I think Bibi is too much of a chickenhawk to actually take on Iran. Posture but no follow through.
I hope I'm wrong.
Bibi is like Big Brother. He needs the war to continue, because it creates the weird national psyche that keeps him in office and out of prison.
Which is why I don't think he'll hit Iran.
Knock out Iran and peace in the Middle East becomes a lot more viable, and Israel's enemies lose their primary state sponsor.
Keep Iran there, there's an ever-present enemy to hate.
That does actually make some sense, but the problem is that you can't knock out Iran easily, as he will well know. The regime has built in all sorts of preparations for attacks like this, over many, many years.
So instead, it's more likely that you get a wider war.
The reason Israel are trying to persuade anyone who'll listen to attack iraq is because it's the one country in the area that israel can't subjugate. The only reason they probably don't have nuclear weapons is because the Ayatollah decared them unislamic in that their destructive force is indiscriminate. Israel have no such qualms
Iraq=Iran.
A country with a vile regime overthrown with intervention and a western war?
Has anyone noticed how impressive Darren Jones is? Surely worth a flutter on next Labour leader. No known skeletons I hope?
We can't have a PM called Darren.
We had one called Liz.
It was Dorian in "Birds of a Feather" who pointed out you should never give a child a name if you couldn't see a monarch with that name. So George yes, but Wayne no.
Has anyone noticed how impressive Darren Jones is? Surely worth a flutter on next Labour leader. No known skeletons I hope?
We can't have a PM called Darren.
We had one called Liz.
It was Dorian in "Birds of a Feather" who pointed out you should never give a child a name if you couldn't see a monarch with that name. So George yes, but Wayne no.
I've always thought you should give a child a name they can make their own. Charlotte - Lotty, Charlie, Cherry, ... whatever.
That's why we went with: Boy One, Girl One, Girl Two.
Lots of options for personalisation there.
There were a pair of brothers in Fife when I worked there who were genuinely called Seth 1 and Seth 2. I fear that there was even more inbreeding in the family than is typical in Fife and to be honest they would have struggled to make a shilling between them, let alone 1 each. They got involved in low level offending of such mind blowing stupidity that it was hard not to laugh, at least if you were not on the receiving end. They weren't a great advert for that sort of naming.
I think Bibi is too much of a chickenhawk to actually take on Iran. Posture but no follow through.
I hope I'm wrong.
Bibi is like Big Brother. He needs the war to continue, because it creates the weird national psyche that keeps him in office and out of prison.
Which is why I don't think he'll hit Iran.
Knock out Iran and peace in the Middle East becomes a lot more viable, and Israel's enemies lose their primary state sponsor.
Keep Iran there, there's an ever-present enemy to hate.
That does actually make some sense, but the problem is that you can't knock out Iran easily, as he will well know. The regime has built in all sorts of preparations for attacks like this, over many, many years.
So instead, it's more likely that you get a wider war.
The reason Israel are trying to persuade anyone who'll listen to attack iraq is because it's the one country in the area that israel can't subjugate. The only reason they probably don't have nuclear weapons is because the Ayatollah decared them unislamic in that their destructive force is indiscriminate. Israel have no such qualms
Iraq=Iran.
"All these Middle East countries look the same to me"
Swinney has worked hard at being boring. He has a natural talent for it. Most of the lunacies that infected the government when they were in hock to the Green nutters have been quietly forgotten or dropped. But there has been nothing to replace it. No ideas, no vision, no inspiration, nothing.
And no attempt to address Scotland's multiple problems: an overly large and overly comfortable public sector drawing too much of the available wealth and income to itself. An NHS that is simply not keeping up with rising demand. An education system that is in absolute meltdown. A very serious lack of entrepreneurial drive or ambition. Scots would rather regulate something than do it. There is no viable route to independence in such circumstances and enough of the population know that to make it vanishingly unlikely we will even be asked.
He gets credit for steadying the SNP ship after 'a few' wobbles. But... I don't know. Maybe they hoped they could coast through on 'It's us or Reform' through to 2026 Holyrood elections. But it really doesn't feel like the public are in a 'steady as she goes ✅' voting mood.
Has anyone noticed how impressive Darren Jones is? Surely worth a flutter on next Labour leader. No known skeletons I hope?
One to watch maybe, but not next leader. That's Angela's job.
How do you think she'd get on with say Trump or Macron?
I think you can safely say that if Angela were in a press conference with Trump in the Oval office we would all, with the entire nation, be watching live. Pure gold.
She used to be a carer, she'll be fine.She has experience in changing diapers and a Foley catheter.
Has anyone noticed how impressive Darren Jones is? Surely worth a flutter on next Labour leader. No known skeletons I hope?
We can't have a PM called Darren.
We had one called Liz.
It was Dorian in "Birds of a Feather" who pointed out you should never give a child a name if you couldn't see a monarch with that name. So George yes, but Wayne no.
I've always thought you should give a child a name they can make their own. Charlotte - Lotty, Charlie, Cherry, ... whatever.
That's why we went with: Boy One, Girl One, Girl Two.
Lots of options for personalisation there.
I always thought it would be bad for them to name them 'Faulty Condom'.
A glorious evening here in the Reform heartland of Amber Valley. Drove through last week’s by-election town of Somercotes which Reform of course won. Talking to some of the locals, I’m beginning to get more of an insight about why Reform are doing so well. It’s not about immigration, it’s far more complex and nuanced.
Belper is an interesting place - it's a market town of 20k which has done relatively well, but had a very diverse industrial base up until say 1990-2000-ish when a lot gradually closed down. It gave the world Swarfega.
It is blessed because there are not many larger places too close by so it has a decent hinterland, and it has almost a White Peak feel whilst being closer to Derby than say Matlock. It's a nice place for bringing up families or early retirement - not very touristy but much of the future is tourism, around the World Heritage Site and the Derwent..
It is less gritty than Bolsover or Ripley or Heanor, and was always a happy hunting ground for Homes Under the Hammer. I suspect there are decent numbers of incomers, who may be more at cricket matches alongside long-term people.
For politics, I'd perhaps expect nostalgia amongst some, and an attitude to Reform that would be based on "the others have not helped us enough here". And perhaps some resentment of "city Labour". The architecture is quite Peak District - stone not brick iirc in the older parts.
Am I right in thinking that Matlock is not a particularly friendly sort of place? I have some dim memories of it from a school trip, about 45 years ago.
It may be perfectly nice or improved since then, ofcourse
Matlock is incomparably different to when I knew it well in the 1990s; the new road through Cawdor Quarry has massively improved traffic. And traffic was always a major problem in the town centre. I've strolled around a few times since the new road opened, and it all feels a bit more open. And I'm pleased to see Twigg is still open.
But it's also really different to Matlock Bath, a mile or so down the road. Of the two, I much prefer Matlock, despite its lack of cable car and touristy tat.
(My family apparently built Smedley's Hydro on the hill in Matlock; when they closed down the family business a few decades back, they found detailed plans of it.)
Are you related to William Jessop or similar? "Josias" - if not a pseudonym - could be quite "trad Derbyshire".
Matlock has Derbyshire County Council HQ which helps, and is in its way quite arty. It also has one end of a heritage railway, and Matlock Bath has a famous lights display at Christmas - a Derbyshire version of Walsall. Twenty or thirty years ago parts of it felt quite 1950s. That was in the former Smedley Hydro, which is now the General Register Office for England and Wales - a decent anchor for a small town of 20k.
Matlock is one place I know where a lot of vicars seem to retire - another being Newark. That means decent shops, OK arts and intellectual life, and reasonable-ish property prices.
The only open hostility I have been aware of are that Matlock Bath is huge amongst bikers, who can look scary and probably are not, and a bloke who used to lean over the wall of his garden centre by the river at kayakers shooting the rapids and shake his fist at them; the experience is modestly legendary in canoeing circles.
Has anyone noticed how impressive Darren Jones is? Surely worth a flutter on next Labour leader. No known skeletons I hope?
We can't have a PM called Darren.
We had one called Liz.
It was Dorian in "Birds of a Feather" who pointed out you should never give a child a name if you couldn't see a monarch with that name. So George yes, but Wayne no.
I've always thought you should give a child a name they can make their own. Charlotte - Lotty, Charlie, Cherry, ... whatever.
That's why we went with: Boy One, Girl One, Girl Two.
Lots of options for personalisation there.
I used to have an IT manager who wanted all our kit to be called things like 'server-1', 'server-2'. Used to drive him mad that they we would name thing things like 'servalan' (serve a LAN - 100% not a Blakes 7 thing...).
Eventually persuaded him that calling a server 'west' was fine as it was in our 'western' building. Then proceeded to take the p*ss with 'up', 'totheleft', 'overthere'...
Has anyone noticed how impressive Darren Jones is? Surely worth a flutter on next Labour leader. No known skeletons I hope?
