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Politicians shouldn’t appoint Lords – politicalbetting.com

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  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 45,451
    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    MattW said:

    isam said:

    Foxy said:

    TimS said:

    Fun map exercise posted earlier by Meeks (FOTP).

    https://smstone0.github.io/#/uk-map

    All the places in the UK you’ve lived, stayed, visited, stopped in or passed through.


    I score 246. All of England covered, no NI, and half of Scotland to go.
    Only 199 for me. I think I've been everywhere in Great Britain with the exception of the very far north of Scotland and that big bit in the middle of Wales. No Isles of Man or Wight, only Down in NI. But I've only actually lived in four places in the UK: Fife, Tyne and Wear, Cambridgeshire and London. I lived overseas for eight years but no points for that. Not in this game!
    I only got 86. Lived in Essex, North London & Brighton and rarely ventured further north than that. I did live in Gibraltar though, that should score points
    Haven't you travelled the railway across nearly the entire mainland?

    Given that there are 91 areas on the mainland, and going through on a train is one, whilst stopping at a station is two, does that not make it a bit higher?

    Or have I got to review my 300+ score :smile: ?

    Max mainland-only score would be 455.
    I cannot work out how to download the map based only on a phone, but I scored 272. I've stayed in almost every county in England and Scotland and North Wales and visited almost all the rest (just a pass through for Kent and Essex - must visit tge SE more. Lived in GM, SY Durham and Notts. Never been to Norn Iron though.
    252 for me. Stayed in a lot of places, but not adjacent to where I've lived.

    Wigton, Essex, the Isle of Wight and the Northern Isles (major hole that one) are the only blanks.
    Can you genuinely remember all the places you've been to or through in your life?
    For me: yes.
    Though I am younger than you. And I've started to notice recently mymemory of things which happened in my childhood is not what it once was.
    I have a good memory for anything to do with people but I'm poor on places. I'd certainly struggle with this exercise.

    There are however places I know for sure I haven't been. One, and I say this with neither regret nor pride, is Sunderland.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 31,995
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Lord Hermer, Starmer’s AG & the government’s shield for not doing anything about the small boats is currently apologising for saying Reform & the Conservatives are the equivalent of 1930s Nazis

    Rosie Duffield on the wisdom of politicians appointing Lords

    Who ever could have guessed, if you gift one of your besties a peerage and a top Government role, despite them never having been an elected MP, and having had zero political experience in Parliament, they might actually turn out to be really quite crap at politics...?!


    https://x.com/rosieduffield1/status/1928504221290078284?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

    I looked into this. It's bollox and he shouldn't be apologising. He did not compare political opponents to the Nazis. He merely pointed to the dangers of a "nation state power trumps all else" viewpoint by reference to it also being advanced by certain German thinkers in the 1930s. This is the right being snowflakes (as per) and Duffield being a snark with a grudge.
    We are in a World where statements can be nuanced in a way to inflict maximum political damage to one's opponents. I suspect it was always thus, but today the media is so morally corrupt that a positive story can be sold as negative and vice versa. Starmer's (disappointing) but nonetheless improved arrangement with the EU is sold as a capitulation whilst Johnson's disastrous "oven- ready" deal is hailed as a victory. Labour in opposition had (quite rightly) their proposed economic programme critiqued in minutiae, whilst Farage's Trussian proposals get a free ride.
    I'm hoping (but am I a naive fool clinging to a bygone era?) that Farage's policy platform will receive a thorough going over by the media once the election comes more into view.
    I fear you are but " a naive fool clinging onto a bygone era". We are in a World of "alternative facts".
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 54,315
    These fare-dodgers are getting more brazen all the time!
  • numbertwelvenumbertwelve Posts: 7,478

    Nigelb said:

    isam said:

    Nige’s main rival for next PM chips in on Lord Hermer

    My grandmother fled the Nazis.

    My grandfather’s family were murdered by them.

    Our Attorney General likened questioning an agreement (made a lifetime ago in a different world) with a savage, psycopathic regime that killed millions.

    He says it was “clumsy”. I say it’s repugnant

    https://x.com/katie_lam_mp/status/1928771268938985582?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

    That's a very bad faith representation of what he said.
    You say 'bad faith representation', others say 'attention grabbing, excellent politics'.

    To be honest, it's always (because Lam isn't the first to do this, and it's not unique to the right) the hypocricy that grates. Politician X is allowed to do studs-up, bad faith misrepresentations of their opponents, but cries foul when anything remotely similar is done to them.
    Absolutely, Hermer has his statement contextualised as disrespecting Holocaust victims and suggesting political opponents are Nazis (which is disingenuous at the very least) yet on the other hand Johnson can make overtly racist narratives ( pillar boxes, picanninies etc) which are glossed over as satire.
    Then he should come out and say that it is a misrepresentation and he won’t apologise.

    There is too much timidity in public discourse and constantly apologising cedes the ground to your opponents for little practical benefit.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 31,995
    stodge said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Lord Hermer, Starmer’s AG & the government’s shield for not doing anything about the small boats is currently apologising for saying Reform & the Conservatives are the equivalent of 1930s Nazis

    Rosie Duffield on the wisdom of politicians appointing Lords

    Who ever could have guessed, if you gift one of your besties a peerage and a top Government role, despite them never having been an elected MP, and having had zero political experience in Parliament, they might actually turn out to be really quite crap at politics...?!


    https://x.com/rosieduffield1/status/1928504221290078284?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

    I looked into this. It's bollox and he shouldn't be apologising. He did not compare political opponents to the Nazis. He merely pointed to the dangers of a "nation state power trumps all else" viewpoint by reference to it also being advanced by certain German thinkers in the 1930s. This is the right being snowflakes (as per) and Duffield being a snark with a grudge.
    We are in a World where statements can be nuanced in a way to inflict maximum political damage to one's opponents. I suspect it was always thus, but today the media is so morally corrupt that a positive story can be sold as negative and vice versa. Starmer's (disappointing) but nonetheless improved arrangement with the EU is sold as a capitulation whilst Johnson's disastrous "oven- ready" deal is hailed as a victory. Labour in opposition had (quite rightly) their proposed economic programme critiqued in minutiae, whilst Farage's Trussian proposals get a free ride.
    Four and a bit years before the last election, Starmer was committed to increasing income tax on the top 5%, scrapping tuition fees, nationalising all utilities, spending 28bn on green stuff, and so on, so why bother taking any notice of what is said at this point at all? All the politician has to say is ‘circumstances have changed’ and they give themselves a free pass to ignore what they previously said
    I don't disagree with your post. Labour have been disingenuous, not least with their Conservative tax and spend programme whilst in Government.

    My point is that the bias in reporting from the likes of the Mail, Telegraph, Express, GBNews and TalkTV is almost at Newsmax and Fox levels of disinformation bias. This negative narrative is then latched onto by mainstream media and PB commentators.

    On the other hand, take Liz Truss's budget, reported as the greatest and "most Conservative Budget" since the 1980s by the Mail, Telegraph and the Daily Farage) and not a whisper when it collapsed around her ears except for the Star's glorious lettuce analogy.
    Not entirely true, the pro-Tory papers were quick to blame the "woke Treasury Establishment" and "inertia" in "the Blob" (yawn) for the failure of the Kwarteng budget.
    Yes that's true. Banged to rights there on my last paragraph. They were not silent, they instead looked for alternative scapegoats to blame for their team's error.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 77,819
    edited May 31

    Nigelb said:

    isam said:

    Nige’s main rival for next PM chips in on Lord Hermer

    My grandmother fled the Nazis.

    My grandfather’s family were murdered by them.

    Our Attorney General likened questioning an agreement (made a lifetime ago in a different world) with a savage, psycopathic regime that killed millions.

    He says it was “clumsy”. I say it’s repugnant

    https://x.com/katie_lam_mp/status/1928771268938985582?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

    That's a very bad faith representation of what he said.
    You say 'bad faith representation', others say 'attention grabbing, excellent politics'.

    To be honest, it's always (because Lam isn't the first to do this, and it's not unique to the right) the hypocricy that grates. Politician X is allowed to do studs-up, bad faith misrepresentations of their opponents, but cries foul when anything remotely similar is done to them.
    Well yes - and that obviously applies both ways.
    In this case, though, I'd strongly argue that she's also objectively wrong.

    Schmitt is more than just a former Nazi enabling philosopher. He both predated and post dated them, born in the 1880s and dying in the 1980s. He remains an influential philosopher whose ideas about the state are central to those who believe in sovereignty at the expense of international law.

    The current systems of international law grew up in direct response to the events of WWII. That obviously doesn't mean that anyone who critiques them is a Nazi, but what they are very often doing is adopting Schmitt's precise arguments - which weren't about race, but about the state.

    And Hermer hasn't cried foul. I have.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 45,451

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Lord Hermer, Starmer’s AG & the government’s shield for not doing anything about the small boats is currently apologising for saying Reform & the Conservatives are the equivalent of 1930s Nazis

    Rosie Duffield on the wisdom of politicians appointing Lords

    Who ever could have guessed, if you gift one of your besties a peerage and a top Government role, despite them never having been an elected MP, and having had zero political experience in Parliament, they might actually turn out to be really quite crap at politics...?!


    https://x.com/rosieduffield1/status/1928504221290078284?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

    I looked into this. It's bollox and he shouldn't be apologising. He did not compare political opponents to the Nazis. He merely pointed to the dangers of a "nation state power trumps all else" viewpoint by reference to it also being advanced by certain German thinkers in the 1930s. This is the right being snowflakes (as per) and Duffield being a snark with a grudge.
    We are in a World where statements can be nuanced in a way to inflict maximum political damage to one's opponents. I suspect it was always thus, but today the media is so morally corrupt that a positive story can be sold as negative and vice versa. Starmer's (disappointing) but nonetheless improved arrangement with the EU is sold as a capitulation whilst Johnson's disastrous "oven- ready" deal is hailed as a victory. Labour in opposition had (quite rightly) their proposed economic programme critiqued in minutiae, whilst Farage's Trussian proposals get a free ride.
    I'm hoping (but am I a naive fool clinging to a bygone era?) that Farage's policy platform will receive a thorough going over by the media once the election comes more into view.
    I fear you are but " a naive fool clinging onto a bygone era". We are in a World of "alternative facts".
    Absolutely turbocharged by Donald Trump. And why wouldn't he as its principal architect and beneficiary.

    That man is validating all of our worst traits and impulses. Talk about a consequential politician.
  • eekeek Posts: 30,098

    If he wasn't in Parliament that offence would likely resulted in him being out the door that day for gross misconduct.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 54,315
    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    MattW said:

    isam said:

    Foxy said:

    TimS said:

    Fun map exercise posted earlier by Meeks (FOTP).

    https://smstone0.github.io/#/uk-map

    All the places in the UK you’ve lived, stayed, visited, stopped in or passed through.


    I score 246. All of England covered, no NI, and half of Scotland to go.
    Only 199 for me. I think I've been everywhere in Great Britain with the exception of the very far north of Scotland and that big bit in the middle of Wales. No Isles of Man or Wight, only Down in NI. But I've only actually lived in four places in the UK: Fife, Tyne and Wear, Cambridgeshire and London. I lived overseas for eight years but no points for that. Not in this game!
    I only got 86. Lived in Essex, North London & Brighton and rarely ventured further north than that. I did live in Gibraltar though, that should score points
    Haven't you travelled the railway across nearly the entire mainland?

    Given that there are 91 areas on the mainland, and going through on a train is one, whilst stopping at a station is two, does that not make it a bit higher?

    Or have I got to review my 300+ score :smile: ?

    Max mainland-only score would be 455.
    I cannot work out how to download the map based only on a phone, but I scored 272. I've stayed in almost every county in England and Scotland and North Wales and visited almost all the rest (just a pass through for Kent and Essex - must visit tge SE more. Lived in GM, SY Durham and Notts. Never been to Norn Iron though.
    252 for me. Stayed in a lot of places, but not adjacent to where I've lived.

    Wigton, Essex, the Isle of Wight and the Northern Isles (major hole that one) are the only blanks.
    Can you genuinely remember all the places you've been to or through in your life?
    I always take my camera with me on my travels (eg. doing a railway route for the first time, visiting a brand new station, you know, all that kind of stuff). The digital images not only have the pictorial data, but the metadata too (timestamps especially). Have had to buy a couple of external drives, mind!
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 31,488
    edited May 31
    stodge said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Lord Hermer, Starmer’s AG & the government’s shield for not doing anything about the small boats is currently apologising for saying Reform & the Conservatives are the equivalent of 1930s Nazis

    Rosie Duffield on the wisdom of politicians appointing Lords

    Who ever could have guessed, if you gift one of your besties a peerage and a top Government role, despite them never having been an elected MP, and having had zero political experience in Parliament, they might actually turn out to be really quite crap at politics...?!


    https://x.com/rosieduffield1/status/1928504221290078284?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

    I looked into this. It's bollox and he shouldn't be apologising. He did not compare political opponents to the Nazis. He merely pointed to the dangers of a "nation state power trumps all else" viewpoint by reference to it also being advanced by certain German thinkers in the 1930s. This is the right being snowflakes (as per) and Duffield being a snark with a grudge.
    We are in a World where statements can be nuanced in a way to inflict maximum political damage to one's opponents. I suspect it was always thus, but today the media is so morally corrupt that a positive story can be sold as negative and vice versa. Starmer's (disappointing) but nonetheless improved arrangement with the EU is sold as a capitulation whilst Johnson's disastrous "oven- ready" deal is hailed as a victory. Labour in opposition had (quite rightly) their proposed economic programme critiqued in minutiae, whilst Farage's Trussian proposals get a free ride.
    Four and a bit years before the last election, Starmer was committed to increasing income tax on the top 5%, scrapping tuition fees, nationalising all utilities, spending 28bn on green stuff, and so on, so why bother taking any notice of what is said at this point at all? All the politician has to say is ‘circumstances have changed’ and they give themselves a free pass to ignore what they previously said
    I don't disagree with your post. Labour have been disingenuous, not least with their Conservative tax and spend programme whilst in Government.

    My point is that the bias in reporting from the likes of the Mail, Telegraph, Express, GBNews and TalkTV is almost at Newsmax and Fox levels of disinformation bias. This negative narrative is then latched onto by mainstream media and PB commentators.

    On the other hand, take Liz Truss's budget, reported as the greatest and "most Conservative Budget" since the 1980s by the Mail, Telegraph and the Daily Farage) and not a whisper when it collapsed around her ears except for the Star's glorious lettuce analogy.
    Not entirely true, the pro-Tory papers were quick to blame the "woke Treasury Establishment" and "inertia" in "the Blob" (yawn) for the failure of the Kwarteng budget.
    I don't think that's remotely true. I would argue that conversely, the media, including the so called right wing media, has fuelled the bizarre alternative history that the budget was actually implemented, and failed. The role of the Bank of England in the crisis was never explored at all (probably partly due to the complexity of the arguments), and has therefore fallen down a memory hole.

    As an example, when Starmer was making his ludicrous claims that Nigel would 'crash the economy like Liz Truss', a lot of Tweeters asked the Grok to say whether bond yields are higher under Reeves than they were under Truss. It did so, but was strongly in favour of Reeves over Truss, putting forward the opinion that 'global conditions' have played a strong role in Reeves' problems, but that the bond yield crisis under Truss was solely the result of her budget. Completely forgetting Ukraine, the Energy Crisis, interest rate hikes, LDIs, the Bank's QT announcement etc. Grok and other AIs draw their conclusions from the easily available media on the subject.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,774
    stodge said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Lord Hermer, Starmer’s AG & the government’s shield for not doing anything about the small boats is currently apologising for saying Reform & the Conservatives are the equivalent of 1930s Nazis

    Rosie Duffield on the wisdom of politicians appointing Lords

    Who ever could have guessed, if you gift one of your besties a peerage and a top Government role, despite them never having been an elected MP, and having had zero political experience in Parliament, they might actually turn out to be really quite crap at politics...?!


    https://x.com/rosieduffield1/status/1928504221290078284?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

    I looked into this. It's bollox and he shouldn't be apologising. He did not compare political opponents to the Nazis. He merely pointed to the dangers of a "nation state power trumps all else" viewpoint by reference to it also being advanced by certain German thinkers in the 1930s. This is the right being snowflakes (as per) and Duffield being a snark with a grudge.
    We are in a World where statements can be nuanced in a way to inflict maximum political damage to one's opponents. I suspect it was always thus, but today the media is so morally corrupt that a positive story can be sold as negative and vice versa. Starmer's (disappointing) but nonetheless improved arrangement with the EU is sold as a capitulation whilst Johnson's disastrous "oven- ready" deal is hailed as a victory. Labour in opposition had (quite rightly) their proposed economic programme critiqued in minutiae, whilst Farage's Trussian proposals get a free ride.
    Four and a bit years before the last election, Starmer was committed to increasing income tax on the top 5%, scrapping tuition fees, nationalising all utilities, spending 28bn on green stuff, and so on, so why bother taking any notice of what is said at this point at all? All the politician has to say is ‘circumstances have changed’ and they give themselves a free pass to ignore what they previously said
    I don't disagree with your post. Labour have been disingenuous, not least with their Conservative tax and spend programme whilst in Government.

