from reading posts on here.
There was actually a lot of support for the deal down there. The sentiment I kept picking up, expressed in various ways, was "I trust Keir on these sorts of things". There were a couple of dissenting voices, but they were shouted down.
Yes, I experienced something similar last night at my local drinking hole. A reverential hush descended upon the gathered throng as the BBC News came on, but when Sir Keir was shown signing the deal there was an explosion of fist pumps and the applause was veritably Krakatoan.
I'm just about to board a plane from Madrid to London, and in our meeting here the Spanish financier we met with began her meeting with an (unprovoked) expression of astonishment about how brilliantly Sir Keir performed, and how lucky we were to have him.
Beautiful afternoon in Nottingham. Very much enjoying Brian Bennett unexpectedly turning this into a decent contest. Stokes' bowling is in a league of its own.
I don’t really have any interest in, nor pretend to have read up on or understood the Chagos deal
But I do trust John Rentoul not to be a reactionary critic of Keir Starmer. I like to read him because I think he is quite balanced, and…
This is a deal that will weigh Starmer down for the rest of his time in politics. It is like Gordon Brown “selling the gold”. Actually, it is worse, because selling the gold was a sensible decision: the government should not be speculating in precious metals on behalf of citizens – it was simply bad luck that the price went up afterwards.
The Chagos deal, though, looks like a bad deal, and nothing Starmer can say can persuade people otherwise.
This month, the prime minister has secured four international deals. The trade deals with India, the US and the EU were triumphs in the national interest that will make us better off; but they will be overshadowed by an indefensible deal with Mauritius.
I'd say that people who take an interest in foreign affairs tend to have two questions, regardless of the niceties of international law.
1. Is it in the national interest? 2. Is it morally right?
1. Most people can't really see what the national interest is in doing this deal
2. Most people who are worried about the morality of it, are concerned for the Chagossians, who neither the US, the UK, nor Mauritius care about in the slightest.
Those who think in terms of historic wrongs, think that a wrong was committed to the inhabitants, not to Mauritius.
I'd imagine 'most people' would exhaust their entire knowledge of the deal in about 12 seconds.
Selling the gold was a little more easy to imagine. Similarly why fishing is given out of proportion coverage in dealings with the EU - it's easier to visualise 'our fish/their fisherman', than issues that importers/exporters have with increased paperwork.
The amounts involved, and the actual consequences of the deal, will have approximately zero effect on anyone's lives in the UK, and I'd be amazed if the vast majority of voters even remember it by the time of the next election.
The lingering contempt for Gordon Brown in some quarters decades later for selling the gold baffles me. After ten years of gold prices flatlining Treasury officials recommended other investments might perform better, a recommendation Brown accepted. At which point the gold price soared. OK, he, or really his advisors as we shouldn't expect a Chancellor to be an expert in securities, got their timing wrong. Who hasn't in their life done the same?
It's because gold is seen as something we should be acquiring rather than selling. See also 'selling the family silver'.
I seem to remember Harold Macmillan made that claim when Fatcha sold the public utilities. Your lot never bellyached about that, you just bought the shares.
The unknown for the next locals in my eyes is what happens on the Left.
Corbyn and the Gaza Independents were taking baby steps towards moving closer, but I don't know if there is a limit to how far that will go. If they seal the deal as a Momentum / Solidarity type party, it made no sense to do it this year with the upper tier counties majoring. A launch very early next year on the other hand ahead of London and the 16 all up metros would be the optimal moment.
The question then is how would the Greens react. I think there would be a lot of agreement over where candidates stand, but it would have to be pretty low key. The one way in which the delayed council elections did favour Labour is that the Green's will be going for Suffolk next year, and they cannot openly rock up with The Left and not get any kick back in the shires. And the remaining leader, Adrian Ramsay, is their Suffolk link - and in that occupying the facing the other way position that Liz Lynne used to occupy for the LDs.
Corbyn will be 80 at the end of a 5 year Parliament. He didn't really have the energy, or desire to lead Labour the first time around, so I struggle to see it happening.
His supporters also went big at the last election with a coalition of We Deserve Better candidates, and did ok, but even they were very clear that it was 'safe' to vote for them because Labour would win.
That coalition including Green candidates, and I doubt they'd be keen on more competition. I also think that given the way a lot of independent candidates campaigned in the last election, I suspect they'd struggle in any formal party. And how many left wing parties/groupings have already come out of the post Corbyn Labour?
There's obviously an opportunity, with the moderate success of the last election, and Corbyn as a figurehead, but previous attempts at left wing parties have been so pitiful, I just don't see how it could be hugely different.
Regarding the parties at the next GE, I think the Tories probably only really have one more roll of the dice or one black swan event to stand a chance of recovery. I do think that they are going to wither and decline unless something very significant happens.
The reason I say this is because a sustained position of sitting behind Reform in the polls will aid in the transfer of core voters over to Reform. This process has already started, and it looks to have sped up after the locals. And I know that not all Tories are going to vote Reform, but for those “of the right” who want to back a winner and feel instinctively comfortable voting for a right wing party with a chance of power, it will be becoming harder to justify remaining with a party that sits in the high teens in the polls. Unless something stops this osmosis, it is hard to see those votes trickling back.
The roll of the dice is a change of leader. The current situation is not all Badenoch’s fault, but it seems very unlikely she can move on from the last government in a meaningful and impactful way. Ideally they could do with someone not tied to the weight of the past government, but that person is very challenging to find in a very limited MP pool, if they even exist.
The black swan event is Reform imploding. This is, id suggest, the Tories’ best hope. Farage has a history of falling out with people, and not being particularly well disciplined.
Reform imploding is more of a known unknown, than a black swan.