We can't have a PM called Darren.
We had one called Liz.
It was Dorian in "Birds of a Feather" who pointed out you should never give a child a name if you couldn't see a monarch with that name. So George yes, but Wayne no.
I've always thought you should give a child a name they can make their own. Charlotte - Lotty, Charlie, Cherry, ... whatever.
That's why we went with: Boy One, Girl One, Girl Two.
Lots of options for personalisation there.
I used to have an IT manager who wanted all our kit to be called things like 'server-1', 'server-2'. Used to drive him mad that they we would name thing things like 'servalan' (serve a LAN - 100% not a Blakes 7 thing...).
Eventually persuaded him that calling a server 'west' was fine as it was in our 'western' building. Then proceeded to take the p*ss with 'up', 'totheleft', 'overthere'...
I've always like the servers/networks called 'WAN Core'.
Has anyone noticed how impressive Darren Jones is? Surely worth a flutter on next Labour leader. No known skeletons I hope?
We can't have a PM called Darren.
We had one called Liz.
It was Dorian in "Birds of a Feather" who pointed out you should never give a child a name if you couldn't see a monarch with that name. So George yes, but Wayne no.
I've always thought you should give a child a name they can make their own. Charlotte - Lotty, Charlie, Cherry, ... whatever.
That's why we went with: Boy One, Girl One, Girl Two.
Lots of options for personalisation there.
I always thought it would be bad for them to name them 'Faulty Condom'.
Could be worse, could be "She told me she was on the pill".
Has anyone noticed how impressive Darren Jones is? Surely worth a flutter on next Labour leader. No known skeletons I hope?
We can't have a PM called Darren.
We had one called Liz.
It was Dorian in "Birds of a Feather" who pointed out you should never give a child a name if you couldn't see a monarch with that name. So George yes, but Wayne no.
I've always thought you should give a child a name they can make their own. Charlotte - Lotty, Charlie, Cherry, ... whatever.
That's why we went with: Boy One, Girl One, Girl Two.
Lots of options for personalisation there.
I always thought it would be bad for them to name them 'Faulty Condom'.
Could be worse, could be "She told me she was on the pill".
Swinney has worked hard at being boring. He has a natural talent for it. Most of the lunacies that infected the government when they were in hock to the Green nutters have been quietly forgotten or dropped. But there has been nothing to replace it. No ideas, no vision, no inspiration, nothing.
And no attempt to address Scotland's multiple problems: an overly large and overly comfortable public sector drawing too much of the available wealth and income to itself. An NHS that is simply not keeping up with rising demand. An education system that is in absolute meltdown. A very serious lack of entrepreneurial drive or ambition. Scots would rather regulate something than do it. There is no viable route to independence in such circumstances and enough of the population know that to make it vanishingly unlikely we will even be asked.
He gets credit for steadying the SNP ship after 'a few' wobbles. But... I don't know. Maybe they hoped they could coast through on 'It's us or Reform' through to 2026 Holyrood elections. But it really doesn't feel like the public are in a 'steady as she goes ✅' voting mood.
Yep, we want the impossible, we want it now and we want someone else to pay for it seems the general sense. It's not an overly constructive position.
A glorious evening here in the Reform heartland of Amber Valley. Drove through last week’s by-election town of Somercotes which Reform of course won. Talking to some of the locals, I’m beginning to get more of an insight about why Reform are doing so well. It’s not about immigration, it’s far more complex and nuanced.
Belper is an interesting place - it's a market town of 20k which has done relatively well, but had a very diverse industrial base up until say 1990-2000-ish when a lot gradually closed down. It gave the world Swarfega.
It is blessed because there are not many larger places too close by so it has a decent hinterland, and it has almost a White Peak feel whilst being closer to Derby than say Matlock. It's a nice place for bringing up families or early retirement - not very touristy but much of the future is tourism, around the World Heritage Site and the Derwent..
It is less gritty than Bolsover or Ripley or Heanor, and was always a happy hunting ground for Homes Under the Hammer. I suspect there are decent numbers of incomers, who may be more at cricket matches alongside long-term people.
For politics, I'd perhaps expect nostalgia amongst some, and an attitude to Reform that would be based on "the others have not helped us enough here". And perhaps some resentment of "city Labour". The architecture is quite Peak District - stone not brick iirc in the older parts.
Am I right in thinking that Matlock is not a particularly friendly sort of place? I have some dim memories of it from a school trip, about 45 years ago.
It may be perfectly nice or improved since then, ofcourse
Matlock is incomparably different to when I knew it well in the 1990s; the new road through Cawdor Quarry has massively improved traffic. And traffic was always a major problem in the town centre. I've strolled around a few times since the new road opened, and it all feels a bit more open. And I'm pleased to see Twigg is still open.
But it's also really different to Matlock Bath, a mile or so down the road. Of the two, I much prefer Matlock, despite its lack of cable car and touristy tat.
(My family apparently built Smedley's Hydro on the hill in Matlock; when they closed down the family business a few decades back, they found detailed plans of it.)
Are you related to William Jessop or similar? "Josias" - if not a pseudonym - could be quite "trad Derbyshire".
Matlock has Derbyshire County Council HQ which helps, and is in its way quite arty. It also has one end of a heritage railway, and Matlock Bath has a famous lights display at Christmas - a Derbyshire version of Walsall. Twenty or thirty years ago parts of it felt quite 1950s. That was in the former Smedley Hydro, which is now the General Register Office for England and Wales - a decent anchor for a small town of 20k.
Matlock is one place I know where a lot of vicars seem to retire - another being Newark. That means decent shops, OK arts and intellectual life, and reasonable-ish property prices.
The only open hostility I have been aware of are that Matlock Bath is huge amongst bikers, who can look scary and probably are not, and a bloke who used to lean over the wall of his garden centre by the river at kayakers shooting the rapids and shake his fist at them; the experience is modestly legendary in canoeing circles.
If you go via Matlock, visit the chocolate shop and Scarthin's bookshop in Cromford. It's worth it for the vintage MG, and the chocolates.
A glorious evening here in the Reform heartland of Amber Valley. Drove through last week’s by-election town of Somercotes which Reform of course won. Talking to some of the locals, I’m beginning to get more of an insight about why Reform are doing so well. It’s not about immigration, it’s far more complex and nuanced.
Belper is an interesting place - it's a market town of 20k which has done relatively well, but had a very diverse industrial base up until say 1990-2000-ish when a lot gradually closed down. It gave the world Swarfega.
It is blessed because there are not many larger places too close by so it has a decent hinterland, and it has almost a White Peak feel whilst being closer to Derby than say Matlock. It's a nice place for bringing up families or early retirement - not very touristy but much of the future is tourism, around the World Heritage Site and the Derwent..
It is less gritty than Bolsover or Ripley or Heanor, and was always a happy hunting ground for Homes Under the Hammer. I suspect there are decent numbers of incomers, who may be more at cricket matches alongside long-term people.
For politics, I'd perhaps expect nostalgia amongst some, and an attitude to Reform that would be based on "the others have not helped us enough here". And perhaps some resentment of "city Labour". The architecture is quite Peak District - stone not brick iirc in the older parts.
Am I right in thinking that Matlock is not a particularly friendly sort of place? I have some dim memories of it from a school trip, about 45 years ago.
It may be perfectly nice or improved since then, ofcourse
Matlock is incomparably different to when I knew it well in the 1990s; the new road through Cawdor Quarry has massively improved traffic. And traffic was always a major problem in the town centre. I've strolled around a few times since the new road opened, and it all feels a bit more open. And I'm pleased to see Twigg is still open.
But it's also really different to Matlock Bath, a mile or so down the road. Of the two, I much prefer Matlock, despite its lack of cable car and touristy tat.
(My family apparently built Smedley's Hydro on the hill in Matlock; when they closed down the family business a few decades back, they found detailed plans of it.)
Are you related to William Jessop or similar? "Josias" - if not a pseudonym - could be quite "trad Derbyshire".
Matlock has Derbyshire County Council HQ which helps, and is in its way quite arty. It also has one end of a heritage railway, and Matlock Bath has a famous lights display at Christmas - a Derbyshire version of Walsall. Twenty or thirty years ago parts of it felt quite 1950s. That was in the former Smedley Hydro, which is now the General Register Office for England and Wales - a decent anchor for a small town of 20k.
Matlock is one place I know where a lot of vicars seem to retire - another being Newark. That means decent shops, OK arts and intellectual life, and reasonable-ish property prices.
The only open hostility I have been aware of are that Matlock Bath is huge amongst bikers, who can look scary and probably are not, and a bloke who used to lean over the wall of his garden centre by the river at kayakers shooting the rapids and shake his fist at them; the experience is modestly legendary in canoeing circles.