    My point is that the bias in reporting from the likes of the Mail, Telegraph, Express, GBNews and TalkTV is almost at Newsmax and Fox levels of disinformation bias. This negative narrative is then latched onto by mainstream media and PB commentators.

    On the other hand, take Liz Truss's budget, reported as the greatest and "most Conservative Budget" since the 1980s by the Mail, Telegraph and the Daily Farage) and not a whisper when it collapsed around her ears except for the Star's glorious lettuce analogy.
    Not entirely true, the pro-Tory papers were quick to blame the "woke Treasury Establishment" and "inertia" in "the Blob" (yawn) for the failure of the Kwarteng budget.
    One day we will get a sober retrospective analysis of how much of the Truss chaos was down to the eye watering energy bills bailout which was pretty much forced and how much was the tax changes (all of which aside from top rate cut were supported by the opposition).
    And, I suppose, how much was down to there being no OBR figures.
  • numbertwelvenumbertwelve Posts: 7,478
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Lord Hermer, Starmer’s AG & the government’s shield for not doing anything about the small boats is currently apologising for saying Reform & the Conservatives are the equivalent of 1930s Nazis

    Rosie Duffield on the wisdom of politicians appointing Lords

    Who ever could have guessed, if you gift one of your besties a peerage and a top Government role, despite them never having been an elected MP, and having had zero political experience in Parliament, they might actually turn out to be really quite crap at politics...?!


    https://x.com/rosieduffield1/status/1928504221290078284?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

    I looked into this. It's bollox and he shouldn't be apologising. He did not compare political opponents to the Nazis. He merely pointed to the dangers of a "nation state power trumps all else" viewpoint by reference to it also being advanced by certain German thinkers in the 1930s. This is the right being snowflakes (as per) and Duffield being a snark with a grudge.
    We are in a World where statements can be nuanced in a way to inflict maximum political damage to one's opponents. I suspect it was always thus, but today the media is so morally corrupt that a positive story can be sold as negative and vice versa. Starmer's (disappointing) but nonetheless improved arrangement with the EU is sold as a capitulation whilst Johnson's disastrous "oven- ready" deal is hailed as a victory. Labour in opposition had (quite rightly) their proposed economic programme critiqued in minutiae, whilst Farage's Trussian proposals get a free ride.
    I'm hoping (but am I a naive fool clinging to a bygone era?) that Farage's policy platform will receive a thorough going over by the media once the election comes more into view.
    It will, but it’s an open question how much difference it will make. People have to feel the risk is worse than the roll of the dice. There’s plenty in the country who, right now, feel insecure enough in their economic and cultural perspectives to take that gamble. Of course, this is where Labour’s eventual record will come in, as to whether that number decreases.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 77,819
    Israel’s ‘violations’ in Gaza make world more dangerous, Norway warns
    Low respect for international law and human rights set worrying precedent, international development minister says
    https://www.theguardian.com/law/2025/may/31/israel-accused-setting-dangerous-precedent-global-human-rights-gaza
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 31,995
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Lord Hermer, Starmer’s AG & the government’s shield for not doing anything about the small boats is currently apologising for saying Reform & the Conservatives are the equivalent of 1930s Nazis

    Rosie Duffield on the wisdom of politicians appointing Lords

    Who ever could have guessed, if you gift one of your besties a peerage and a top Government role, despite them never having been an elected MP, and having had zero political experience in Parliament, they might actually turn out to be really quite crap at politics...?!


    https://x.com/rosieduffield1/status/1928504221290078284?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

    I looked into this. It's bollox and he shouldn't be apologising. He did not compare political opponents to the Nazis. He merely pointed to the dangers of a "nation state power trumps all else" viewpoint by reference to it also being advanced by certain German thinkers in the 1930s. This is the right being snowflakes (as per) and Duffield being a snark with a grudge.
    We are in a World where statements can be nuanced in a way to inflict maximum political damage to one's opponents. I suspect it was always thus, but today the media is so morally corrupt that a positive story can be sold as negative and vice versa. Starmer's (disappointing) but nonetheless improved arrangement with the EU is sold as a capitulation whilst Johnson's disastrous "oven- ready" deal is hailed as a victory. Labour in opposition had (quite rightly) their proposed economic programme critiqued in minutiae, whilst Farage's Trussian proposals get a free ride.
    I'm hoping (but am I a naive fool clinging to a bygone era?) that Farage's policy platform will receive a thorough going over by the media once the election comes more into view.
    I fear you are but " a naive fool clinging onto a bygone era". We are in a World of "alternative facts".
    Absolutely turbocharged by Donald Trump. And why wouldn't he as its principal architect and beneficiary.

    That man is validating all of our worst traits and impulses. Talk about a consequential politician.
    Indeed. He has certainly thoroughly justified his spot on Mount Rushmore as the President who ended the US as a constitutional democracy
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 31,488

    stodge said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Lord Hermer, Starmer’s AG & the government’s shield for not doing anything about the small boats is currently apologising for saying Reform & the Conservatives are the equivalent of 1930s Nazis

    Rosie Duffield on the wisdom of politicians appointing Lords

    Who ever could have guessed, if you gift one of your besties a peerage and a top Government role, despite them never having been an elected MP, and having had zero political experience in Parliament, they might actually turn out to be really quite crap at politics...?!


    https://x.com/rosieduffield1/status/1928504221290078284?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

    I looked into this. It's bollox and he shouldn't be apologising. He did not compare political opponents to the Nazis. He merely pointed to the dangers of a "nation state power trumps all else" viewpoint by reference to it also being advanced by certain German thinkers in the 1930s. This is the right being snowflakes (as per) and Duffield being a snark with a grudge.
    We are in a World where statements can be nuanced in a way to inflict maximum political damage to one's opponents. I suspect it was always thus, but today the media is so morally corrupt that a positive story can be sold as negative and vice versa. Starmer's (disappointing) but nonetheless improved arrangement with the EU is sold as a capitulation whilst Johnson's disastrous "oven- ready" deal is hailed as a victory. Labour in opposition had (quite rightly) their proposed economic programme critiqued in minutiae, whilst Farage's Trussian proposals get a free ride.
    Four and a bit years before the last election, Starmer was committed to increasing income tax on the top 5%, scrapping tuition fees, nationalising all utilities, spending 28bn on green stuff, and so on, so why bother taking any notice of what is said at this point at all? All the politician has to say is ‘circumstances have changed’ and they give themselves a free pass to ignore what they previously said
    I don't disagree with your post. Labour have been disingenuous, not least with their Conservative tax and spend programme whilst in Government.

    My point is that the bias in reporting from the likes of the Mail, Telegraph, Express, GBNews and TalkTV is almost at Newsmax and Fox levels of disinformation bias. This negative narrative is then latched onto by mainstream media and PB commentators.

    On the other hand, take Liz Truss's budget, reported as the greatest and "most Conservative Budget" since the 1980s by the Mail, Telegraph and the Daily Farage) and not a whisper when it collapsed around her ears except for the Star's glorious lettuce analogy.
    Not entirely true, the pro-Tory papers were quick to blame the "woke Treasury Establishment" and "inertia" in "the Blob" (yawn) for the failure of the Kwarteng budget.
    One day we will get a sober retrospective analysis of how much of the Truss chaos was down to the eye watering energy bills bailout which was pretty much forced and how much was the tax changes (all of which aside from top rate cut were supported by the opposition).
    And, I suppose, how much was down to there being no OBR figures.
    All those things taken together only make a small percentage of what caused it. Less than 30% according to the Bank of England's own report, which allocated 70% of the blame to the LDI crisis.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 55,452
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    isam said:

    Nige’s main rival for next PM chips in on Lord Hermer

    My grandmother fled the Nazis.

    My grandfather’s family were murdered by them.

    Our Attorney General likened questioning an agreement (made a lifetime ago in a different world) with a savage, psycopathic regime that killed millions.

    He says it was “clumsy”. I say it’s repugnant

    https://x.com/katie_lam_mp/status/1928771268938985582?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

    That's a very bad faith representation of what he said.
    You say 'bad faith representation', others say 'attention grabbing, excellent politics'.

    To be honest, it's always (because Lam isn't the first to do this, and it's not unique to the right) the hypocricy that grates. Politician X is allowed to do studs-up, bad faith misrepresentations of their opponents, but cries foul when anything remotely similar is done to them.
    Well yes - and that obviously applies both ways.
    In this case, though, I'd strongly argue that she's also objectively wrong.

    Schmitt is more than just a former Nazi enabling philosopher. He both predated and post dated them, born in the 1880s and dying in the 1980s. He remains an influential philosopher whose ideas about the state are central to those who believe in sovereignty at the expense of international law.

    The current systems of international law grew up in direct response to the events of WWII. That obviously doesn't mean that anyone who critiques them is a Nazi, but what they are very often doing is adopting Schmitt's precise arguments - which weren't about race, but about the state.

    And Hermer hasn't cried foul. I have.
    It's an oversimplification to say that the current system of international law grew up in direct response to the events of WWII. I think it's more correct to say that WWII forms part of the mythology that legitimates it and helps maintain a taboo around questioning it.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 15,197
    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    MattW said:

    isam said:

    Foxy said:

    TimS said:

    Fun map exercise posted earlier by Meeks (FOTP).

    https://smstone0.github.io/#/uk-map

    All the places in the UK you’ve lived, stayed, visited, stopped in or passed through.


    I score 246. All of England covered, no NI, and half of Scotland to go.
    Only 199 for me. I think I've been everywhere in Great Britain with the exception of the very far north of Scotland and that big bit in the middle of Wales. No Isles of Man or Wight, only Down in NI. But I've only actually lived in four places in the UK: Fife, Tyne and Wear, Cambridgeshire and London. I lived overseas for eight years but no points for that. Not in this game!
    I only got 86. Lived in Essex, North London & Brighton and rarely ventured further north than that. I did live in Gibraltar though, that should score points
    Haven't you travelled the railway across nearly the entire mainland?

    Given that there are 91 areas on the mainland, and going through on a train is one, whilst stopping at a station is two, does that not make it a bit higher?

    Or have I got to review my 300+ score :smile: ?

    Max mainland-only score would be 455.
    I cannot work out how to download the map based only on a phone, but I scored 272. I've stayed in almost every county in England and Scotland and North Wales and visited almost all the rest (just a pass through for Kent and Essex - must visit tge SE more. Lived in GM, SY Durham and Notts. Never been to Norn Iron though.
    252 for me. Stayed in a lot of places, but not adjacent to where I've lived.

    Wigton, Essex, the Isle of Wight and the Northern Isles (major hole that one) are the only blanks.
    Can you genuinely remember all the places you've been to or through in your life?
    For me: yes.
    Though I am younger than you. And I've started to notice recently mymemory of things which happened in my childhood is not what it once was.
    I have a good memory for anything to do with people but I'm poor on places. I'd certainly struggle with this exercise.

    There are however places I know for sure I haven't been. One, and I say this with neither regret nor pride, is Sunderland.
    I'm the opposite. I can't remember people's names, but I remember where they're from.
    And also the opposite in that I HAVE been to Sunderland.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 54,814
    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Lord Hermer, Starmer’s AG & the government’s shield for not doing anything about the small boats is currently apologising for saying Reform & the Conservatives are the equivalent of 1930s Nazis

    Rosie Duffield on the wisdom of politicians appointing Lords

    Who ever could have guessed, if you gift one of your besties a peerage and a top Government role, despite them never having been an elected MP, and having had zero political experience in Parliament, they might actually turn out to be really quite crap at politics...?!


    https://x.com/rosieduffield1/status/1928504221290078284?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

    I looked into this. It's bollox and he shouldn't be apologising. He did not compare political opponents to the Nazis. He merely pointed to the dangers of a "nation state power trumps all else" viewpoint by reference to it also being advanced by certain German thinkers in the 1930s. This is the right being snowflakes (as per) and Duffield being a snark with a grudge.
    I find it interesting that progressives, who have championed thoughtful and inclusive language, don’t seem to realise their own theories apply. To their own words.

    If you use hostile and intemperate language about others groups, then those groups will define themselves in terms of that hostility.

    And will, almost instinctively, oppose your goals.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 31,995
    eek said:


    If he wasn't in Parliament that offence would likely resulted in him being out the door that day for gross misconduct.
    After the Labour expenses scandal Labour MPs served custodial sentences for similar offences (granted the sums were greater). How the Desmond deal didn't breach any laws genuinely baffled me.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 15,197
    Nigelb said:

    Cookie said:

    Nigelb said:

    MattW said:

    isam said:

    Lord Hermer, Starmer’s AG & the government’s shield for not doing anything about the small boats is currently apologising for saying Reform & the Conservatives are the equivalent of 1930s Nazis

    I'm not sure that's a wise political move, because afaics he made no such actual comparison. He is letting himself be defined by misrepresentation by his opponents.

    He made a comparison of the potential consequences of rolling back international law, and letting the political interests of the current party in control override the basic systems of the State/country, and is the basic agenda of those behind Trump. That was what happened in 1933, and his apposite warning is where it can lead.

    It's a standard playbook - try and avoid a criticism by invoking a far more extreme version and demanding in a loud voice "Why are you calling me THIS?".

    I'd say he should have issued a careful statement, then made a speech, ramming their claim straight back down their throats, refusing to be pulled down into the mud. This is Starmer & co being too timid again, and ceding control of the agenda.

    Both the Conservative Right and Reform are politically fragile, and need to be shattered into little pieces.

    Official text of the speech:
    https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/attorney-generals-2025-rusi-annual-security-lecture

    Guardian report:
    https://www.theguardian.com/law/2025/may/30/attorney-general-richard-hermer-apologises-for-comparing-tories-and-reform-to-nazis

    The several instances of "[Redacted political content]" make it quite hard to judge whether or not he overstepped the mark with his historical comparisons.

    While I'm sympathetic to the thrust of his argument, there are perfectly respectible counter arguments - for example the huge extension (at least partly by the courts) of the scope of asylum treaties.

    International law matters (and simply saying let's ignore it is dangerous) - but so does our pragmatic response to it.

    (FWIW, I don't think it's unfair to cite Carl Schmitt. His central thesis is very similar to some of the arguments advanced today.)
    I'd argue rolling back the ECHR is putting country before party, and the reason we are having to accommodate every chancer who turns up here from the Middle East and North Africa is because for decades politivians havebeen doing the reverse.
    Fair enough.
    But would you simply set it aside, as is proposed ? Or would you push to change it (as not a few European countries are also now suggesting) ?
    Definitely the latter first. Though with low expectations of success.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 77,819
    edited May 31

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    isam said:

    Nige’s main rival for next PM chips in on Lord Hermer

    My grandmother fled the Nazis.

    My grandfather’s family were murdered by them.

    Our Attorney General likened questioning an agreement (made a lifetime ago in a different world) with a savage, psycopathic regime that killed millions.

    He says it was “clumsy”. I say it’s repugnant

    https://x.com/katie_lam_mp/status/1928771268938985582?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

    That's a very bad faith representation of what he said.
    You say 'bad faith representation', others say 'attention grabbing, excellent politics'.

    To be honest, it's always (because Lam isn't the first to do this, and it's not unique to the right) the hypocricy that grates. Politician X is allowed to do studs-up, bad faith misrepresentations of their opponents, but cries foul when anything remotely similar is done to them.
    Well yes - and that obviously applies both ways.
    In this case, though, I'd strongly argue that she's also objectively wrong.

    Schmitt is more than just a former Nazi enabling philosopher. He both predated and post dated them, born in the 1880s and dying in the 1980s. He remains an influential philosopher whose ideas about the state are central to those who believe in sovereignty at the expense of international law.

    The current systems of international law grew up in direct response to the events of WWII. That obviously doesn't mean that anyone who critiques them is a Nazi, but what they are very often doing is adopting Schmitt's precise arguments - which weren't about race, but about the state.

    And Hermer hasn't cried foul. I have.
    It's an oversimplification to say that the current system of international law grew up in direct response to the events of WWII. I think it's more correct to say that WWII forms part of the mythology that legitimates it and helps maintain a taboo around questioning it.
    What taboo ?
    (And, of course you do.)