We know there’s a non-trivial risk that it will happen, but we don’t know if it will, or when it will.
If it happened, then the Conservatives would be up to 30% +, and back in the game.
If not, they’ll go the way of Les Republicans, the Dutch Christian Democrats, the Whigs, and Never Trump Republicans.
Reform without Farage is nothing. Farage is constitutionally incapable of working well with others.
I'd say that Reform imploding is more of a "when" than an "if".
As the economist Dani Rodrik puts it, “Three things made the US a rich and powerful nation: the rule of law, its science & innovation system, and openness to foreign talent. Remarkable how Trump has taken a sledgehammer to all three. No enemy of this country could do more.”
I don’t really have any interest in, nor pretend to have read up on or understood the Chagos deal
But I do trust John Rentoul not to be a reactionary critic of Keir Starmer. I like to read him because I think he is quite balanced, and…
This is a deal that will weigh Starmer down for the rest of his time in politics. It is like Gordon Brown “selling the gold”. Actually, it is worse, because selling the gold was a sensible decision: the government should not be speculating in precious metals on behalf of citizens – it was simply bad luck that the price went up afterwards.
The Chagos deal, though, looks like a bad deal, and nothing Starmer can say can persuade people otherwise.
This month, the prime minister has secured four international deals. The trade deals with India, the US and the EU were triumphs in the national interest that will make us better off; but they will be overshadowed by an indefensible deal with Mauritius.
Labour will be happy enough if it's like selling the gold. They won the next two GEs after that.
Crikey, you have become the hardest working spinner since Muralitharan
Hardly. I'm unaligned like you.
Anyway, just back from swimming and I dropped into the club cafe afterwards. Chagos was being discussed there, so it looks like it has cut through. But not in quite the way you'd imagine from reading posts on here.
There was actually a lot of support for the deal down there. The sentiment I kept picking up, expressed in various ways, was "I trust Keir on these sorts of things". There were a couple of dissenting voices, but they were shouted down.
I’ve not heard people in real life discussing Chagos, and that includes talking to a Mauritian friend!
We're pretty switched on at my pool. I doubt it's representative though.
Another thought occurs. Starmer would have known this deal would be unpopular, wouldn't he? Yet he did it. So if that's not country over party I'd like to know what is.
Canning it, otoh, would have got plenty of sloppy uninformed claps. Undoubtedly better politics. Party over country always is. Indeed this is what "good at politics" often means.
I don’t really have any interest in, nor pretend to have read up on or understood the Chagos deal
But I do trust John Rentoul not to be a reactionary critic of Keir Starmer. I like to read him because I think he is quite balanced, and…
This is a deal that will weigh Starmer down for the rest of his time in politics. It is like Gordon Brown “selling the gold”. Actually, it is worse, because selling the gold was a sensible decision: the government should not be speculating in precious metals on behalf of citizens – it was simply bad luck that the price went up afterwards.
The Chagos deal, though, looks like a bad deal, and nothing Starmer can say can persuade people otherwise.
This month, the prime minister has secured four international deals. The trade deals with India, the US and the EU were triumphs in the national interest that will make us better off; but they will be overshadowed by an indefensible deal with Mauritius.
Labour will be happy enough if it's like selling the gold. They won the next two GEs after that.
Crikey, you have become the hardest working spinner since Muralitharan
Hardly. I'm unaligned like you.
Anyway, just back from swimming and I dropped into the club cafe afterwards. Chagos was being discussed there, so it looks like it has cut through. But not in quite the way you'd imagine from reading posts on here.
There was actually a lot of support for the deal down there. The sentiment I kept picking up, expressed in various ways, was "I trust Keir on these sorts of things". There were a couple of dissenting voices, but they were shouted down.
I’ve not heard people in real life discussing Chagos, and that includes talking to a Mauritian friend!
We're pretty switched on at my pool. I doubt it's representative though.
Another thought occurs. Starmer would have known this deal would be unpopular, wouldn't he? Yet he did it. So if that's not country over party I'd like to know what is.
Canning it, otoh, would have got plenty of sloppy uninformed claps. Undoubtedly better politics. Party over country always is. Indeed this is what "good at politics" often means.
Canning it would have been good for the country.
He's put his own principles, his own belief in international law, over the country and his party.
The unknown for the next locals in my eyes is what happens on the Left.
Corbyn and the Gaza Independents were taking baby steps towards moving closer, but I don't know if there is a limit to how far that will go. If they seal the deal as a Momentum / Solidarity type party, it made no sense to do it this year with the upper tier counties majoring. A launch very early next year on the other hand ahead of London and the 16 all up metros would be the optimal moment.
The question then is how would the Greens react. I think there would be a lot of agreement over where candidates stand, but it would have to be pretty low key. The one way in which the delayed council elections did favour Labour is that the Green's will be going for Suffolk next year, and they cannot openly rock up with The Left and not get any kick back in the shires. And the remaining leader, Adrian Ramsay, is their Suffolk link - and in that occupying the facing the other way position that Liz Lynne used to occupy for the LDs.
Ramsay might not be Co-leader by next year’s locals.
Yes, I think the Green leadership election implicitly has this as an elephant in the room, and a Ramsay/Chowns rural ticket loss would indicate a higher chance of closer alignment with a future Left party.
Suspect this contest over the summer will descend into Corbynite entry Green vs Olde Green.
Could get nasty. The entryist types are not known for being shrinking violets etc etc.
Wasn't an issue with Brown selling the gold the *way* he sold it? IIRC he pre-announced the sale, and that depressed prices as everyone was expecting a lot of gold to come onto the market. As a result, he sold low.