If you go via Matlock, visit the chocolate shop and Scarthin's bookshop in Cromford. It's worth it for the vintage MG, and the chocolates.
I did the Peak Railway! But a while back, in 2016.
Colby, the Def Sec, is a harder line "China not Europe" man, and perhaps an outrider for Trump. I don't see how canning AUKUS would help his China stance - since that is what a lot of Oz having SSNs is about. For an isolationist, it could be one answer to the USA being not very effective at building its own submarines other than very, very slowly.
I don't think Trump will cancel AUKUS, but the planned sale of Virginia class SSNs to Australia may be for the axe. That was always going to be problematic with, as you say, the US now being so damn slow at building submarines the USN is now desperate for new boats.
If that's the case I suspect the solution will be for the UK to sell a couple of its Astutes to Australia, and then accelerate the SSN-AUKUS program as much as feasible. That may mean doing more work in the UK than planned and expanding Barrow so the AUKUS hulls can be built while the Dreadnoughts are still in progress.
Has anyone noticed how impressive Darren Jones is? Surely worth a flutter on next Labour leader. No known skeletons I hope?
We can't have a PM called Darren.
We had one called Liz.
It was Dorian in "Birds of a Feather" who pointed out you should never give a child a name if you couldn't see a monarch with that name. So George yes, but Wayne no.
I've always thought you should give a child a name they can make their own. Charlotte - Lotty, Charlie, Cherry, ... whatever.
That's why we went with: Boy One, Girl One, Girl Two.
Lots of options for personalisation there.
I always thought it would be bad for them to name them 'Faulty Condom'.
Could be worse, could be "She told me she was on the pill".
I always hated the trend of naming kids after where they were conceived.
Poor little Greggs Car Park never had a chance in life.
A glorious evening here in the Reform heartland of Amber Valley. Drove through last week’s by-election town of Somercotes which Reform of course won. Talking to some of the locals, I’m beginning to get more of an insight about why Reform are doing so well. It’s not about immigration, it’s far more complex and nuanced.
Belper is an interesting place - it's a market town of 20k which has done relatively well, but had a very diverse industrial base up until say 1990-2000-ish when a lot gradually closed down. It gave the world Swarfega.
It is blessed because there are not many larger places too close by so it has a decent hinterland, and it has almost a White Peak feel whilst being closer to Derby than say Matlock. It's a nice place for bringing up families or early retirement - not very touristy but much of the future is tourism, around the World Heritage Site and the Derwent..
It is less gritty than Bolsover or Ripley or Heanor, and was always a happy hunting ground for Homes Under the Hammer. I suspect there are decent numbers of incomers, who may be more at cricket matches alongside long-term people.
For politics, I'd perhaps expect nostalgia amongst some, and an attitude to Reform that would be based on "the others have not helped us enough here". And perhaps some resentment of "city Labour". The architecture is quite Peak District - stone not brick iirc in the older parts.
Am I right in thinking that Matlock is not a particularly friendly sort of place? I have some dim memories of it from a school trip, about 45 years ago.
It may be perfectly nice or improved since then, ofcourse
Matlock is incomparably different to when I knew it well in the 1990s; the new road through Cawdor Quarry has massively improved traffic. And traffic was always a major problem in the town centre. I've strolled around a few times since the new road opened, and it all feels a bit more open. And I'm pleased to see Twigg is still open.
But it's also really different to Matlock Bath, a mile or so down the road. Of the two, I much prefer Matlock, despite its lack of cable car and touristy tat.
(My family apparently built Smedley's Hydro on the hill in Matlock; when they closed down the family business a few decades back, they found detailed plans of it.)
Are you related to William Jessop or similar? "Josias" - if not a pseudonym - could be quite "trad Derbyshire".
Matlock has Derbyshire County Council HQ which helps, and is in its way quite arty. It also has one end of a heritage railway, and Matlock Bath has a famous lights display at Christmas - a Derbyshire version of Walsall. Twenty or thirty years ago parts of it felt quite 1950s. That was in the former Smedley Hydro, which is now the General Register Office for England and Wales - a decent anchor for a small town of 20k.
Matlock is one place I know where a lot of vicars seem to retire - another being Newark. That means decent shops, OK arts and intellectual life, and reasonable-ish property prices.
The only open hostility I have been aware of are that Matlock Bath is huge amongst bikers, who can look scary and probably are not, and a bloke who used to lean over the wall of his garden centre by the river at kayakers shooting the rapids and shake his fist at them; the experience is modestly legendary in canoeing circles.
My name on here is a pseudonym. I was reading a biography of one of the Jessop clan when I joined PB back in about 2010. I decided Josias Jessop was more interesting than William Jessop, so picked the grandfather/son's name (the clan went Josias Jessop; William Jessop, Josias Jessop. All three of whom were engineers in one way or another. I've always thought it sad that the grandson died in 1828 aged 45, just at the start of the railway age. He was working on the Cromford and High Peak when he died. That railway perfectly captures the move from canal to railway, incorporating features of both.)
Has anyone noticed how impressive Darren Jones is? Surely worth a flutter on next Labour leader. No known skeletons I hope?
We can't have a PM called Darren.
We had one called Liz.
It was Dorian in "Birds of a Feather" who pointed out you should never give a child a name if you couldn't see a monarch with that name. So George yes, but Wayne no.
I've always thought you should give a child a name they can make their own. Charlotte - Lotty, Charlie, Cherry, ... whatever.
That's why we went with: Boy One, Girl One, Girl Two.
Lots of options for personalisation there.
I always thought it would be bad for them to name them 'Faulty Condom'.
Swinney has worked hard at being boring. He has a natural talent for it. Most of the lunacies that infected the government when they were in hock to the Green nutters have been quietly forgotten or dropped. But there has been nothing to replace it. No ideas, no vision, no inspiration, nothing.
And no attempt to address Scotland's multiple problems: an overly large and overly comfortable public sector drawing too much of the available wealth and income to itself. An NHS that is simply not keeping up with rising demand. An education system that is in absolute meltdown. A very serious lack of entrepreneurial drive or ambition. Scots would rather regulate something than do it. There is no viable route to independence in such circumstances and enough of the population know that to make it vanishingly unlikely we will even be asked.
He gets credit for steadying the SNP ship after 'a few' wobbles. But... I don't know. Maybe they hoped they could coast through on 'It's us or Reform' through to 2026 Holyrood elections. But it really doesn't feel like the public are in a 'steady as she goes ✅' voting mood.
The problem the SNP have versus Reform is that the SNP have become popular on a general "hate all the politicians, vote none of the above" mandate.
Now Reform have come along as a newer none of the above.
Colby, the Def Sec, is a harder line "China not Europe" man, and perhaps an outrider for Trump. I don't see how canning AUKUS would help his China stance - since that is what a lot of Oz having SSNs is about. For an isolationist, it could be one answer to the USA being not very effective at building its own submarines other than very, very slowly.
I don't think Trump will cancel AUKUS, but the planned sale of Virginia class SSNs to Australia may be for the axe. That was always going to be problematic with, as you say, the US now being so damn slow at building submarines the USN is now desperate for new boats.
If that's the case I suspect the solution will be for the UK to sell a couple of its Astutes to Australia, and then accelerate the SSN-AUKUS program as much as feasible. That may mean doing more work in the UK than planned and expanding Barrow so the AUKUS hulls can be built while the Dreadnoughts are still in progress.
I wonder if there is increased throughput capacity available?
The first Virginia was due in 2032, so I'm not sure how that would fit in with our new programmes. HMS Astute's nominal 25 year service life ends in 2035.
Has anyone noticed how impressive Darren Jones is? Surely worth a flutter on next Labour leader. No known skeletons I hope?
We can't have a PM called Darren.
We had one called Liz.
It was Dorian in "Birds of a Feather" who pointed out you should never give a child a name if you couldn't see a monarch with that name. So George yes, but Wayne no.
I've always thought you should give a child a name they can make their own. Charlotte - Lotty, Charlie, Cherry, ... whatever.
That's why we went with: Boy One, Girl One, Girl Two.
Lots of options for personalisation there.
I always thought it would be bad for them to name them 'Faulty Condom'.
A glorious evening here in the Reform heartland of Amber Valley. Drove through last week’s by-election town of Somercotes which Reform of course won. Talking to some of the locals, I’m beginning to get more of an insight about why Reform are doing so well. It’s not about immigration, it’s far more complex and nuanced.
Belper is an interesting place - it's a market town of 20k which has done relatively well, but had a very diverse industrial base up until say 1990-2000-ish when a lot gradually closed down. It gave the world Swarfega.
It is blessed because there are not many larger places too close by so it has a decent hinterland, and it has almost a White Peak feel whilst being closer to Derby than say Matlock. It's a nice place for bringing up families or early retirement - not very touristy but much of the future is tourism, around the World Heritage Site and the Derwent..