    And I said "current systems" not "system".
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 45,451

    stodge said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Lord Hermer, Starmer’s AG & the government’s shield for not doing anything about the small boats is currently apologising for saying Reform & the Conservatives are the equivalent of 1930s Nazis

    Rosie Duffield on the wisdom of politicians appointing Lords

    Who ever could have guessed, if you gift one of your besties a peerage and a top Government role, despite them never having been an elected MP, and having had zero political experience in Parliament, they might actually turn out to be really quite crap at politics...?!


    https://x.com/rosieduffield1/status/1928504221290078284?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

    I looked into this. It's bollox and he shouldn't be apologising. He did not compare political opponents to the Nazis. He merely pointed to the dangers of a "nation state power trumps all else" viewpoint by reference to it also being advanced by certain German thinkers in the 1930s. This is the right being snowflakes (as per) and Duffield being a snark with a grudge.
    We are in a World where statements can be nuanced in a way to inflict maximum political damage to one's opponents. I suspect it was always thus, but today the media is so morally corrupt that a positive story can be sold as negative and vice versa. Starmer's (disappointing) but nonetheless improved arrangement with the EU is sold as a capitulation whilst Johnson's disastrous "oven- ready" deal is hailed as a victory. Labour in opposition had (quite rightly) their proposed economic programme critiqued in minutiae, whilst Farage's Trussian proposals get a free ride.
    Four and a bit years before the last election, Starmer was committed to increasing income tax on the top 5%, scrapping tuition fees, nationalising all utilities, spending 28bn on green stuff, and so on, so why bother taking any notice of what is said at this point at all? All the politician has to say is ‘circumstances have changed’ and they give themselves a free pass to ignore what they previously said
    I don't disagree with your post. Labour have been disingenuous, not least with their Conservative tax and spend programme whilst in Government.

    My point is that the bias in reporting from the likes of the Mail, Telegraph, Express, GBNews and TalkTV is almost at Newsmax and Fox levels of disinformation bias. This negative narrative is then latched onto by mainstream media and PB commentators.

    On the other hand, take Liz Truss's budget, reported as the greatest and "most Conservative Budget" since the 1980s by the Mail, Telegraph and the Daily Farage) and not a whisper when it collapsed around her ears except for the Star's glorious lettuce analogy.
    Not entirely true, the pro-Tory papers were quick to blame the "woke Treasury Establishment" and "inertia" in "the Blob" (yawn) for the failure of the Kwarteng budget.
    One day we will get a sober retrospective analysis of how much of the Truss chaos was down to the eye watering energy bills bailout which was pretty much forced and how much was the tax changes (all of which aside from top rate cut were supported by the opposition).
    And, I suppose, how much was down to there being no OBR figures.
    The last bit was very important, I think. The whole thing looked rushed and amateurish.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,774

    eek said:


    If he wasn't in Parliament that offence would likely resulted in him being out the door that day for gross misconduct.
    After the Labour expenses scandal Labour MPs served custodial sentences for similar offences (granted the sums were greater). How the Desmond deal didn't breach any laws genuinely baffled me.
    Administrative errors are endemic in parliament expenses - Starmers Donkey paddock for example
    It's probably an occupational risk when your job involves expenses on a day to day basis rather than exceptionally
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 55,452
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    isam said:

    Nige’s main rival for next PM chips in on Lord Hermer

    My grandmother fled the Nazis.

    My grandfather’s family were murdered by them.

    Our Attorney General likened questioning an agreement (made a lifetime ago in a different world) with a savage, psycopathic regime that killed millions.

    He says it was “clumsy”. I say it’s repugnant

    https://x.com/katie_lam_mp/status/1928771268938985582?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

    That's a very bad faith representation of what he said.
    You say 'bad faith representation', others say 'attention grabbing, excellent politics'.

    To be honest, it's always (because Lam isn't the first to do this, and it's not unique to the right) the hypocricy that grates. Politician X is allowed to do studs-up, bad faith misrepresentations of their opponents, but cries foul when anything remotely similar is done to them.
    Well yes - and that obviously applies both ways.
    In this case, though, I'd strongly argue that she's also objectively wrong.

    Schmitt is more than just a former Nazi enabling philosopher. He both predated and post dated them, born in the 1880s and dying in the 1980s. He remains an influential philosopher whose ideas about the state are central to those who believe in sovereignty at the expense of international law.

    The current systems of international law grew up in direct response to the events of WWII. That obviously doesn't mean that anyone who critiques them is a Nazi, but what they are very often doing is adopting Schmitt's precise arguments - which weren't about race, but about the state.

    And Hermer hasn't cried foul. I have.
    It's an oversimplification to say that the current system of international law grew up in direct response to the events of WWII. I think it's more correct to say that WWII forms part of the mythology that legitimates it and helps maintain a taboo around questioning it.
    What taboo ?
    (And, of course you do.)
    What taboo? Just look at the terms in which anyone who questions things like the ECHR is attacked.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 30,928
    Man arrested after 'car collides with number of pedestrians' in Leicester
    Police have said two men and two women were injured in the collision which took place following a report of a fight at the same location.

    https://news.sky.com/story/man-arrested-after-car-collides-with-number-of-pedestrians-in-leicester-13377227
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,774
    kinabalu said:

    stodge said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Lord Hermer, Starmer’s AG & the government’s shield for not doing anything about the small boats is currently apologising for saying Reform & the Conservatives are the equivalent of 1930s Nazis

    Rosie Duffield on the wisdom of politicians appointing Lords

    Who ever could have guessed, if you gift one of your besties a peerage and a top Government role, despite them never having been an elected MP, and having had zero political experience in Parliament, they might actually turn out to be really quite crap at politics...?!


    https://x.com/rosieduffield1/status/1928504221290078284?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

    I looked into this. It's bollox and he shouldn't be apologising. He did not compare political opponents to the Nazis. He merely pointed to the dangers of a "nation state power trumps all else" viewpoint by reference to it also being advanced by certain German thinkers in the 1930s. This is the right being snowflakes (as per) and Duffield being a snark with a grudge.
    We are in a World where statements can be nuanced in a way to inflict maximum political damage to one's opponents. I suspect it was always thus, but today the media is so morally corrupt that a positive story can be sold as negative and vice versa. Starmer's (disappointing) but nonetheless improved arrangement with the EU is sold as a capitulation whilst Johnson's disastrous "oven- ready" deal is hailed as a victory. Labour in opposition had (quite rightly) their proposed economic programme critiqued in minutiae, whilst Farage's Trussian proposals get a free ride.
    Four and a bit years before the last election, Starmer was committed to increasing income tax on the top 5%, scrapping tuition fees, nationalising all utilities, spending 28bn on green stuff, and so on, so why bother taking any notice of what is said at this point at all? All the politician has to say is ‘circumstances have changed’ and they give themselves a free pass to ignore what they previously said
    I don't disagree with your post. Labour have been disingenuous, not least with their Conservative tax and spend programme whilst in Government.

    My point is that the bias in reporting from the likes of the Mail, Telegraph, Express, GBNews and TalkTV is almost at Newsmax and Fox levels of disinformation bias. This negative narrative is then latched onto by mainstream media and PB commentators.

    On the other hand, take Liz Truss's budget, reported as the greatest and "most Conservative Budget" since the 1980s by the Mail, Telegraph and the Daily Farage) and not a whisper when it collapsed around her ears except for the Star's glorious lettuce analogy.
    Not entirely true, the pro-Tory papers were quick to blame the "woke Treasury Establishment" and "inertia" in "the Blob" (yawn) for the failure of the Kwarteng budget.
    One day we will get a sober retrospective analysis of how much of the Truss chaos was down to the eye watering energy bills bailout which was pretty much forced and how much was the tax changes (all of which aside from top rate cut were supported by the opposition).
    And, I suppose, how much was down to there being no OBR figures.
    The last bit was very important, I think. The whole thing looked rushed and amateurish.
    Yeah. All made the more so by the untimely death of HMQ etc
  • LeonLeon Posts: 61,298
    I can report that despite Sir Keir Traitor’s bleatings, e-gates have not been opened for Brits in the EU. He’s gonna have a lot of disappointed British voters fuming at him on holibobs this summer. What an idiot

    I can however report that I am now in my…. HUNDREDTH COUNTRY. A lifetime goal achieved

    100 countries!!


    Yes ok it’s Luxembourg. So also possibly the most boring country on earth. But that’s kind of fitting

    Go everywhere, young man!
  • CookieCookie Posts: 15,197
    kinabalu said:

    stodge said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Lord Hermer, Starmer’s AG & the government’s shield for not doing anything about the small boats is currently apologising for saying Reform & the Conservatives are the equivalent of 1930s Nazis

    Rosie Duffield on the wisdom of politicians appointing Lords

    Who ever could have guessed, if you gift one of your besties a peerage and a top Government role, despite them never having been an elected MP, and having had zero political experience in Parliament, they might actually turn out to be really quite crap at politics...?!


    https://x.com/rosieduffield1/status/1928504221290078284?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

    I looked into this. It's bollox and he shouldn't be apologising. He did not compare political opponents to the Nazis. He merely pointed to the dangers of a "nation state power trumps all else" viewpoint by reference to it also being advanced by certain German thinkers in the 1930s. This is the right being snowflakes (as per) and Duffield being a snark with a grudge.
    We are in a World where statements can be nuanced in a way to inflict maximum political damage to one's opponents. I suspect it was always thus, but today the media is so morally corrupt that a positive story can be sold as negative and vice versa. Starmer's (disappointing) but nonetheless improved arrangement with the EU is sold as a capitulation whilst Johnson's disastrous "oven- ready" deal is hailed as a victory. Labour in opposition had (quite rightly) their proposed economic programme critiqued in minutiae, whilst Farage's Trussian proposals get a free ride.
    Four and a bit years before the last election, Starmer was committed to increasing income tax on the top 5%, scrapping tuition fees, nationalising all utilities, spending 28bn on green stuff, and so on, so why bother taking any notice of what is said at this point at all? All the politician has to say is ‘circumstances have changed’ and they give themselves a free pass to ignore what they previously said
    I don't disagree with your post. Labour have been disingenuous, not least with their Conservative tax and spend programme whilst in Government.

    My point is that the bias in reporting from the likes of the Mail, Telegraph, Express, GBNews and TalkTV is almost at Newsmax and Fox levels of disinformation bias. This negative narrative is then latched onto by mainstream media and PB commentators.

    On the other hand, take Liz Truss's budget, reported as the greatest and "most Conservative Budget" since the 1980s by the Mail, Telegraph and the Daily Farage) and not a whisper when it collapsed around her ears except for the Star's glorious lettuce analogy.
    Not entirely true, the pro-Tory papers were quick to blame the "woke Treasury Establishment" and "inertia" in "the Blob" (yawn) for the failure of the Kwarteng budget.
    One day we will get a sober retrospective analysis of how much of the Truss chaos was down to the eye watering energy bills bailout which was pretty much forced and how much was the tax changes (all of which aside from top rate cut were supported by the opposition).
    And, I suppose, how much was down to there being no OBR figures.
    The last bit was very important, I think. The whole thing looked rushed and amateurish.
    I have some cautious sympathy with the overall strategic aim of Trussism. But I certainly agree with 'rushed and amateurish'.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,774
    Leon said:

    I can report that despite Sir Keir Traitor’s bleatings, e-gates have not been opened for Brits in the EU. He’s gonna have a lot of disappointed British voters fuming at him on holibobs this summer. What an idiot

    I can however report that I am now in my…. HUNDREDTH COUNTRY. A lifetime goal achieved

    100 countries!!


    Yes ok it’s Luxembourg. So also possibly the most boring country on earth. But that’s kind of fitting

    Go everywhere, young man!

    But he said we were all excited by his prime negotiation win. This can't be right
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 55,452
    Nigelb said:

    And I said "current systems" not "system".

    The systems that were created in the aftermath of WW2 were based on the hegemony of the permanent members of the Security Council. Arguably what has undermined that in recent decades is the rise of legalism.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 45,451
    edited May 31

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Lord Hermer, Starmer’s AG & the government’s shield for not doing anything about the small boats is currently apologising for saying Reform & the Conservatives are the equivalent of 1930s Nazis

    Rosie Duffield on the wisdom of politicians appointing Lords

    Who ever could have guessed, if you gift one of your besties a peerage and a top Government role, despite them never having been an elected MP, and having had zero political experience in Parliament, they might actually turn out to be really quite crap at politics...?!


    https://x.com/rosieduffield1/status/1928504221290078284?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

    I looked into this. It's bollox and he shouldn't be apologising. He did not compare political opponents to the Nazis. He merely pointed to the dangers of a "nation state power trumps all else" viewpoint by reference to it also being advanced by certain German thinkers in the 1930s. This is the right being snowflakes (as per) and Duffield being a snark with a grudge.
    I find it interesting that progressives, who have championed thoughtful and inclusive language, don’t seem to realise their own theories apply. To their own words.

    If you use hostile and intemperate language about others groups, then those groups will define themselves in terms of that hostility.

    And will, almost instinctively, oppose your goals.
    He was thoughtfully and inclusively speaking of the dangers inherent in an "international law is for pussies" mindset. The hostility and intemperance has come in response, it seems to me.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 77,819
    .

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    isam said:

    Nige’s main rival for next PM chips in on Lord Hermer

    My grandmother fled the Nazis.

    My grandfather’s family were murdered by them.

    Our Attorney General likened questioning an agreement (made a lifetime ago in a different world) with a savage, psycopathic regime that killed millions.

    He says it was “clumsy”. I say it’s repugnant

    https://x.com/katie_lam_mp/status/1928771268938985582?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

    That's a very bad faith representation of what he said.
    You say 'bad faith representation', others say 'attention grabbing, excellent politics'.

    To be honest, it's always (because Lam isn't the first to do this, and it's not unique to the right) the hypocricy that grates. Politician X is allowed to do studs-up, bad faith misrepresentations of their opponents, but cries foul when anything remotely similar is done to them.
    Well yes - and that obviously applies both ways.
    In this case, though, I'd strongly argue that she's also objectively wrong.

    Schmitt is more than just a former Nazi enabling philosopher. He both predated and post dated them, born in the 1880s and dying in the 1980s. He remains an influential philosopher whose ideas about the state are central to those who believe in sovereignty at the expense of international law.

    The current systems of international law grew up in direct response to the events of WWII. That obviously doesn't mean that anyone who critiques them is a Nazi, but what they are very often doing is adopting Schmitt's precise arguments - which weren't about race, but about the state.

    And Hermer hasn't cried foul. I have.
    It's an oversimplification to say that the current system of international law grew up in direct response to the events of WWII. I think it's more correct to say that WWII forms part of the mythology that legitimates it and helps maintain a taboo around questioning it.
    What taboo ?
    (And, of course you do.)
    What taboo? Just look at the terms in which anyone who questions things like the ECHR is attacked.
    A taboo suggests some sort of social inhibition, which here seems largely absent.

    What you're objecting to are counter arguments.
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 8,695
    Leon said:

    I can report that despite Sir Keir Traitor’s bleatings, e-gates have not been opened for Brits in the EU. He’s gonna have a lot of disappointed British voters fuming at him on holibobs this summer. What an idiot

    I can however report that I am now in my…. HUNDREDTH COUNTRY. A lifetime goal achieved

    100 countries!!


    Yes ok it’s Luxembourg. So also possibly the most boring country on earth. But that’s kind of fitting

    Go everywhere, young man!

    Congratulations! But you might have saved the big 100 for somewhere a bit more exciting...
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 77,819
    rkrkrk said:

    Leon said:

    I can report that despite Sir Keir Traitor’s bleatings, e-gates have not been opened for Brits in the EU. He’s gonna have a lot of disappointed British voters fuming at him on holibobs this summer. What an idiot

    I can however report that I am now in my…. HUNDREDTH COUNTRY. A lifetime goal achieved

    100 countries!!


    Yes ok it’s Luxembourg. So also possibly the most boring country on earth. But that’s kind of fitting

    Go everywhere, young man!

    Congratulations! But you might have saved the big 100 for somewhere a bit more exciting...
    Why ?
    Keeping an actual count is, as Leon wisely recognises, the equivalent of trainspotting.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 45,451
    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    MattW said:

    isam said:

    Foxy said:

    TimS said:

    Fun map exercise posted earlier by Meeks (FOTP).

    https://smstone0.github.io/#/uk-map

    All the places in the UK you’ve lived, stayed, visited, stopped in or passed through.


    I score 246. All of England covered, no NI, and half of Scotland to go.
    Only 199 for me. I think I've been everywhere in Great Britain with the exception of the very far north of Scotland and that big bit in the middle of Wales. No Isles of Man or Wight, only Down in NI. But I've only actually lived in four places in the UK: Fife, Tyne and Wear, Cambridgeshire and London. I lived overseas for eight years but no points for that. Not in this game!
    I only got 86. Lived in Essex, North London & Brighton and rarely ventured further north than that. I did live in Gibraltar though, that should score points
    Haven't you travelled the railway across nearly the entire mainland?