The EU should offer the Mad King a brand new Airbus instead of a very old Boeing
Apparently Qatar has been trying to get rid of that old Boeing 747 for years and no-one wants to buy it even at a token price. The maintenance cost is just too high compared with other planes you might acquire. An act of genius to pass off an almost literal white elephant as a massive bribe, so as to appeal to Trump's vanity.
But Trump is going to spend many hundreds of millions fixing it before it gets handed on to his presidential library. Obviously.
That it's a rotten idea for the US, both financially and morally, doesn't bother him in the least
This could catch on, surely the UK has some massively costly "asset" that we could palm off on him with some gold wrapping and a neat bow?
I don’t really have any interest in, nor pretend to have read up on or understood the Chagos deal
But I do trust John Rentoul not to be a reactionary critic of Keir Starmer. I like to read him because I think he is quite balanced, and…
This is a deal that will weigh Starmer down for the rest of his time in politics. It is like Gordon Brown “selling the gold”. Actually, it is worse, because selling the gold was a sensible decision: the government should not be speculating in precious metals on behalf of citizens – it was simply bad luck that the price went up afterwards.
The Chagos deal, though, looks like a bad deal, and nothing Starmer can say can persuade people otherwise.
This month, the prime minister has secured four international deals. The trade deals with India, the US and the EU were triumphs in the national interest that will make us better off; but they will be overshadowed by an indefensible deal with Mauritius.
Labour will be happy enough if it's like selling the gold. They won the next two GEs after that.
Crikey, you have become the hardest working spinner since Muralitharan
Hardly. I'm unaligned like you.
Anyway, just back from swimming and I dropped into the club cafe afterwards. Chagos was being discussed there, so it looks like it has cut through. But not in quite the way you'd imagine from reading posts on here.
There was actually a lot of support for the deal down there. The sentiment I kept picking up, expressed in various ways, was "I trust Keir on these sorts of things". There were a couple of dissenting voices, but they were shouted down.
I’ve not heard people in real life discussing Chagos, and that includes talking to a Mauritian friend!
We're pretty switched on at my pool. I doubt it's representative though.
Another thought occurs. Starmer would have known this deal would be unpopular, wouldn't he? Yet he did it. So if that's not country over party I'd like to know what is.
Canning it, otoh, would have got plenty of sloppy uninformed claps. Undoubtedly better politics. Party over country always is. Indeed this is what "good at politics" often means.
There’s this lovely houseboat on Lake Victoria you should look at…
Wasn't an issue with Brown selling the gold the *way* he sold it? IIRC he pre-announced the sale, and that depressed prices as everyone was expecting a lot of gold to come onto the market. As a result, he sold low.
(Is this correct? It was a long time ago...)
At the bottom of the market, with or without the pre-announcement.
I don’t really have any interest in, nor pretend to have read up on or understood the Chagos deal
But I do trust John Rentoul not to be a reactionary critic of Keir Starmer. I like to read him because I think he is quite balanced, and…
This is a deal that will weigh Starmer down for the rest of his time in politics. It is like Gordon Brown “selling the gold”. Actually, it is worse, because selling the gold was a sensible decision: the government should not be speculating in precious metals on behalf of citizens – it was simply bad luck that the price went up afterwards.
The Chagos deal, though, looks like a bad deal, and nothing Starmer can say can persuade people otherwise.
This month, the prime minister has secured four international deals. The trade deals with India, the US and the EU were triumphs in the national interest that will make us better off; but they will be overshadowed by an indefensible deal with Mauritius.
I'd say that people who take an interest in foreign affairs tend to have two questions, regardless of the niceties of international law.
1. Is it in the national interest? 2. Is it morally right?
1. Most people can't really see what the national interest is in doing this deal
2. Most people who are worried about the morality of it, are concerned for the Chagossians, who neither the US, the UK, nor Mauritius care about in the slightest.
Those who think in terms of historic wrongs, think that a wrong was committed to the inhabitants, not to Mauritius.
I'd imagine 'most people' would exhaust their entire knowledge of the deal in about 12 seconds.
Selling the gold was a little more easy to imagine. Similarly why fishing is given out of proportion coverage in dealings with the EU - it's easier to visualise 'our fish/their fisherman', than issues that importers/exporters have with increased paperwork.
The amounts involved, and the actual consequences of the deal, will have approximately zero effect on anyone's lives in the UK, and I'd be amazed if the vast majority of voters even remember it by the time of the next election.
The lingering contempt for Gordon Brown in some quarters decades later for selling the gold baffles me. After ten years of gold prices flatlining Treasury officials recommended other investments might perform better, a recommendation Brown accepted. At which point the gold price soared. OK, he, or really his advisors as we shouldn't expect a Chancellor to be an expert in securities, got their timing wrong. Who hasn't in their life done the same?
It's because gold is seen as something we should be acquiring rather than selling. See also 'selling the family silver'.
Because the execution was terrible
And because the narrative stuck, fair or not (cf “black Wednesday was a disaster for the uk economy”)
"Brown pissed away all our gold" was (and remains) a niche concern of certain people on the right. It didn't have anything like the impact of Black Wednesday. That, I agree, really did stick and caused great damage to the Cons. You'd have thought it would never be beaten on that score - but then came Liz Truss.
I don’t really have any interest in, nor pretend to have read up on or understood the Chagos deal
But I do trust John Rentoul not to be a reactionary critic of Keir Starmer. I like to read him because I think he is quite balanced, and…
This is a deal that will weigh Starmer down for the rest of his time in politics. It is like Gordon Brown “selling the gold”. Actually, it is worse, because selling the gold was a sensible decision: the government should not be speculating in precious metals on behalf of citizens – it was simply bad luck that the price went up afterwards.
The Chagos deal, though, looks like a bad deal, and nothing Starmer can say can persuade people otherwise.