It is less gritty than Bolsover or Ripley or Heanor, and was always a happy hunting ground for Homes Under the Hammer. I suspect there are decent numbers of incomers, who may be more at cricket matches alongside long-term people.
For politics, I'd perhaps expect nostalgia amongst some, and an attitude to Reform that would be based on "the others have not helped us enough here". And perhaps some resentment of "city Labour". The architecture is quite Peak District - stone not brick iirc in the older parts.
Am I right in thinking that Matlock is not a particularly friendly sort of place? I have some dim memories of it from a school trip, about 45 years ago.
It may be perfectly nice or improved since then, ofcourse
Matlock is incomparably different to when I knew it well in the 1990s; the new road through Cawdor Quarry has massively improved traffic. And traffic was always a major problem in the town centre. I've strolled around a few times since the new road opened, and it all feels a bit more open. And I'm pleased to see Twigg is still open.
But it's also really different to Matlock Bath, a mile or so down the road. Of the two, I much prefer Matlock, despite its lack of cable car and touristy tat.
(My family apparently built Smedley's Hydro on the hill in Matlock; when they closed down the family business a few decades back, they found detailed plans of it.)
Are you related to William Jessop or similar? "Josias" - if not a pseudonym - could be quite "trad Derbyshire".
Matlock has Derbyshire County Council HQ which helps, and is in its way quite arty. It also has one end of a heritage railway, and Matlock Bath has a famous lights display at Christmas - a Derbyshire version of Walsall. Twenty or thirty years ago parts of it felt quite 1950s. That was in the former Smedley Hydro, which is now the General Register Office for England and Wales - a decent anchor for a small town of 20k.
Matlock is one place I know where a lot of vicars seem to retire - another being Newark. That means decent shops, OK arts and intellectual life, and reasonable-ish property prices.
The only open hostility I have been aware of are that Matlock Bath is huge amongst bikers, who can look scary and probably are not, and a bloke who used to lean over the wall of his garden centre by the river at kayakers shooting the rapids and shake his fist at them; the experience is modestly legendary in canoeing circles.
If you go via Matlock, visit the chocolate shop and Scarthin's bookshop in Cromford. It's worth it for the vintage MG, and the chocolates.
Scarthin’s is an experience to say the least.
I like Belper and as others have said in-comers with income have made a big difference. There’s three of four decent places to eat - my personal favourite is The Bookcafe opposite Morrisons.
Ambergate has one top notch eatery during the week and three at the weekends. The Indian is excellent but charges London prices. There’s a curious juxtaposition between the old and the new across Amber Valley and from a politics standpoint both groups have been drawn to Reform though perhaps for different reasons.
Defeat for the locals in the cricket - they came up four runs short chasing 122. At 106-6 with 12 balls left, they had a sniff but kept losing wickets.
A glorious evening here in the Reform heartland of Amber Valley. Drove through last week’s by-election town of Somercotes which Reform of course won. Talking to some of the locals, I’m beginning to get more of an insight about why Reform are doing so well. It’s not about immigration, it’s far more complex and nuanced.
Belper is an interesting place - it's a market town of 20k which has done relatively well, but had a very diverse industrial base up until say 1990-2000-ish when a lot gradually closed down. It gave the world Swarfega.
It is blessed because there are not many larger places too close by so it has a decent hinterland, and it has almost a White Peak feel whilst being closer to Derby than say Matlock. It's a nice place for bringing up families or early retirement - not very touristy but much of the future is tourism, around the World Heritage Site and the Derwent..
It is less gritty than Bolsover or Ripley or Heanor, and was always a happy hunting ground for Homes Under the Hammer. I suspect there are decent numbers of incomers, who may be more at cricket matches alongside long-term people.
For politics, I'd perhaps expect nostalgia amongst some, and an attitude to Reform that would be based on "the others have not helped us enough here". And perhaps some resentment of "city Labour". The architecture is quite Peak District - stone not brick iirc in the older parts.
Am I right in thinking that Matlock is not a particularly friendly sort of place? I have some dim memories of it from a school trip, about 45 years ago.
It may be perfectly nice or improved since then, ofcourse
Matlock is incomparably different to when I knew it well in the 1990s; the new road through Cawdor Quarry has massively improved traffic. And traffic was always a major problem in the town centre. I've strolled around a few times since the new road opened, and it all feels a bit more open. And I'm pleased to see Twigg is still open.
But it's also really different to Matlock Bath, a mile or so down the road. Of the two, I much prefer Matlock, despite its lack of cable car and touristy tat.
(My family apparently built Smedley's Hydro on the hill in Matlock; when they closed down the family business a few decades back, they found detailed plans of it.)
Are you related to William Jessop or similar? "Josias" - if not a pseudonym - could be quite "trad Derbyshire".
Matlock has Derbyshire County Council HQ which helps, and is in its way quite arty. It also has one end of a heritage railway, and Matlock Bath has a famous lights display at Christmas - a Derbyshire version of Walsall. Twenty or thirty years ago parts of it felt quite 1950s. That was in the former Smedley Hydro, which is now the General Register Office for England and Wales - a decent anchor for a small town of 20k.
Matlock is one place I know where a lot of vicars seem to retire - another being Newark. That means decent shops, OK arts and intellectual life, and reasonable-ish property prices.
The only open hostility I have been aware of are that Matlock Bath is huge amongst bikers, who can look scary and probably are not, and a bloke who used to lean over the wall of his garden centre by the river at kayakers shooting the rapids and shake his fist at them; the experience is modestly legendary in canoeing circles.
My name on here is a pseudonym. I was reading a biography of one of the Jessop clan when I joined PB back in about 2010. I decided Josias Jessop was more interesting than William Jessop, so picked the grandfather/son's name (the clan went Josias Jessop; William Jessop, Josias Jessop. All three of whom were engineers in one way or another. I've always thought it sad that the grandson died in 1828 aged 45, just at the start of the railway age. He was working on the Cromford and High Peak when he died. That railway perfectly captures the move from canal to railway, incorporating features of both.)
Interesting. My pseudonym for blogging is more functional - all the accounts were available, there weren't any famous ones to bury me in search engines, and it is very difficult to misspell when on the phone / radio / podcast (I did some podcasting-vodcasting in ~2005).
A glorious evening here in the Reform heartland of Amber Valley. Drove through last week’s by-election town of Somercotes which Reform of course won. Talking to some of the locals, I’m beginning to get more of an insight about why Reform are doing so well. It’s not about immigration, it’s far more complex and nuanced.
Belper is an interesting place - it's a market town of 20k which has done relatively well, but had a very diverse industrial base up until say 1990-2000-ish when a lot gradually closed down. It gave the world Swarfega.
It is blessed because there are not many larger places too close by so it has a decent hinterland, and it has almost a White Peak feel whilst being closer to Derby than say Matlock. It's a nice place for bringing up families or early retirement - not very touristy but much of the future is tourism, around the World Heritage Site and the Derwent..
It is less gritty than Bolsover or Ripley or Heanor, and was always a happy hunting ground for Homes Under the Hammer. I suspect there are decent numbers of incomers, who may be more at cricket matches alongside long-term people.
For politics, I'd perhaps expect nostalgia amongst some, and an attitude to Reform that would be based on "the others have not helped us enough here". And perhaps some resentment of "city Labour". The architecture is quite Peak District - stone not brick iirc in the older parts.
Am I right in thinking that Matlock is not a particularly friendly sort of place? I have some dim memories of it from a school trip, about 45 years ago.
It may be perfectly nice or improved since then, ofcourse
Matlock is incomparably different to when I knew it well in the 1990s; the new road through Cawdor Quarry has massively improved traffic. And traffic was always a major problem in the town centre. I've strolled around a few times since the new road opened, and it all feels a bit more open. And I'm pleased to see Twigg is still open.
But it's also really different to Matlock Bath, a mile or so down the road. Of the two, I much prefer Matlock, despite its lack of cable car and touristy tat.
(My family apparently built Smedley's Hydro on the hill in Matlock; when they closed down the family business a few decades back, they found detailed plans of it.)
Are you related to William Jessop or similar? "Josias" - if not a pseudonym - could be quite "trad Derbyshire".
Matlock has Derbyshire County Council HQ which helps, and is in its way quite arty. It also has one end of a heritage railway, and Matlock Bath has a famous lights display at Christmas - a Derbyshire version of Walsall. Twenty or thirty years ago parts of it felt quite 1950s. That was in the former Smedley Hydro, which is now the General Register Office for England and Wales - a decent anchor for a small town of 20k.
Matlock is one place I know where a lot of vicars seem to retire - another being Newark. That means decent shops, OK arts and intellectual life, and reasonable-ish property prices.