    Given that there are 91 areas on the mainland, and going through on a train is one, whilst stopping at a station is two, does that not make it a bit higher?

    Or have I got to review my 300+ score :smile: ?

    Max mainland-only score would be 455.
    I cannot work out how to download the map based only on a phone, but I scored 272. I've stayed in almost every county in England and Scotland and North Wales and visited almost all the rest (just a pass through for Kent and Essex - must visit tge SE more. Lived in GM, SY Durham and Notts. Never been to Norn Iron though.
    252 for me. Stayed in a lot of places, but not adjacent to where I've lived.

    Wigton, Essex, the Isle of Wight and the Northern Isles (major hole that one) are the only blanks.
    Can you genuinely remember all the places you've been to or through in your life?
    For me: yes.
    Though I am younger than you. And I've started to notice recently mymemory of things which happened in my childhood is not what it once was.
    I have a good memory for anything to do with people but I'm poor on places. I'd certainly struggle with this exercise.

    There are however places I know for sure I haven't been. One, and I say this with neither regret nor pride, is Sunderland.
    I'm the opposite. I can't remember people's names, but I remember where they're from.
    And also the opposite in that I HAVE been to Sunderland.
    We are opposites in many ways, you and I. But not in every way. There are some synergies. Similar SoH and aversion to fuss and complication.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 34,842
    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    MattW said:

    isam said:

    Foxy said:

    TimS said:

    Fun map exercise posted earlier by Meeks (FOTP).

    https://smstone0.github.io/#/uk-map

    All the places in the UK you’ve lived, stayed, visited, stopped in or passed through.


    I score 246. All of England covered, no NI, and half of Scotland to go.
    Only 199 for me. I think I've been everywhere in Great Britain with the exception of the very far north of Scotland and that big bit in the middle of Wales. No Isles of Man or Wight, only Down in NI. But I've only actually lived in four places in the UK: Fife, Tyne and Wear, Cambridgeshire and London. I lived overseas for eight years but no points for that. Not in this game!
    I only got 86. Lived in Essex, North London & Brighton and rarely ventured further north than that. I did live in Gibraltar though, that should score points
    Haven't you travelled the railway across nearly the entire mainland?

    Given that there are 91 areas on the mainland, and going through on a train is one, whilst stopping at a station is two, does that not make it a bit higher?

    Or have I got to review my 300+ score :smile: ?

    Max mainland-only score would be 455.
    I cannot work out how to download the map based only on a phone, but I scored 272. I've stayed in almost every county in England and Scotland and North Wales and visited almost all the rest (just a pass through for Kent and Essex - must visit tge SE more. Lived in GM, SY Durham and Notts. Never been to Norn Iron though.
    252 for me. Stayed in a lot of places, but not adjacent to where I've lived.

    Wigton, Essex, the Isle of Wight and the Northern Isles (major hole that one) are the only blanks.
    Can you genuinely remember all the places you've been to or through in your life?
    For me: yes.
    Though I am younger than you. And I've started to notice recently mymemory of things which happened in my childhood is not what it once was.
    I have a good memory for anything to do with people but I'm poor on places. I'd certainly struggle with this exercise.

    There are however places I know for sure I haven't been. One, and I say this with neither regret nor pride, is Sunderland.
    I'm the opposite. I can't remember people's names, but I remember where they're from.
    And also the opposite in that I HAVE been to Sunderland.
    178 if my memory's right. And I met my wife in Sunderland, where we were both students.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 54,814
    Nigelb said:

    .

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    isam said:

    Nige’s main rival for next PM chips in on Lord Hermer

    My grandmother fled the Nazis.

    My grandfather’s family were murdered by them.

    Our Attorney General likened questioning an agreement (made a lifetime ago in a different world) with a savage, psycopathic regime that killed millions.

    He says it was “clumsy”. I say it’s repugnant

    https://x.com/katie_lam_mp/status/1928771268938985582?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

    That's a very bad faith representation of what he said.
    You say 'bad faith representation', others say 'attention grabbing, excellent politics'.

    To be honest, it's always (because Lam isn't the first to do this, and it's not unique to the right) the hypocricy that grates. Politician X is allowed to do studs-up, bad faith misrepresentations of their opponents, but cries foul when anything remotely similar is done to them.
    Well yes - and that obviously applies both ways.
    In this case, though, I'd strongly argue that she's also objectively wrong.

    Schmitt is more than just a former Nazi enabling philosopher. He both predated and post dated them, born in the 1880s and dying in the 1980s. He remains an influential philosopher whose ideas about the state are central to those who believe in sovereignty at the expense of international law.

    The current systems of international law grew up in direct response to the events of WWII. That obviously doesn't mean that anyone who critiques them is a Nazi, but what they are very often doing is adopting Schmitt's precise arguments - which weren't about race, but about the state.

    And Hermer hasn't cried foul. I have.
    It's an oversimplification to say that the current system of international law grew up in direct response to the events of WWII. I think it's more correct to say that WWII forms part of the mythology that legitimates it and helps maintain a taboo around questioning it.
    What taboo ?
    (And, of course you do.)
    What taboo? Just look at the terms in which anyone who questions things like the ECHR is attacked.
    A taboo suggests some sort of social inhibition, which here seems largely absent.

    What you're objecting to are counter arguments.
    His comments are wall to wall micro-aggressions and privilege (unchecked).
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 44,300

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    TimS said:

    Fun map exercise posted earlier by Meeks (FOTP).

    https://smstone0.github.io/#/uk-map

    All the places in the UK you’ve lived, stayed, visited, stopped in or passed through.


    I score 246. All of England covered, no NI, and half of Scotland to go.
    My “lived in” is not very impressive: London, Devon, Cornwall, Herefordshire

    But I’ve “visited, stayed, stopped etc” in every single one of the others - apart from the southern outer Hebrides

    This is also fun

    https://been.app/

    An app where you can see how much of the world you’ve visited. I’m on exactly 50% in terms of countries. I’ve visited 99 of 198 UN territories
    62 for me, not bad for someone working full time in the UK for 35 years.

    I think larger countries need to be covered by State/Province/Oblast etc. I can't really claim to have seen Russia just by visiting St Petersberg and Moscow, nor Canada having only been to Toronto and Montreal.
    211.

    Basically all coloured apart from NI, Caithness, Argyll, Ayrshire, Aberdeenshire, various Scots islands.
    So you have missed out on the best one
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 44,634

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    MattW said:

    isam said:

    Foxy said:

    TimS said:

    Fun map exercise posted earlier by Meeks (FOTP).

    https://smstone0.github.io/#/uk-map

    All the places in the UK you’ve lived, stayed, visited, stopped in or passed through.


    I score 246. All of England covered, no NI, and half of Scotland to go.
    Only 199 for me. I think I've been everywhere in Great Britain with the exception of the very far north of Scotland and that big bit in the middle of Wales. No Isles of Man or Wight, only Down in NI. But I've only actually lived in four places in the UK: Fife, Tyne and Wear, Cambridgeshire and London. I lived overseas for eight years but no points for that. Not in this game!
    I only got 86. Lived in Essex, North London & Brighton and rarely ventured further north than that. I did live in Gibraltar though, that should score points
    Haven't you travelled the railway across nearly the entire mainland?

    Given that there are 91 areas on the mainland, and going through on a train is one, whilst stopping at a station is two, does that not make it a bit higher?

    Or have I got to review my 300+ score :smile: ?

    Max mainland-only score would be 455.
    I cannot work out how to download the map based only on a phone, but I scored 272. I've stayed in almost every county in England and Scotland and North Wales and visited almost all the rest (just a pass through for Kent and Essex - must visit tge SE more. Lived in GM, SY Durham and Notts. Never been to Norn Iron though.
    252 for me. Stayed in a lot of places, but not adjacent to where I've lived.

    Wigton, Essex, the Isle of Wight and the Northern Isles (major hole that one) are the only blanks.
    Can you genuinely remember all the places you've been to or through in your life?
    For me: yes.
    Though I am younger than you. And I've started to notice recently mymemory of things which happened in my childhood is not what it once was.
    I have a good memory for anything to do with people but I'm poor on places. I'd certainly struggle with this exercise.

    There are however places I know for sure I haven't been. One, and I say this with neither regret nor pride, is Sunderland.
    I'm the opposite. I can't remember people's names, but I remember where they're from.
    And also the opposite in that I HAVE been to Sunderland.
    178 if my memory's right. And I met my wife in Sunderland, where we were both students.
    Been to Sunderland too! Only for the day, at the uni, but how it must have been a dynamic place in its day and how badly it's been treated by London since. A convenient and disposable source of wealth to be squandered.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 77,819
    China seems to be increasingly taking sides in the Ukraine conflict.
    (And presumably also wants to benefit from live testing its new systems.)

    Russians release video of 🇨🇳Chinese Low-Altitude Laser Defending System (LASS) used to shoot down 🇺🇦Ukrainian UAVs in combat zone
    https://x.com/front_ukrainian/status/1928721043071389723
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 127,815

    eek said:


    If he wasn't in Parliament that offence would likely resulted in him being out the door that day for gross misconduct.
    After the Labour expenses scandal Labour MPs served custodial sentences for similar offences (granted the sums were greater). How the Desmond deal didn't breach any laws genuinely baffled me.
    So did a number of Tory peers eg Lord Taylor and Lord Hanningfield
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 44,300

    vik said:

    vik said:

    Do pro-federalists mean a PR-elected chamber with members from England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland? An English Parliament, greater devolved powers and the central Government reduced to Defence, Foreign Affairs, and some Treasury/Home Office functions? Or something else?

    I think that given England's lop-sided size compared to Scotland, Wales & NI, one would need to divide England into States or Provinces. Maybe 3 States of London, North England, South England ?
    Tearing England into bits is not something I could support. Scotland's twice the population of Wales. Should it be sliced in half?
    I was looking at it based on the disparity of England's population of 57 million vs Scotland's 5 million.

    England's large size would mean that an English devolved government would have way more power compared to Scotland & Wales. The English First Minister would be incredibly powerful & would start coming into conflict with the Prime Minister.
    I do like it though. It would need to be a written (yeah, I know) rule that if ever there was a conflict between the 'local' First Minister and British Prime Minister that the British Prime Minister had the final say.

    End of.

    Maybe we'd even get a British PM from NI at some point. I still think its terrible that we haven't/can't.
    whereas now the english one has all the powers
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 44,634
    Nigelb said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Leon said:

    I can report that despite Sir Keir Traitor’s bleatings, e-gates have not been opened for Brits in the EU. He’s gonna have a lot of disappointed British voters fuming at him on holibobs this summer. What an idiot

    I can however report that I am now in my…. HUNDREDTH COUNTRY. A lifetime goal achieved

    100 countries!!


    Yes ok it’s Luxembourg. So also possibly the most boring country on earth. But that’s kind of fitting

    Go everywhere, young man!

    Congratulations! But you might have saved the big 100 for somewhere a bit more exciting...
    Why ?
    Keeping an actual count is, as Leon wisely recognises, the equivalent of trainspotting.
    Trainspotting? Change [latest place Leon is in] and [food] and swap it for watching double-ended Fairlie locomotives at Penrhyndeudraeth on a rainy day while munching Welsh cakes from the bakery. What's the difference in principle?
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 44,300
    MattW said:

    vik said:

    I want a Federal UK. Absolutely no place for a House of Cronies.

    Federalism would help a lot to keep the Scots happy & stop them from trying to leave.
    I'd say that Federalism is already in place in Scotland and Wales, with England (slowly) catching up to a point part-way along the spectrum; we will maybe get there by 2030 to the extent of Regional Mayors, which so far have been beneficial in a number of places.

    Changes of Scottish involvement in the Lords over the next few years may be interesting.

    SNP non-involvement in the Lords is entirely a deliberate decision by the SNP to punch themselves in the face.
    bollox, we want no part of the English house of lords, full of grifters and nonentities.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 43,725
    Carnyx said:

    Nigelb said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Leon said:

    I can report that despite Sir Keir Traitor’s bleatings, e-gates have not been opened for Brits in the EU. He’s gonna have a lot of disappointed British voters fuming at him on holibobs this summer. What an idiot

    I can however report that I am now in my…. HUNDREDTH COUNTRY. A lifetime goal achieved

    100 countries!!


    Yes ok it’s Luxembourg. So also possibly the most boring country on earth. But that’s kind of fitting

    Go everywhere, young man!

    Congratulations! But you might have saved the big 100 for somewhere a bit more exciting...
    Why ?
    Keeping an actual count is, as Leon wisely recognises, the equivalent of trainspotting.
    Trainspotting? Change [latest place Leon is in] and [food] and swap it for watching double-ended Fairlie locomotives at Penrhyndeudraeth on a rainy day while munching Welsh cakes from the bakery. What's the difference in principle?
    You’re back! I was getting worried..
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 34,842
    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    MattW said:

    isam said:

    Foxy said:

    TimS said:

    Fun map exercise posted earlier by Meeks (FOTP).

    https://smstone0.github.io/#/uk-map

    All the places in the UK you’ve lived, stayed, visited, stopped in or passed through.


    I score 246. All of England covered, no NI, and half of Scotland to go.
    Only 199 for me. I think I've been everywhere in Great Britain with the exception of the very far north of Scotland and that big bit in the middle of Wales. No Isles of Man or Wight, only Down in NI. But I've only actually lived in four places in the UK: Fife, Tyne and Wear, Cambridgeshire and London. I lived overseas for eight years but no points for that. Not in this game!
    I only got 86. Lived in Essex, North London & Brighton and rarely ventured further north than that. I did live in Gibraltar though, that should score points
    Haven't you travelled the railway across nearly the entire mainland?

    Given that there are 91 areas on the mainland, and going through on a train is one, whilst stopping at a station is two, does that not make it a bit higher?

    Or have I got to review my 300+ score :smile: ?

    Max mainland-only score would be 455.
    I cannot work out how to download the map based only on a phone, but I scored 272. I've stayed in almost every county in England and Scotland and North Wales and visited almost all the rest (just a pass through for Kent and Essex - must visit tge SE more. Lived in GM, SY Durham and Notts. Never been to Norn Iron though.
    252 for me. Stayed in a lot of places, but not adjacent to where I've lived.

    Wigton, Essex, the Isle of Wight and the Northern Isles (major hole that one) are the only blanks.
    Can you genuinely remember all the places you've been to or through in your life?
    For me: yes.
    Though I am younger than you. And I've started to notice recently mymemory of things which happened in my childhood is not what it once was.
    I have a good memory for anything to do with people but I'm poor on places. I'd certainly struggle with this exercise.

    There are however places I know for sure I haven't been. One, and I say this with neither regret nor pride, is Sunderland.
    I'm the opposite. I can't remember people's names, but I remember where they're from.
    And also the opposite in that I HAVE been to Sunderland.
    178 if my memory's right. And I met my wife in Sunderland, where we were both students.
    Been to Sunderland too! Only for the day, at the uni, but how it must have been a dynamic place in its day and how badly it's been treated by London since. A convenient and disposable source of wealth to be squandered.
    When we were there (1959/60) the shipyards were still going strong, and at least one calming. The football team was in the top rank, too.
  • eekeek Posts: 30,098

    eek said:


    If he wasn't in Parliament that offence would likely resulted in him being out the door that day for gross misconduct.
    After the Labour expenses scandal Labour MPs served custodial sentences for similar offences (granted the sums were greater). How the Desmond deal didn't breach any laws genuinely baffled me.
    Administrative errors are endemic in parliament expenses - Starmers Donkey paddock for example
    It's probably an occupational risk when your job involves expenses on a day to day basis rather than exceptionally
    I've been doing expenses for a long time - it's very difficult to not work out what mode of transport you took that week...
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 55,452
    Nigelb said:

    .

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    isam said:

    Nige’s main rival for next PM chips in on Lord Hermer

    My grandmother fled the Nazis.

    My grandfather’s family were murdered by them.

    Our Attorney General likened questioning an agreement (made a lifetime ago in a different world) with a savage, psycopathic regime that killed millions.

    He says it was “clumsy”. I say it’s repugnant

    https://x.com/katie_lam_mp/status/1928771268938985582?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

    That's a very bad faith representation of what he said.
    You say 'bad faith representation', others say 'attention grabbing, excellent politics'.

    To be honest, it's always (because Lam isn't the first to do this, and it's not unique to the right) the hypocricy that grates. Politician X is allowed to do studs-up, bad faith misrepresentations of their opponents, but cries foul when anything remotely similar is done to them.
    Well yes - and that obviously applies both ways.
    In this case, though, I'd strongly argue that she's also objectively wrong.