This month, the prime minister has secured four international deals. The trade deals with India, the US and the EU were triumphs in the national interest that will make us better off; but they will be overshadowed by an indefensible deal with Mauritius.
Labour will be happy enough if it's like selling the gold. They won the next two GEs after that.
Crikey, you have become the hardest working spinner since Muralitharan
Hardly. I'm unaligned like you.
Anyway, just back from swimming and I dropped into the club cafe afterwards. Chagos was being discussed there, so it looks like it has cut through. But not in quite the way you'd imagine from reading posts on here.
There was actually a lot of support for the deal down there. The sentiment I kept picking up, expressed in various ways, was "I trust Keir on these sorts of things". There were a couple of dissenting voices, but they were shouted down.
I’ve not heard people in real life discussing Chagos, and that includes talking to a Mauritian friend!
We're pretty switched on at my pool. I doubt it's representative though.
Another thought occurs. Starmer would have known this deal would be unpopular, wouldn't he? Yet he did it. So if that's not country over party I'd like to know what is.
Canning it, otoh, would have got plenty of sloppy uninformed claps. Undoubtedly better politics. Party over country always is. Indeed this is what "good at politics" often means.
Canning it would have been good for the country.
He's put his own principles, his own belief in international law, over the country and his party.
As the economist Dani Rodrik puts it, “Three things made the US a rich and powerful nation: the rule of law, its science & innovation system, and openness to foreign talent. Remarkable how Trump has taken a sledgehammer to all three. No enemy of this country could do more.”
I don’t really have any interest in, nor pretend to have read up on or understood the Chagos deal
But I do trust John Rentoul not to be a reactionary critic of Keir Starmer. I like to read him because I think he is quite balanced, and…
This is a deal that will weigh Starmer down for the rest of his time in politics. It is like Gordon Brown “selling the gold”. Actually, it is worse, because selling the gold was a sensible decision: the government should not be speculating in precious metals on behalf of citizens – it was simply bad luck that the price went up afterwards.
The Chagos deal, though, looks like a bad deal, and nothing Starmer can say can persuade people otherwise.
This month, the prime minister has secured four international deals. The trade deals with India, the US and the EU were triumphs in the national interest that will make us better off; but they will be overshadowed by an indefensible deal with Mauritius.
I'd say that people who take an interest in foreign affairs tend to have two questions, regardless of the niceties of international law.
1. Is it in the national interest? 2. Is it morally right?
1. Most people can't really see what the national interest is in doing this deal
2. Most people who are worried about the morality of it, are concerned for the Chagossians, who neither the US, the UK, nor Mauritius care about in the slightest.
Those who think in terms of historic wrongs, think that a wrong was committed to the inhabitants, not to Mauritius.
I'd imagine 'most people' would exhaust their entire knowledge of the deal in about 12 seconds.
Selling the gold was a little more easy to imagine. Similarly why fishing is given out of proportion coverage in dealings with the EU - it's easier to visualise 'our fish/their fisherman', than issues that importers/exporters have with increased paperwork.
The amounts involved, and the actual consequences of the deal, will have approximately zero effect on anyone's lives in the UK, and I'd be amazed if the vast majority of voters even remember it by the time of the next election.
The lingering contempt for Gordon Brown in some quarters decades later for selling the gold baffles me. After ten years of gold prices flatlining Treasury officials recommended other investments might perform better, a recommendation Brown accepted. At which point the gold price soared. OK, he, or really his advisors as we shouldn't expect a Chancellor to be an expert in securities, got their timing wrong. Who hasn't in their life done the same?
It's because gold is seen as something we should be acquiring rather than selling. See also 'selling the family silver'.
Because the execution was terrible
And because the narrative stuck, fair or not (cf “black Wednesday was a disaster for the uk economy”)
"Brown pissed away all our gold" was (and remains) a niche concern of certain people on the right. It didn't have anything like the impact of Black Wednesday. That, I agree, really did stick and caused great damage to the Cons. You'd have thought it would never be beaten on that score - but then came Liz Truss.
The gold market isn't like other markets. It is of course substantial, but it's also a bit slow and treacle like. Even medium sized transactions can sometimes be of importance.
Brown definitely messed up in his sale, but it was hardly his greatest sin.
I don’t really have any interest in, nor pretend to have read up on or understood the Chagos deal
But I do trust John Rentoul not to be a reactionary critic of Keir Starmer. I like to read him because I think he is quite balanced, and…
This is a deal that will weigh Starmer down for the rest of his time in politics. It is like Gordon Brown “selling the gold”. Actually, it is worse, because selling the gold was a sensible decision: the government should not be speculating in precious metals on behalf of citizens – it was simply bad luck that the price went up afterwards.
The Chagos deal, though, looks like a bad deal, and nothing Starmer can say can persuade people otherwise.
This month, the prime minister has secured four international deals. The trade deals with India, the US and the EU were triumphs in the national interest that will make us better off; but they will be overshadowed by an indefensible deal with Mauritius.
Labour will be happy enough if it's like selling the gold. They won the next two GEs after that.
Crikey, you have become the hardest working spinner since Muralitharan
Hardly. I'm unaligned like you.
Anyway, just back from swimming and I dropped into the club cafe afterwards. Chagos was being discussed there, so it looks like it has cut through. But not in quite the way you'd imagine from reading posts on here.
There was actually a lot of support for the deal down there. The sentiment I kept picking up, expressed in various ways, was "I trust Keir on these sorts of things". There were a couple of dissenting voices, but they were shouted down.
I’ve not heard people in real life discussing Chagos, and that includes talking to a Mauritian friend!
We're pretty switched on at my pool. I doubt it's representative though.
Another thought occurs. Starmer would have known this deal would be unpopular, wouldn't he? Yet he did it. So if that's not country over party I'd like to know what is.