The only open hostility I have been aware of are that Matlock Bath is huge amongst bikers, who can look scary and probably are not, and a bloke who used to lean over the wall of his garden centre by the river at kayakers shooting the rapids and shake his fist at them; the experience is modestly legendary in canoeing circles.
If you go via Matlock, visit the chocolate shop and Scarthin's bookshop in Cromford. It's worth it for the vintage MG, and the chocolates.
Scarthin’s is an experience to say the least.
I like Belper and as others have said in-comers with income have made a big difference. There’s three of four decent places to eat - my personal favourite is The Bookcafe opposite Morrisons.
Ambergate has one top notch eatery during the week and three at the weekends. The Indian is excellent but charges London prices. There’s a curious juxtaposition between the old and the new across Amber Valley and from a politics standpoint both groups have been drawn to Reform though perhaps for different reasons.
Defeat for the locals in the cricket - they came up four runs short chasing 122. At 106-6 with 12 balls left, they had a sniff but kept losing wickets.
There's a vegetarian cafe amongst the books. I haven't spent a serious chunk of time in there since the 2000s, but often used to go with parents.
There are (unless it has changed recently) a serious number of biggish second hand bookshops in the Dark and White Peaks.
Has anyone noticed how impressive Darren Jones is? Surely worth a flutter on next Labour leader. No known skeletons I hope?
We can't have a PM called Darren.
We had one called Liz.
It was Dorian in "Birds of a Feather" who pointed out you should never give a child a name if you couldn't see a monarch with that name. So George yes, but Wayne no.
I've always thought you should give a child a name they can make their own. Charlotte - Lotty, Charlie, Cherry, ... whatever.
That's why we went with: Boy One, Girl One, Girl Two.
Lots of options for personalisation there.
There were a pair of brothers in Fife when I worked there who were genuinely called Seth 1 and Seth 2. I fear that there was even more inbreeding in the family than is typical in Fife and to be honest they would have struggled to make a shilling between them, let alone 1 each. They got involved in low level offending of such mind blowing stupidity that it was hard not to laugh, at least if you were not on the receiving end. They weren't a great advert for that sort of naming.
My brother did once date a girl named Octavia, who was indeed the eighth child. I think the Rees Moggs have a similar system.
Has anyone noticed how impressive Darren Jones is?
No.
He did very well today. Granted he's no Liz Truss.
Well, I'm glad he has impressed you and Roger. If he can get past your discriminating eyes and win a glowing review, he must have done really well.
We will see how the bond markets respond.
They certainly responded to the "most Conservative budget since 1986".
Bond yields are worse under Reeves than they were at the levels that forced Truss to resign, but I suppose there are different rules for Labour aren't there petal?
Swinney has worked hard at being boring. He has a natural talent for it. Most of the lunacies that infected the government when they were in hock to the Green nutters have been quietly forgotten or dropped. But there has been nothing to replace it. No ideas, no vision, no inspiration, nothing.
And no attempt to address Scotland's multiple problems: an overly large and overly comfortable public sector drawing too much of the available wealth and income to itself. An NHS that is simply not keeping up with rising demand. An education system that is in absolute meltdown. A very serious lack of entrepreneurial drive or ambition. Scots would rather regulate something than do it. There is no viable route to independence in such circumstances and enough of the population know that to make it vanishingly unlikely we will even be asked.
You can replace the name Swinney with Starmer and the description would be identical.
Has anyone noticed how impressive Darren Jones is? Surely worth a flutter on next Labour leader. No known skeletons I hope?
One to watch maybe, but not next leader. That's Angela's job.
How do you think she'd get on with say Trump or Macron?
I think you can safely say that if Angela were in a press conference with Trump in the Oval office we would all, with the entire nation, be watching live. Pure gold.
She used to be a carer, she'll be fine.She has experience in changing diapers and a Foley catheter.
Has anyone noticed how impressive Darren Jones is? Surely worth a flutter on next Labour leader. No known skeletons I hope?
We can't have a PM called Darren.
We had one called Liz.
It was Dorian in "Birds of a Feather" who pointed out you should never give a child a name if you couldn't see a monarch with that name. So George yes, but Wayne no.
I've always thought you should give a child a name they can make their own. Charlotte - Lotty, Charlie, Cherry, ... whatever.
That's why we went with: Boy One, Girl One, Girl Two.
Lots of options for personalisation there.
I always thought it would be bad for them to name them 'Faulty Condom'.
Could be worse, could be "She told me she was on the pill".
I always hated the trend of naming kids after where they were conceived.
Poor little Greggs Car Park never had a chance in life.
Florence wasn't a name until it was popularised by Florence Nightingale, who is called Florence because that's where she was born. (Some here would therefore conclude she wouldn't have deserved a council house.)
Her sister was born in Naples and thus called Parthenope.
Has anyone noticed how impressive Darren Jones is? Surely worth a flutter on next Labour leader. No known skeletons I hope?
We can't have a PM called Darren.
We had one called Liz.
It was Dorian in "Birds of a Feather" who pointed out you should never give a child a name if you couldn't see a monarch with that name. So George yes, but Wayne no.
I've always thought you should give a child a name they can make their own. Charlotte - Lotty, Charlie, Cherry, ... whatever.
That's why we went with: Boy One, Girl One, Girl Two.
Lots of options for personalisation there.
I always thought it would be bad for them to name them 'Faulty Condom'.
Could be worse, could be "She told me she was on the pill".
I always hated the trend of naming kids after where they were conceived.
Poor little Greggs Car Park never had a chance in life.
Florence wasn't a name until it was popularised by Florence Nightingale, who is called Florence because that's where she was born. (Some here would therefore conclude she wouldn't have deserved a council house.)
Her sister was born in Naples and thus called Parthenope.
Has anyone noticed how impressive Darren Jones is? Surely worth a flutter on next Labour leader. No known skeletons I hope?
We can't have a PM called Darren.
We had one called Liz.
It was Dorian in "Birds of a Feather" who pointed out you should never give a child a name if you couldn't see a monarch with that name. So George yes, but Wayne no.
I've always thought you should give a child a name they can make their own. Charlotte - Lotty, Charlie, Cherry, ... whatever.
That's why we went with: Boy One, Girl One, Girl Two.
Lots of options for personalisation there.
I always thought it would be bad for them to name them 'Faulty Condom'.
Could be worse, could be "She told me she was on the pill".
I always hated the trend of naming kids after where they were conceived.
Poor little Greggs Car Park never had a chance in life.
Henry Bolingbroke was never going to come to any good.
US embassy in Iraq preparing for ordered evacuation due to 'heightened security risks', sources say
Tonight or tomorrow night eyes on is my guess. Suddenly there's warnings everywhere - UKMTO now. So I think the word has gone out.
Makes me more convinced its a bluff, sadly.
If it were really happening, I don't think word would be out until after it started.
American is busy signalling
Definitely a bluff then, they wouldn't be signalling if it were legit.
How many times have we been here before? Bibi is the Grand Old Duke of York, constantly marching troops to the top of the hill, then back down again.
Hopefully Bibi is out of office and in prison where he belongs sooner rather than later, and Israel can get a proper leader who will take the gloves off and actually fight Iran properly.
There was plenty of signalling before Russia attacked Ukraine. It doesn't mean it's not happening.
Has anyone noticed how impressive Darren Jones is? Surely worth a flutter on next Labour leader. No known skeletons I hope?
We can't have a PM called Darren.
We had one called Liz.
It was Dorian in "Birds of a Feather" who pointed out you should never give a child a name if you couldn't see a monarch with that name. So George yes, but Wayne no.
I've always thought you should give a child a name they can make their own. Charlotte - Lotty, Charlie, Cherry, ... whatever.
That's why we went with: Boy One, Girl One, Girl Two.
Lots of options for personalisation there.
I always thought it would be bad for them to name them 'Faulty Condom'.
Could be worse, could be "She told me she was on the pill".
I always hated the trend of naming kids after where they were conceived.
Poor little Greggs Car Park never had a chance in life.
Florence wasn't a name until it was popularised by Florence Nightingale, who is called Florence because that's where she was born. (Some here would therefore conclude she wouldn't have deserved a council house.)
Her sister was born in Naples and thus called Parthenope.
A glorious evening here in the Reform heartland of Amber Valley. Drove through last week’s by-election town of Somercotes which Reform of course won. Talking to some of the locals, I’m beginning to get more of an insight about why Reform are doing so well. It’s not about immigration, it’s far more complex and nuanced.
Belper is an interesting place - it's a market town of 20k which has done relatively well, but had a very diverse industrial base up until say 1990-2000-ish when a lot gradually closed down. It gave the world Swarfega.
It is blessed because there are not many larger places too close by so it has a decent hinterland, and it has almost a White Peak feel whilst being closer to Derby than say Matlock. It's a nice place for bringing up families or early retirement - not very touristy but much of the future is tourism, around the World Heritage Site and the Derwent..