    Schmitt is more than just a former Nazi enabling philosopher. He both predated and post dated them, born in the 1880s and dying in the 1980s. He remains an influential philosopher whose ideas about the state are central to those who believe in sovereignty at the expense of international law.

    The current systems of international law grew up in direct response to the events of WWII. That obviously doesn't mean that anyone who critiques them is a Nazi, but what they are very often doing is adopting Schmitt's precise arguments - which weren't about race, but about the state.

    And Hermer hasn't cried foul. I have.
    It's an oversimplification to say that the current system of international law grew up in direct response to the events of WWII. I think it's more correct to say that WWII forms part of the mythology that legitimates it and helps maintain a taboo around questioning it.
    What taboo ?
    (And, of course you do.)
    What taboo? Just look at the terms in which anyone who questions things like the ECHR is attacked.
    A taboo suggests some sort of social inhibition, which here seems largely absent.

    What you're objecting to are counter arguments.
    That inhibition is absolutely there. People are reluctant to make arguments that get them branded as extremists.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 44,300

    HYUFD said:

    The House of Lords Appointments Commission is supposed to appoint peers from the top of professional and business life so they are not just ex politicians and party donors

    Like Baroness Mone ?
    exactly , what a joke , more crooks and comic singers in there than wormwood scrubs
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 55,422
    Foxy said:

    Phil said:

    The Lords has now become another part of the State that works against positive change - because it is stuffed with left-leaning statist peers (somehow after 14 years of Tory rule...), and there are just too many of them.

    Reform and the Tories may decide to do something about it when they get in - purely for political reasons, but that's why most things get done.

    I would decimate the numbers, let people keep their peerages and potentially their club rights but not their voting rights. How I would do this I'm not sure - I can't really think of a fair way.

    Thereafter I would make the appointment of peers correlate directly to proportion of the vote at a General Election, and for there to be a much-reduced volume.

    I don’t disagree that the Lords is too large, but the idea that without the Labour peers the Lords would be a dynamic force for change is ... not entirely supported by historical evidence.
    I am not sure it's even a leftist bias (that's just the closest political way of describing it) its a group-think blob bias. This chamber has been stuffed over decades now with blob nodding dogs who are drenched in a code and a set of ticky boxes that were always suspect but are now becoming ugly, and they a powerful blocker not just to 'change' but to common sense. Yes the Lords was always a force for conservatism and somewhat resisted social change, but this is quite different. It has become parliament's arm of the blob, and that will have to be dealt with.
    We should have compulsory retirement from the Lords at age 80 (keeping titles if people are vain enough to want to) or if someone has not spoken or voted in a debate for over year without appropriate sicknote.
    These would be improvements but for goodness sake let's just get rid. We have been talking about it for over 100 years, since at least 1911. Even by our standards that is procrastination enough.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 44,634

    Carnyx said:

    Nigelb said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Leon said:

    I can report that despite Sir Keir Traitor’s bleatings, e-gates have not been opened for Brits in the EU. He’s gonna have a lot of disappointed British voters fuming at him on holibobs this summer. What an idiot

    I can however report that I am now in my…. HUNDREDTH COUNTRY. A lifetime goal achieved

    100 countries!!


    Yes ok it’s Luxembourg. So also possibly the most boring country on earth. But that’s kind of fitting

    Go everywhere, young man!

    Congratulations! But you might have saved the big 100 for somewhere a bit more exciting...
    Why ?
    Keeping an actual count is, as Leon wisely recognises, the equivalent of trainspotting.
    Trainspotting? Change [latest place Leon is in] and [food] and swap it for watching double-ended Fairlie locomotives at Penrhyndeudraeth on a rainy day while munching Welsh cakes from the bakery. What's the difference in principle?
    You’re back! I was getting worried..
    Oh, yes, for the moment however. Busy with voluntary work (setting-out-facts report for an organization, which needed some unexpectedly complex but interesting research) and trying to get some papers completed to deadline, so I had to focus. Still do if the truth be told.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 27,481

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    TimS said:

    Fun map exercise posted earlier by Meeks (FOTP).

    https://smstone0.github.io/#/uk-map

    All the places in the UK you’ve lived, stayed, visited, stopped in or passed through.


    I score 246. All of England covered, no NI, and half of Scotland to go.
    My “lived in” is not very impressive: London, Devon, Cornwall, Herefordshire

    But I’ve “visited, stayed, stopped etc” in every single one of the others - apart from the southern outer Hebrides

    This is also fun

    https://been.app/

    An app where you can see how much of the world you’ve visited. I’m on exactly 50% in terms of countries. I’ve visited 99 of 198 UN territories
    No, wait. Haven’t done Isle of Man of Isle of Wight either. Don’t feel a tremendous urge to amend this
    You could shake your fist at the VERY loud motorbikes in the former.
    It's not just motorbikes. One third of non-urban roads on the IoM are entirely unrestricted for speed.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 15,197
    Leon said:

    I can report that despite Sir Keir Traitor’s bleatings, e-gates have not been opened for Brits in the EU. He’s gonna have a lot of disappointed British voters fuming at him on holibobs this summer. What an idiot

    I can however report that I am now in my…. HUNDREDTH COUNTRY. A lifetime goal achieved

    100 countries!!


    Yes ok it’s Luxembourg. So also possibly the most boring country on earth. But that’s kind of fitting

    Go everywhere, young man!

    My mother in law has also recently notched up 100 - very different approach to you; largely done on cruises. Ah, the fortunate boomers
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 16,527
    isam said:

    Foxy said:

    TimS said:

    Fun map exercise posted earlier by Meeks (FOTP).

    https://smstone0.github.io/#/uk-map

    All the places in the UK you’ve lived, stayed, visited, stopped in or passed through.


    I score 246. All of England covered, no NI, and half of Scotland to go.
    Only 199 for me. I think I've been everywhere in Great Britain with the exception of the very far north of Scotland and that big bit in the middle of Wales. No Isles of Man or Wight, only Down in NI. But I've only actually lived in four places in the UK: Fife, Tyne and Wear, Cambridgeshire and London. I lived overseas for eight years but no points for that. Not in this game!
    I only got 86. Lived in Essex, North London & Brighton and rarely ventured further north than that. I did live in Gibraltar though, that should score points
    Really? I can imagine through the SE of England maybe feels quite complete and self contained, if you've grown up there perhaps you have no great wish to travel further afield. We have family and friends spread across Scotland, the north of England and the Midlands and often travel to the SW for holidays so we have the country pretty well covered, other than Wales and NI. My experience of Wales is limited almost entirely to travelling through it to get to Ireland. And I've only taken two trips to NI, once to get to Dublin from Stranraer and once to see a family member performing in something there. Both trips basically just Belfast. These are beautiful islands, though, there is so much to see, so many unique and interesting places.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 16,527
    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    MattW said:

    isam said:

    Foxy said:

    TimS said:

    Fun map exercise posted earlier by Meeks (FOTP).

    https://smstone0.github.io/#/uk-map

    All the places in the UK you’ve lived, stayed, visited, stopped in or passed through.


    I score 246. All of England covered, no NI, and half of Scotland to go.
    Only 199 for me. I think I've been everywhere in Great Britain with the exception of the very far north of Scotland and that big bit in the middle of Wales. No Isles of Man or Wight, only Down in NI. But I've only actually lived in four places in the UK: Fife, Tyne and Wear, Cambridgeshire and London. I lived overseas for eight years but no points for that. Not in this game!
    I only got 86. Lived in Essex, North London & Brighton and rarely ventured further north than that. I did live in Gibraltar though, that should score points
    Haven't you travelled the railway across nearly the entire mainland?

    Given that there are 91 areas on the mainland, and going through on a train is one, whilst stopping at a station is two, does that not make it a bit higher?

    Or have I got to review my 300+ score :smile: ?

    Max mainland-only score would be 455.
    I cannot work out how to download the map based only on a phone, but I scored 272. I've stayed in almost every county in England and Scotland and North Wales and visited almost all the rest (just a pass through for Kent and Essex - must visit tge SE more. Lived in GM, SY Durham and Notts. Never been to Norn Iron though.
    252 for me. Stayed in a lot of places, but not adjacent to where I've lived.

    Wigton, Essex, the Isle of Wight and the Northern Isles (major hole that one) are the only blanks.
    Can you genuinely remember all the places you've been to or through in your life?
    For me: yes.
    Though I am younger than you. And I've started to notice recently mymemory of things which happened in my childhood is not what it once was.
    I have a good memory for anything to do with people but I'm poor on places. I'd certainly struggle with this exercise.

    There are however places I know for sure I haven't been. One, and I say this with neither regret nor pride, is Sunderland.
    I'm the opposite. I can't remember people's names, but I remember where they're from.
    And also the opposite in that I HAVE been to Sunderland.
    178 if my memory's right. And I met my wife in Sunderland, where we were both students.
    Been to Sunderland too! Only for the day, at the uni, but how it must have been a dynamic place in its day and how badly it's been treated by London since. A convenient and disposable source of wealth to be squandered.
    My views of Sunderland are somewhat coloured by growing up in Newcastle, and also by some friends getting quite badly beaten up there, essentially for looking and sounding a bit different from the locals.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 44,300

    Nigelb said:

    isam said:

    Nige’s main rival for next PM chips in on Lord Hermer

    My grandmother fled the Nazis.

    My grandfather’s family were murdered by them.

    Our Attorney General likened questioning an agreement (made a lifetime ago in a different world) with a savage, psycopathic regime that killed millions.

    He says it was “clumsy”. I say it’s repugnant

    https://x.com/katie_lam_mp/status/1928771268938985582?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

    That's a very bad faith representation of what he said.
    You say 'bad faith representation', others say 'attention grabbing, excellent politics'.

    To be honest, it's always (because Lam isn't the first to do this, and it's not unique to the right) the hypocricy that grates. Politician X is allowed to do studs-up, bad faith misrepresentations of their opponents, but cries foul when anything remotely similar is done to them.
    Absolutely, Hermer has his statement contextualised as disrespecting Holocaust victims and suggesting political opponents are Nazis (which is disingenuous at the very least) yet on the other hand Johnson can make overtly racist narratives ( pillar boxes, picanninies etc) which are glossed over as satire.
    Then he should come out and say that it is a misrepresentation and he won’t apologise.

    There is too much timidity in public discourse and constantly apologising cedes the ground to your opponents for little practical benefit.
    The clown should be out on his arse, only there as Starmer's buddy and the clown behind the Chagos debacle. Where do they find these people.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 43,725
    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Nigelb said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Leon said:

    I can report that despite Sir Keir Traitor’s bleatings, e-gates have not been opened for Brits in the EU. He’s gonna have a lot of disappointed British voters fuming at him on holibobs this summer. What an idiot

    I can however report that I am now in my…. HUNDREDTH COUNTRY. A lifetime goal achieved

    100 countries!!


    Yes ok it’s Luxembourg. So also possibly the most boring country on earth. But that’s kind of fitting

    Go everywhere, young man!

    Congratulations! But you might have saved the big 100 for somewhere a bit more exciting...
    Why ?
    Keeping an actual count is, as Leon wisely recognises, the equivalent of trainspotting.
    Trainspotting? Change [latest place Leon is in] and [food] and swap it for watching double-ended Fairlie locomotives at Penrhyndeudraeth on a rainy day while munching Welsh cakes from the bakery. What's the difference in principle?
    You’re back! I was getting worried..
    Oh, yes, for the moment however. Busy with voluntary work (setting-out-facts report for an organization, which needed some unexpectedly complex but interesting research) and trying to get some papers completed to deadline, so I had to focus. Still do if the truth be told.
    Good.
    I have reached the age of man not mentioned by Shakespeare, attender of funerals. It’s not helped my tendency to fear the worst.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 22,348
    Neil O’Brien MP has written an excellent substack detailing the very troubling place the UK finds itself in: getting older, sicker, and poorer.

    (The UK is not alone in this, but there are UK-specific facets that suggest specific UK-specific breakdowns).

    He offers no solutions but notes that a totally new approach is required.

    https://open.substack.com/pub/almondtree/p/the-confluence?r=nnd8&utm_medium=ios
  • TheValiantTheValiant Posts: 1,961
    I'm sat in a Costa, thinking I should do some work whilst I wait for my daughters drama school to finish.

    But Jesus Christ be praised. I think I'll ride around 1403 Bohemia instead........
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,774
    eek said:

    eek said:


    If he wasn't in Parliament that offence would likely resulted in him being out the door that day for gross misconduct.
    After the Labour expenses scandal Labour MPs served custodial sentences for similar offences (granted the sums were greater). How the Desmond deal didn't breach any laws genuinely baffled me.
    Administrative errors are endemic in parliament expenses - Starmers Donkey paddock for example
    It's probably an occupational risk when your job involves expenses on a day to day basis rather than exceptionally
    I've been doing expenses for a long time - it's very difficult to not work out what mode of transport you took that week...
    Not the most sophisticated hustle though. I mean we either accept errors occur and are corrected later or we say all errors are an attempt to scam the public. In the latter case we have very few MPs left. Footy tickets and the like 'forgotten to be declared', donkey fields forgotten for years etc etc
    In terms of transport specifically, if you both drive and take trains and fly etc etc and have someone entering your expenses claims intermittently it's extremely easy to see how an error could occur.
    That's why we have IPSA
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 22,348

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    MattW said:

    isam said:

    Foxy said:

    TimS said:

    Fun map exercise posted earlier by Meeks (FOTP).

    https://smstone0.github.io/#/uk-map

    All the places in the UK you’ve lived, stayed, visited, stopped in or passed through.


    I score 246. All of England covered, no NI, and half of Scotland to go.
    Only 199 for me. I think I've been everywhere in Great Britain with the exception of the very far north of Scotland and that big bit in the middle of Wales. No Isles of Man or Wight, only Down in NI. But I've only actually lived in four places in the UK: Fife, Tyne and Wear, Cambridgeshire and London. I lived overseas for eight years but no points for that. Not in this game!
    I only got 86. Lived in Essex, North London & Brighton and rarely ventured further north than that. I did live in Gibraltar though, that should score points
    Haven't you travelled the railway across nearly the entire mainland?

    Given that there are 91 areas on the mainland, and going through on a train is one, whilst stopping at a station is two, does that not make it a bit higher?

    Or have I got to review my 300+ score :smile: ?

    Max mainland-only score would be 455.
    I cannot work out how to download the map based only on a phone, but I scored 272. I've stayed in almost every county in England and Scotland and North Wales and visited almost all the rest (just a pass through for Kent and Essex - must visit tge SE more. Lived in GM, SY Durham and Notts. Never been to Norn Iron though.
    252 for me. Stayed in a lot of places, but not adjacent to where I've lived.

    Wigton, Essex, the Isle of Wight and the Northern Isles (major hole that one) are the only blanks.
    Can you genuinely remember all the places you've been to or through in your life?
    For me: yes.
    Though I am younger than you. And I've started to notice recently mymemory of things which happened in my childhood is not what it once was.
    I have a good memory for anything to do with people but I'm poor on places. I'd certainly struggle with this exercise.

    There are however places I know for sure I haven't been. One, and I say this with neither regret nor pride, is Sunderland.
    I'm the opposite. I can't remember people's names, but I remember where they're from.
    And also the opposite in that I HAVE been to Sunderland.
    178 if my memory's right. And I met my wife in Sunderland, where we were both students.
    Been to Sunderland too! Only for the day, at the uni, but how it must have been a dynamic place in its day and how badly it's been treated by London since. A convenient and disposable source of wealth to be squandered.
    My views of Sunderland are somewhat coloured by growing up in Newcastle, and also by some friends getting quite badly beaten up there, essentially for looking and sounding a bit different from the locals.
    I went to Sunderland once.
    Terrible, blighted place. Worse place I’ve been in the UK.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 38,827

    Nigelb said:

    And I said "current systems" not "system".

    The systems that were created in the aftermath of WW2 were based on the hegemony of the permanent members of the Security Council. Arguably what has undermined that in recent decades is the rise of legalism.
    What tends to get overlooked is that winning WWII (and other just wars, like the US Civil War, or Korea), involved the use of extreme brutality, and a great deal of revenge killing. Legalism can’t get in the way of winning.

    Hence, the silly arguments about Ukraine fighting from civilian buildings, or using illegal munitions.
  • eekeek Posts: 30,098

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    MattW said:

    isam said:

    Foxy said:

    TimS said:

    Fun map exercise posted earlier by Meeks (FOTP).

    https://smstone0.github.io/#/uk-map

    All the places in the UK you’ve lived, stayed, visited, stopped in or passed through.