Canning it, otoh, would have got plenty of sloppy uninformed claps. Undoubtedly better politics. Party over country always is. Indeed this is what "good at politics" often means.
There’s this lovely houseboat on Lake Victoria you should look at…
What, you don't think he'd expect a rough ride from the public on a deal like this? A deal that unless you delve into the legal and geopolitical complexities looks like paying somebody for something you've just given them?
I don’t really have any interest in, nor pretend to have read up on or understood the Chagos deal
But I do trust John Rentoul not to be a reactionary critic of Keir Starmer. I like to read him because I think he is quite balanced, and…
This is a deal that will weigh Starmer down for the rest of his time in politics. It is like Gordon Brown “selling the gold”. Actually, it is worse, because selling the gold was a sensible decision: the government should not be speculating in precious metals on behalf of citizens – it was simply bad luck that the price went up afterwards.
The Chagos deal, though, looks like a bad deal, and nothing Starmer can say can persuade people otherwise.
This month, the prime minister has secured four international deals. The trade deals with India, the US and the EU were triumphs in the national interest that will make us better off; but they will be overshadowed by an indefensible deal with Mauritius.
Labour will be happy enough if it's like selling the gold. They won the next two GEs after that.
Crikey, you have become the hardest working spinner since Muralitharan
Hardly. I'm unaligned like you.
Anyway, just back from swimming and I dropped into the club cafe afterwards. Chagos was being discussed there, so it looks like it has cut through. But not in quite the way you'd imagine from reading posts on here.
There was actually a lot of support for the deal down there. The sentiment I kept picking up, expressed in various ways, was "I trust Keir on these sorts of things". There were a couple of dissenting voices, but they were shouted down.
Yes, I experienced something similar last night at my local drinking hole. A reverential hush descended upon the gathered throng as the BBC News came on, but when Sir Keir was shown signing the deal there was an explosion of fist pumps and the applause was veritably Krakatoan.
At the next PB get together, can we include an invite for both Leon's dinner party friends and kinablu's swimming club? I feel that many misunderstandings could be sorted out by a frank exchange of views.
As the economist Dani Rodrik puts it, “Three things made the US a rich and powerful nation: the rule of law, its science & innovation system, and openness to foreign talent. Remarkable how Trump has taken a sledgehammer to all three. No enemy of this country could do more.”
I don’t really have any interest in, nor pretend to have read up on or understood the Chagos deal
But I do trust John Rentoul not to be a reactionary critic of Keir Starmer. I like to read him because I think he is quite balanced, and…
This is a deal that will weigh Starmer down for the rest of his time in politics. It is like Gordon Brown “selling the gold”. Actually, it is worse, because selling the gold was a sensible decision: the government should not be speculating in precious metals on behalf of citizens – it was simply bad luck that the price went up afterwards.
The Chagos deal, though, looks like a bad deal, and nothing Starmer can say can persuade people otherwise.
This month, the prime minister has secured four international deals. The trade deals with India, the US and the EU were triumphs in the national interest that will make us better off; but they will be overshadowed by an indefensible deal with Mauritius.
Labour will be happy enough if it's like selling the gold. They won the next two GEs after that.
Crikey, you have become the hardest working spinner since Muralitharan
Hardly. I'm unaligned like you.
Anyway, just back from swimming and I dropped into the club cafe afterwards. Chagos was being discussed there, so it looks like it has cut through. But not in quite the way you'd imagine from reading posts on here.
There was actually a lot of support for the deal down there. The sentiment I kept picking up, expressed in various ways, was "I trust Keir on these sorts of things". There were a couple of dissenting voices, but they were shouted down.
I’ve not heard people in real life discussing Chagos, and that includes talking to a Mauritian friend!
We're pretty switched on at my pool. I doubt it's representative though.
Another thought occurs. Starmer would have known this deal would be unpopular, wouldn't he? Yet he did it. So if that's not country over party I'd like to know what is.
Canning it, otoh, would have got plenty of sloppy uninformed claps. Undoubtedly better politics. Party over country always is. Indeed this is what "good at politics" often means.
That's my take too. Starmer in this case is doing what he thinks needs to be done. He doesn't do that every time but I think he is here. The realistic alternative is to play for time as the previous government did but he reckons Chagos should be put to bed.
I don’t really have any interest in, nor pretend to have read up on or understood the Chagos deal
But I do trust John Rentoul not to be a reactionary critic of Keir Starmer. I like to read him because I think he is quite balanced, and…
This is a deal that will weigh Starmer down for the rest of his time in politics. It is like Gordon Brown “selling the gold”. Actually, it is worse, because selling the gold was a sensible decision: the government should not be speculating in precious metals on behalf of citizens – it was simply bad luck that the price went up afterwards.
The Chagos deal, though, looks like a bad deal, and nothing Starmer can say can persuade people otherwise.
This month, the prime minister has secured four international deals. The trade deals with India, the US and the EU were triumphs in the national interest that will make us better off; but they will be overshadowed by an indefensible deal with Mauritius.
I'd say that people who take an interest in foreign affairs tend to have two questions, regardless of the niceties of international law.
1. Is it in the national interest? 2. Is it morally right?
1. Most people can't really see what the national interest is in doing this deal
2. Most people who are worried about the morality of it, are concerned for the Chagossians, who neither the US, the UK, nor Mauritius care about in the slightest.
Those who think in terms of historic wrongs, think that a wrong was committed to the inhabitants, not to Mauritius.
I'd imagine 'most people' would exhaust their entire knowledge of the deal in about 12 seconds.
Selling the gold was a little more easy to imagine. Similarly why fishing is given out of proportion coverage in dealings with the EU - it's easier to visualise 'our fish/their fisherman', than issues that importers/exporters have with increased paperwork.