It is less gritty than Bolsover or Ripley or Heanor, and was always a happy hunting ground for Homes Under the Hammer. I suspect there are decent numbers of incomers, who may be more at cricket matches alongside long-term people.
For politics, I'd perhaps expect nostalgia amongst some, and an attitude to Reform that would be based on "the others have not helped us enough here". And perhaps some resentment of "city Labour". The architecture is quite Peak District - stone not brick iirc in the older parts.
Am I right in thinking that Matlock is not a particularly friendly sort of place? I have some dim memories of it from a school trip, about 45 years ago.
It may be perfectly nice or improved since then, ofcourse
Matlock is incomparably different to when I knew it well in the 1990s; the new road through Cawdor Quarry has massively improved traffic. And traffic was always a major problem in the town centre. I've strolled around a few times since the new road opened, and it all feels a bit more open. And I'm pleased to see Twigg is still open.
But it's also really different to Matlock Bath, a mile or so down the road. Of the two, I much prefer Matlock, despite its lack of cable car and touristy tat.
(My family apparently built Smedley's Hydro on the hill in Matlock; when they closed down the family business a few decades back, they found detailed plans of it.)
Are you related to William Jessop or similar? "Josias" - if not a pseudonym - could be quite "trad Derbyshire".
Matlock has Derbyshire County Council HQ which helps, and is in its way quite arty. It also has one end of a heritage railway, and Matlock Bath has a famous lights display at Christmas - a Derbyshire version of Walsall. Twenty or thirty years ago parts of it felt quite 1950s. That was in the former Smedley Hydro, which is now the General Register Office for England and Wales - a decent anchor for a small town of 20k.
Matlock is one place I know where a lot of vicars seem to retire - another being Newark. That means decent shops, OK arts and intellectual life, and reasonable-ish property prices.
The only open hostility I have been aware of are that Matlock Bath is huge amongst bikers, who can look scary and probably are not, and a bloke who used to lean over the wall of his garden centre by the river at kayakers shooting the rapids and shake his fist at them; the experience is modestly legendary in canoeing circles.
If you go via Matlock, visit the chocolate shop and Scarthin's bookshop in Cromford. It's worth it for the vintage MG, and the chocolates.
Scarthin’s is an experience to say the least.
I like Belper and as others have said in-comers with income have made a big difference. There’s three of four decent places to eat - my personal favourite is The Bookcafe opposite Morrisons.
Ambergate has one top notch eatery during the week and three at the weekends. The Indian is excellent but charges London prices. There’s a curious juxtaposition between the old and the new across Amber Valley and from a politics standpoint both groups have been drawn to Reform though perhaps for different reasons.
Defeat for the locals in the cricket - they came up four runs short chasing 122. At 106-6 with 12 balls left, they had a sniff but kept losing wickets.
I've not been to Belper for a couple of decades but even back then it had moved successfully from small, gritty and industrial town to quirky and pretty, like a Midlands Hebden Bridge. Other towns in the east of the district ... hadn't. I'd say the extreme steepness and the presence of a station both helped.
Have you been to Wirksworth? That's an odd little place. Feels very remote. Still industrial (quarrying) anf therefore alittle dusty, but an interesting place for a poke around. Though when I went last year a couple of fondly-remembered little cafes were no longer there, so maybe its promise never materialised.
The U.S. has ordered all embassies within strike range of Iran, including ones located in Europe and North Africa, to convene emergency action meetings and communicate back measures they are taking mitigate risks, per the Washington Post.
Colby, the Def Sec, is a harder line "China not Europe" man, and perhaps an outrider for Trump. I don't see how canning AUKUS would help his China stance - since that is what a lot of Oz having SSNs is about. For an isolationist, it could be one answer to the USA being not very effective at building its own submarines other than very, very slowly.
I don't think Trump will cancel AUKUS, but the planned sale of Virginia class SSNs to Australia may be for the axe. That was always going to be problematic with, as you say, the US now being so damn slow at building submarines the USN is now desperate for new boats.
If that's the case I suspect the solution will be for the UK to sell a couple of its Astutes to Australia, and then accelerate the SSN-AUKUS program as much as feasible. That may mean doing more work in the UK than planned and expanding Barrow so the AUKUS hulls can be built while the Dreadnoughts are still in progress.
Don't you ? Wouldn't surprise me, given the odd decisions there making.
It looks as though they're cancelling the new Navy fighter - which will leave the USN with a very large capability gap.
Now they're cancelling the AWACS replacement. The E2D as a stopgap is a joke.
Duffy: So many of the activists you see on the streets, the Latinos once at least, a lot of them are really ungrateful children of immigrants.. That school district is not about educating. That district, that entire system is about creating a little marxist communist activists, that is what you see on the streets there. https://x.com/Acyn/status/1932897747465875599
Colby, the Def Sec, is a harder line "China not Europe" man, and perhaps an outrider for Trump. I don't see how canning AUKUS would help his China stance - since that is what a lot of Oz having SSNs is about. For an isolationist, it could be one answer to the USA being not very effective at building its own submarines other than very, very slowly.
I don't think Trump will cancel AUKUS, but the planned sale of Virginia class SSNs to Australia may be for the axe. That was always going to be problematic with, as you say, the US now being so damn slow at building submarines the USN is now desperate for new boats.
If that's the case I suspect the solution will be for the UK to sell a couple of its Astutes to Australia, and then accelerate the SSN-AUKUS program as much as feasible. That may mean doing more work in the UK than planned and expanding Barrow so the AUKUS hulls can be built while the Dreadnoughts are still in progress.
Don't you ? Wouldn't surprise me, given the odd decisions there making.
It looks as though they're cancelling the new Navy fighter - which will leave the USN with a very large capability gap.
Now they're cancelling the AWACS replacement. The E2D as a stopgap is a joke.
Trump and Whiskey Pete are quite capable of doing something stupid with AUKUS.
That's about accelerating the move to space based radars - which aren't vulnerable to drones delivered by truck. Particularly since the cheaper LEO radar sats now cost far less than an AWACS. The Pentagon is looking at having staring (24/7) surveillance, worldwide, in the near future.
Trump’s “big, beautiful” bill: 53% oppose 27% support
Handling of immigration: 54% disapprove 43% approve
So Trump, while unpopular, is still miles more popular than the Democrat party? Am I reading this right?
That polling of the Dems is quite something. Why are they now so loathed?
Maybe because they let all this happen?
Gagagate was a such a stupid, avoidable catastrophe. Just tell the old fart he’s too old to run again. Dump Biden. Have primaries. Show some spine
Idiots
Sure it was. What's the precedent for stopping a sitting President from running again?
There isn't one.
Biden fucked up - but as I pointed out at the time, and you still don't appear to understand, it was virtually impossible to do anything about that, before he finally decided to step down.
Trump’s “big, beautiful” bill: 53% oppose 27% support
Handling of immigration: 54% disapprove 43% approve
So Trump, while unpopular, is still miles more popular than the Democrat party? Am I reading this right?
That polling of the Dems is quite something. Why are they now so loathed?
Maybe because they let all this happen?
Gagagate was a such a stupid, avoidable catastrophe. Just tell the old fart he’s too old to run again. Dump Biden. Have primaries. Show some spine
Idiots
Sure it was. What's the precedent for stopping a sitting President from running again?
There isn't one.
Biden fucked up - but as I pointed out at the time, and you still don't appear to understand, it was virtually impossible to do anything about that, before he finally decided to step down.
The U.S. has ordered all embassies within strike range of Iran, including ones located in Europe and North Africa, to convene emergency action meetings and communicate back measures they are taking mitigate risks, per the Washington Post.
Is Israel about to rain on Trump's birthday parade?
Colby, the Def Sec, is a harder line "China not Europe" man, and perhaps an outrider for Trump. I don't see how canning AUKUS would help his China stance - since that is what a lot of Oz having SSNs is about. For an isolationist, it could be one answer to the USA being not very effective at building its own submarines other than very, very slowly.
I don't think Trump will cancel AUKUS, but the planned sale of Virginia class SSNs to Australia may be for the axe. That was always going to be problematic with, as you say, the US now being so damn slow at building submarines the USN is now desperate for new boats.
If that's the case I suspect the solution will be for the UK to sell a couple of its Astutes to Australia, and then accelerate the SSN-AUKUS program as much as feasible. That may mean doing more work in the UK than planned and expanding Barrow so the AUKUS hulls can be built while the Dreadnoughts are still in progress.
Don't you ? Wouldn't surprise me, given the odd decisions there making.
It looks as though they're cancelling the new Navy fighter - which will leave the USN with a very large capability gap.
Now they're cancelling the AWACS replacement. The E2D as a stopgap is a joke.
Trump and Whiskey Pete are quite capable of doing something stupid with AUKUS.