    I score 246. All of England covered, no NI, and half of Scotland to go.
    Only 199 for me. I think I've been everywhere in Great Britain with the exception of the very far north of Scotland and that big bit in the middle of Wales. No Isles of Man or Wight, only Down in NI. But I've only actually lived in four places in the UK: Fife, Tyne and Wear, Cambridgeshire and London. I lived overseas for eight years but no points for that. Not in this game!
    I only got 86. Lived in Essex, North London & Brighton and rarely ventured further north than that. I did live in Gibraltar though, that should score points
    Haven't you travelled the railway across nearly the entire mainland?

    Given that there are 91 areas on the mainland, and going through on a train is one, whilst stopping at a station is two, does that not make it a bit higher?

    Or have I got to review my 300+ score :smile: ?

    Max mainland-only score would be 455.
    I cannot work out how to download the map based only on a phone, but I scored 272. I've stayed in almost every county in England and Scotland and North Wales and visited almost all the rest (just a pass through for Kent and Essex - must visit tge SE more. Lived in GM, SY Durham and Notts. Never been to Norn Iron though.
    252 for me. Stayed in a lot of places, but not adjacent to where I've lived.

    Wigton, Essex, the Isle of Wight and the Northern Isles (major hole that one) are the only blanks.
    Can you genuinely remember all the places you've been to or through in your life?
    For me: yes.
    Though I am younger than you. And I've started to notice recently mymemory of things which happened in my childhood is not what it once was.
    I have a good memory for anything to do with people but I'm poor on places. I'd certainly struggle with this exercise.

    There are however places I know for sure I haven't been. One, and I say this with neither regret nor pride, is Sunderland.
    I'm the opposite. I can't remember people's names, but I remember where they're from.
    And also the opposite in that I HAVE been to Sunderland.
    178 if my memory's right. And I met my wife in Sunderland, where we were both students.
    Been to Sunderland too! Only for the day, at the uni, but how it must have been a dynamic place in its day and how badly it's been treated by London since. A convenient and disposable source of wealth to be squandered.
    My views of Sunderland are somewhat coloured by growing up in Newcastle, and also by some friends getting quite badly beaten up there, essentially for looking and sounding a bit different from the locals.
    I went to Sunderland once.
    Terrible, blighted place. Worse place I’ve been in the UK.
    I could think of 10 worse places than Sunderland in the UK without trying..
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 22,348
    eek said:

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    MattW said:

    isam said:

    Foxy said:

    TimS said:

    Fun map exercise posted earlier by Meeks (FOTP).

    https://smstone0.github.io/#/uk-map

    All the places in the UK you’ve lived, stayed, visited, stopped in or passed through.


    I score 246. All of England covered, no NI, and half of Scotland to go.
    Only 199 for me. I think I've been everywhere in Great Britain with the exception of the very far north of Scotland and that big bit in the middle of Wales. No Isles of Man or Wight, only Down in NI. But I've only actually lived in four places in the UK: Fife, Tyne and Wear, Cambridgeshire and London. I lived overseas for eight years but no points for that. Not in this game!
    I only got 86. Lived in Essex, North London & Brighton and rarely ventured further north than that. I did live in Gibraltar though, that should score points
    Haven't you travelled the railway across nearly the entire mainland?

    Given that there are 91 areas on the mainland, and going through on a train is one, whilst stopping at a station is two, does that not make it a bit higher?

    Or have I got to review my 300+ score :smile: ?

    Max mainland-only score would be 455.
    I cannot work out how to download the map based only on a phone, but I scored 272. I've stayed in almost every county in England and Scotland and North Wales and visited almost all the rest (just a pass through for Kent and Essex - must visit tge SE more. Lived in GM, SY Durham and Notts. Never been to Norn Iron though.
    252 for me. Stayed in a lot of places, but not adjacent to where I've lived.

    Wigton, Essex, the Isle of Wight and the Northern Isles (major hole that one) are the only blanks.
    Can you genuinely remember all the places you've been to or through in your life?
    For me: yes.
    Though I am younger than you. And I've started to notice recently mymemory of things which happened in my childhood is not what it once was.
    I have a good memory for anything to do with people but I'm poor on places. I'd certainly struggle with this exercise.

    There are however places I know for sure I haven't been. One, and I say this with neither regret nor pride, is Sunderland.
    I'm the opposite. I can't remember people's names, but I remember where they're from.
    And also the opposite in that I HAVE been to Sunderland.
    178 if my memory's right. And I met my wife in Sunderland, where we were both students.
    Been to Sunderland too! Only for the day, at the uni, but how it must have been a dynamic place in its day and how badly it's been treated by London since. A convenient and disposable source of wealth to be squandered.
    My views of Sunderland are somewhat coloured by growing up in Newcastle, and also by some friends getting quite badly beaten up there, essentially for looking and sounding a bit different from the locals.
    I went to Sunderland once.
    Terrible, blighted place. Worse place I’ve been in the UK.
    I could think of 10 worse places than Sunderland in the UK without trying..
    Go on, then.
  • eekeek Posts: 30,098
    edited May 31

    eek said:

    eek said:


    If he wasn't in Parliament that offence would likely resulted in him being out the door that day for gross misconduct.
    After the Labour expenses scandal Labour MPs served custodial sentences for similar offences (granted the sums were greater). How the Desmond deal didn't breach any laws genuinely baffled me.
    Administrative errors are endemic in parliament expenses - Starmers Donkey paddock for example
    It's probably an occupational risk when your job involves expenses on a day to day basis rather than exceptionally
    I've been doing expenses for a long time - it's very difficult to not work out what mode of transport you took that week...
    Not the most sophisticated hustle though. I mean we either accept errors occur and are corrected later or we say all errors are an attempt to scam the public. In the latter case we have very few MPs left. Footy tickets and the like 'forgotten to be declared', donkey fields forgotten for years etc etc
    In terms of transport specifically, if you both drive and take trains and fly etc etc and have someone entering your expenses claims intermittently it's extremely easy to see how an error could occur.
    That's why we have IPSA
    Expenses have been simple since at least 2009. Spend money - take a photo of the receipt and you are good to go.

    I used to go through £5-8000 of expenses a month whilst flying round Europe - it take me 10 minutes to do it at the end of the month and that included working out which end client was being billed what..
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 34,842

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    MattW said:

    isam said:

    Foxy said:

    TimS said:

    Fun map exercise posted earlier by Meeks (FOTP).

    https://smstone0.github.io/#/uk-map

    All the places in the UK you’ve lived, stayed, visited, stopped in or passed through.


    I score 246. All of England covered, no NI, and half of Scotland to go.
    Only 199 for me. I think I've been everywhere in Great Britain with the exception of the very far north of Scotland and that big bit in the middle of Wales. No Isles of Man or Wight, only Down in NI. But I've only actually lived in four places in the UK: Fife, Tyne and Wear, Cambridgeshire and London. I lived overseas for eight years but no points for that. Not in this game!
    I only got 86. Lived in Essex, North London & Brighton and rarely ventured further north than that. I did live in Gibraltar though, that should score points
    Haven't you travelled the railway across nearly the entire mainland?

    Given that there are 91 areas on the mainland, and going through on a train is one, whilst stopping at a station is two, does that not make it a bit higher?

    Or have I got to review my 300+ score :smile: ?

    Max mainland-only score would be 455.
    I cannot work out how to download the map based only on a phone, but I scored 272. I've stayed in almost every county in England and Scotland and North Wales and visited almost all the rest (just a pass through for Kent and Essex - must visit tge SE more. Lived in GM, SY Durham and Notts. Never been to Norn Iron though.
    252 for me. Stayed in a lot of places, but not adjacent to where I've lived.

    Wigton, Essex, the Isle of Wight and the Northern Isles (major hole that one) are the only blanks.
    Can you genuinely remember all the places you've been to or through in your life?
    For me: yes.
    Though I am younger than you. And I've started to notice recently mymemory of things which happened in my childhood is not what it once was.
    I have a good memory for anything to do with people but I'm poor on places. I'd certainly struggle with this exercise.

    There are however places I know for sure I haven't been. One, and I say this with neither regret nor pride, is Sunderland.
    I'm the opposite. I can't remember people's names, but I remember where they're from.
    And also the opposite in that I HAVE been to Sunderland.
    178 if my memory's right. And I met my wife in Sunderland, where we were both students.
    Been to Sunderland too! Only for the day, at the uni, but how it must have been a dynamic place in its day and how badly it's been treated by London since. A convenient and disposable source of wealth to be squandered.
    My views of Sunderland are somewhat coloured by growing up in Newcastle, and also by some friends getting quite badly beaten up there, essentially for looking and sounding a bit different from the locals.
    I went to Sunderland once.
    Terrible, blighted place. Worse place I’ve been in the UK.
    No idea what it's like now but in the late 50's it was a very good place for a middle-class youth from SE Essex to go to broaden his horizons.
    And generally speaking I found the locals friendly, but of course as a student I tended to mix with my fellows.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 51,789

    Neil O’Brien MP has written an excellent substack detailing the very troubling place the UK finds itself in: getting older, sicker, and poorer.

    (The UK is not alone in this, but there are UK-specific facets that suggest specific UK-specific breakdowns).

    He offers no solutions but notes that a totally new approach is required.

    https://open.substack.com/pub/almondtree/p/the-confluence?r=nnd8&utm_medium=ios

    One of my local MPs, and alongside neighbouring Alicia Kearns part of the endangered sensible wing of the party
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,774
    edited May 31
    eek said:

    eek said:

    eek said:


    If he wasn't in Parliament that offence would likely resulted in him being out the door that day for gross misconduct.
    After the Labour expenses scandal Labour MPs served custodial sentences for similar offences (granted the sums were greater). How the Desmond deal didn't breach any laws genuinely baffled me.
    Administrative errors are endemic in parliament expenses - Starmers Donkey paddock for example
    It's probably an occupational risk when your job involves expenses on a day to day basis rather than exceptionally
    I've been doing expenses for a long time - it's very difficult to not work out what mode of transport you took that week...
    Not the most sophisticated hustle though. I mean we either accept errors occur and are corrected later or we say all errors are an attempt to scam the public. In the latter case we have very few MPs left. Footy tickets and the like 'forgotten to be declared', donkey fields forgotten for years etc etc
    In terms of transport specifically, if you both drive and take trains and fly etc etc and have someone entering your expenses claims intermittently it's extremely easy to see how an error could occur.
    That's why we have IPSA
    Expenses have been simple since at least 2009. Spend money - take a photo of the receipt and you are good to go.

    I used to go through £5-8000 of expenses a month whilst flying round Europe - it take me 10 minutes to do it at the end of the month and that included working out which end client was being billed what..
    Sure, and good for you, but I can see how errors can occur and as long as there isn't a pattern to it then personally Im content for IPSA to handle it and the Standards lot if needed.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 22,348
    Foxy said:

    Neil O’Brien MP has written an excellent substack detailing the very troubling place the UK finds itself in: getting older, sicker, and poorer.

    (The UK is not alone in this, but there are UK-specific facets that suggest specific UK-specific breakdowns).

    He offers no solutions but notes that a totally new approach is required.

    https://open.substack.com/pub/almondtree/p/the-confluence?r=nnd8&utm_medium=ios

    One of my local MPs, and alongside neighbouring Alicia Kearns part of the endangered sensible wing of the party
    Yes, he and Kearns, and one or two others, are effectively the musicians playing on aboard the Titanic.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 12,687
    Leon said:

    I can report that despite Sir Keir Traitor’s bleatings, e-gates have not been opened for Brits in the EU. He’s gonna have a lot of disappointed British voters fuming at him on holibobs this summer. What an idiot

    I can however report that I am now in my…. HUNDREDTH COUNTRY. A lifetime goal achieved

    100 countries!!


    Yes ok it’s Luxembourg. So also possibly the most boring country on earth. But that’s kind of fitting

    Go everywhere, young man!

    Young?

    Well I think both you and Keir are wrong, because I went through an e-gate in Naples a month ago and before Keir negotiated what ever he did to get me what I had already got and that wasn't the first I have gone through in the EU. Unless what is actually promised is not having to get your passport stamped, which I still had to have done.

    Can let you know tomorrow if that happens in Seville.

  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 34,842

    eek said:

    eek said:

    eek said:


    If he wasn't in Parliament that offence would likely resulted in him being out the door that day for gross misconduct.
    After the Labour expenses scandal Labour MPs served custodial sentences for similar offences (granted the sums were greater). How the Desmond deal didn't breach any laws genuinely baffled me.
    Administrative errors are endemic in parliament expenses - Starmers Donkey paddock for example
    It's probably an occupational risk when your job involves expenses on a day to day basis rather than exceptionally
    I've been doing expenses for a long time - it's very difficult to not work out what mode of transport you took that week...
    Not the most sophisticated hustle though. I mean we either accept errors occur and are corrected later or we say all errors are an attempt to scam the public. In the latter case we have very few MPs left. Footy tickets and the like 'forgotten to be declared', donkey fields forgotten for years etc etc
    In terms of transport specifically, if you both drive and take trains and fly etc etc and have someone entering your expenses claims intermittently it's extremely easy to see how an error could occur.
    That's why we have IPSA
    Expenses have been simple since at least 2009. Spend money - take a photo of the receipt and you are good to go.

    I used to go through £5-8000 of expenses a month whilst flying round Europe - it take me 10 minutes to do it at the end of the month and that included working out which end client was being billed what..
    Sure, and good for you, but I can see how errors can occur and as long as there isn't a pattern to it then personally Im content for IPSA to handle it and the Standards lot if needed.
    @eek appears to have an orderly mind and makes time to do such tasks. Under this circumstances I've no doubt he could and did do his expense account. It's when the claimer isn't organised that errors creep (or, in come cases, gallop) in.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 14,645

    stodge said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Lord Hermer, Starmer’s AG & the government’s shield for not doing anything about the small boats is currently apologising for saying Reform & the Conservatives are the equivalent of 1930s Nazis

    Rosie Duffield on the wisdom of politicians appointing Lords

    Who ever could have guessed, if you gift one of your besties a peerage and a top Government role, despite them never having been an elected MP, and having had zero political experience in Parliament, they might actually turn out to be really quite crap at politics...?!


    https://x.com/rosieduffield1/status/1928504221290078284?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

    I looked into this. It's bollox and he shouldn't be apologising. He did not compare political opponents to the Nazis. He merely pointed to the dangers of a "nation state power trumps all else" viewpoint by reference to it also being advanced by certain German thinkers in the 1930s. This is the right being snowflakes (as per) and Duffield being a snark with a grudge.
    We are in a World where statements can be nuanced in a way to inflict maximum political damage to one's opponents. I suspect it was always thus, but today the media is so morally corrupt that a positive story can be sold as negative and vice versa. Starmer's (disappointing) but nonetheless improved arrangement with the EU is sold as a capitulation whilst Johnson's disastrous "oven- ready" deal is hailed as a victory. Labour in opposition had (quite rightly) their proposed economic programme critiqued in minutiae, whilst Farage's Trussian proposals get a free ride.
    Four and a bit years before the last election, Starmer was committed to increasing income tax on the top 5%, scrapping tuition fees, nationalising all utilities, spending 28bn on green stuff, and so on, so why bother taking any notice of what is said at this point at all? All the politician has to say is ‘circumstances have changed’ and they give themselves a free pass to ignore what they previously said
    I don't disagree with your post. Labour have been disingenuous, not least with their Conservative tax and spend programme whilst in Government.

    My point is that the bias in reporting from the likes of the Mail, Telegraph, Express, GBNews and TalkTV is almost at Newsmax and Fox levels of disinformation bias. This negative narrative is then latched onto by mainstream media and PB commentators.

    On the other hand, take Liz Truss's budget, reported as the greatest and "most Conservative Budget" since the 1980s by the Mail, Telegraph and the Daily Farage) and not a whisper when it collapsed around her ears except for the Star's glorious lettuce analogy.
    Not entirely true, the pro-Tory papers were quick to blame the "woke Treasury Establishment" and "inertia" in "the Blob" (yawn) for the failure of the Kwarteng budget.
    I don't think that's remotely true. I would argue that conversely, the media, including the so called right wing media, has fuelled the bizarre alternative history that the budget was actually implemented, and failed. The role of the Bank of England in the crisis was never explored at all (probably partly due to the complexity of the arguments), and has therefore fallen down a memory hole.