The amounts involved, and the actual consequences of the deal, will have approximately zero effect on anyone's lives in the UK, and I'd be amazed if the vast majority of voters even remember it by the time of the next election.
The lingering contempt for Gordon Brown in some quarters decades later for selling the gold baffles me. After ten years of gold prices flatlining Treasury officials recommended other investments might perform better, a recommendation Brown accepted. At which point the gold price soared. OK, he, or really his advisors as we shouldn't expect a Chancellor to be an expert in securities, got their timing wrong. Who hasn't in their life done the same?
It's because gold is seen as something we should be acquiring rather than selling. See also 'selling the family silver'.
Because the execution was terrible
And because the narrative stuck, fair or not (cf “black Wednesday was a disaster for the uk economy”)
"Brown pissed away all our gold" was (and remains) a niche concern of certain people on the right. It didn't have anything like the impact of Black Wednesday. That, I agree, really did stick and caused great damage to the Cons. You'd have thought it would never be beaten on that score - but then came Liz Truss.
Brown's decade of inaction in addressing many of the downsides of Thatcher's economics - when we could probably have afforded to do so - is a bit more than a niche concern.
There was a reason for "austerity" in 2010, even if the failure to invest in infrastructure was another serious mistake. And then everything got derailed by Brexit.
We haven't really had any decent long term economic planning as far back as I can recall.
The EU should offer the Mad King a brand new Airbus instead of a very old Boeing
Apparently Qatar has been trying to get rid of that old Boeing 747 for years and no-one wants to buy it even at a token price. The maintenance cost is just too high compared with other planes you might acquire. An act of genius to pass off an almost literal white elephant as a massive bribe, so as to appeal to Trump's vanity.
But Trump is going to spend many hundreds of millions fixing it before it gets handed on to his presidential library. Obviously.
That it's a rotten idea for the US, both financially and morally, doesn't bother him in the least
This could catch on, surely the UK has some massively costly "asset" that we could palm off on him with some gold wrapping and a neat bow?
We've got a couple of carriers which would be perfect for the Marines, if they spent a couple of billion on sorting them out.
As part of the deal we could swap the F35 Bs for As.
I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone's that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else. If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S. Thank your for your attention to this matter!
Does the prat not realise that it will still be cheaper for Apple to manufacture in India ?
What he realises is that it will be cheaper for them to buy him off personally than pay a tariff.
I don’t really have any interest in, nor pretend to have read up on or understood the Chagos deal
But I do trust John Rentoul not to be a reactionary critic of Keir Starmer. I like to read him because I think he is quite balanced, and…
This is a deal that will weigh Starmer down for the rest of his time in politics. It is like Gordon Brown “selling the gold”. Actually, it is worse, because selling the gold was a sensible decision: the government should not be speculating in precious metals on behalf of citizens – it was simply bad luck that the price went up afterwards.
The Chagos deal, though, looks like a bad deal, and nothing Starmer can say can persuade people otherwise.
This month, the prime minister has secured four international deals. The trade deals with India, the US and the EU were triumphs in the national interest that will make us better off; but they will be overshadowed by an indefensible deal with Mauritius.
I'd say that people who take an interest in foreign affairs tend to have two questions, regardless of the niceties of international law.
1. Is it in the national interest? 2. Is it morally right?
1. Most people can't really see what the national interest is in doing this deal
2. Most people who are worried about the morality of it, are concerned for the Chagossians, who neither the US, the UK, nor Mauritius care about in the slightest.
Those who think in terms of historic wrongs, think that a wrong was committed to the inhabitants, not to Mauritius.
I'd imagine 'most people' would exhaust their entire knowledge of the deal in about 12 seconds.
Selling the gold was a little more easy to imagine. Similarly why fishing is given out of proportion coverage in dealings with the EU - it's easier to visualise 'our fish/their fisherman', than issues that importers/exporters have with increased paperwork.
The amounts involved, and the actual consequences of the deal, will have approximately zero effect on anyone's lives in the UK, and I'd be amazed if the vast majority of voters even remember it by the time of the next election.
The lingering contempt for Gordon Brown in some quarters decades later for selling the gold baffles me. After ten years of gold prices flatlining Treasury officials recommended other investments might perform better, a recommendation Brown accepted. At which point the gold price soared. OK, he, or really his advisors as we shouldn't expect a Chancellor to be an expert in securities, got their timing wrong. Who hasn't in their life done the same?
It's because gold is seen as something we should be acquiring rather than selling. See also 'selling the family silver'.
Because the execution was terrible
And because the narrative stuck, fair or not (cf “black Wednesday was a disaster for the uk economy”)
"Brown pissed away all our gold" was (and remains) a niche concern of certain people on the right. It didn't have anything like the impact of Black Wednesday. That, I agree, really did stick and caused great damage to the Cons. You'd have thought it would never be beaten on that score - but then came Liz Truss.
Brown believed his own genius - hence 'ending (Tory) boom and bust'. The reality is that he inherited a booming economy and then decided to open the taps for reasons. Of course the sale of the gold is more complicated than it is sometimes portrayed, but his financial negligence around his OWN fiscal rules was shocking. And then you have the vast expansion of PFI (yes the Tories started it, but Brown went BIG). PFI took spending off the annual returns and inter the perpetual future. All those lightbulbs changed for 300 quid...
I don’t really have any interest in, nor pretend to have read up on or understood the Chagos deal
But I do trust John Rentoul not to be a reactionary critic of Keir Starmer. I like to read him because I think he is quite balanced, and…
This is a deal that will weigh Starmer down for the rest of his time in politics. It is like Gordon Brown “selling the gold”. Actually, it is worse, because selling the gold was a sensible decision: the government should not be speculating in precious metals on behalf of citizens – it was simply bad luck that the price went up afterwards.