That's about accelerating the move to space based radars - which aren't vulnerable to drones delivered by truck. Particularly since the cheaper LEO radar sats now cost far less than an AWACS. The Pentagon is looking at having staring (24/7) surveillance, worldwide, in the near future.
It's a very large gamble. Maybe it will work out; maybe it won't.
If it doesn't, then it leaves a very large capability gap in the Pacific/Asia.
Trump’s “big, beautiful” bill: 53% oppose 27% support
Handling of immigration: 54% disapprove 43% approve
So Trump, while unpopular, is still miles more popular than the Democrat party? Am I reading this right?
That polling of the Dems is quite something. Why are they now so loathed?
Maybe because they let all this happen?
Gagagate was a such a stupid, avoidable catastrophe. Just tell the old fart he’s too old to run again. Dump Biden. Have primaries. Show some spine
Idiots
Sure it was. What's the precedent for stopping a sitting President from running again?
There isn't one.
Biden fucked up - but as I pointed out at the time, and you still don't appear to understand, it was virtually impossible to do anything about that, before he finally decided to step down.
LBJ didn't run again.
Of his own volition. Similarly Truman.
But there's no precedent in the history of the US for taking down a sitting President - and in this case one still very popular with a large part of his own party - against his will.
Until the debate, it simply wasn't going to happen.
Colby, the Def Sec, is a harder line "China not Europe" man, and perhaps an outrider for Trump. I don't see how canning AUKUS would help his China stance - since that is what a lot of Oz having SSNs is about. For an isolationist, it could be one answer to the USA being not very effective at building its own submarines other than very, very slowly.
I don't think Trump will cancel AUKUS, but the planned sale of Virginia class SSNs to Australia may be for the axe. That was always going to be problematic with, as you say, the US now being so damn slow at building submarines the USN is now desperate for new boats.
If that's the case I suspect the solution will be for the UK to sell a couple of its Astutes to Australia, and then accelerate the SSN-AUKUS program as much as feasible. That may mean doing more work in the UK than planned and expanding Barrow so the AUKUS hulls can be built while the Dreadnoughts are still in progress.
Don't you ? Wouldn't surprise me, given the odd decisions there making.
It looks as though they're cancelling the new Navy fighter - which will leave the USN with a very large capability gap.
Now they're cancelling the AWACS replacement. The E2D as a stopgap is a joke.
Trump and Whiskey Pete are quite capable of doing something stupid with AUKUS.
That's about accelerating the move to space based radars - which aren't vulnerable to drones delivered by truck. Particularly since the cheaper LEO radar sats now cost far less than an AWACS. The Pentagon is looking at having staring (24/7) surveillance, worldwide, in the near future.
And it won't just be radar. One of the points of moving to space is that it allows IR tracing from above, which might be a means of defeating stealth.
But abandoning modern AEW before that's proven remains a gamble.
Has anyone noticed how impressive Darren Jones is? Surely worth a flutter on next Labour leader. No known skeletons I hope?
One to watch maybe, but not next leader. That's Angela's job.
How do you think she'd get on with say Trump or Macron?
I think you can safely say that if Angela were in a press conference with Trump in the Oval office we would all, with the entire nation, be watching live. Pure gold.
She used to be a carer, she'll be fine.She has experience in changing diapers and a Foley catheter.
Trump’s “big, beautiful” bill: 53% oppose 27% support
Handling of immigration: 54% disapprove 43% approve
So Trump, while unpopular, is still miles more popular than the Democrat party? Am I reading this right?
That polling of the Dems is quite something. Why are they now so loathed?
Maybe because they let all this happen?
Gagagate was a such a stupid, avoidable catastrophe. Just tell the old fart he’s too old to run again. Dump Biden. Have primaries. Show some spine
Idiots
Sure it was. What's the precedent for stopping a sitting President from running again?
There isn't one.
Biden fucked up - but as I pointed out at the time, and you still don't appear to understand, it was virtually impossible to do anything about that, before he finally decided to step down.
LBJ didn't run again.
Of his own volition. Similarly Truman.
But there's no precedent in the history of the US for taking down a sitting President - and in this case one still very popular with a large part of his own party - against his will.
Until the debate, it simply wasn't going to happen.
Has anyone noticed how impressive Darren Jones is? Surely worth a flutter on next Labour leader. No known skeletons I hope?
We can't have a PM called Darren.
We had one called Liz.
It was Dorian in "Birds of a Feather" who pointed out you should never give a child a name if you couldn't see a monarch with that name. So George yes, but Wayne no.
I've always thought you should give a child a name they can make their own. Charlotte - Lotty, Charlie, Cherry, ... whatever.
That's why we went with: Boy One, Girl One, Girl Two.
Lots of options for personalisation there.
I always thought it would be bad for them to name them 'Faulty Condom'.
Could be worse, could be "She told me she was on the pill".
I always hated the trend of naming kids after where they were conceived.
Poor little Greggs Car Park never had a chance in life.
Henry Bolingbroke was never going to come to any good.
Republicans against Trump @RpsAgainstTrump · 22m 👀 When asked why U.S. military dependents are being authorized to leave the Middle East, Donald Trump replied, “You’ll have to see. Thank you.”
Duffy: So many of the activists you see on the streets, the Latinos once at least, a lot of them are really ungrateful children of immigrants.. That school district is not about educating. That district, that entire system is about creating a little marxist communist activists, that is what you see on the streets there. https://x.com/Acyn/status/1932897747465875599
Frank Luntz @FrankLuntz · 3h While it’s not new or illegal for Customs to detain and question US citizens when they re-enter the country, there appears to be a surge in reports of citizens being detained at airports and asked to give access to their phones and social media accounts.
Trump’s “big, beautiful” bill: 53% oppose 27% support
Handling of immigration: 54% disapprove 43% approve
So Trump, while unpopular, is still miles more popular than the Democrat party? Am I reading this right?
That polling of the Dems is quite something. Why are they now so loathed?
Maybe because they let all this happen?
Gagagate was a such a stupid, avoidable catastrophe. Just tell the old fart he’s too old to run again. Dump Biden. Have primaries. Show some spine
Idiots
Sure it was. What's the precedent for stopping a sitting President from running again?
There isn't one.
Biden fucked up - but as I pointed out at the time, and you still don't appear to understand, it was virtually impossible to do anything about that, before he finally decided to step down.
Sure there were things that people could have done.
The problem is that people didn't want to be seen as the one who stabbed Biden in the back. That was seen as political suicide. And the only way you get to a senior political position is by having a keen sense of which way the wind is going. In other words: the local optima for the political operative was to say nothing. The system optima was to put your career on the line and attempt to get Biden to step down, with the threat of going public.
The debate, of course, was the solution senior Dems came up with. This way they could get rid of Biden by demonstrating his unfitness, without having been seen to have called for his dethroning. The problem - of course - is that doing this required him to be seen to be unfit, which meant that (rightly) people noticed that the President was not up to the job of being President.
Colby, the Def Sec, is a harder line "China not Europe" man, and perhaps an outrider for Trump. I don't see how canning AUKUS would help his China stance - since that is what a lot of Oz having SSNs is about. For an isolationist, it could be one answer to the USA being not very effective at building its own submarines other than very, very slowly.
I don't think Trump will cancel AUKUS, but the planned sale of Virginia class SSNs to Australia may be for the axe. That was always going to be problematic with, as you say, the US now being so damn slow at building submarines the USN is now desperate for new boats.
If that's the case I suspect the solution will be for the UK to sell a couple of its Astutes to Australia, and then accelerate the SSN-AUKUS program as much as feasible. That may mean doing more work in the UK than planned and expanding Barrow so the AUKUS hulls can be built while the Dreadnoughts are still in progress.
Accelerate SSN-AUKUS. Funny.
I don't think the US will kill it off because they quite want Australia as a reliable satrap in the conflict with China. They will however take the opportunity to jack the price right up in a naked act of extortion. The UK and Australia will pay up because of course they will.
Naval Group have taken the Shortfin Barracuda project that Australia paid for then binned and sold it to the Dutch Navy as the Orka class. If Australia want to switch back to conventional power, which I guess could happen if the Greens hold the balance of power in 2028, then the program is now more mature and a lot less risky by the standards of these endeavours.
Comments
Yes, hopefully.
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/us-news/donald-trump-health-fears-surge-35370147
Spending review fails to impress former Labour supporters in West Yorkshire town
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jun/11/spending-review-fails-to-impress-former-labour-supporters-in-west-yorkshire-town
..Tilly, a former Labour supporter who voted Lib Dem at the most recent general election, wanted to see a party on the left learn lessons from Nigel Farage’s Reform.
“What is it that Farage is doing for the right? We need a rebrand of the Greens or the Lib Dems.”