    As an example, when Starmer was making his ludicrous claims that Nigel would 'crash the economy like Liz Truss', a lot of Tweeters asked the Grok to say whether bond yields are higher under Reeves than they were under Truss. It did so, but was strongly in favour of Reeves over Truss, putting forward the opinion that 'global conditions' have played a strong role in Reeves' problems, but that the bond yield crisis under Truss was solely the result of her budget. Completely forgetting Ukraine, the Energy Crisis, interest rate hikes, LDIs, the Bank's QT announcement etc. Grok and other AIs draw their conclusions from the easily available media on the subject.
    I was commenting on the media reaction to the Kwarteng Budget, not the Budget itself of which I'm well aware you are one of the staunchest defenders.

    If we don't call it an economic failure, we can call it a political failure inasmuch as it eventually cost the Chancellor and the Prime Minister their jobs.

    Irrespective of the source and the rationale behind the market crisis which ensued following the Budget, there's no denying there was a market reaction. The pro-Tory media, in saying yet another Conservative administration buckle under market pressure, looked for scapegoats and came up with the old mantra of "the enemy within" which is always wheeled out when Conservative policies run into problems.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 44,300

    eek said:

    eek said:

    eek said:


    If he wasn't in Parliament that offence would likely resulted in him being out the door that day for gross misconduct.
    After the Labour expenses scandal Labour MPs served custodial sentences for similar offences (granted the sums were greater). How the Desmond deal didn't breach any laws genuinely baffled me.
    Administrative errors are endemic in parliament expenses - Starmers Donkey paddock for example
    It's probably an occupational risk when your job involves expenses on a day to day basis rather than exceptionally
    I've been doing expenses for a long time - it's very difficult to not work out what mode of transport you took that week...
    Not the most sophisticated hustle though. I mean we either accept errors occur and are corrected later or we say all errors are an attempt to scam the public. In the latter case we have very few MPs left. Footy tickets and the like 'forgotten to be declared', donkey fields forgotten for years etc etc
    In terms of transport specifically, if you both drive and take trains and fly etc etc and have someone entering your expenses claims intermittently it's extremely easy to see how an error could occur.
    That's why we have IPSA
    Expenses have been simple since at least 2009. Spend money - take a photo of the receipt and you are good to go.

    I used to go through £5-8000 of expenses a month whilst flying round Europe - it take me 10 minutes to do it at the end of the month and that included working out which end client was being billed what..
    Sure, and good for you, but I can see how errors can occur and as long as there isn't a pattern to it then personally Im content for IPSA to handle it and the Standards lot if needed.
    @eek appears to have an orderly mind and makes time to do such tasks. Under this circumstances I've no doubt he could and did do his expense account. It's when the claimer isn't organised that errors creep (or, in come cases, gallop) in.
    OKC he will have lackeys to do his expenses, paid from public purse as well.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 61,298

    Leon said:

    I can report that despite Sir Keir Traitor’s bleatings, e-gates have not been opened for Brits in the EU. He’s gonna have a lot of disappointed British voters fuming at him on holibobs this summer. What an idiot

    I can however report that I am now in my…. HUNDREDTH COUNTRY. A lifetime goal achieved

    100 countries!!


    Yes ok it’s Luxembourg. So also possibly the most boring country on earth. But that’s kind of fitting

    Go everywhere, young man!

    But he said we were all excited by his prime negotiation win. This can't be right
    It’s such desperately crap basic retail politics. If you can’t deliver, don’t promise. Instead he promised and he hasn’t delivered

    He will hack off another million holidaying British voters this summer, for no reason at all other than that he is terrible at comms
  • MattWMattW Posts: 27,481
    edited May 31
    isam said:

    MattW said:

    isam said:

    Lord Hermer, Starmer’s AG & the government’s shield for not doing anything about the small boats is currently apologising for saying Reform & the Conservatives are the equivalent of 1930s Nazis

    I'm not sure that's a wise political move, because afaics he made no such actual comparison. He is letting himself be defined by misrepresentation by his opponents.

    He made a comparison of the potential consequences of rolling back international law, and letting the political interests of the current party in control override the basic systems of the State/country, and is the basic agenda of those behind Trump. That was what happened in 1933, and his apposite warning is where it can lead.

    It's a standard playbook - try and avoid a criticism by invoking a far more extreme version and demanding in a loud voice "Why are you calling me THIS?".

    I'd say he should have issued a careful statement, then made a speech, ramming their claim straight back down their throats, refusing to be pulled down into the mud. This is Starmer & co being too timid again, and ceding control of the agenda.

    Both the Conservative Right and Reform are politically fragile, and need to be shattered into little pieces.

    Official text of the speech:
    https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/attorney-generals-2025-rusi-annual-security-lecture

    Guardian report:
    https://www.theguardian.com/law/2025/may/30/attorney-general-richard-hermer-apologises-for-comparing-tories-and-reform-to-nazis

    He said people were making the point, leaving the Human Rights convention, in the Palacevof Westminster, then started referencing those who opened the door to Hitler didn’t he?
    That's not a Hitler comparison either, though.

    TBF comparisons with Italy 1920s, or even Erdogan, or Trump, are likely to be more effective, in addition to being more accurate, as less generative of elephant traps for - here - Hermer.

    I've not seen much debate comparing Farage, or say Jenrick, directly to Trump - but I see no reason why it it inappropriate.

    If someone gets their head together, there will be commentary around Farage's praise of Andrew Tate *after* he had been charged with rape, as a good role model. We shall see.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 77,819

    Neil O’Brien MP has written an excellent substack detailing the very troubling place the UK finds itself in: getting older, sicker, and poorer.

    (The UK is not alone in this, but there are UK-specific facets that suggest specific UK-specific breakdowns).

    He offers no solutions but notes that a totally new approach is required.

    https://open.substack.com/pub/almondtree/p/the-confluence?r=nnd8&utm_medium=ios

    Obv, surely ?
    We just need to become younger, healthier, and richer.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 77,819
    Still with this shit ?

    Trump: "They spent $8 million on making mice transgender."
    https://x.com/atrupar/status/1928513549342572905

    Senile fool.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 30,928
    kinabalu said:

    stodge said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Lord Hermer, Starmer’s AG & the government’s shield for not doing anything about the small boats is currently apologising for saying Reform & the Conservatives are the equivalent of 1930s Nazis

    Rosie Duffield on the wisdom of politicians appointing Lords

    Who ever could have guessed, if you gift one of your besties a peerage and a top Government role, despite them never having been an elected MP, and having had zero political experience in Parliament, they might actually turn out to be really quite crap at politics...?!


    https://x.com/rosieduffield1/status/1928504221290078284?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

    I looked into this. It's bollox and he shouldn't be apologising. He did not compare political opponents to the Nazis. He merely pointed to the dangers of a "nation state power trumps all else" viewpoint by reference to it also being advanced by certain German thinkers in the 1930s. This is the right being snowflakes (as per) and Duffield being a snark with a grudge.
    We are in a World where statements can be nuanced in a way to inflict maximum political damage to one's opponents. I suspect it was always thus, but today the media is so morally corrupt that a positive story can be sold as negative and vice versa. Starmer's (disappointing) but nonetheless improved arrangement with the EU is sold as a capitulation whilst Johnson's disastrous "oven- ready" deal is hailed as a victory. Labour in opposition had (quite rightly) their proposed economic programme critiqued in minutiae, whilst Farage's Trussian proposals get a free ride.
    Four and a bit years before the last election, Starmer was committed to increasing income tax on the top 5%, scrapping tuition fees, nationalising all utilities, spending 28bn on green stuff, and so on, so why bother taking any notice of what is said at this point at all? All the politician has to say is ‘circumstances have changed’ and they give themselves a free pass to ignore what they previously said
    I don't disagree with your post. Labour have been disingenuous, not least with their Conservative tax and spend programme whilst in Government.

    My point is that the bias in reporting from the likes of the Mail, Telegraph, Express, GBNews and TalkTV is almost at Newsmax and Fox levels of disinformation bias. This negative narrative is then latched onto by mainstream media and PB commentators.

    On the other hand, take Liz Truss's budget, reported as the greatest and "most Conservative Budget" since the 1980s by the Mail, Telegraph and the Daily Farage) and not a whisper when it collapsed around her ears except for the Star's glorious lettuce analogy.
    Not entirely true, the pro-Tory papers were quick to blame the "woke Treasury Establishment" and "inertia" in "the Blob" (yawn) for the failure of the Kwarteng budget.
    One day we will get a sober retrospective analysis of how much of the Truss chaos was down to the eye watering energy bills bailout which was pretty much forced and how much was the tax changes (all of which aside from top rate cut were supported by the opposition).
    And, I suppose, how much was down to there being no OBR figures.
    The last bit was very important, I think. The whole thing looked rushed and amateurish.
    The missing OBR figures played their part in bringing down Truss. This is why Reeves considered she had to wait months for the OBR before presenting Labour's budget last year.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 14,645
    Foxy said:

    Neil O’Brien MP has written an excellent substack detailing the very troubling place the UK finds itself in: getting older, sicker, and poorer.

    (The UK is not alone in this, but there are UK-specific facets that suggest specific UK-specific breakdowns).

    He offers no solutions but notes that a totally new approach is required.

    https://open.substack.com/pub/almondtree/p/the-confluence?r=nnd8&utm_medium=ios

    One of my local MPs, and alongside neighbouring Alicia Kearns part of the endangered sensible wing of the party
    Yes and rather like Robert Jenrick, long on diagnosis and short on treatment. MY response to reading Neil O'Brien's piece, which told me very little of which I wasn't already care was ..."And?".

    What we are seeing is some kind of Conservative epiphany as they realise, after a year in opposition, there are some things wrong with the country. What did they think was happening while they were in Government?

    It's either blatant stupidity or wilful naivete and probably a bit of both.

    I'd offer the other thought Gordon Brown was right - we have abolished boom and bust. It's just bust all the time now - a little harsh perhaps - but the sense of stagnation, inertia and running hard to stand still is the fuel which powers more radical (and even less coherent) responses.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,774

    eek said:

    eek said:

    eek said:


    If he wasn't in Parliament that offence would likely resulted in him being out the door that day for gross misconduct.
    After the Labour expenses scandal Labour MPs served custodial sentences for similar offences (granted the sums were greater). How the Desmond deal didn't breach any laws genuinely baffled me.
    Administrative errors are endemic in parliament expenses - Starmers Donkey paddock for example
    It's probably an occupational risk when your job involves expenses on a day to day basis rather than exceptionally
    I've been doing expenses for a long time - it's very difficult to not work out what mode of transport you took that week...
    Not the most sophisticated hustle though. I mean we either accept errors occur and are corrected later or we say all errors are an attempt to scam the public. In the latter case we have very few MPs left. Footy tickets and the like 'forgotten to be declared', donkey fields forgotten for years etc etc
    In terms of transport specifically, if you both drive and take trains and fly etc etc and have someone entering your expenses claims intermittently it's extremely easy to see how an error could occur.
    That's why we have IPSA
    Expenses have been simple since at least 2009. Spend money - take a photo of the receipt and you are good to go.

    I used to go through £5-8000 of expenses a month whilst flying round Europe - it take me 10 minutes to do it at the end of the month and that included working out which end client was being billed what..
    Sure, and good for you, but I can see how errors can occur and as long as there isn't a pattern to it then personally Im content for IPSA to handle it and the Standards lot if needed.
    @eek appears to have an orderly mind and makes time to do such tasks. Under this circumstances I've no doubt he could and did do his expense account. It's when the claimer isn't organised that errors creep (or, in come cases, gallop) in.
    Yes but that was my point. Errors happen. If they happen regularly and/or in the same way it requires a deeper dive of course.
    On the other hand, faredodgers in almost all circs aren't making an error, it's a conscious choice
  • LeonLeon Posts: 61,298
    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    I can report that despite Sir Keir Traitor’s bleatings, e-gates have not been opened for Brits in the EU. He’s gonna have a lot of disappointed British voters fuming at him on holibobs this summer. What an idiot

    I can however report that I am now in my…. HUNDREDTH COUNTRY. A lifetime goal achieved

    100 countries!!


    Yes ok it’s Luxembourg. So also possibly the most boring country on earth. But that’s kind of fitting

    Go everywhere, young man!

    Young?

    Well I think both you and Keir are wrong, because I went through an e-gate in Naples a month ago and before Keir negotiated what ever he did to get me what I had already got and that wasn't the first I have gone through in the EU. Unless what is actually promised is not having to get your passport stamped, which I still had to have done.

    Can let you know tomorrow if that happens in Seville.

    Don’t give me grief

    I’ve just driven across the entire country. My absurd itinerary had me landing in the Deep South and my first hotel is way up in the wild north so I’ve just had to drive for kilometre after kilometre, literally dozens of minutes, twice turning left on a roundabout and once going over a small bridge and finally I’ve made it, 34 minutes later - the other end of the nation.

    What a journey. What a country

    *slumps forward on steering wheel, spent like the spawning salmon*
  • MattWMattW Posts: 27,481
    MattW said:

    isam said:

    MattW said:

    isam said:

    Lord Hermer, Starmer’s AG & the government’s shield for not doing anything about the small boats is currently apologising for saying Reform & the Conservatives are the equivalent of 1930s Nazis

    I'm not sure that's a wise political move, because afaics he made no such actual comparison. He is letting himself be defined by misrepresentation by his opponents.

    He made a comparison of the potential consequences of rolling back international law, and letting the political interests of the current party in control override the basic systems of the State/country, and is the basic agenda of those behind Trump. That was what happened in 1933, and his apposite warning is where it can lead.

    It's a standard playbook - try and avoid a criticism by invoking a far more extreme version and demanding in a loud voice "Why are you calling me THIS?".

    I'd say he should have issued a careful statement, then made a speech, ramming their claim straight back down their throats, refusing to be pulled down into the mud. This is Starmer & co being too timid again, and ceding control of the agenda.

    Both the Conservative Right and Reform are politically fragile, and need to be shattered into little pieces.

    Official text of the speech:
    https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/attorney-generals-2025-rusi-annual-security-lecture

    Guardian report:
    https://www.theguardian.com/law/2025/may/30/attorney-general-richard-hermer-apologises-for-comparing-tories-and-reform-to-nazis

    He said people were making the point, leaving the Human Rights convention, in the Palacevof Westminster, then started referencing those who opened the door to Hitler didn’t he?
    That's not a Hitler comparison either, though.

    TBF comparisons with Italy 1920s, or even Erdogan, or Trump, are likely to be more effective, in addition to being more accurate, as less generative of elephant traps for - here - Hermer.

    I've not seen much debate comparing Farage, or say Jenrick, directly to Trump - but I see no reason why it it inappropriate.

    If someone gets their head together, there will be commentary around Farage's praise of Andrew Tate *after* he had been charged with rape, as a good role model. We shall see.
    In case anyone goes full PB pedant, "positive influence" is perhaps better than "role model".
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,774
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    I can report that despite Sir Keir Traitor’s bleatings, e-gates have not been opened for Brits in the EU. He’s gonna have a lot of disappointed British voters fuming at him on holibobs this summer. What an idiot

    I can however report that I am now in my…. HUNDREDTH COUNTRY. A lifetime goal achieved

    100 countries!!


    Yes ok it’s Luxembourg. So also possibly the most boring country on earth. But that’s kind of fitting

    Go everywhere, young man!

    But he said we were all excited by his prime negotiation win. This can't be right
    It’s such desperately crap basic retail politics. If you can’t deliver, don’t promise. Instead he promised and he hasn’t delivered

    He will hack off another million holidaying British voters this summer, for no reason at all other than that he is terrible at comms
    His government cannot do comms. At all.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 31,995
    Nigelb said:

    Still with this shit ?

    Trump: "They spent $8 million on making mice transgender."
    https://x.com/atrupar/status/1928513549342572905

    Senile fool.

    He's the President of the United States of America and the Leader of the Free World. It must be true.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 31,995

    I'm sat in a Costa, thinking I should do some work whilst I wait for my daughters drama school to finish.

    But Jesus Christ be praised. I think I'll ride around 1403 Bohemia instead........

    Costa Brava, Costa Del Sol?
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 43,725

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    I can report that despite Sir Keir Traitor’s bleatings, e-gates have not been opened for Brits in the EU. He’s gonna have a lot of disappointed British voters fuming at him on holibobs this summer. What an idiot

    I can however report that I am now in my…. HUNDREDTH COUNTRY. A lifetime goal achieved

    100 countries!!


    Yes ok it’s Luxembourg. So also possibly the most boring country on earth. But that’s kind of fitting

    Go everywhere, young man!

    But he said we were all excited by his prime negotiation win. This can't be right
    It’s such desperately crap basic retail politics. If you can’t deliver, don’t promise. Instead he promised and he hasn’t delivered

    He will hack off another million holidaying British voters this summer, for no reason at all other than that he is terrible at comms
    His government cannot do comms. At all.
    I thought McSweeney the demon strategist was supposed to be shit hot at this kind of thing?
  • eekeek Posts: 30,098

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    I can report that despite Sir Keir Traitor’s bleatings, e-gates have not been opened for Brits in the EU. He’s gonna have a lot of disappointed British voters fuming at him on holibobs this summer. What an idiot

    I can however report that I am now in my…. HUNDREDTH COUNTRY. A lifetime goal achieved

    100 countries!!