The Chagos deal, though, looks like a bad deal, and nothing Starmer can say can persuade people otherwise.
This month, the prime minister has secured four international deals. The trade deals with India, the US and the EU were triumphs in the national interest that will make us better off; but they will be overshadowed by an indefensible deal with Mauritius.
Labour will be happy enough if it's like selling the gold. They won the next two GEs after that.
Crikey, you have become the hardest working spinner since Muralitharan
Hardly. I'm unaligned like you.
Anyway, just back from swimming and I dropped into the club cafe afterwards. Chagos was being discussed there, so it looks like it has cut through. But not in quite the way you'd imagine from reading posts on here.
There was actually a lot of support for the deal down there. The sentiment I kept picking up, expressed in various ways, was "I trust Keir on these sorts of things". There were a couple of dissenting voices, but they were shouted down.
Yes, I experienced something similar last night at my local drinking hole. A reverential hush descended upon the gathered throng as the BBC News came on, but when Sir Keir was shown signing the deal there was an explosion of fist pumps and the applause was veritably Krakatoan.
At the next PB get together, can we include an invite for both Leon's dinner party friends and kinablu's swimming club? I feel that many misunderstandings could be sorted out by a frank exchange of views.
I don’t really have any interest in, nor pretend to have read up on or understood the Chagos deal
But I do trust John Rentoul not to be a reactionary critic of Keir Starmer. I like to read him because I think he is quite balanced, and…
This is a deal that will weigh Starmer down for the rest of his time in politics. It is like Gordon Brown “selling the gold”. Actually, it is worse, because selling the gold was a sensible decision: the government should not be speculating in precious metals on behalf of citizens – it was simply bad luck that the price went up afterwards.
The Chagos deal, though, looks like a bad deal, and nothing Starmer can say can persuade people otherwise.
This month, the prime minister has secured four international deals. The trade deals with India, the US and the EU were triumphs in the national interest that will make us better off; but they will be overshadowed by an indefensible deal with Mauritius.
I'd say that people who take an interest in foreign affairs tend to have two questions, regardless of the niceties of international law.
1. Is it in the national interest? 2. Is it morally right?
1. Most people can't really see what the national interest is in doing this deal
2. Most people who are worried about the morality of it, are concerned for the Chagossians, who neither the US, the UK, nor Mauritius care about in the slightest.
Those who think in terms of historic wrongs, think that a wrong was committed to the inhabitants, not to Mauritius.
I'd imagine 'most people' would exhaust their entire knowledge of the deal in about 12 seconds.
Selling the gold was a little more easy to imagine. Similarly why fishing is given out of proportion coverage in dealings with the EU - it's easier to visualise 'our fish/their fisherman', than issues that importers/exporters have with increased paperwork.
The amounts involved, and the actual consequences of the deal, will have approximately zero effect on anyone's lives in the UK, and I'd be amazed if the vast majority of voters even remember it by the time of the next election.
The lingering contempt for Gordon Brown in some quarters decades later for selling the gold baffles me. After ten years of gold prices flatlining Treasury officials recommended other investments might perform better, a recommendation Brown accepted. At which point the gold price soared. OK, he, or really his advisors as we shouldn't expect a Chancellor to be an expert in securities, got their timing wrong. Who hasn't in their life done the same?
It's because gold is seen as something we should be acquiring rather than selling. See also 'selling the family silver'.
Because the execution was terrible
And because the narrative stuck, fair or not (cf “black Wednesday was a disaster for the uk economy”)
"Brown pissed away all our gold" was (and remains) a niche concern of certain people on the right. It didn't have anything like the impact of Black Wednesday. That, I agree, really did stick and caused great damage to the Cons. You'd have thought it would never be beaten on that score - but then came Liz Truss.
Brown's decade of inaction in addressing many of the downsides of Thatcher's economics - when we could probably have afforded to do so - is a bit more than a niche concern.
There was a reason for "austerity" in 2010, even if the failure to invest in infrastructure was another serious mistake. And then everything got derailed by Brexit.
We haven't really had any decent long term economic planning as far back as I can recall.
Letting the City run riot and encouraging a financial bubble - because he liked the tax revenues - was imo the biggest GB error.
An egregious example of what you're alluding to: short-termism.
My rant isn't about Chagos but Lidl - no, not another part of the old Empire we're paying someone else to take on...
Our local Lidl has decided to "take action" against shoplifting which, it appears, with security and barcode gates, is still a problem.
They've increased the number of self-service tills from 20 to 24 but the new ones are much smaller so if there's two or three of you with a basket you're basically blocking not only the area around you but opposite as well.
Now, you have (officially) to scan your receipt to get out of the self-service area. What was happening was the shoplifters were taking what they want, standing patiently in the queue to be called forward and then walking through, out the other side and out the store past the security guard who in my view couldn't win a 100m race against an arthritic snail.
Lidl's solution would be fine except of course the gate to allow you out of the self service area stays open so long the entire Reform Parliamentary Party could get through it before it closes so that won't stop the shoplifting at busy times. Lidl have probably spent thousands on this but it's a waste and actually makes the shopping experience worse. Kudos.
Transport for London are trying new stronger gates at East Ham station - they've obviously worked out the main evaders are aged and infirm Lidl security guards and against them the new gates are superb. My experience is evaders are much younger and still able to push their way through.
None of that nonsense at Waitrose, just saying.
Nor the Co-op or Marks and Spencers ....there's nothing on the shelves.
I asked my Coop on that.
They say that it's still coming back, but has been a real problem.
Comments
Thank you for your attention in this matter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm3Mgd6iUDE
"Tesla crushed in Europe as BYD outsells; BEV sales surge 28%
Tesla sales fell 49 percent year over year in April."