Matlock has Derbyshire County Council HQ which helps, and is in its way quite arty. It also has one end of a heritage railway, and Matlock Bath has a famous lights display at Christmas - a Derbyshire version of Walsall. Twenty or thirty years ago parts of it felt quite 1950s. That was in the former Smedley Hydro, which is now the General Register Office for England and Wales - a decent anchor for a small town of 20k.
Matlock is one place I know where a lot of vicars seem to retire - another being Newark. That means decent shops, OK arts and intellectual life, and reasonable-ish property prices.
The only open hostility I have been aware of are that Matlock Bath is huge amongst bikers, who can look scary and probably are not, and a bloke who used to lean over the wall of his garden centre by the river at kayakers shooting the rapids and shake his fist at them; the experience is modestly legendary in canoeing circles.
Eventually persuaded him that calling a server 'west' was fine as it was in our 'western' building. Then proceeded to take the p*ss with 'up', 'totheleft', 'overthere'...
If that's the case I suspect the solution will be for the UK to sell a couple of its Astutes to Australia, and then accelerate the SSN-AUKUS program as much as feasible. That may mean doing more work in the UK than planned and expanding Barrow so the AUKUS hulls can be built while the Dreadnoughts are still in progress.
Poor little Greggs Car Park never had a chance in life.
Now Reform have come along as a newer none of the above.
What a self absorbed talent, Zappa։
The first Virginia was due in 2032, so I'm not sure how that would fit in with our new programmes. HMS Astute's nominal 25 year service life ends in 2035.
I like Belper and as others have said in-comers with income have made a big difference. There’s three of four decent places to eat - my personal favourite is The Bookcafe opposite Morrisons.
Ambergate has one top notch eatery during the week and three at the weekends. The Indian is excellent but charges London prices. There’s a curious juxtaposition between the old and the new across Amber Valley and from a politics standpoint both groups have been drawn to Reform though perhaps for different reasons.
Defeat for the locals in the cricket - they came up four runs short chasing 122. At 106-6 with 12 balls left, they had a sniff but kept losing wickets.
I discovered Mr Gay UK later.
There are (unless it has changed recently) a serious number of biggish second hand bookshops in the Dark and White Peaks.
https://x.com/nnelsonni/status/1932893643393646821
https://x.com/nnelsonni/status/1932897539864346749
https://www.thedailybeast.com/tulsi-gabbard-admits-to-asking-ai-what-to-classify-in-jfk-files/
Get up walk down stairs work
Walk round the local shop 3 minutes
Her sister was born in Naples and thus called Parthenope.
The weird black raw whale skin not so nice at all
And as for Ræst kjøt - mutton left to rot and ferment for two months - OMG. Omfg no. No no no
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPoiv0sZ4s4
Edit: Bah, I was way too late
Creator of the number 1 single the day I was born. And greatest pop song of all time.
https://www.loveballymena.online/post/emergency-rest-centre-activated-in-larne-to-support-families-displaced-by-disorder-in-ballymena
That was in the Seventies.
Democratic Party Approval Rating
🟢 Approve: 21% (-49)
🔴 Disapprove: 70%
Quinnipiac | June 5-9 | 1,283 RV
https://x.com/opensourcezone/status/1932861766456738083?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
Are they really gonna win the midterms?
Trump’s approval:
Disapprove: 54%
Approve: 38%
Trump’s “big, beautiful” bill:
53% oppose
27% support
Handling of immigration:
54% disapprove
43% approve
That polling of the Dems is quite something. Why are they now so loathed?
Trumpists hate the Dems because they oppose the President.
Anti-Trumpists hate them because they don't oppose the President enough.
Idiots
But it strikes me that it will be very hard for them to prosper in the midterms with polling like THAT
They desperately need a new Obama. Someone young clever unwoke - a new voice. Persuasive and centrist and refreshing
I'd say the extreme steepness and the presence of a station both helped.
Have you been to Wirksworth? That's an odd little place. Feels very remote. Still industrial (quarrying) anf therefore alittle dusty, but an interesting place for a poke around. Though when I went last year a couple of fondly-remembered little cafes were no longer there, so maybe its promise never materialised.
The U.S. has ordered all embassies within strike range of Iran, including ones located in Europe and North Africa, to convene emergency action meetings and communicate back measures they are taking mitigate risks, per the Washington Post.
Wouldn't surprise me, given the odd decisions there making.
It looks as though they're cancelling the new Navy fighter - which will leave the USN with a very large capability gap.
Now they're cancelling the AWACS replacement. The E2D as a stopgap is a joke.
E-2 Hawkeye Replaces USAF E-3 Sentry, E-7 Cancelled In New Budget
https://www.twz.com/air/e-2-hawkeye-replaces-usaf-e-3-sentry-e-7-cancelled-in-new-budget
Trump and Whiskey Pete are quite capable of doing something stupid with AUKUS.
Christopher Snowdon
@cjsnowdon
Richard Madeley’s response to this incredible [David Bull, Reform] story is why he is a giant of broadcasting.
https://x.com/cjsnowdon/status/1932902874373365774
Duffy: So many of the activists you see on the streets, the Latinos once at least, a lot of them are really ungrateful children of immigrants.. That school district is not about educating. That district, that entire system is about creating a little marxist communist activists, that is what you see on the streets there.
https://x.com/Acyn/status/1932897747465875599
What's the precedent for stopping a sitting President from running again?
There isn't one.
Biden fucked up - but as I pointed out at the time, and you still don't appear to understand, it was virtually impossible to do anything about that, before he finally decided to step down.
Talk
@TalkTV
"They were basically destroyed by the blob within weeks."
Isabel Oakeshott says the country would be in a better place right now if Liz Truss had "held her nerve" alongside Kwasi Kwarteng.
Maybe it will work out; maybe it won't.
If it doesn't, then it leaves a very large capability gap in the Pacific/Asia.
But there's no precedent in the history of the US for taking down a sitting President - and in this case one still very popular with a large part of his own party - against his will.
Until the debate, it simply wasn't going to happen.
One of the points of moving to space is that it allows IR tracing from above, which might be a means of defeating stealth.
But abandoning modern AEW before that's proven remains a gamble.
Oliver Johnson
@BristOliver
·
4m
Tldr; we're doing a clinical trial, and all American kids are the placebo arm
https://x.com/BristOliver/status/1932924385326981458
Are you auditioning to be a High Court judge ?
We know top rock music when we hear it.
Any news from Stroud, Severn?
Fox: Here is some recent polling on Trump's budget bill. You have 27% who support, 53% at oppose
https://x.com/factpostnews/status/1932902208468648195
Republicans against Trump
@RpsAgainstTrump
·
22m
👀 When asked why U.S. military dependents are being authorized to leave the Middle East, Donald Trump replied, “You’ll have to see. Thank you.”
@FrankLuntz
·
3h
While it’s not new or illegal for Customs to detain and question US citizens when they re-enter the country, there appears to be a surge in reports of citizens being detained at airports and asked to give access to their phones and social media accounts.
https://x.com/FrankLuntz/status/1932891397495140619
Why would anyone visit this country now?
"Stroud, Severn
Green 439
Con 425
RefUK 421
Lab 177
LD 112
UKIP 5
Green gain from Lab
Green 27.8% (+10)
Con 26.9% (-6.7)
RefUK 26.7% (new)
Lab 11.2% (-21.3)
LD 7.1% (-12.9)
UKIP 0.5% (new)"
https://vote-2012.proboards.com/thread/19389/council-elections-deferred-11th-12th?page=5
In particular, there is the extraordinarily dodgy thing that is the "tip income is no longer taxable". I.e., the cheats charter.
"Oh sorry IRS, I thought I didn't need to report this payment as it was a gratuity."
The problem is that people didn't want to be seen as the one who stabbed Biden in the back. That was seen as political suicide. And the only way you get to a senior political position is by having a keen sense of which way the wind is going. In other words: the local optima for the political operative was to say nothing. The system optima was to put your career on the line and attempt to get Biden to step down, with the threat of going public.
The debate, of course, was the solution senior Dems came up with. This way they could get rid of Biden by demonstrating his unfitness, without having been seen to have called for his dethroning. The problem - of course - is that doing this required him to be seen to be unfit, which meant that (rightly) people noticed that the President was not up to the job of being President.
I don't think the US will kill it off because they quite want Australia as a reliable satrap in the conflict with China. They will however take the opportunity to jack the price right up in a naked act of extortion. The UK and Australia will pay up because of course they will.
Naval Group have taken the Shortfin Barracuda project that Australia paid for then binned and sold it to the Dutch Navy as the Orka class. If Australia want to switch back to conventional power, which I guess could happen if the Greens hold the balance of power in 2028, then the program is now more mature and a lot less risky by the standards of these endeavours.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes
(That's not original; HuffPost did something with the idea years ago.)