    Yes ok it’s Luxembourg. So also possibly the most boring country on earth. But that’s kind of fitting

    Go everywhere, young man!

    But he said we were all excited by his prime negotiation win. This can't be right
    It’s such desperately crap basic retail politics. If you can’t deliver, don’t promise. Instead he promised and he hasn’t delivered

    He will hack off another million holidaying British voters this summer, for no reason at all other than that he is terrible at comms
    His government cannot do comms. At all.
    I have got to say that that is by far Labour's biggest problem.

    They've got a whole set of other issues but without fixing their communications issue the other changes are irrelevant.

    and granted I fly a lot so know this but it was never going to be implemented or implementable until the EU's new ETIAS and EES systems are in place and that's delayed until at least October.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 31,995

    eek said:


    If he wasn't in Parliament that offence would likely resulted in him being out the door that day for gross misconduct.
    After the Labour expenses scandal Labour MPs served custodial sentences for similar offences (granted the sums were greater). How the Desmond deal didn't breach any laws genuinely baffled me.
    Administrative errors are endemic in parliament expenses - Starmers Donkey paddock for example
    It's probably an occupational risk when your job involves expenses on a day to day basis rather than exceptionally
    Try claiming expenses for your fuel for the journey after the company have paid for a rail warrant. See you at the Jobcentre.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 31,995
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    I can report that despite Sir Keir Traitor’s bleatings, e-gates have not been opened for Brits in the EU. He’s gonna have a lot of disappointed British voters fuming at him on holibobs this summer. What an idiot

    I can however report that I am now in my…. HUNDREDTH COUNTRY. A lifetime goal achieved

    100 countries!!


    Yes ok it’s Luxembourg. So also possibly the most boring country on earth. But that’s kind of fitting

    Go everywhere, young man!

    But he said we were all excited by his prime negotiation win. This can't be right
    It’s such desperately crap basic retail politics. If you can’t deliver, don’t promise. Instead he promised and he hasn’t delivered

    He will hack off another million holidaying British voters this summer, for no reason at all other than that he is terrible at comms
    On the other hand you voted to queue with the Russians at a European immigration checkpoint of your choice.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 61,298
    eek said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    I can report that despite Sir Keir Traitor’s bleatings, e-gates have not been opened for Brits in the EU. He’s gonna have a lot of disappointed British voters fuming at him on holibobs this summer. What an idiot

    I can however report that I am now in my…. HUNDREDTH COUNTRY. A lifetime goal achieved

    100 countries!!


    Yes ok it’s Luxembourg. So also possibly the most boring country on earth. But that’s kind of fitting

    Go everywhere, young man!

    But he said we were all excited by his prime negotiation win. This can't be right
    It’s such desperately crap basic retail politics. If you can’t deliver, don’t promise. Instead he promised and he hasn’t delivered

    He will hack off another million holidaying British voters this summer, for no reason at all other than that he is terrible at comms
    His government cannot do comms. At all.
    I have got to say that that is by far Labour's biggest problem.

    They've got a whole set of other issues but without fixing their communications issue the other changes are irrelevant.

    and granted I fly a lot so know this but it was never going to be implemented or implementable until the EU's new ETIAS and EES systems are in place and that's delayed until at least October.
    Yes. Why even mention it? It was absolutely obvious it was never gonna be done by summer

    The only rationale I can see is their polling is now so desperate they are panicking and trying anything, thereby making it worse when it very predictably goes wrong, because they haven’t thought it through

    Or they just want nigel to win
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,774

    eek said:


    If he wasn't in Parliament that offence would likely resulted in him being out the door that day for gross misconduct.
    After the Labour expenses scandal Labour MPs served custodial sentences for similar offences (granted the sums were greater). How the Desmond deal didn't breach any laws genuinely baffled me.
    Administrative errors are endemic in parliament expenses - Starmers Donkey paddock for example
    It's probably an occupational risk when your job involves expenses on a day to day basis rather than exceptionally
    Try claiming expenses for your fuel for the journey after the company have paid for a rail warrant. See you at the Jobcentre.
    I think accounts would more likely get on the blower and ask what this is all about. 'You've already claimed for that journey'
    Any company jumping on gross misconduct for that (unless its a pattern of behaviour) is barking.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 30,928

    eek said:

    eek said:

    eek said:


    If he wasn't in Parliament that offence would likely resulted in him being out the door that day for gross misconduct.
    After the Labour expenses scandal Labour MPs served custodial sentences for similar offences (granted the sums were greater). How the Desmond deal didn't breach any laws genuinely baffled me.
    Administrative errors are endemic in parliament expenses - Starmers Donkey paddock for example
    It's probably an occupational risk when your job involves expenses on a day to day basis rather than exceptionally
    I've been doing expenses for a long time - it's very difficult to not work out what mode of transport you took that week...
    Not the most sophisticated hustle though. I mean we either accept errors occur and are corrected later or we say all errors are an attempt to scam the public. In the latter case we have very few MPs left. Footy tickets and the like 'forgotten to be declared', donkey fields forgotten for years etc etc
    In terms of transport specifically, if you both drive and take trains and fly etc etc and have someone entering your expenses claims intermittently it's extremely easy to see how an error could occur.
    That's why we have IPSA
    Expenses have been simple since at least 2009. Spend money - take a photo of the receipt and you are good to go.

    I used to go through £5-8000 of expenses a month whilst flying round Europe - it take me 10 minutes to do it at the end of the month and that included working out which end client was being billed what..
    Sure, and good for you, but I can see how errors can occur and as long as there isn't a pattern to it then personally Im content for IPSA to handle it and the Standards lot if needed.
    @eek appears to have an orderly mind and makes time to do such tasks. Under this circumstances I've no doubt he could and did do his expense account. It's when the claimer isn't organised that errors creep (or, in come cases, gallop) in.
    Yes but that was my point. Errors happen. If they happen regularly and/or in the same way it requires a deeper dive of course.
    On the other hand, faredodgers in almost all circs aren't making an error, it's a conscious choice
    The simple answer is to abolish Parliamentary expenses and pay an allowance instead, just as many ordinary jobs have London weighting. If Honourable Members choose to travel by Uber or spaff the lot on duck houses, that's up to them.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,774

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    I can report that despite Sir Keir Traitor’s bleatings, e-gates have not been opened for Brits in the EU. He’s gonna have a lot of disappointed British voters fuming at him on holibobs this summer. What an idiot

    I can however report that I am now in my…. HUNDREDTH COUNTRY. A lifetime goal achieved

    100 countries!!


    Yes ok it’s Luxembourg. So also possibly the most boring country on earth. But that’s kind of fitting

    Go everywhere, young man!

    But he said we were all excited by his prime negotiation win. This can't be right
    It’s such desperately crap basic retail politics. If you can’t deliver, don’t promise. Instead he promised and he hasn’t delivered

    He will hack off another million holidaying British voters this summer, for no reason at all other than that he is terrible at comms
    His government cannot do comms. At all.
    I thought McSweeney the demon strategist was supposed to be shit hot at this kind of thing?
    He thinks so certainly.
    Rumours were flying yesterday he's getting the blame for SKS looking like a weak tool in front of the press this week
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 45,451
    Leon said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    I can report that despite Sir Keir Traitor’s bleatings, e-gates have not been opened for Brits in the EU. He’s gonna have a lot of disappointed British voters fuming at him on holibobs this summer. What an idiot

    I can however report that I am now in my…. HUNDREDTH COUNTRY. A lifetime goal achieved

    100 countries!!


    Yes ok it’s Luxembourg. So also possibly the most boring country on earth. But that’s kind of fitting

    Go everywhere, young man!

    Young?

    Well I think both you and Keir are wrong, because I went through an e-gate in Naples a month ago and before Keir negotiated what ever he did to get me what I had already got and that wasn't the first I have gone through in the EU. Unless what is actually promised is not having to get your passport stamped, which I still had to have done.

    Can let you know tomorrow if that happens in Seville.

    Don’t give me grief

    I’ve just driven across the entire country. My absurd itinerary had me landing in the Deep South and my first hotel is way up in the wild north so I’ve just had to drive for kilometre after kilometre, literally dozens of minutes, twice turning left on a roundabout and once going over a small bridge and finally I’ve made it, 34 minutes later - the other end of the nation.

    What a journey. What a country

    *slumps forward on steering wheel, spent like the spawning salmon*
    Those big skies.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 31,995

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    I can report that despite Sir Keir Traitor’s bleatings, e-gates have not been opened for Brits in the EU. He’s gonna have a lot of disappointed British voters fuming at him on holibobs this summer. What an idiot

    I can however report that I am now in my…. HUNDREDTH COUNTRY. A lifetime goal achieved

    100 countries!!


    Yes ok it’s Luxembourg. So also possibly the most boring country on earth. But that’s kind of fitting

    Go everywhere, young man!

    But he said we were all excited by his prime negotiation win. This can't be right
    It’s such desperately crap basic retail politics. If you can’t deliver, don’t promise. Instead he promised and he hasn’t delivered

    He will hack off another million holidaying British voters this summer, for no reason at all other than that he is terrible at comms
    His government cannot do comms. At all.
    I thought McSweeney the demon strategist was supposed to be shit hot at this kind of thing?
    You have inadvertently added "strategist " and "hot" to your sentence.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,774
    eek said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    I can report that despite Sir Keir Traitor’s bleatings, e-gates have not been opened for Brits in the EU. He’s gonna have a lot of disappointed British voters fuming at him on holibobs this summer. What an idiot

    I can however report that I am now in my…. HUNDREDTH COUNTRY. A lifetime goal achieved

    100 countries!!


    Yes ok it’s Luxembourg. So also possibly the most boring country on earth. But that’s kind of fitting

    Go everywhere, young man!

    But he said we were all excited by his prime negotiation win. This can't be right
    It’s such desperately crap basic retail politics. If you can’t deliver, don’t promise. Instead he promised and he hasn’t delivered

    He will hack off another million holidaying British voters this summer, for no reason at all other than that he is terrible at comms
    His government cannot do comms. At all.
    I have got to say that that is by far Labour's biggest problem.

    They've got a whole set of other issues but without fixing their communications issue the other changes are irrelevant.

    and granted I fly a lot so know this but it was never going to be implemented or implementable until the EU's new ETIAS and EES systems are in place and that's delayed until at least October.
    It's the total opposite of the Campbell regime
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 55,452
    Leon said:

    eek said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    I can report that despite Sir Keir Traitor’s bleatings, e-gates have not been opened for Brits in the EU. He’s gonna have a lot of disappointed British voters fuming at him on holibobs this summer. What an idiot

    I can however report that I am now in my…. HUNDREDTH COUNTRY. A lifetime goal achieved

    100 countries!!


    Yes ok it’s Luxembourg. So also possibly the most boring country on earth. But that’s kind of fitting

    Go everywhere, young man!

    But he said we were all excited by his prime negotiation win. This can't be right
    It’s such desperately crap basic retail politics. If you can’t deliver, don’t promise. Instead he promised and he hasn’t delivered

    He will hack off another million holidaying British voters this summer, for no reason at all other than that he is terrible at comms
    His government cannot do comms. At all.
    I have got to say that that is by far Labour's biggest problem.

    They've got a whole set of other issues but without fixing their communications issue the other changes are irrelevant.

    and granted I fly a lot so know this but it was never going to be implemented or implementable until the EU's new ETIAS and EES systems are in place and that's delayed until at least October.
    Yes. Why even mention it? It was absolutely obvious it was never gonna be done by summer

    The only rationale I can see is their polling is now so desperate they are panicking and trying anything, thereby making it worse when it very predictably goes wrong, because they haven’t thought it through

    Or they just want nigel to win
    Maybe it’s a kamikaze strategy. If they boost the Lib Dems and Reform enough then they can finally destroy the hated Tories forever.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 14,476
    .

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    TimS said:

    Fun map exercise posted earlier by Meeks (FOTP).

    https://smstone0.github.io/#/uk-map

    All the places in the UK you’ve lived, stayed, visited, stopped in or passed through.


    I score 246. All of England covered, no NI, and half of Scotland to go.
    My “lived in” is not very impressive: London, Devon, Cornwall, Herefordshire

    But I’ve “visited, stayed, stopped etc” in every single one of the others - apart from the southern outer Hebrides

    This is also fun

    https://been.app/

    An app where you can see how much of the world you’ve visited. I’m on exactly 50% in terms of countries. I’ve visited 99 of 198 UN territories
    I've never lived more than 7 miles away from where I was born. Not through any conscious decision, just how the jobs came along and the girls I fell in love with.
    I live 300 metres from where I grew up, and 400 metres from where my great-grandfather was born… although I have lived further away (3900 miles).

    But then I do live in London. We’re a very conservative place, people don’t move around much.
    Doesn't surprise me. Everything about you screams London.
    Success, fame, wealth, hedonistic lifestyle? It’s all true, I must admit it.
    @Leon lives that.

    An exciting day for you is taking off your tie after you get back from a committee meeting at the Department for Work and Pensions.
    I don’t think I’ve worn a tie since before the pandemic.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,774

    eek said:

    eek said:

    eek said:


    If he wasn't in Parliament that offence would likely resulted in him being out the door that day for gross misconduct.
    After the Labour expenses scandal Labour MPs served custodial sentences for similar offences (granted the sums were greater). How the Desmond deal didn't breach any laws genuinely baffled me.
    Administrative errors are endemic in parliament expenses - Starmers Donkey paddock for example
    It's probably an occupational risk when your job involves expenses on a day to day basis rather than exceptionally
    I've been doing expenses for a long time - it's very difficult to not work out what mode of transport you took that week...
    Not the most sophisticated hustle though. I mean we either accept errors occur and are corrected later or we say all errors are an attempt to scam the public. In the latter case we have very few MPs left. Footy tickets and the like 'forgotten to be declared', donkey fields forgotten for years etc etc
    In terms of transport specifically, if you both drive and take trains and fly etc etc and have someone entering your expenses claims intermittently it's extremely easy to see how an error could occur.
    That's why we have IPSA
    Expenses have been simple since at least 2009. Spend money - take a photo of the receipt and you are good to go.

    I used to go through £5-8000 of expenses a month whilst flying round Europe - it take me 10 minutes to do it at the end of the month and that included working out which end client was being billed what..
    Sure, and good for you, but I can see how errors can occur and as long as there isn't a pattern to it then personally Im content for IPSA to handle it and the Standards lot if needed.
    @eek appears to have an orderly mind and makes time to do such tasks. Under this circumstances I've no doubt he could and did do his expense account. It's when the claimer isn't organised that errors creep (or, in come cases, gallop) in.
    Yes but that was my point. Errors happen. If they happen regularly and/or in the same way it requires a deeper dive of course.
    On the other hand, faredodgers in almost all circs aren't making an error, it's a conscious choice
    The simple answer is to abolish Parliamentary expenses and pay an allowance instead, just as many ordinary jobs have London weighting. If Honourable Members choose to travel by Uber or spaff the lot on duck houses, that's up to them.
    That would certainly lance the boil to some extent.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 14,476

    @bondegezou

    In the Commons those numbers would lead to a centre-left coalition.

    It's no different in practice in the Lords.

    I think the crossbenchers can often be quite small-c conservative. Rather like many independents in local government!

    The point is that, if there’s anything stuffing, it’s of Tories.
    And your point is an absurd one. They don't even make up 35% of the numbers.

    What we're seeing here is some confirmation bias: you believe the House of Lords is and must be an innately conservative institution so you're scratching around to try and make the evidence fit, which doesn't exist.
    You’re a brave man arguing that the Lords isn’t an innately conservative institution. Would you at least agree that it has been that historically? Famously so? And if you agree that, when did you think it changed?

    The Lords represents the establishment. The establishment is, by definition, conservative. The Lords is overwhelmingly old and upper/middle class.

    As for percentages, it’s 34% Tory, the largest block. That’s 10pp higher than their general election vote and double their current polling! That’s a massive bias in the Tories’ favour.
    If the Lords represents the establishment then that means it represents people exactly like you.
    And that means people who are soaked in the garbage Common Purpose narratives of being an 'agent of social change', stuffed full of DEI, and militant on the overrriding importance of 'the transition' to Net Zero, who have left objective truth and having a guiding moral compass that exists outside what is written in the Equality and Human Rights Act far behind.
    @Sandpit ’s back! Hi Sandpit.

    Luckyg, you talk about objective truth, but you think climate change is made up?
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