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/05/tesla-crushed-in-europe-as-byd-outsells-bev-sales-surge-28/
Who was the great economic thinker who argued that decisions about what individual companies should produce, in which factory, and where, were choices best made by the government as part of their central plan?
https://x.com/JustinWolfers/status/1925893811684716798
The Golden Age.
https://x.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1925897044205445228
Similarly if the economy is doing better under Starmer in 2029 then he may well get another go, and things like Chagos aren’t going to mean much. It means much more when a negative narrative sets in.
That it's a rotten idea for the US, both financially and morally, doesn't bother him in the least
Anyway, just back from swimming and I dropped into the club cafe afterwards. Chagos was being discussed there, so it looks like it has cut through. But not in quite the way you'd imagine from reading posts on here.
There was actually a lot of support for the deal down there. The sentiment I kept picking up, expressed in various ways, was "I trust Keir on these sorts of things". There were a couple of dissenting voices, but they were shouted down.
Some gold producing countries (such as South Africa) actually thought this was a deliberate attack on them. That’s how weird it was.
If I crashed a commodity on the exchange like that I would be investigated.
The reason that they did this was that Brown had shutdown the Bank Of England gold unit, that handled the nations gold reserve. They would buy and sell, making a small profit, for all the many years of their existence. When the bank decided they needed more or less gold, they handled it. Without crashing the market.
There is a real danger they decide to hedge their bets by increasing ties with China.
That would not turn out well for Europe (including us) - or the US.
China again asked the Netherlands to relax semiconductor export restrictions, said Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Caspar VeldKamp after a meeting in Beijing, Bloomberg reports. Semiconductors and "the policy regarding export controls and export licensing" are a "topic of continuous discussion," Veldkamp reportedly said. The Netherlands is home to ASML, the world’s only maker of key lithography equipment for advanced semiconductor production, as well as a number of other key firms...
https://x.com/dnystedt/status/1925729626585784493
Because the execution was terrible
And because the narrative stuck, fair or not (cf “black Wednesday was a disaster for the
uk economy”)
Corbyn and the Gaza Independents were taking baby steps towards moving closer, but I don't know if there is a limit to how far that will go. If they seal the deal as a Momentum / Solidarity type party, it made no sense to do it this year with the upper tier counties majoring. A launch very early next year on the other hand ahead of London and the 16 all up metros would be the optimal moment.
The question then is how would the Greens react. I think there would be a lot of agreement over where candidates stand, but it would have to be pretty low key. The one way in which the delayed council elections did favour Labour is that the Green's will be going for Suffolk next year, and they cannot openly rock up with The Left and not get any kick back in the
shires. And the remaining leader, Adrian Ramsay, is their Suffolk link - and in that occupying the facing the other way position that Liz Lynne used to occupy for the LDs.
We had a flatlining gold market in part because everything was wonderfully stable at that point. Of course, Brown couldn’t foresee everything that would happen in the coming years, but his legacy has, rightly or wrongly, been connected with a bit of a failure to prepare for the future, which of course ultimately led to the troubles he had as PM.
Beautiful afternoon in Nottingham. Very much enjoying Brian Bennett unexpectedly turning this into a decent contest.
Stokes' bowling is in a league of its own.
His supporters also went big at the last election with a coalition of We Deserve Better candidates, and did ok, but even they were very clear that it was 'safe' to vote for them because Labour would win.
That coalition including Green candidates, and I doubt they'd be keen on more competition. I also think that given the way a lot of independent candidates campaigned in the last election, I suspect they'd struggle in any formal party. And how many left wing parties/groupings have already come out of the post Corbyn Labour?
There's obviously an opportunity, with the moderate success of the last election, and Corbyn as a figurehead, but previous attempts at left wing parties have been so pitiful, I just don't see how it could be hugely different.
Farage is constitutionally incapable of working well with others.
I'd say that Reform imploding is more of a "when" than an "if".
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/a-permanent-stain-on-our-history-trump-harvard-student-immigration-deportations-science-tech-innovation
Another thought occurs. Starmer would have known this deal would be unpopular, wouldn't he? Yet he did it. So if that's not country over party I'd like to know what is.
Canning it, otoh, would have got plenty of sloppy uninformed claps. Undoubtedly better politics. Party over country always is. Indeed this is what "good at politics" often means.
He's put his own principles, his own belief in international law, over the country and his party.
It is dogmatic.
Could get nasty. The entryist types are not known for being shrinking violets etc etc.
(Is this correct? It was a long time ago...)
https://goldprice.org/gold-price-charts/30-year-gold-price-history-in-us-dollars-per-ounce
Sam Freedman
@samfr.bsky.social
This framing of the PM wants to scrap two child limit but mean Mr McSweeney won't let him is such bullshit though.
He's the PM - if he wants to do it he can. If he doesn't that's on him not any adviser.
Sam Freedman
@samfr.bsky.social
And if he really won't do something unless McSweeney lets him he definitely shouldn't be PM!
https://bsky.app/profile/samfr.bsky.social/post/3lptvwin7sw2n
They wouldn't/couldn't make it this obviously bad for the US!
Brown definitely messed up in his sale, but it was hardly his greatest sin.
C'mon.
NEW THREAD
I feel that many misunderstandings could be sorted out by a frank exchange of views.
There was a reason for "austerity" in 2010, even if the failure to invest in infrastructure was another serious mistake.
And then everything got derailed by Brexit.
We haven't really had any decent long term economic planning as far back as I can recall.
As part of the deal we could swap the F35 Bs for As.
He's so nakedly corrupt.
An egregious example of what you're alluding to: short-termism.
They say that it's still coming back, but has been a real problem.
It's not empty, though.